Well these comments just exploded in a fiesta of arguing and outrage.

aeortar, at best you lack reading comprehention and are debunking me with counters to things I have never argued. You don't "win" the argument (which seems to be your desire) by completely ignoring your "opponents" views and making up something to counter argue against.

Do you, or do you not think that the chart linked shows a direct connection between the X and Y axis of said chart?

Already answered - see reply 42. I'll even quote the relevant section for you in the hope that you'll be bothered to read it this time.

Including sick people?

The purpose of insurance is to cover the expenses that you can't pay for yourself. The government has taken over that process and forced insurance companies to cover elective care which increases risk which in turn increases cost of coverage. This was done by Senator Kennedy when he introduced HMO's as a matter of law. 20 years later Senator Kennedy then told us that HMO's were evil and we should go to nationalized health care. Both were wrong but he never fixed the HMO's or got rid of the bad law. By forcing the insurance companies to cover hangnails the cost of coverage goes up. Because of law suits insurance companies demand that doctors go overboard in their care to insure them for malpractice. more tests more cost, higher rates.

Taking care of sick people is easy and cheap until you order the insurance companies to cover colds, and scraped knees.

The best reason yet:

ok if he admits that he can't read it, and claims republicans can't read it, and people in the street can't read it, and nobody can really read it (or rather, comprehend it)... then:

1. Why write it out that way? (especially when they say they forced credit card companies to use "plain disclosure")

2. who actually wrote it then? if nobody can even understand it (and keep in mind, most congressmen are lawyers), then who writes it?

3. The constitution is a plain english legislation that works quite well... Why bother passing a thousand page bill who is not understood or read by the people who pass it, (and is then required to be read, understood, and obeyed by the doctors!) when you can just make and pass a short 1 page bill in plain english?

Here's a penny for your thoughts, most countries have what is termed "UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE", including Australia. In essence this is health care for all Australians or the British, French, and so on. It costs us here in Australia 2% of income, and coveres everything, it is paid out of taxs. If you have an income exceed a certain level, you have the option of paying a higher premium or self insure (you are still covered by Medicare as well), those whon have private cover have it subsidied by the Fedral Govt, to the tune of 30% of premiums. The idea being those who can afford it go private, and those who can't use Medicare. When the Government first brought in Medicare in 1975, we went through the same as what you guys are going through, now you would be hard pressed to find someone who has a bad word about it.

If there is anything wrong with your Govt's proposal it is to hard to understand and seems ill defined in who will get what, if The US govt is serious they would have to improve the current offering to you guys as it seems to hard and cumbersome to the average punter to fathom. If it was put to the Australian Parliment it would be laughed all the way back to the drawing board.

There is nothing wrong with free health care for all, as long as all stakeholders are getting value for money, it dosen't look like you guys are getting this.

One major point is, Australia is not Bankrupt, quite the opposite. We are one of the few countries to get through the Financial Meltdown, relatively unscathed. No recession, no banks going bankrupt, and very little change to employment levels. Our healthcare covers everyone, and our private insurance covers everything, these private insurers do nothing but insure health, nothing else, and they are all in profit.

So the argument that countries with free health cover are drowning under the cost burden, is total BULLSHIT.

You maybe should check out other countries that have similar systems to Australia, and you will find the same in most countries, by the way Australia offers a more comprehensive cover than the others and we are doing very well thankyou, and definitely not bankrupt, in fact in the last quarter we actually moved into positive growth figures.

If you are going to make such statements, first check your facts, we had the debate you are having back in 1975, and we had all the same arguments that are being offered here, all of which came to naught, we got Medicare, and now very few would say anything but good about the system.

Try acting like Christians and think, "What would Jesus say on the subject".

You are Australian???

Perhaps when the US adopts the level of health care the rest of the world has, it will adopt the level of medical research the rest of the world contributes.

zergimmi, none of what you said is in any way relevant. You accuse us of not "getting it", but there is more than one way to make universal care.

They had voting in soviet russia, do you say it is a democracy than? Just because they call it universal care doesn't mean that it is. It is a 1000 page monstrosity that will cripple government healthcare to the elderly to fund an inefficient beurocracy that contributes nothing.

It also does NOT establish universal health CARE, it establishes universal health INSURANCE.

It's amazing how some people don't get that any deal, including provision of medical care, has two sides, a buyer and a supplier.

Health care is the supply.

Health insurance is (an organisation of) buyers.

By providing health insurance to all, the supply is not directly affected. Universal health insurance does not imply universal health care.

What universal health insurance will do is lower prices. Universal health insurance pools buyers and creates a monopsony. Monopsony power forces prices down.

But the lower the proces the fewer people will want to supply (and the worse the quality of the supply becomes).

Draginol once explained that there is only a finite amount of healthcare to go around, just like with any product (i.e. there is no infinite amoung of cars, which is why cars cost money). Currently that finite amount is channeled into the market according to how much every buyer is willing to pay.

Universal health insurance will bring down prices.

But it will not change the basic fact that halthcare is not an infinite resource and the fact that it lowers prices will actually make decrease the amoung of healthcare available in the market (since, for example, fewer people will want to work as doctors if the pay goes down).

Assuming a model society with 10 people (with 10 different incomes) and 3 doctors (who will provide for 3 patients each), the current system will cover 9 of the 10 people and the best of the three doctors will have the richest 3 patients.

If universal health insurance somehow managed to give all 10 patients the money to pay for their service, the 3 doctors will still only be able to cover 9 people (since their number has not increased) but there might not be 3 doctors any more since the healthcare costs went down and maybe one of the 3 finds he can work in another country for more money.

yes leauki... As you say, it will actually lower overall amount of care. By forcing doctors, pharma, and other suppliers to take less money... many will reduce their production. Overall healthcare supply will decrease.

But in addition to lowering overall care amount (by creating universal INSURANCE, not universal CARE), they are eliminating choice. By forcing a government run monopoly between people and providers of care which will now decide how to run things; what treatments are "cost effective enough" to justify, etc.

It is ironic that they are both accusing republicans of having the policy of "do not get sick, if you do get sick, die quickly". Yet at the same time they are outright saying "if you are old and you are sick, you are gonna die, we are not gonna waste money prolonging your life by a few months" and declaring the need for death panels to decide who is and isn't worthy of treatment. (which of course comes from: 1. taxpayer money. 2. will be decided by politicians... and you can bet race, gender, amount of children, affluence, employment status, etc will come into play).

I liked that idea for universal law services insurance.

A committe of physicians will decide which law services are necessary and how much lawyers should get paid.

People who need a lawyer won't pay as much as they can to get the most corrupt lawyer the market has to offer but will simply tell the state-run insurance company what they need and the state-run insurance company (i.e. the committe of physicians) will then decide what type of lawyer they need and how much he should get paid.

There is a key difference between the two. The second approach is recognising that lives have monetary values placed on them, and looking to save 2 lives instead of 1. That is, why spend $100k giving someone 1 month of extra life to an old sick person if you could spend the same money on a young sick person and give them 30 years of extra life? Hence a value needs to be placed on life to evaluate whether government spending is worthwhile. For example with traffic safety, why spend $10m on some safety measures to cut road deaths by 1 if instead you could spend that money elsewhere to save 100 lives?

Best argument against government financing of healthcare I've heard put forth in awhile.

Sounds great, until you're the old geezer. Will you lay down so easily when it's your turn? Should you have to? The politicians won't, their covered. I'm sure they're glad folks like yourself are willing to die for their policies. Too many people think they will be young forever. Let me tell you life is short, no matter how long you live. Logan's Run anybody?

Soylent Green.

I think it's a double argument.

If it is true that two lives saved are better than one life saved, we should use tax payer money to pay for public hospitals in Africa, where people die from diseases a bit of money can easily cure.

For the price of two Americans you can save at least a dozen Africans.

If 2 Americans > 1 American, are not 12 Africans > 2 Americans?

(If not, why not?)

You're quite right, Leauki - the 'value of a life' argument has no logical endpoint.

it actually does have a logical endpoint... 12 africans > 2 americans is the logical end point. Thus we should completely discontinue all healthcare to americans, but at the same time force them to pay for healthcare for people around the globe who could be saved cheaply...

As for the "one month to an old person vs 30 years to a young person"... sounds logical... except you aren't GIVING. You are taking from the old person by force and making him PAY for the young person's treatments. You choosing to give a month to an old person instead of 30 years to a young person is very different then taking from the old person to give to the young person; on the belief that the old person needs it less, and the young person is more entitled to it.

Lastly, what key difference? the two are identical. The democrats accuse republicans of something republicans never said while the democrats say the exact same thing they accuse republicans of... which is actually the modus operandi in all aspects when I think about it.

It's people!!!!

Then I propose a compromise.

We use some tax money, less than the universal health insurance would cost, and build some hospitals in poor African countries.

That way both those who want everyone to pay for themselves and those who want to save as many lives as possible will get what they want (assuming that both sides are completely honest in their demands).

No, the sad truth is that your life is worth more depending on where you are born. How else do you explain countries with both a benefits system (of any kind) and an immigration policy? People will quite readily agree that children should get free education in their country, but you'll be hard pressed to find those that would support bringing in all the children from other countries that don't get an education and providing it to them. Similarly developed countries will have some form of benefit for those who are poor, but won't give the same funds to someone who is poor in a different country, or let those people come here.

Countries having significant immigration will also often see rises in tension when jobs are scarce, such as 'stop all these immigrants coming in and taking our jobs'.

So 2 Americans > 1 American, 2 Africans > 1 African, but 1 American != 1 African.

You can also see the difference at a simplistic level in terms of average expected lifetime income - the figure is much higher for an American than an African, hence the American's life value is higher.

The irony is that an alternative system of no UHC (which I'm presuming you support given your opposition to this argument, which is one in relation to UHC) is even worse - instead of not providing treatment to those where the cost is prohibitive, you're not providing it to anyone - they all get left on their own to try and find the money to pay for it. Also with UHC those elderly people who might only get 1 month extra life are still perfectly entitled to spend their money on obtaining the extra healthcare they desire, just as they would be without UHC (unless the UHC system chosen is a poor one where private healthcare is prohibited, something which is detrimental to everyone). On the positive side, since they're elderly they'll also have had far more working years of life to build up savings to fund such healthcare, unlike someone who turns 18 and is struck with an expensive (and potentially life threatening) illness.