re: So what exactly is the main argument against universal healthcare

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RealityTiger

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Synchronicity for me (and those who follow my ramblings...)

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I pay ~$2500 a year for my BCBS health insurance plan for my wife and I. My employer pays the rest. Are you insinuating the tax increase would save me money and have equal heath care?

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Well, you should include what your employer pays in what you pay. But that said....

Warren’s plan comes out to a ~ $40,600/yr per taxpayer....

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This board is absolutely terrified of any type of change. They would rather keep paying their $1200/month insurance premium than actually try to fix a problem.

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given that paying for Warren’s plan would require more than $3,300 per month from every single taxpayer, regardless of income.... $1,200/mo starts to look pretty good.

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They would rather keep paying their $1200/month insurance premium than actually try to fix a problem.

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Its 1200 a month thanks to Obamacare's hybrid system, imagine how much more expensive it will be when we go all the way.

yup dude. exactly. only thing left to do is honk.

I mean, you can also choose to ignore it all and let everyone have their way.

Doing this mostly results in a very one sided society, in which a certain political spectrum ends up being the people who have control over things, while others walk away and/or are persecuted because they haven't fought back.

Or, you can realize how crazy society has gotten, and start using their own rules against them.

If enough people start doing this, eventually, I believe there will be a massive outcry from even those on the left -those who support the ideals of things like feminism etc., to return to a time before.

They'll start clamoring to change the system, because they'll say it's unfair and ridiculous, and will claim nobody should be able to get cancelled, silenced, censored or persecuted just because someone didn't agree with them.

But of course, they were all perfectly okay with that shite when it was they who were in charge of wielding the power to cancel, silence, censor, and persecute -and when it wasn't backfiring on them.

Only once it starts sending flak in their face, will they begin shouting that we need to stomp the brakes on society and call a time out on massive healthcare premiums

until then I just say honk honk and watch tradcons and soys cry back and forth with each other

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My wife and I, with a son, paid around $300 a month and that’s with a $4k out of pocket max

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only way this is possible is if you're poor af dude. you just played yourself

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Our current system is by far the costliest in the world and it is certainly not the best system.

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Why is our system "certainly not" the best? It is a difficult point to argue. As a physician who has physician friends from a handful of other countries, I certainly would want to be treated here before anywhere else.

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If you defend the current system please tell me why

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1) It's worse elsewhere. Wait times for procedures are high
2) the one, small example of public healthcare in the USA exists as the VA healthcare system. It is widely regarded by anyone I have personally met that works in it as the worst way to practice/run a health system. Again, wait times are high. So much so that I get new patients pretty frequently that are primarily cared for by the VA but live way too far from a VA hospital to go there for emergencies/admission and can't get into their regular doctor fast enough for acute problems. The safety net of the current, limited public system is the private system.
3) for costs to go down, services will be cut. With a single supplier, you're at their mercy for what those services are. Be it certain surgeries, certain medicines, end of life care, etc. A competitive market prevents the unilateral ending of services. Personally, the last group I want making that decision is a government entity.

4) this last one is going to be difficult to explain, but it's commonly agreed on among a lot of physicians that I talk to. People who have some skin in the game with regards to their healthcare don't abuse the privilege compared to those who do not. People who can't be charged by the ER for their kid having a runny nose for the last hour bring them to the ER. They can't be turned away except in very rare instances. So what's in the ER? Typically a lot of people on public plans that don't have to pay for anything. There with headaches. Stomach aches. Colds. And they're back in a few days when it isn't better after being told it wasn't a serious problem because, again, it costs them nothing. Several groups I have worked with in the past actually think a deemed nonemergency copay of as little as $5 would relieve a significant portion of this burden. But that won't happen, and no one suggests anything other than free-for-everything service. As someone who provides this service, I promise wait times will go up for everything because people overuse free care.


I'm absolutely for a public option in place of private insurance and thought it should have been offered with the ACA. If it works, it will outgrow insurance companies, and they'll fade out over time. If it sucks, it will be left to those who need it and little will change.
I predict the latter would be the natural course of a public option and, if given the choice between them, the 50ish percent of America on private plans would more often than not stick to the private plan because it would tend to give them better access to care.


So why do I defend it?
Experience and a desire for more freedoms, not fewer.

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Yeah. Just ignore the graph proving that we already have the most expensive healthcare system in the world by a wide margin

Nothing to see there right

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What about that suggests anything about quality improving, worsening, or staying the same with more government intervention?
The current cost definitely does not justify transfer of payment from private payers to the government without some truly abysmal logic.

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I pay $200 a month. I don't want universal healthcare. It would be less coverage for much more money. frick your change.

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This x 100. Don’t like insurance? Find a better one or get a better job.

I pay just over $200 and that includes medical, dental, vision and max contribution to my HSA.

frick your free healthcare.

ETA: Agree with WtxTiger. I care about people but I don’t care enough to pay for your healthcare costs that in large part could be avoided if half the country weren’t obese lazy fat fricks

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This board is absolutely terrified of any type of change. They would rather keep paying their $1200/month insurance premium than actually try to fix a problem.

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Hey loser , it's not my problem you have a shitty job.

Be smart , work for a company that offers good healthcare.