1881

It boggles the mind that someone can’t understand how a health care system set up to be profit maximising is still able to provide some of the best results for the rich. Of course it does, thats the whole point.

As you drop down the scale of wealth and people get poorer they get worse and worse health care, until at the bottom you get people with no health care. Overall, that means across the entire population of the states, health results are worse, on some indicators. Thats probably because of all the poor people dragging down the stats of the rich. Why can’t they just get a job eh?

The system is also very inefficient overall (which means across the whole population), compared to the evil socialized medicine that they have in other countries. For the same or worse outcomes overall (which means across the whole population), the US system of privatised market medicine costs two to three times more per person.

For some people the innefficiency is a good reason to reform health care provision, because at some point the costs of health care are goign to climb so high that it causes real problems to richer voters, high enough that it will bother even economic republicans.

For other people they see a basic injustice in the right to a healthy life being tied so directly to the ability to pay. Its hardly what Jesus would have wanted for a start. It also flies in the face of the American dream if it can’t be said that everyone has a shot at reaching the top, because you can’t reach the top if you start out poor with fixable health problems that you were born with.

1882

You don’t think that a profitable healthcare system also provides benefits for poorer people?

Right, on some indicators like infant mortality or life expectancy. Of course, those statistics ignore the fact that life expectancy in the U.S. is heavily influenced by the number of gun deaths, which has nothing to do with the quality of medical care. Or you have infant mortality statistics, where the U.S. ranks lower than other countries, but they ignore differences in tabulation. For example, some countries don’t count a “live birth” unless the baby is at least a certain length, or weighs over a pound, or is born after 26 weeks. Or they don’t count it as an “infant death”*if the death occurs within 24 hours after birth.

“For the same or worse outcomes overall”*is hardly a given. For survival rates of various cancers, the U.S. leads other countries by a fair margin. Same thing with heart attacks, or diabetes.

I’m not sure where you find the “right to a healthy life.”*And you’re right, no one who started out poor with medical problems has ever succeeded.

1883

And why do you think that “for profit”*is equivalent to “for rich people”?

1884

I dunno, maybe HIGHER PRICES FOR EVERYONE?

1885

I didn’t write that, of which you are no doubt aware. Its patently obvious that the for profit system in the states is not ‘for poor people’ though.

In the US it clearly doesn’t benefit all poor people. If you can’t afford the health care you don’t get it. In the evil socialised system everyone pulls together through their taxes to help each other out so even Baby Jonny Mc’Poor Pants has a chance of getting the treatment he needs. This seems fairer, no?

Quibble with the stats all you want but you are doodling in the margins of the giant facts that health care in the US doesn’t achieve massively better outcomes overall, for the extra cash spent. Where is this inefficiency coming from?

Again, not what I said.

I think that it is fair that each person, from birth, should have an equal chance to succeed. This is the American dream is it not? Unequal distribution of things like healthcare helps give the children with a richer start a much greater chance of succeeding in life. If you don’t agree with giving someone a fair start in life then I don’t know what else to say to you.

1886

OK, life expectancy in the US heavily influenced by the number of gun deaths? This is the kind of statement that kind of sounds reasonable on the face of it. But take a look at this graph:

Now, maybe I’m reading that graph wrong, but it looks to me like you could double or triple that “high rate of gun deaths” and still have only a marginal effect on average life expectancy. 10,000 people a year (or 29,000, if you want to include suicides) is a lot, far too many, and if you had sane gun control laws you might be able to get that down a bit too, but in a nation of 308,000,000 people it’s barely going to move the needle on average life expectancy.

Similarly, your story about “some countries” not reporting a live birth if the baby is born alive but below a certain size. Which countries are those, exactly? Who are these careless statisticians, recklessly ignoring differences in tabulation? Or perhaps deliberately skewing the results in order to make the United States look bad? Hmm, let’s see what those raging left-wing radicals over at the CIA have to say on the subject:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html?countryName=United%20States&countryCode=us&regionCode=na&rank=180#us

This story about “some countries” not measuring infant mortality properly in exactly the kind of thing that people go for when they are looking for confirmation of their existing beliefs, not facts. But there’s a reason “talking points” is a pejorative term. They’re things that sound like evidence but only if you don’t care to investigate further. They allow you to tell yourself a story about narrow-minded idiots on “the other side” just not being willing to look at the real facts, while attending only to those facts that appear to confirm your prejudices.

I agree that people on opposite sides of an argument should actually try to engage with each other, to find out what other people are thinking, that stepping out of the echo-chamber of a like-minded community and hearing genuinely different views is valuable and important. It is narrow-minded just to ignore anyone who says something you think is misguided or foolish or wrong.

But… repeating inane talking points at the people who you think are wrong doesn’t count as “engagement”. If your echo chamber is inside your skull rather than out, you can wander into any community you like, deaf to what is being said around you, and you won’t be any less narrow-minded than you would’ve been by staying home.

1887

It’s not that your opinion differs. It’s that you obviously have almost no grasp on this issue. You’re trotting out the typical conservative line of “look rich Canadians come to America so we must be doing great!” without displaying any awareness of how much of an irrelevant non sequitur this is.

edit: your further posts to this thread pretty much prove my point. You’re doing nothing but repeating conservative talking points while avoiding discussing the actual issue of healthcare reform. Those talking points are at best misleading, and at worse outright lies.

That means you’re either being ignorant (in which case I’m not going to waste my time trying to educate you; go ahead and read the previous sixty-two pages of this thread for that) or you’re dishonest, in which case (again) you’re not worth my time.

1888

Wow. It’s amazing how you can completely misunderstand and misrepresent the critical problems of the US healthcare system. Here’s a tip: It has nothing to do with wealthy people spending cash on the best medical services money can buy. It has everything to do with providers denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions, costs rising to insane highs year after year, companies dropping health coverage to employees, caps causing those who have insurance to still go bankrupt, and the millions of men, women and children who don’t have any healthcare because they can’t afford it.

Now maybe you’d like to tell us again what a Canadian premier getting heart surgery in the US has to do with anything relevant to US healthcare reform?

1889

It’s relevant, but there are a few internal links. The argument that he’s jumping up and down and waving at is that the United States is currently the world’s pilot plant for medical technology, which is true. Controlling costs down will affect that to some extent. Price controls will have a suppressive effect on some of the benefits that the United States enjoys on the outside, though discussion on the issue tends to indicate that the impact wouldn’t be so great that it would outweigh the benefit of improving outcomes and reducing costs on the whole. The argument, then, goes that we shouldn’t take a massive poop on a health care system that, for right now, gives you theoretical access to the most advanced, bleeding edge, crazy shit you could possibly want, pretty much on demand, provided you have the bank to finance it.

I wouldn’t go so far as to categorize it as irrelevant, but conservative advocates do a pretty crappy job of indicating just what in the hell it is that they’re complaining about. They actually DO have a point here - it’s just not a particularly significant point when you actually flesh it all the way out.

1890

Stop piling on Brett for a minute. He’s right in that the primary problem in the United States healthcare system is the ballooning cost. A public option or socialized system that does nothing to address that issue is inadequate.

And JeffL is also right that the Democrats, right now, possess all the tools to stop 40,000 Americans from dying each year as a result of poor healthcare, and improve the lives of millions upon millions of others. They can do this. And if they can, they must.

I think that we should pass this law and then immediately go to work on attacking the rising costs. The Democrats failed on the Patriot Act, the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, Scooter Libby, and now medical care for the poor. The only group with a worse record than the Democrats for winning the important fights is the Detroit Lions under Chairman Matt. And this current failure makes it clear that the reason they lost each and every one of these fights was because they do not care enough about what is right to risk their jobs. If the Democrats won’t stand up for my values once in a decade, I’m going to find someone who will.

1891

Right not irrelevant, but there’s a difference between relevant and critical. I think the issues I mentioned are the critical issues that should be framing our healthcare debate today.

1892

If this is the case, then why aren’t the Republicans getting heat for opposing it? Seriously, what is so fucked up with US politics that the outcome of this legislation is nothing but beneficial, yet not every single politician on the hill isn’t getting behind it?

This should be a no brainer. Yet here the US is fucking itself over because of partisan politics. I’m not saying the Democrats aren’t mostly responsible for their fuck up, but how anyone can put faith in a party that opposes health care reform in the US on it’s face baffles me.

1893

Because they won the argument, and because, and I know you hate to hear this, and it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but most people are comfortable enough with their health care that they’re still afraid of change. The Republicans were in a better marketing position and they played it the right way. The Democrats could try and spin the obstruction argument at this point, but they’d have to do it just right, and I haven’t gotten the impression that the entire left wing is any good at all at making ads that play outside of their base, particularly on this issue.

1894

Republicans always say they are for healthcare reform. They just don’t want anything the democrats are presenting. They can sit back and tell their constituents that absolutely healthcare should be reformed, the process just needs to start over and include everything the republicans want and nothing they don’t. In other words: a democratic failure.

1895

Be honest please, the republicans opposed a specific democratic plan put forward for health care reform, to say they oppose any health care reform in the US is an outright lie.

1896

Oh, the Republicans want HCR all right. Let’s see, they want tort reform, the end of recission, maybe HSA’s and tax deductions, and nothing else, as far as I can see. God forbid there be “shall issue,” a standardized insurance product or an individual mandate with adequate subsidies (which is the only way “shall issue” works). In other words, something utterly inadequate for addressing the problems that the system faces.

It’s like trying to order a pizza with a friend, but they don’t want any meats (OK, maybe the anchovies of tort reform), veggies, cheese, or even tomato sauce. But they insist they really want some pizza.

1897

To be fair, pizza IS defined by its crust.

1898

And near as I can tell, they did it by lying a lot and the economy collapsing. Whatever else is going on, I doubt it’s people’s real opinions about health care. The public is tremendously misinformed about the bill.

1899

What Jason said.

What’s more - citing public opinion for justification on anything is the height of folly. With regards to policy details, a charitable description of the general population would be “completely ignorant.”

1900

The question was, “why hasn’t there been any consequence for Republicans being obstructive to health care reform.” The answer is because nobody likes it. It doesn’t matter WHY they don’t like it - they just don’t. Unless and until that changes, that’s the situation.