WARREN BUFFETT: SINGLE PAYER IS ‘THE BEST SYSTEM’ FOR AMERICA

[bigbird 60,578]

9 minutes ago, Strychnine said:

 

While we are at it, why not shuffle a quarter (I would argue more) of military spending into providing healthcare for our people?  $150 billion should be able to make a dent.

I wouldn't be opposed

[DKW 86 7,438]

Nor I....Some of the newest toys are already obsolete. Zumwalt has a less than 90 day at sea capability. It is not ready for deployment at all.

[TitanTiger 20,509]

 

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The illogicality of the anti-changing-healthcare argument

World Health Organization Ranking; The World’s Health Systems

1 France 2 Italy 3 San Marino 4 Andorra 5 Malta 6 Singapore 7 Spain 8 Oman 9 Austria 10 Japan 11 Norway 12 Portugal 13 Monaco 14 Greece 15 Iceland 16 Luxembourg 17 Netherlands 18 United Kingdom 19 Ireland 20 Switzerland 21 Belgium 22 Colombia 23 Sweden 24 Cyprus 25 Germany 26 Saudi Arabia 27 United Arab Emirates 28 Israel 29 Morocco 30 Canada 31 Finland 32 Australia 33 Chile 34 Denmark 35 Dominica 36 Costa Rica 37 USA 38 Slovenia 39 Cuba 40 Brunei 41 New Zealand 42 Bahrain 43 Croatia 44 Qatar 45 Kuwait 46 Barbados 47 Thailand 48 Czech Republic 49 Malaysia 50 Poland 51 Dominican Republic 52 Tunisia 53 Jamaica 54 Venezuela 55 Albania 56 Seychelles 57 Paraguay 58 South Korea 59 Senegal 60 Philippines 61 Mexico 62 Slovakia 63 Egypt 64 Kazakhstan

65 Uruguay 66 Hungary 67 Trinidad and Tobago 68 Saint Lucia 69 Belize 70 Turkey 71 Nicaragua 72 Belarus 73 Lithuania 74 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 75 Argentina 76 Sri Lanka 77 Estonia 78 Guatemala 79 Ukraine 80 Solomon Islands 81 Algeria 82 Palau 83 Jordan 84 Mauritius 85 Grenada 86 Antigua and Barbuda 87 Libya 88 Bangladesh 89 Macedonia 90 Bosnia-Herzegovina 91 Lebanon 92 Indonesia 93 Iran 94 Bahamas 95 Panama 96 Fiji 97 Benin 98 Nauru 99 Romania 100 Saint Kitts and Nevis 101 Moldova 102 Bulgaria 103 Iraq 104 Armenia 105 Latvia 106 Yugoslavia 107 Cook Islands 108 Syria 109 Azerbaijan 110 Suriname 111 Ecuador 112 India 113 Cape Verde 114 Georgia 115 El Salvador 116 Tonga 117 Uzbekistan 118 Comoros 119 Samoa 120 Yemen 121 Niue 122 Pakistan 123 Micronesia 124 Bhutan 125 Brazil 126 Bolivia 127 Vanuatu

128 Guyana 129 Peru 130 Russia 131 Honduras 132 Burkina Faso 133 Sao Tome and Principe 134 Sudan 135 Ghana 136 Tuvalu 137 Ivory Coast 138 Haiti 139 Gabon 140 Kenya 141 Marshall Islands 142 Kiribati 143 Burundi 144 China 145 Mongolia 146 Gambia 147 Maldives 148 Papua New Guinea 149 Uganda 150 Nepal 151 Kyrgystan 152 Togo 153 Turkmenistan 154 Tajikistan 155 Zimbabwe 156 Tanzania 157 Djibouti 158 Eritrea 159 Madagascar 160 Vietnam 161 Guinea 162 Mauritania 163 Mali 164 Cameroon 165 Laos 166 Congo 167 North Korea 168 Namibia 169 Botswana 170 Niger 171 Equatorial Guinea 172 Rwanda 173 Afghanistan 174 Cambodia 175 South Africa 176 Guinea-Bissau 177 Swaziland 178 Chad 179 Somalia 180 Ethiopia 181 Angola 182 Zambia 183 Lesotho 184 Mozambique 185 Malawi 186 Liberia 187 Nigeria 188 Democratic Republic of the Congo 189 Central African Republic 190 Myanmar

As a country, we have been arguing over healthcare for several years now. There have been some outright whoppers being told on both sides. For instance, if you want to keep your insurance you can keep your insurance. It was not a lie, however, it was an inappropriate misdirection in that there was no mention that your insurance could very well disappear under the new regulations. In fact, that is what happened to various people. It was a lie by omission. On the other side was the whopper about death panels. There were never any death panels, and by now the Affordable Care Act has run long enough that is has proven the absolutely despicable lie that was told during the anti-Affordable Care Act campaign.

But, much of the argument about the Affordable Care Act, and now about single-payer healthcare, misses a very important point. You see, much of the argument against either some modification of the Affordable Care Act or against single-payer healthcare is based on a set of assumptions that are inaccurate. Most of the arguments against either healthcare proposal are based on pointing out issues with other systems. But, there is a major point that is missed. Every one of those arguments assume that the issues that we find in other systems will make our system worse. But, that is not actually true. That argument would be true if, and only if, we fully adopted the system of a nation that had worse healthcare than we do right now.

At the beginning of this post, I included a chart that comes from the World Health Organization that ranks national healthcare systems using various criteria. I should mention that there is at least one USA ranking system that places us even lower than what the World Health Organization ranks us. Now, let me go back several years to the original healthcare argument. At that time, many people argued that the WHO was lying because they were biased against the USA. While there are still a few that will argue that, the vast majority of people are now admitting that we have a troubled healthcare system that is NOT the number one healthcare system in the world. (In passing, that was the argument that was being used by several years ago.) And this brings us to an interesting logical point, if we use the various rankings of world healthcare systems.

I have a friend that consistently brings up that people from Canada drive to the USA to have an MRI performed. The reason is the waiting times to get an MRI in Canada. What that person says is absolutely and totally true. Canada is also a troubled system. However, whether on the WHO scale or the USA ranking system, Canada ranks 30th in the world. Here is the worst part. The USA ranks even lower than that. So, let’s look at this logically. If we were to fully adopt the deficient Canadian system, then overall we would still be better off than we are now. Our expenses would go down, and there is a good chance that life expectancy would increase over time. Mind you, increase only slightly, but, nevertheless, increase.

And there you see the logical problem with many of the arguments against changing our current healthcare system. We rank so low that we could adopt the system of up to 30 other countries and still save money and get better healthcare. Were we to adopt the healthcare system of either France, Italy, or Spain, we would have a highly efficient healthcare system that would save us a massive amount of money, plus probably help increase our life expectancy. Now, some of you will immediately try to look for death panels or some such other item against which to rail. But, there are two problems with that type of argumentation. First, we can tailor our regulations to be somewhat different than theirs. Second, in effect we have death panels, they are called insurance companies that will cheerfully disapprove and/or delay any and all treatment in order to not have to pay out, even if the patient dies (oh, so sorry). Third, in order to have to refuse to adopt any other system, you have to argue that it is better that people suffer or die than to have ordinary folk pay more taxes. But, even here there is a problem, if healthcare costs go down to the levels of any of the three nations I mentioned, then overall the savings to individuals would be far greater than any increase in taxes. You see, taxes may go up, but individual payments would almost disappear.

All three systems (France, Italy, Spain) allow individuals to freely go to personal physicians. You simply pay some extra. Thus, those who have money still get to have extra care, yet it would still cost less than what they are paying now. And now we are back to what I said back a couple of paragraphs ago. There are many healthcare systems that we could adopt that have problems, and yet would STILL be an improvement over the system we have going right now. And that is the problem with the argument that various people use against either the Affordable Care Act or some type of better-crafted replacement.

https://www.orthocuban.com/2017/07/the-illogicality-of-the-anti-changing-healthcare-argument/

 

 

[augolf1716 21,253]

Not a fan of single payer but I will make a prediction. If it comes to fruition it will never never go away. 

[I_M4_AU 7,931]

15 hours ago, augolf1716 said:

Not a fan of single payer but I will make a prediction. If it comes to fruition it will never never go away. 

You could have predicted this in 2010 about Obamacare and have been correct.  Where's Viper?  I'm willing to bet he saw this coming.

[TitanTiger 20,509]

15 hours ago, augolf1716 said:

Not a fan of single payer but I will make a prediction. If it comes to fruition it will never never go away. 

All the more reason why it's baffling to me that those who favor any other approach besides single-payer haven't come up with a worthwhile plan that's well thought out, covers everyone (or at least more than the ACA did), and reduces costs.  Everyone seems to believe such a thing is possible but no one puts forth anything comprehensive.  It's just hodgepodge garbage like the plan the GOP is pushing now that fixes some things while makes several others worse and covers even less people.

If you truly see single payer as something to be avoided at all costs, you'd think it would be a huge motivation to show your stuff on a different kind of plan.  But that's not what has happened in the 7 years since the ACA was implemented.

[alexava 6,973]

I believe we aid Israel to the tune of 30-40 billion $. And they have better health care than us. I think it's universal. 

[TitanTiger 20,509]

9 minutes ago, alexava said:

I believe we aid Israel to the tune of 30-40 billion $. And they have better health care than us. I think it's universal. 

It is.

[alexava 6,973]

38 billion over ten years.