Health Insurance Co. makes record profits

Canada isn't too surprising, though I'm a bit surprised it is THAT low but it does help to explain the problems plaguing the Canadian healthcare system.

It's interesting to see the high number of french doctors considering their spending levels.

Of note is that the UK's NHS is the third biggest employer on Earth - the only ones higher are the Chinese army and the Indian railways.

So, socialized healthcare was the way to cut down on unemployment? Shocking!

To be fair, the U.S. infant mortality rate is artificially high due to different reporting standards.

For example, in France, they simply don't count an infant death if it occurs under 24 hours after birth. In the US, it gets counted even if an infant dies only minutes after being born.

It is true however that the US spends ridiculous amounts on healthcare compared to other countries, and doesn't have much to show for it.

edited 15th Nov '10 12:23:18 PM by storyyeller

^^^I find that figure rather... hard to believe. We're a country of 60 million people. Surely some organisation has a higher figure.

Wal Mart.

Sweatshops International?

Canada isn't too surprising, though I'm a bit surprised it is THAT low but it does help to explain the problems plaguing the Canadian healthcare system.

Yeah, a helpful warning from the north: if you do get a public option, it becomes the first thing the "cut all social programs and taxes" crowd target when they get into power.

Fine by me, I'm opposed to government intervention on the matter. We'll fuck it up worse than we fucked up the welfare system, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. (Considering all four of them are supremely fucked as far as the future is concerned that should tell you something about how a public option would fare here.)

How come everyone else pays less for their healthcare costs and yet gets better results then Tom?

EDIT: Is the US government that blunderingly, stunningly incompetent that they can do even worse than the private sector has done?

edited 15th Nov '10 2:18:30 PM by GameChainsaw

Do any of those nations have 310 million people spread out across a country as big as a continent?

EDIT: and to respond to your edit. Yes.

Four Words: United States Postal Service. The game has to be rigged in their favor because everybody be they Fed Ex, UPS or otherwise outperforms them in every possible way. Health care is little different.

edited 15th Nov '10 2:20:19 PM by MajorTom

Sun Tzu once said "Management of the many is the same as management of the few. It is a question of organisation."

Enough platitudes, to the point. Isn't this what state-level governance is for? The federal government needs to set out a plan for each state to have its own public option for health care to compete with the private sector, and set an appropriate budget to each state to set it up.

America is too large to manage at the federal level? Split up the task.

EDIT: And admittedly our post service isn't much better. Our medical sector, on the other hand...

edited 15th Nov '10 2:21:42 PM by GameChainsaw

And what happens when some states elect not to implement one? Or like California's case for budgeting, fuck it up worse than the Feds?

It's a lose-lose proposition from a practical standpoint. Not everywhere is going to go along with it and not everywhere is going to be as competent as you trust them to be. It just results in a patchwork scenario with results much worse than they are today.

And then what happens if the economics proved otherwise? That the states that didn't implement it had their economies take off but those that gave everything on it started losing jobs and businesses out the ass? What happens then? Do you punish the intelligent for the actions of the stupid? Do you punish success because somebody else failed?

No... that would prove a very sad fact... that despite the sheer waste and incompetence of the private sector, the US government is so bad at the state level that it is even worse. You reward the successful model, and look to other means to solve the problems inherent in it.

And that would mean that your government at state level would not, to use the engineering term, be fit for purpose. Because any organisation that stunningly stupid and incompetent doesn't need simply to be looked at; it needs to be completely ripped out and rebuilt from the ground up.

But it would confirm your point... assuming it was even implemented properly, and not frakked up like the last bill.

edited 15th Nov '10 2:28:19 PM by GameChainsaw

So, um...you can't UPS something for 44 cents. The postal service is really damn cheap. We would Have A Problem if everything—absolutely everything—cost $10+ to mail.

And then what happens if the economics proved otherwise? That the states that didn't implement it had their economies take off but those that gave everything on it started losing jobs and businesses out the ass? What happens then?

Oh no, what if the result is the exact opposite of what economics predicts and what every other country that's tried the same thing has experienced? We can't possibly try anything, because it might have a result, so we'd better stick with something that clearly doesn't work.

Ladies and gentlemen, conservatism in a nutshell.

The postal service is really damn cheap.

Because the system is legally rigged in their favor. You could bet your ass 44 cent stamps would vanish overnight were the functions of the USPS subject to the free market. (On the other hand stamps could possibly be cheaper owing to fierce competition. But Technology Marches On and stamped mail is rapidly becoming obsolete.)

By the way, thank you for replying to my hypothetical with a fucking strawman.

If other countries can do it, the United States can do it. Scale doesn't really factor in, if organized correctly as someone above has said.

Rather than do it on a state level, how about a regional level? Less centralized than a single plan, but not so decentralized that its a patchwork quilt....

^^^Listen to Tom. Do we really need a centralised postal service? For America or Britain? Not being funny, but aren't most communications sent via email anyway? Packages are different, but subsidising the ability to mail stuff to people hardly sounds like pressing government business. It was different when mail was the only way to get in touch, but we have phones and the internet now!

edited 15th Nov '10 3:42:19 PM by GameChainsaw

"The game has to be rigged in their favor because everybody be they Fed Ex, UPS or otherwise outperforms them in every possible way. Health care is little different."

You act like this is anything new, several private companies are also handed oligopolies and market dominance for sheer convenience sake, PG&E is one of them.

It's not that UPS outperforms USPS, it's that it's more convenient to give one company (In this case, a constitutionally mandated one) rights to first class mail.

Stop making stuff up Tom. It reflects poorly on your character.

edited 15th Nov '10 3:43:31 PM by CommandoDude

And yet the postal service is explicitly authorized in the constitution.

I guess you only want a strict interpretation when it's convenient.

edited 15th Nov '10 3:44:41 PM by storyyeller

^^^ "Official" stuff are still mostly sent by mail (ie. gov documents, bank documents, etc.). Until that changes, we'd still need postal service.

edited 15th Nov '10 3:44:01 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Also, not everyone has internet access.

I see... sounds awfully inefficient... can't all that be done electronically?

The point about not everyone having the internet is a more valid point.

But this is off topic anyway... and by the way, will you stop accusing Tom of making stuff up? He may or may not be correct, but he's acting on information he believes is correct. Also, if he brings up the constitution a lot in other threads, that doesn't mean he's not allowed to point out a flaw in it here.

I just think, Tom, that you are being overly pessimistic when it comes to government intervention... or you may just have grasped a very sad truth; that the US government really is as bad as all that. In which case, I freely admit I am wrong. But in that case I'd say the US government is in deep need of overhaul at a fundamental level.

EDIT: If you don't try something, you won't know if it is possible. And humans have a tendency to get better at organising things on a society-wide level as they go. If this bill failed... well, they'll do better next time.

edited 15th Nov '10 4:37:14 PM by GameChainsaw

^ A lot of it is because they don't WANT to do official stuff electronically only. It's way easier to commit fraud when you don't have physical copies. My bank still have a "we will never email you" policy. Universities still wants a paper copy of your transcript etc.

But I'm derailing, sorry.

edited 15th Nov '10 3:55:51 PM by nightwyrm_zero

I'm going to say that, in light of evidence of other countries' results with public options, single-payer, and national health services, that claiming that government health care is inherently inferior to what we have now is false. And that claiming that the government would fuck it up more than the insurance companies have fucked it up already, is also false.