Free Health Care For All...

[Starlight]

Where's that classic example of the 7 (?) men going to lunch and splitting the check...

Or this....

Each and every day, 10 men go to a restaurant for dinner together. The bill for all 10 comes to $100 each day. If the bill were paid the way we pay our taxes, the first four would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18. The 10th man – the richest – would pay $59. Although the 10 men didn't share the bill equally, they all seemed content enough with the arrangement – until the restaurant owner threw them a curve.

"You're all very good customers," the owner said, "so I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20. I'm going to charge you just $80 in total." The 10 men looked at each other and seemed genuinely surprised, but quite happy about the news.

The first four men, of course, are unaffected because they weren't paying anything for their meals anyway. They'll still eat for free. The big question is how to divvy up the $20 in savings among the remaining six in a way that's fair for each of them. They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33, but if they subtract that amount from each person's share, then the fifth and sixth men would end up being paid to eat their meals. The restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each person's bill by roughly the same percentage, and he proceeded to work out the amounts that each should pay.

The results? The fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $14, leaving the 10th man with a bill of $50 instead of $59. Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got one dollar out of the $20," said the sixth man, pointing to the 10th man, "and he got $9!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too! It's not fair that he got nine times more than me!" "That's true," shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get back $9 when I only got $2? The rich get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine outraged men surrounded the 10th and brutally assaulted him. The next day, he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they faced a problem that they hadn't faced before. They were $50 short.

Which suggests to me it's stupid to have such a vastly unequal society, and that now the US has reached greater levels of wealth inequality than it had prior to the Great Depression, that you guys will probably face a great number of social issues from choosing to have such grossly unfairly and unequally distributed wealth. Obviously it makes many of you feel happy to imagine that it is a meritocracy where the people who have wealth "deserve" it, and that that mega-rich guy really did work literally a million times harder than the woman working long hours in 3 jobs at the minimum wage or less trying to make ends meet, and that your system totally works and isn't grossly unfair in and of itself. Europe has managed to have the same freedoms but without developing such a vastly unequal skew of wealth as America.

If, in your example, the 10 at the table were earning roughly similar amounts, or at least within a factor of 4 of each other, they would all be able to reasonably contribute to the bill and it wouldn't look so skewed.

[Starlight]

Except, in the cases of healthy old farts like me, where my entire "medical regiment" for the year is a couple bottles of baby aspirin I buy at Walmart.... I would still pay the taxes for everybody else.

And healthy young people like me don't even use that much healthcare. On average, about 50% of medical costs are incurred in the final couple of years of a person's life. On the whole, we all tend to get old eventually, and so we all eventually get round to it being "our turn" to use up heaps and heaps of healthcare and incur massive costs. And it's easiest for us to pay for that care when we're at the peak of our earnings earlier in life. So the system that works best is I, now when I'm earning heaps, pay my taxes, and that money gets used to pay for those people who are currently old and needing heaps of care, and then when I get old myself and need heaps of care the people who are young and earning heaps at that time will pay for it. It's by far the most efficient system as long as the population demographics continue to allow for it (if you've got a country full of elderly people and very very few young people you've got problems though, but you've got bigger problems than merely "who's going to pay for all the healthcare?", and there are ways to solve demographic crises - e.g. Germany is doing it by accepting heaps of young immigrants).

And, assuming you have health insurance (probably medicare in your case, I'm guessing), you're already paying for the sick people, because that's what health insurance premiums literally are. Through health insurance premiums, the healthy pay for the care of the sick. Pooling all insurance into a single Medicare program and paying for it through taxes is nothing more than a more efficient way of doing what is already done in America: People paying health insurance premiums whereby the healthy are paying for the care of the sick. That's just what insurance is. There was a video of Paul Ryan failing to understand this same basic fact doing the rounds last year which liberals were laughing at.

[Leonhard]

Socialists never have been good at math.

Single-payer healthcare isn't socialism. Seer had a whole thread revolving around that subject.

[Mountain Man]

Yes, instead of paying your bill to the healthcare insurance company, you would instead pay it in taxes but at a slightly lower amount.

Do you not want to pay $2 trillion less over 10 years and in doing so ensure that everyone in your country has healthcare? What is your objection to getting more healthcare for less money?

Great in theory, not so great in practice. What really happens is that those who pay taxes end up paying more so that those who don't pay any taxes can get "free" health insurance that is only good for second-rate healthcare at best.

...the Medicare program already exists in the US. It consistently polls as one of the highest-rated government programs. People like it because it does pay out money. Your "but the government won't pay out" conspiracy theories are just blithering idiocy. It's a wonder you can figure out how to even turn your computer on.

A lot of healthcare providers, particularly specialists, don't accept Medicaid because they would lose too much money. My wife's endocrinologist is one example.

[Mountain Man]

Single-payer healthcare isn't socialism. Seer had a whole thread revolving around that subject.

I didn't say it was, but Socialists are its primary proponents, largely because they call it "free" without really thinking about where the money is coming from.

[Leonhard]

I didn't say it was, but Socialists are its primary proponents, largely because they call it "free" without really thinking about where the money is coming from.

There's free as in free beer, universal healthcare isn't free like free beer. In Denmark we have a principle of solidarity, standing with each other. "The strongest shoulders carry the heaviest burdens" Its more like sharing the burden and ensuring a basic standard.

While I'm hopeful the US will achieve something like this in its own time, and in its own way, I can understand my US friends who are less optimistic about their governments ability to enact enough stable compromises, and do the hard negotiations with the companies, to avoid it being a gigantic screw over for all those involved.

We made it work in Denmark. Though I'm sad to say that after the prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen who was head of the right-wing party Venstre ("Left" ... ... ... yes I know, its a long history, they started out left. ), all that wellfare has been slowly hollowed out. The standard of care is still good, but its starting to slip.

[Starlight]

I didn't say it was, but Socialists are its primary proponents, largely because they call it "free" without really thinking about where the money is coming from.

Except that they do think about where the money is coming from. Sanders explained exactly what the tax rates would be to pay for it and exactly how the funding would all work.

The people who don't explain where the money is coming from are Republicans who keep cutting federal government revenue with tax cuts and keep upping federal expenditures with military spending increases, and thus running up massive debt. Look in a mirror if you want to know who can't tell us where the money is coming from, and stop with the stupid projection onto the leftists who are actually competent at math and budgeting.

What really happens is that those who pay taxes end up paying more so that those who don't pay any taxes can get "free" health insurance that is only good for second-rate healthcare at best.

The people who "don't pay taxes" pretty much entirely consist of those who are retired. They already get medicare and your taxes already pay for it. The only other group who don't pay taxes are the unemployed, which was at about 4% last I looked. So because you're upset that the 4% of the population who are unemployed might get healthcare, you don't want to move to a cheaper system that will cost less for America? Guess your name isn't moron man for nothing.

A lot of healthcare providers, particularly specialists, don't accept Medicaid because they would lose too much money. My wife's endocrinologist is one example.

If Medicare For All was all there was, then I guess they'd have to accept it, wouldn't they. Then, instead of being absurdly, ridiculously, rich like they are in the US, doctors would only be able to be extremely rich like they are in the rest of the Western world. Being a doctor still one of the best-paid professions here, despite the government running the healthcare system.

[Starlight]

Though I'm sad to say that after the prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen who was head of the right-wing party Venstre ("Left" ... ... ... yes I know, its a long history, they started out left. ), all that wellfare has been slowly hollowed out. The standard of care is still good, but its starting to slip.

Sadly much the same has happened here over the last 30 years. We were once as left-wing as the Scandinavian countries with one of the strongest welfare states in the western world (we were the first Western country to implement universal healthcare, one year before the UK implemented the NHS), and unfortunately crazed right-wing economics took over for 30 years starting in the 80s and stripped the welfare state bare and inequality skyrocketed. The OECD calculates we missed out on 15% in GDP growth as a result of our lurch to the right-wing. Fortunately the newly elected government has formally acknowledged the error of those ways and pledged to fix things, although as of less than 1 year in office it hasn't done much yet and its first budget had basically no change from the previous government's (it's too busy setting up "working groups" to decide what it's going to do rather than actually implementing changes) which is leaving me deeply disappointed so far.

[QuantaFille]

How about instead of figuring out who is going to pay these massive healthcare bills, we figure out how to make healthcare cost less so that poor people can afford it?

[Cow Poke]

If, in your example, the 10 at the table were earning roughly similar amounts, or at least within a factor of 4 of each other, they would all be able to reasonably contribute to the bill and it wouldn't look so skewed.

Wow... so people who actually work to build their financial future need... what, just voluntarily divvy out their money "equally" to everybody around them, regardless of what those people have done regarding their own finances?

[Cow Poke]

And healthy young people like me don't even use that much healthcare....

...and part of our current "new and improved" system allows young people like you to put off buying insurance (with only a slap on the wrist penalty) until they have some big health issue, THEN they can get insurance that covers 'preexisting' conditions.

[TheWall]

Here is my complaint. How can you be so positive calling socialized health care charitable? I have no choice where the taxed money goes. Charity being compulsive seems mighty contradictory to me. Besides how could i go up to a doctor with a straight face and demand he give me care? The doctor even if he doesnt charge a mometary fee is still paying by his years in medical school the stress of his job the effort he puts in daily , and using his time. I have no problem with solidarity or charity in fact I admire them, but it seems like an oxymoron to try to make it compulsary.

[Mountain Man]

How about instead of figuring out who is going to pay these massive healthcare bills, we figure out how to make healthcare cost less so that poor people can afford it?

First thing I would do is limit insurance to only catastrophic coverage and not routine check-ups or preventative care. As some have some said, if the car insurance industry worked like health insurance then oil changes would cost $100.

[Cow Poke]

First thing I would do is limit insurance to only catastrophic coverage and not routine check-ups or preventative care. As some have some said, if the car insurance industry worked like health insurance then oil changes would cost $100.

My last one did! I'll never go to THAT place again!

[rogue06]

First thing I would do is limit insurance to only catastrophic coverage and not routine check-ups or preventative care. As some have some said, if the car insurance industry worked like health insurance then oil changes would cost $100.

I've always found it interesting how some of the things that insurance never covered like Lasik surgery have been steadily and substantially dropping in price. When it started it was up around $1000/eye and now I see it advertised for between $200-300/eye.