Finding The Right Healthcare: Conservative Solutions to Universal Coverage
 

Club thread...technically you should close this snoop as it's against forum rules...

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I don't see how such a system reduces the overall health care cost. It will probably increase the cost of high quality healthcare, and introduce lower quality healthcare options.

You give everyone $X to spend for proceedure Y... but allow anyone to purchase supplemental $Z for proceedure Y... and the unregulated services will just price Y at ~$X+$Z. It would likely even increase the cost of Y in fact, since you'd be forcing $X dollars into the system, lowering $Z requirements directly (even after figuring in the indirect) for the vast majority of patients.

As an example, say you have your tonsils out. $5k. You give everyone who has their tonsils out $5k, and... the Hospital charges closer to $10k because there are still the same number of people out there who can pay another ~$5k for the proceedure. (Not quite, given that taxes will increase, but for the majority of people they won't pay anywhere near their $5k.)

It would allow most people to get healthcare eventually, as long as $X was economically viable for Y. The healthcare industry would presumably expand to service everyone. (Would take some time.) I just don't see it dropping prices for quality healthcare, since there will still be the same people with roughly the same income who value the proceedure at roughly the same price. The market will play to them first, and lower quality options will form to play to those with tighter/smaller pocketbooks.

There are already clinics out there that provide free health care even.

I personally support, at a theoretical level, the above plan that Oerdin suggested in another thread. I suspect our opinions of the detail would vary widely but the basic structure is probably the best solution in my mind. As far as the American political spectrum goes, this is Kucinich territory (enrolling everyone into Medicare). The big three Dems have proposed health care plans that could eventually get there at some point (by creating a public insurer and standardizing private plans). None of the Republicans would dare touch something like this in the near future.

So it's more than a bit absurd to say that you want an alternative to the Democrats/liberals...

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
The idea of government control fixing a market problem is basically at odds with conservatism, IMO. Socialised health care will never solve anything-we will end up like england, waiting in lines for months for important health care http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/bored.gif What, with a lower %GDP going into health care and greater voter satisfaction with it?

Edit: Ignore this post.

Oerdin was describing the Kucinich plan. You're talking about the Edwards/Obama/Clinton plan...

DanS, that would mean people still wouldn't get preventative care which is where much of the potential savings are. A penny of prevention or a pound of cure and all that.

I would include the Democratic plans which force everyone to buy health care insurance as conservative too.

A monopoly in health insurance (subject to public control) substantially reduces administrative costs; Canada's single payer system has administrative costs about 1/3 of ours, for instance. This is ~$100 billion problem for our economy.

The other big costs in our system are that the gov't doesn't negotiate with drug companies for lower prices (as other large institutions and just about every other country does) and that our system doesn't have a cheap GP (i.e. doctors have to invest a ridiculous amount into education, and have to be compensated accordingly).

McKinsey Consulting did a really good breakdown of problems in our health care industry.

Originally posted by Aeson


I understand quite well. You can't rely on "typical" insurance to express what you are talking about because what you are talking about is not "typical" insurance at all.

What you're saying is that you want to fix prices and put healthcare for the masses under government regulation... but you want to pretend this is favoring competition in a way that reduces overall cost. All the while trying to keep criticism or competing ideas from similar POVs being expressed.

Not even your plan meets your qualifications for this thread. It's liberal, if not Liberal. The whole concept of universal healthcare is a liberal POV. Sorry. (It can technically be fiscal conservative though, as long as it's paid for. But that isn't Conservative, and it doesn't mean that the idea isn't liberal.) 1. I specified Fiscal Conservative in the intro http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif

2. I don't want to fix prices. I want to offer a governmental alternative, such as the USPS is a governmental alternative to FedEx/UPS, or more similarly public education is an alternative to private schooling (at both the primary/secondary and college levels, in different ways).

From a fiscal conservative's point of view, the major problem with health care as it stands now is that it is:
a) A necessity
b) A public good
c) Getting more expensive by a significant amount

I prefer not to have price caps or other measures that would discourage students from becoming doctors, or would discourage research and investment. I thus would prefer not to have a state single payer system with no private alternatives. I have a hard time conceptualizing how insurers would compete with the federal system, but I think it would be possible; it's a matter of what would be provided I suppose.

I also generally dislike the "mandatory insurance" plans; they rub me the wrong way, although I understand the concept. I think that we should simply insure those who are too poor to insure themselves, and expect everyone else to either insure themselves or pay the costs... I definitely prefer "preventative" focused ideas rather than "catastrophic" focused plans because it is better for all involved - cheaper, more healthy, and more efficient.

I do NOT consider this to be an exclusively liberal idea, by the way; I think that there is reasonable argument to be made that healthcare is a public good that is not necessarily provided adequately for by the market, just like the justice system or schools. I think it's sort of in between, that there are market advantages but there are market failures in the matter; thus, I think a solution that involves the market but ensures the market failures are taken care of is the correct solution, and a very reasonable plan to a fiscal conservative.

Originally posted by snoopy369
1. I specified Fiscal Conservative in the intro http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif Yet you implied fiscally conservative plans were Conservative plans, and disallowed liberal and Liberal plans or POVs, while what you suggest is most definitely liberal.

2. I don't want to fix prices. You will have to for everyone who accepts government insurance.

I do NOT consider this to be an exclusively liberal idea, by the way; I think that there is reasonable argument to be made that healthcare is a public good that is not necessarily provided adequately for by the market, just like the justice system or schools. Your viewpoint in this matter is liberal. You seem scared to admit it... don't be. Social progress depends on liberal ideas. Something along these lines is what would be best for the nation. But I still take exception at trying to deride and disallow liberal POVs. Especially while espousing one. And without regulating prices it definitely won't be cheaper overall.

(Universal Public Education was most definitely a liberal concept in it's day.)

Originally posted by Whoha
...In any event the high cost of healthcare is driven by wages,infrastructure, and capital investment... ...and the fact that supporting the insurance bureaucracy takes 1 out of every 3 healthcare dollars...

Health insurance isn't the solution; it's the problem. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/angry.gif

The U.S. pays more than any other industrialized nation for health care.
The U.S. has the shortest lifespan of any industrialized nation.
The U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate of any industrialized nation.
The U.S. is the only industrialized nation which provides its healthcare via insurance.

1993 GAO report stated that a plan similar to single-payer would save approx. 21 billion dollars, partially due to less sick leave creating more wealth in the private sector.

Hillary was the one who rejected it.