Quote:
Originally Posted by
MumblesBadly
Druff, I fully agree with your first point, especially that costs need to be controlled. But your second point is false. Shifting the cost onto those with the most political power to rein in those costs is the only way to break the political stranglehold that the interest groups who are currently benefiting the most of poor cost controls hae over the system. Germany essentially went through that struggle in the late 1800s when Bismarck pushed through socializing health care for the populous. The tax burden was borne mostly by the wealthy, and Germany eventually developed a system of competition among not-for-profit insurance funds and state regulated price controls that results in comparable or better health outcomes statistically versus the US at abiut 2/3rds the overall cost.
And because the "1%" in the US financially benefit the most from the healthcare system we have in the US given the lack of price controls and anti-trust exemptions for the AMA and hospitals, as well as big pharma exempt from price negotiations with Medicare, the "1%" need to face more to the cost of the system in order to motivate them to appropriately reform it to bring costs more in line with the rest of the developed world.
lol wut?
You're really comparing 2017 America to late 1800s Germany?
Come on... that's not even worth a response.
The difference in time periods is to point out how much longer German politics has been wrestling with keeping their respective populations satisfied enough with their health care opportunity. At that time, Bismarck was concerned that skilled workers would bolt from Germany given prospects to better themselves elsewhere, namely America, given how lopsided the German economy was at that time favoring the wealthy. And in the long-run, he was correct. While many German nationals immigrated to America in the early and middle 1800s, not as many did so after Bismarck was able to push through economic reforms, such as socialized medicine.
And in the long-run, it benefited the German economy greatly. I've met very few German nationals who have emigrated to the US to seek better opportunities. And the German economy bears a much lower burden on GDP for health care than the US, and that helps German businesses compete against US ones.
Regarding your second point, I don't even know what you're trying to say. Tax the top 1% more for health care, so they have motivation to bring costs down? Yeah, that's not going to work.
This is basic political theory. The high costs of our health care system is protected by powerful interests. The only way to overcome their political lock on the system is to get a more powerful block of interested parties to pish through necessary reforms. And given how much influence the rich have on our political system, nothing will e done to address how jacked up healtch care costs are unless they are sufficiently motovstes to donso. And I hihjly doint that enough of them will do so purely more moral reasons.
The problem with the costs issue is that nobody wants to talk about it. That's because the fix is fairly tough. Sure, there are some quick-and-easy fixes, such as opening up prescription drugs to competition from other first-world countries (Republicans proposed this) and erasing the state borders when shopping for individual health insurance (again proposed by Republicans).
But that only solves a small part of a much greater problem, and neither party wants to put the effort or work into really bearing down and seriously reforming how health care is billed and priced.
Right now we have a horrible, opaque system where you don't know how much anything costs when you're going to the doctor, and often you don't even know which services you're getting.
You go to the doctor, you do as you're told, and you get the bad news in the bill weeks or months later. Even if you attempt to find out how much it will cost, you often can't or aren't allowed to find out.
There is nothing else like it in the American marketplace. You don't know what you're buying, you don't know how much it costs, and yet you're legally responsible for paying the bill when it comes!
What a racket!
Amazingly, nobody seems to give a shit about reforming this, and all we hear about health care is "preventing you from having to pay for other people's unhealthy lifestyles" (Republicans) or "making sure everyone can get the coverage they need" (Democrats). Both of these talking points sound (and are) valid, but they both miss the MAJOR factor as to why health care is such a mess in this country.
