https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwzB_AZtYOo
Okay.
My friend is a Navy veteran and has ALS. He's been in the VA hospital for a couple weeks due to breaking his leg during a fall at home. He sent me this the other day...
https://i.imgur.com/Vkg0dgk.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RPeNRK4.jpg
The government is already running health care, and doing a shit job of it. You want to make the rest of us go through that?
Don't get me started on my other veteran friend who has PTSD and they don't know how to help him. It's too late for the guys in his unit who gave up waiting and decided to commit suicide.
So you think that the US government is unusually incompetent and can't do something that all the other western governments can't do?
When you think about cost, the insurance companies take a third straight up. So it should surely be possible to work out a way to increase the spending on healthcare by a third in the US at no extra cost. There are also massive savings that could be made in bureaucracy and you can get massive economies of scale which is part of why the UK and Canada pay far less for drugs.
We can't seem to build infrastructure or military gear without someone getting their palms greased! Whether it be local, state, or federal. Thinking healthcare would be any different is crazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
Maybe I don't think the government is unusually incompetent, but some of the partnerships they get into, or people they put in to oversee things? Rotten to the core...
Sorry but part of his thoughts are bullshit, you don't get "better" or "priority" service at the VA if you're 100% disabled. You may get MORE, like full dental, but no one in there goes "hey, this guy is 100% disabled, let's break out the party platter!!"Quote:
Originally Posted by twonabomber
The private sector thing on nurses is also bullshit because the private sector here is struggling for nursing as well. We have a big culture of travel nursing here. Nurses at the VA may not earn as much but they get full maturity leave, pension and other benefits others working for shitty hospitals that might close do not...
No offense, but is your friend real or just bullshit? Because that has the earmarks of a chain mail...
Seocndly, if the nurses were "worse" at the VA then say a commercial hospital, would it matter if we had Medicare For All anyways? That's their only job option if we do...
What bugs me and this seems to happen all over the world it certainly does in the UK, is why don't governments just look at other countries see which one is doing something the best and copy it?
It always seems to be some fake patriotic mishmash of trying to reinvent the wheel based on some shitty mixture of ideology and donor interests while spreading bullshit about all the other wheels...
Slight correction on this. Most if not all other countries with universal healthcare still have private sectors. In the UK about 10% of people have private health insurance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickdfresh
But but why if the NHS is so good is the next question? A lot of it is about hospital 'hotel services'. Better food nicer rooms and so on. Also you can queue jump if say you have a non life threatening thing which you would have to wait to get fixed you can go in and get it done right away.
It's worth mentioning because a lot of the propaganda against universal healthcare is about 'freedom' and 'choice' and being forced to have what the government gives you. None of that is true.
That sounds very "Chinese-like"... forget innovation... just copy and steal your way to the top.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
The problem with emulating other government approaches is the social, cultural and economic factors from one country to the next differ vastly. What works best in one place could fail miserably or be devastating in another.
It's very interesting watching this global pandemic unfold and the varying results in addressing it around the globe. Some places appear to be managing it well... others not at all. Although I can't say the success is purely systemic in all places.
I am definitely concerned with how things will go in the US... clearly no patriotic pride to be running one's mouth bragging at this phase.
Isn't this a really simple exercise? Have a look at how much things cost in the US (likely 10X),
I mean what is the avg. cost a hospital charges for gauze, etc globally. We already know the answer to this question.
Amazing to see the level of brainwashing happening in the US on what could happen with universal HC...
Unfortunately it's not simple in any way, shape or form... you really can't just roll back the last 100 years of evolution in the medical industry and simplify it down to the cost of a small package of gauze.
Just the complexity of federal, state and local regulation. Then the layers upon layers of real estate, property, infrastructure, utilities, staff, IT, administration and payment processing before you can get to an admissions person, nurse, specialists, technicians, and finally a doctor... the $1.50 package of gauze ends up closer to $200 of overhead just to order it and stock it on a shelf. Then add the specialized labor cost to put the bandage on the booboo...
I was trying to say our governments seem to do a hell of a lot of policies based on some ideology or lobbyist pressure instead of looking to evidence and what has worked elsewhere. They don't pilot or test ideas first enough because election cycles mean everything is too short term to allow the time to do that. If you aren't going to test policies first then at least look and see what has happened elsewhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZahZoo
The US Federal Government has proven itself to be quite incompetent. What's happening and what you will see more of is power going back to the state and county level out of necessity. In the future you will have some US cities, counties and states running real well and others not so much. This will be a very different country in ten years but it originally was supposed to be individual states unified under a constitutional republic. Whether some states decide to become their own country and do their own thing remains to be seen.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZahZoo
Yeah, with the people you vote for!Quote:
Originally Posted by Nitro Express
You know nothing about me or who I vote for. We are talking decades of incompetence and corruption and now it’s all come to roost. That being said you are still better off here than many other places. Damage is done. Blaming does no good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickdfresh
You say this like it is supposed to be this way...with this logic, a McDonald's Big Mac should cost $150Quote:
Originally Posted by ZahZoo
You are conveniently bypassing the fact that the gauze ends up costing the multiples more because of the fundamental flaws in the system.
Evolution? More like Corruption. In this day and age of AI and Supply chain advancements, costs are going down dramatically for every other industry. It's just a lie that costs are increasing for Health care
Sorry, but it reminds me of the adage that hard right conservatives/pseudo-libertarians say gov't never works, then get elected to prove it...Quote:
Originally Posted by Nitro Express
Oh no, I didn't intend to legitimize the current state of the medical industry nor make any sort of supportive value judgement. It's a rotten mess from one end to the other.Quote:
Originally Posted by Romeo Delight
The point I was attempting make was it's a huge mess to unravel if we were to simplify it down to a reasonable cost basis... using the gauze example. Between publicly funded insurance federal/state and then private insurers with the huge state level webs they've weaved... then the layers of service providers from the solo primary care physician to the mega hospitals... it's amazing anyone can afford to keep this working with all the financial elements feeding off it.