’)Time to get on the stick.
If the global economy were a 100-yard dash, the U.S. would start 23 yards behind its closest competitors because of health care that costs too much and delivers too little, a business group says in a report to be released Thursday.
The report from the Business Roundtable, which represents CEOs of major companies, says America’s health care system has become a liability in a global economy.
That’s one of the reasons the bogus “Obama is doing to much” attack falls flat. The vast majority of the changes the President is pushing – health care reform, green power, education reform – are key elements of getting America’s economy working over time once we recover from the Bush Recession.
It would be awesome if the richest country in the world would join the 20th Century.
Bah! This so-called “Business Roundtable” is clearly a front for George Soros and the Leninists!
OW: That’s one of the reasons the bogus “Obama is doing too much” attack falls flat.
Fixed.
Yo OW! Did you bother to read the last 2 paragraphs????
HERE YA GO!
One thing the report does not do is endorse the same solution that countries like Canada have adopted: a government-run health care system.
The CEOs of the Business Roundtable believe health care for U.S. workers and their families should stay in private hands, with a government-funded safety net for low-income people.
Come on, Oliver! You’re getting soft.
Yes, the roundtable identified the problem but didn’t endorse the solution that will actually solve the problem. It’s a problem with many CEO-types.
HUH???? I know it doesn’t mirror what’s embedded in your hard-drive, OW.
You may want to read it again.
Why did it take our dear leaders so long to reach a conclusion I came to years ago? My NYC fuel oil co. was diverting my calls to their center in Canada because they didn’t have to pay Canadians’ health costs. (I switched oil cos. to a firm not operating by remote control)
Q: what if the U.S. were run on cold, heartless economic principles instead of goofy frontier mythology?
1. we’d invest in preschool and early education instead of pouring the money into expensive jails.
2. we’d invest in early prevention instead of emergency-room care and high-tech treatment.
3. we’d provide a safety net for the poor and lower-middle-class because their productivity and well-being makes a richer economy for all.
that’s just off the top of my silly head…
“You may want to read it again.”
We’ve read it. We understand it. We know what’s wrong with it.
You need to get for-profit insurance companies out of Heath Care. It is simple as that.
Americans spend $2.4 trillion a year on health care.
Or, in other words, total Federal Spending for 2005. We can’t afford Universal Health Care. Of course, neither can anyone else (http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=299282509335931), but try telling that to the reality-based community.
Ok SaveFarris, so we pay that in taxes instead of paying the health insurance industry. Then suddenly we can afford to pay for Universal Health Care. Not sure why you think we’d have to pay twice.
Because Frontiersmen© like Farris would rather have the CHOICE to overpay a private for-profit carrier for substandard care in addition to paying out of payroll tax.
SaveFarris, the United States spends many times more per person on health care than countries with universal health care systems. So for probably half the price we currently pay in health care we could provide coverage to all Americans. America, great country that we are, could undoubtedly do as well as Australia or Japan has done for their systems. I’ve lived in two countries with universal health care and I can say, unequivocally, both systems are better than the US.
Also, that article you linked to would paint Castonguay as wanting to slightly reform Canada’s health care system. Under no circumstances would he want Canada to be in the same position as America. He recognizes that the Canadian system is the right system but should be fine tuned:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/1999/09/08/castonguay990908.html
http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=0a48e656-d004-4227-8256-7a4e4304c13e&p=2
so we pay that in taxes instead of paying the health insurance industry.
So for probably half the price we currently pay in health care we could provide coverage to all Americans.
When does adding more levels of bureacracy and more red tape equal spending LESS money? By taking on this new governmental responsibility, you’re going to need people to administer and regulate it. Are those people (and the offices they work in) going to spring up out of thin air?
Save Farris, we’ve already got the basis for that “bureacracy” in MediCare and MedicAid both of which are more efficient then the highly inefficient insurance industry and HMO system. Because we spend so much money in America telling people that they can’t be treated, with a universal system that bureaucracy can be removed by allowing doctors to just say yes when a patient needs treatment. Currently doctors and hospitals need to higher staff just to handle the many different types of paperwork that needs to be done depending on which insurance provider you have, that would be removed. On top of that the need to make profit off of what is essentially a human right would be removed further saving money.
You act as if this is impossible but every other country in the OECD has universal health care and every one of their systems is more efficient than America’s, some by a factor of 2 or 3. I believe that America is capable of doing for it’s citizens what every other country in the world is capable of doing for theirs.
higher=hire, hehe.
Because private health insurance is currently free of bureaucracy and red tape?
In addition to what Michael Over Here says, the trick with Universal Health Care is that everyone is paying into the system, including those who weren’t paying before, which will mean the cost for insurance per person will go down.
When does adding more levels of bureacracy and more red tape equal spending LESS money?
When everybody does it. Quantities of scale and all that.
I believe that America is capable of doing for it’s citizens what every other country in the world is capable of doing for theirs.
I do too. I just don’t get why Repubs oppose it so vehemently.
We can’t have nice things!
I’m fucking shocked we’re still debating this. This and climate change, but that’s a story for another thread.
the trick with Universal Health Care is that everyone is paying into the system
What happened to “95% of Americans won’t see a tax increase. Not. One. Dime.” I have a feeling that’s going to join “Read My Lips” on the Greatest Hits package.
we
I’m fucking shocked we’re still debating this. This and climate change, but that’s a story for another thread.
And evolution. But that’s also for another thread. Oh, and the tenets of the Laffer Curve. Oops, another thread. Oh, and homosexuality being a choice or not. That’s a good debate for another thread. “The U.S. is a Christian Nation.” “Saddam attacked us on 9-11.”
Hard to believe that any of these are debatable points outside the fringes of extreme Wingnuttia (i.e., the modern Republican party).
SaveFarris, so your argument against universal health care is that you don’t like the semantics of the word taxes? That’s really all you’ve got? Seriously, the one article that you linked to I showed to be completely useless. Do you have anything?
What happened to “95% of Americans won’t see a tax increase. Not. One. Dime.” I have a feeling that’s going to join “Read My Lips” on the Greatest Hits package.
My understanding of Obama’s universal health care proposal as described during the primaries and general election is that it only called for the government to subsidize a standardized health care plan. It did not replace the health insurance industry wholesale. In fact, private insurance companies could implement the plan themselves, and people would still be free to choose other private plans.
So my point is, the cost to the taxpayer to implement Obama’s proposal wouldn’t come even remotely close to the $2.4 trillion figure you referenced. And so long as the government implements the standardized plan well, it will help bring that figure down.
Obama is bringing America into the 21st century.
My taxes spent the past six years paying for a needless war in Iraq and I still got screwed by my insurance provider, so the bogeyman of “your taxes will go up!” only works on the same people who hide under the bed at the slightest provocation. I’m looking at you, modern conservatives.
A health plan that doesn’t, for example, have to be in effect for over a year before my wife and I can consider having kids? I’d pay a little extra in taxes for that.
Can you imagine what we could do with $2.4 trillion?
Instead of giving it to private for-profit insurance providers whose main job is to deny care?
SaveFarris: “When does adding more levels of bureacracy and more red tape equal spending LESS money?”
There’s less bureaucracy in universal health care. You can look at the overhead in Canada and the United States to see that.
Hell, you can look at government run health care vs. private section health care in the United States to see that.
So, are you ignorant, or lying?
And that’s a serious question.
Are you lying to us trying to scare people to prevent them from adopting universal health care? Or are you really this stupid?
SaveFarris says: What happened to ‘95% of Americans won’t see a tax increase. Not. One. Dime.’”
Universal health care will save you money. And it will get you better results, because the primary goal of universal health care is … health care. The primary goal of private health care is profit.
The easiest way to do that is to get people to pay you money when they are healthy, and not pay for their health care when they are sick.
Universal health care will save you money.
Ponies and Unicorns for everyone!!! Those British sure are spending less. But let’s compare coverage, shall we?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91996282
So we should be afraid of a government run health insurance policy because it might not pay for an unproven cancer treatment?
Do you really think we haven’t thought this through? We understand that the government will have to make decisions about what to cover and what not to cover. That kinda sucks, but at least that way there is an accountability mechanism; if the government policy doesn’t cover something it should, or vice versa, someone is going to call them on it. That’s not the case with private insurers, because they can do pretty much whatever they want.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say government run universal health care would badly impact coverage. There’s two obvious arguments as to why we should do it anyway: 1. The private insurance industry could still exist to help fill in the gaps at a significantly reduced cost. 2. It’s still a better system than one that causes people to go into bankruptcy because they cannot pay unexpected medical bills.
Universal health care will save you money.
Ponies and Unicorns for everyone!!!
Way to dodge the issue, Farris. Kudos.
limulus: he private insurance industry could still exist to help fill in the gaps at a significantly reduced cost
This is true. Over here I have supplementary health insurance on top of the universal insurance provided by the government. For about US$1000 a year I have the option to receive some treatments that may have a waiting list quicker through the private system, no deductible. That also covers any GP visits, and a certain amount of dental and optometry. Plus that covers both myself and my partner. Universal health care actually makes private health insurance work better and more affordable!
That kinda sucks, but at least that way there is an accountability mechanism
That’ll really help you when you’re dead because you didn’t get your treatment.
Over here I have supplementary health insurance on top of the universal insurance provided by the government. For about US$1000 a year I have the option to receive some treatments that may have a waiting list quicker through the private system, no deductible.
So even though we have to pay for Universal Health Care, anyone who actually wants to see a doctor before they die has to pay for ADDITIONAL insurance? Doesn’t sound like overall costs are going down after all. Which is what opponents of the plan have been saying all along.
Which is what opponents of the plan…
Mm-hm. Big Insurance and Big Pharma, teh kidzz like to call ‘em.
That’ll really help you when you’re dead because you didn’t get your treatment.
Yeah, like I said, it sucks, because the government won’t implement it perfectly. With the current system though, you still wind up dead because the insurance company decided it’d be more profitable for them to not cover the treatment and let you die.
Limulus: :That kinda sucks, but at least that way there is an accountability mechanism”
SaveFarris says: “That’ll really help you when you’re dead because you didn’t get your treatment.”
You realize that is happening right now under the system you have, right?
You realize private insurance agencies get to dictate which treatments are ‘cost effective’?
You realize they can decide that a ‘pre-existing’ condition is the root cause and deny all treatment?
Nothing you can say about Universal Health care is worse than it is under what you have now.
http://cbs2.com/local/nataline.sarkisyan.CIGNA.2.615167.html
Yeah, that’s so much better than the government.
SaveFarris: So even though we have to pay for Universal Health Care, anyone who actually wants to see a doctor before they die has to pay for ADDITIONAL insurance? Doesn’t sound like overall costs are going down after all. Which is what opponents of the plan have been saying all along.
Wow, your reading comprehension skills are pathetic. Here you can choose to have supplementary insurance so if your non-urgent treatment has a 3 week waiting list then you can get it immediately. If anyone here died from not receiving care because of bureaucracy or waiting lists their would be media investigations and heads would roll. I have supplementary insurance mainly for the dental and eye coverage. If I needed something that was an emergency I’d still go through the public system, supplementary insurance is for bunions or other non-life threatening diseases things that may, MAY, have a waiting list.
SaveFarris, when my mother had cancer she had health insurance, which was great even though the deductible was huge. After her treatment they raised her premiums to the point that it was ridiculously unaffordable, essentially canceling her policy. If she has a reoccurrence or another fatal illness right now in America she won’t be covered for any treatment. Do you really not see the ridiculous situation of American health care? People are dying right now because they can’t afford to be treated. Tens of millions of Americans are uninsured. Tens of millions are underinsured. Your argument of people dying in universal systems is ridiculous because if the number of people died in a universal system from waiting was 1/10th the number that die in America currently for being uninsured the public would be demanding accountability.
We already have supplemental insurance. You may have seen ads for it. Something with a duck.