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I Trey: This sounds like the Bismark System, used in Germany, France, Japan, &al. Everyone is required to carry insurance, but the insurance is non-profit. The hospitals are generally private. (Sort of like a non-profit "Obama-Care).
The specifics vary widely.
Personally, I still lean toward the National Health Insurance (NHI) system, used in Taiwan, the US Medicare system, and Canada. Here the government is the single insurer/payer, but the medical facilities and personnel remain private.
Canada's a bit more complicated than that. The vast majority of hospitals (i.e. all but a very small number of private facilities that were grandfathered in) are publicly owned, though they're generally run independently at arms-length from the government. Most doctors' offices and non-hospital clinics are private, but paid for by government health insurance on a fee-for-service basis according to a set fee schedule.Personally, I still lean toward the National Health Insurance (NHI) system, used in Taiwan, the US Medicare system, and Canada. Here the government is the single insurer/payer, but the medical facilities and personnel remain private.
I think "socialized medicine" is being used somewhat indiscriminately here. I'm not always sure what system's being referred to.
T-Dawg: Are you referring to the Beveridge System, used in Britain and the US Veteran's Administration, where Hospitals are government owned and run and healthcare personnel are government employees? (this is the only true "socialized medicine" system).
Trey: This sounds like the Bismark System, used in Germany, France, Japan, &al. Everyone is required to carry insurance, but the insurance is non-profit. The hospitals are generally private. (Sort of like a non-profit "Obama-Care).
The specifics vary widely.
Personally, I still lean toward the National Health Insurance (NHI) system, used in Taiwan, the US Medicare system, and Canada. Here the government is the single insurer/payer, but the medical facilities and personnel remain private.
OTOH, a capitalist system only values things to the extent that they can be monetized. I think very negative effects can occur when we try to use a purely capitalist model with systems where life and death are in the balance, because I don't think that market forces can ever truly reflect the real value of human life.Socialism removes the incentive to work. If all your basic needs are met, why get out of bed and go to work?
When people abuse the system, it is just as bad as slavery. One person works hard and does not recieve the fruits of their labor while the other person does nothing and eats the fruits.
No. It's a little more complicated than that. Socialized medicine is where the health care system is like a government department. The government owns and runs the hospitals. Physicians are like civil servants, on a government payroll.
The UK, for example, has socialized medicine. The US Veteran's Administration is socialized medicine.
A single-payer system is not necessarially socialized. Canada and the US Medicare system are single-payer, but not socialized medicine. Drs and hospitals are private, independent entities.
There is a simple reason health care in the United States costs more than it does anywhere else: The prices are higher.
That may sound obvious. But it is, in fact, key to understanding one of the most pressing problems facing our economy. In 2009, Americans spent $7,960 per person on health care. Our neighbors in Canada spent $4,808. The Germans spent $4,218. The French, $3,978. If we had the per-person costs of any of those countries, Americas deficits would vanish. Workers would have much more money in their pockets. Our economy would grow more quickly, as our exports would be more competitive.
The result is that, unlike in other countries, sellers of health-care services in America have considerable power to set prices, and so they set them quite high. Two of the five most profitable industries in the United States the pharmaceuticals industry and the medical device industry sell health care. With margins of almost 20 percent, they beat out even the financial sector for sheer profitability.
This is a good deal for residents of other countries, as our high spending makes medical innovations more profitable. We end up with the benefits of your investment, Sackville says. Youre subsidizing the rest of the world by doing the front-end research.
But many researchers are skeptical that this is an effective way to fund medical innovation. We pay twice as much for brand-name drugs as most other industrialized countries, Anderson says. But the drug companies spend only 12 percent of their revenues on innovation. So yes, some of that money goes to innovation, but only 12 percent of it.
And others point out that you also need to account for the innovations and investments that our spending on health care is squeezing out. There are opportunity costs, says Reinhardt, an economist at Princeton. The money we spend on health care is money we dont spend educating our children, or investing in infrastructure, scientific research and defense spending. So if what this means is we ultimately have overmedicalized, poorly educated Americans competing with China, thats not a very good investment.
But as simple an explanation as the prices are higher is, it is a devilishly difficult problem to fix. Those prices, for one thing, mean profits for a large number of powerful and popular industries. For another, centralized bargaining cuts across the grain of Americas skepticism of government solutions. In the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, for instance, Congress expressly barred Medicare from negotiating the prices of drugs that it was paying for.
Insurance has kept these prices high. If no one had insurance, the price would be around 500 bucks.
Let me put it this way. I think everyone should buy electrical insurance.
This way I can charge your insurance thousands for a service call instead of hundreds.
No one will complain a out my charges because the insurance company will pay for it.
In my industry, people shop around for the best deal.
When has anyone shopped a hospitals prices?
I'm not even sure it is possible.
There are no checks and balances with health care costs.
Facilities charge just about what ever they like and insurance companies deal with them.
This is why medical expenses are so high.
Think about it, if there was no health insurance of any kind, hospitals would only charge what folks could afford to pay.
I go to the BMW dealer and they charge me 500 dollars for an oil change.
The guy down the street uses the same oil and filter and charges less than half.
Now if my auto insurance covered oil changes, I would go to the dealer and not worry about the expense.
If all this is correct, then why are medical costs in countrys with socialised medicine so much lower than in the US? :sarcastic
Because their doctors live in smaller homes?
As good an answer as any I suppose.
Seriously, we have the worst system possible right now.
Of course other countries are cheaper.
If we had no health insurance at all, our prices would be competitive.