re: USA will have Socialized Medicine in 20 Years - It's Inevitable

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How are doctors not transparent about costs? I can and do tell a patient exactly how much I charge for an office visit, procedure, etc. If a hospital is involved, I then tell them it's anybody's guess about what the rest will cost due to copays, coinsurances, and the shell game that the hospitals and insurance companies play about how much something actually costs.

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I'm sure the billion dollar cottage industry of drug companies and other medical related businesses flying doctors off for vacations at Turks & Caicos and giving in-kind benefits to top prescribers of certain drugs has absolutely no perverse effects on healthcare delivery or the market at large.

Drug companies and medical manufacturers just happen to love throwing money away.

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I'd say doctors are not the main issue with healthcare costs, but they aren't without issues in that space.

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It's such a straw man argument that you ignore the political messaging portion of my post to skip over to the successfully installed collective healthcare systems that largely lack (at least prior to the last decade), the leech problem we battle?

I offered you a reasonable trade off, are you agreeable to it?

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I dont know if you realize this, but I do not control the messaging of any political party.


Your "trade off" though is a straw man and a false choice, I have no problem with attempting to incentivize better perosnal health, and getting everyone comprehensive cradle to grave coverage is a big part in helping achieve better personal health because it gives people regular access to the doctors, diagnostics, and resources to be informed and maintain better health through their aging. It's why life expectancy jumps up when people get into Medicare age. Suddenly that population all have more affordable access to the resources and monitoring that many lacked in certain capacities. It builds in much deeper incentives in our politics because there is a direct connection between public expenses and public health.

But by all means, let's bring back the soda tax Republicans hate and fatties in NY rebelled against. Charge smokers more for insurance(which we already do), remove subsidies that make ultra fatty processed meats and foods the cheapest way to get calories. Stop whining and be proactive about attempts to fix school lunch programs to be more healthy.

A lot of that though is going to require policy outside UHC reform though....If all this about though is feeling like a special snowflake and having messaging catered to you to feel good, I lack those powers.

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(3) make HSA's universal, whether you have a HDHP or not. In fact, make HSA's mandatory like SS.

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I agree with this also.

To add to this, I think it would also be beneficial to start HSAs at birth. Let the money compound in the market/or govt bonds for 50 years. Let people use this at age 50 until they get to 65 as a bridge to Medicare. The money you have leftover in the account at 65 is yours to keep and use as you wish. This gives people the incentive to stay healthy. Because the healthier you stay the more $$$ you could potentially receive at 65.

I would use the lottery to fund these accounts instead of using the lotto money on education. Put in a nice chunk of $$$ at birth and then a small percentage yearly. Let it compound.

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This is a disingenuous response. If you walk into a doctor's office and ask how much something costs to pay out of pocket, you will get an answer.

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I guess if they own the business, sure. But a larger and larger chunk of the doctor population works for large medical corporations or institutions and there is no way they can spout off for you the price of every procedure or know every reimbursement rate(it's really not even possible for them to know all that). I dont blame them though, it's not their job, nor should it be, really. They are there to get you healthy using their best judgement, not give you a financial cost/benefit breakdown of your out-of-pocket expense options.

But lets not also pretend like the drug/medical sales industry is relegated to a small subset of doctors, it is an enormous part of these businesses that these companies all have concluded pay large returns to their bottom line, and most of the perversions in the system brought on by it are completely legal.

I don't blame doctors though for that, drug companies should be far more regulated in these activities than they are. Especially when doctors are/have just been lied to with impunity about what a drug can do by some unqualified sales rep in a short skirt.

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"I don't have control over that" is a laughable deflection for someone who is advocating for political change, especially when it's not even accompanied by "but yes, if in my control I'd be willing to do it." Yours is a very long winded way of saying "no, I will not agree to the promotion of personal responsibility that might ruffle the feathers of the demographics that support my chosen political ideology, even in exchange for a pet issue that is heavily reliant on major societal change to be effective."

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I guess you just didnt read literally half of what I wrote huh?

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I didn't ask you to make policy to disincentivize drinking soda or smoking

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So you just want special snowflake marketing and dont actually care about the efficacy of putting forth actionable underlying policies to achieve better population health, gotcha.

To me it sounds like, again, you just want to beat up on whatever warped caricature you have created from too many years of TigerDroppings and right-wing binge watching has developed in your brain. Asking me to stand in and play the opposition.

If you have anything to add of substance about the merits of reform or UHC, I'm game, but this performative signaling you are demanding others act out to be blessed with your support, yeah, I don't give a shite. Let that trigger and melt you however you want.

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I guess you just didnt read literally half of what I wrote huh?


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I didn't ask you to make policy to disincentivize drinking soda or smoking

So you just want special snowflake marketing and dont actually care about the efficacy of putting forth actionable underlying policies to achieve better population health, gotcha.

To me it sounds like, again, you just want to beat up on whatever warped caricature you have created from too many years of TigerDroppings and right-wing binge watching has developed in your brain. Asking me to stand in and play the opposition.

If you have anything to add of substance about the merits of reform or UHC, I'm game, but this performative signaling you are demanding others act out to be blessed with your support, yeah, I don't give a shite. Let that trigger and melt you however you want.

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I read the entirety of what you wrote. And you are the opposition. Again, this is just more deflection in an effort to avoid being pinned down on your progressive positions, which is unnecessary because I don't even care about them. I'm not trying to get you to acknowledge you're progressive so I can call you a cuck. I'm pinpointing a fatal flaw in the progressive advocacy of universal healthcare and you're aiding me at every step. Alternatively, I'm inviting you to explain why you don't think my concern on this level is meaningful.

If you don't agree that implementation of universal healthcare would be well served by a broader group contributing to the system and more frank discussion about the biggest benefactors and users of said system and the health woes impacting same, then you could just acknowledge your disagreement. Along the lines of, "I disagree actually, I think the health woes of the black community actually are caused by whiteness/etc. and thus the prevalence of diabetes and other major drains on the system bear no relation to the actions and priorities in those communities" or "no I don't think those who don't pay any taxes should now be required to do so in order to receive healthcare coverage because __________."

But you won't do so, because it would require you to be definite in your positions and stop skipping over parts of the conversation that leave you unsettled.

i hope you are wrong.

personally, i think medicare is crap when it pertains to rehabilitation services (Speech, Occupational, and Physical therapy) especially the managed care systems such as United Healthcare, etc

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personally, i think medicare is crap when it pertains to rehabilitation services (Speech, Occupational, and Physical therapy) especially the managed care systems such as United Healthcare, etc

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It's not great for mental health either, but you can pretty well apply that to almost all commercial as well.

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I'm pinpointing a fatal flaw in the progressive advocacy of universal healthcare and you're aiding me at every step.

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lol, you've unlocked the secret to gaining passage of UHC have you? Being mean to fatties and focusing on sober messaging to supporters.

Sure, but ok. If by some magic, bootstrap lectures and fat shaming was the cheat code to finally break through 100 years of barriers that have eluded the passage of some form of comprehensive UHC, by all means, write up the talking points and let's do it. But I think it is the height of self-centered narcissm and arrogance to think that what has eluded Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Clinton, Obama, and every UHC advocate in the last 100 years was they just forget to offer more performative signaling to a slice of right-winger that really want to hear people tut tut fatties, black people, and poor people.

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In economics, what does this cause?

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We currently spend more per capita on prescription drugs than any other country. On top of that, we also pay more out of pocket than anybody else. Are we that convinced the system we use regarding pharmaceuticals is superior?