Indefensible.

Exactly. Tax the shit out of cigarettes and worry about whether or not you'll have to find new revenues years down the line when it's a more pressing concern. In the meantime the system reaps the benefits of fewer health problems and lower costs associated with it. I understand your worries, Ragu, but in this instance, lets accomplish the goal of fewer smokers and a healthier society first.

 

Fenian, There isn't a 45-year-old MD who had anything to do with anything FDR or Truman did, and whatever was done back then, no one anticipated the mess that has been created. The fact is that doctors today can't stand insurance companies. Insurance companies are the bane of their existence. And claiming that doctors brought this upon themselves is ludicrous. Doctors, by and large, are as powerless as consumers to deal with this 15-headed monster that has entrenched inefficiencies throughout the health care system.

Fenian, Everything I have said on this topic is correct. I don't cherry pick facts. Name your country that does it better than we do. France? Unsustainable and an economy that has lagged and caused massive unemployment at a time that our country (and its neighboring countries) prospered. This is because of their socialized systems in which they made ridiculous promises, even though they had no way to pay for them. People out of work riot. They riot in France. And even so, their great system is crumbling. The idea that someone like Sarkozy would ever be elected in France, which cherishes its socialism, was unthinkable 10 years ago. They have created such a mess, and realize their way doesn't work, that they have now turned to someone with common sense to try to fix it--they are already rationing and cutting off certain classes of people, although they are so late that they are billions of dollars in debt for having maxed out their economy to provide something they couldn't afford. England? Do they spell rationing there with an extra U there? Because their health care system doesn't make medical attention cheaper. They just ration it and deny it, to the point that people who can afford it go elsewhere to get the care they need. It is a horribly, crappy system that no one in the country has any faith in. Canada? Definitely not CHEAPER than the US. They spend the second most in the world on health care, and the difference between what they spend and what we do is accounted for by rationing. Anyone can ration and say they have made things cheaper. But is BS. They have a lack of qualified practitioners, they ration to the point that routine surgeries land you on long waiting lists and a trip to the emergency room makes our emergency rooms--which suck beyond belief--look like paradise. Health care is just as expensive in Canada, France, England or ANYPLACE else, as it is in the United States. And the thought that you can turn straw into gold and make something that is very expensive plentiful, is ridiculous and a dangerous promise, because people are actually stupid enough to belief it.

 

I didn't remember arguing for our HMO system. You just framed an argument that works for you, but it doesn't respond to anything I posted.

My point is pretty succinct. Health care is expensive--it is an astronomical percentage of our GDP and it is growing. And despite your claims, it is JUST as expensive in France, England or Canada as it is in the United States. No matter how you allocate it, no matter what inefficiencies are inherent in whatever system you set up, there is no possibility of "universal" health care that provides everyone unlimited access to the best care available. It's not even close to a possibility because it is not even close to affordable. Anyone promising it is making a bullshit populist promise that will eventually create an even bigger mess than the one we already have (such as the one France has by running its economy at a huge deficit to pay for the unpayable) or has every intention of reneging on their promise (as England and Canada have had to begin to).

As for some of your stats, you are smart enough to know that stats are not always what they appear to people who don't consider ALL factors. Our life expectancy numbers are not just a function of health care in this country. They are influenced by murder rates as much as infant mortality rates, for example, because 10 20-year-old gang members who die in gun violence (which you don't find in Sweden) skew the numbers far more disproportionately than 10 60-year-olds who die of heart attacks. We have far more young people die in this country--and those deaths skew life expectancy numbers, because one 18-year-old shaves 55 years off the total number they dividing by and brings the number down more than someone who is 60--than any other industrialized country. You'd have a better chance making an impact on life expectancy numbers--if that really is the measure of healthiness you are clinging to--by addressing violent crime than by addressing how many people carry some form of health insurance.

 

FB, I am quoting my first response to you on this thread:

What you just linked to makes the point that we overpay because we don't pay as we go. Specifically, it says:

I've said that intermediary systems have fucked this up. Insurance companies aren't the answer. Government isn't the answer. And there is no one who can turn straw into gold. You keep arguing as if I have ever advocated the HMO system that inflates costs. That is not the free market. It is inefficient.

Your solution? More government. More intermediaries. More false promises of plentiful resources.

I'm surprised you linked to that. It undermines dozens of posts you have made and concludes exactly what I have said on here.

 

I don't have "talking points," JR. I actually *gasp* have the ability to think independently, and unlike some others, rationally.

As for no rationing:

http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2007/09/broken-rationed-health-care-system.html