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32 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

We pay for ALL of it, just not at point of use. Americans seem to have the idea its 'free'. Its not, anymore than anything you pay into is free. It just means that if you take out from more of it than you put in, then the rest of society helps carry it. As my late father loved to point out, there are plenty of folks whom pay into the social system for pensions or other things they never live long enough to claim.

The only idiots in America that think anything is free are the same idiots who are telling the world how awful our health care system is.

Of course, they're the same idiots that think that burning down minority-owned businesses is "advancing the cause."

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2 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

Europeans who have never lived in the US should probably not opine too much on health care. If all you know about it is what you read in the papers, you are badly misinformed.

 

An European needs to not forget health travel insurance when going to Samland. Curiously, the high premium also covers Canada.

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26 minutes ago, Rick said:

Thank you for your excellent post. Much better than what one hears in the U.S. about German health care no matter which way on the political meter you measure yourself. 

Does Germany tax tobacco and alcohol and if so, are these taxes used for public health care? Does the German statutory and private health programs penalize people who are obese or use tobacco?

There has been a national tobacco tax since 1906. Alcohol is taxed in different categories based upon distinctive laws - beer (including beer-based mixed drinks, but not alcohol-free beer), sparkling wine (introduced in 1902 to pay for the imperial High Seas Fleet), spirits (national regulation since 1887), and as of 2004, alcopops.

The latter is a national German regulation introduced with the expressive aim of increasing the price so that those sweet low-alcohol mixed drinks wouldn't be bought so much by minors - legal drinking age in Germany is 16 except for spirits with more than 15 percent alcohol by volume, for which it's 18. All other alcohol taxes are harmonized within the EU to a certain bracket. Wine should be theoretically taxed, too, but since the minimum is set to zero Euro, it essentially isn't.

As the sparkling wine example shows, the revenue isn't bound to particular fields like health but rather goes to the general budget, though as in the alcopop example increases are often justified by reasons of popular health. OTOH, the tobacco tax was raised in 2002/03 to pay for increased federal contributions to the public retirement funds, which led to the acid phrase of "smoking for pensions". However, most of the tobacco revenue is in fact earmarked for the federal contributions to the health funds feeding statutory insurances, though not as much as it used to be. This is the second most rewarding after the fuel tax.

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1 hour ago, Rick said:

Does Germany tax tobacco and alcohol and if so, are these taxes used for public health care? Does the German statutory and private health programs penalize people who are obese or use tobacco?

Yes, Yes, No, No.

Technically, the Tobacco and Alcohol taxes go into the general tax revenue, and there's general tax money contributions into different forms of social security, so in a way the money does flow back somehow, but there are no purpose-bound taxes in the German system on the basis of principle.

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6 hours ago, DB said:

The big brains saw through my transparent attempt to present pro-NHS bias as a balanced viewpoint and skewered my suggestions for something that would be a completely different approach to mitigating what seem to be problems with the US system with impeccable logic.

Explain the difference then in US health care and how our elective eye surgery costs are covered, how those costs change and the relevant qualities of both vis a vis the actual care. 

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1 hour ago, Ivanhoe said:

Europeans who have never lived in the US should probably not opine too much on health care. If all you know about it is what you read in the papers, you are badly misinformed.

 

Yes, and when we are being told that we need more NHS because Biden, sorry no.
 

Most of what I understand about the NHS comes from what I've heard from Brits
 

I have noted this before. Part of the problem with a system is also how its run and who by. Ie the quality of the staff. We already have a public health care system administered by the fed gov. I don't wish that in our veterans and I don't want if for myself. 

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15 hours ago, rmgill said:

Yes, and when we are being told that we need more NHS because Biden, sorry no.
 

Most of what I understand about the NHS comes from what I've heard from Brits
 

I have noted this before. Part of the problem with a system is also how its run and who by. Ie the quality of the staff. We already have a public health care system administered by the fed gov. I don't wish that in our veterans and I don't want if for myself. 

If it is, I can completely predict what kind of Brits you heard it from, probably the same ones complaining we send the RNLI out to pick up migrants in the channel.

Go and listen to an average Brit what they say about the NHS. Its 180 degrees from what you insist it is.

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Try again. I've heard more "good things" about the NHS from folks here. I read an eye-full from a former member. 

But my specific point of objecting to it was specifically in THIS thread vis a vis how it'd be so much better if the US had something like the NHS. Just scroll up or click previous pages. 

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Over 100k? Didn't they clean up the registry since the prohibition went into effect?

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/12/huge-wisconsin-election-hearing-reveals-119283-active-voters-registered-100-years-video/

This is less of a shock. Officials in Arizona have admitted doing so already. 

https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/19/whistleblower-videos-capture-pennsylvania-election-officials-destroying-evidence/

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On 12/4/2021 at 3:10 AM, Rick said:

Your suggestion(s) on how to do this?

I've made countless suggestions in the various health care threads going back a decade... many of which would shift health care to a more Conservative/Free Market approach.  Always heard crickets after those posts (not sure if it's because so many posters on here can't bring themselves to agree with me on something or they're too embarrassed to admit our current system is not this Conservative/Free Market/American dream).

I think the more important point is what you underlined in my post - why do Rs not take health care reform seriously?  The Rs never had their own plan for health care reform - back during the Obamacare debate and recently when they tried to repeal Obamacare (the latter was incredibly embarrassing considering they had 8 years to come up with their own plan and had... nothing). 

The answer, like a lot of things, is likely multifaceted.  In this era of everything being politicized I think a lot of Rs feel they must be against reform since the Ds claim they're all for it (heaven forbid they argue instead D reform is not the right approach and suggest their own... but that's expecting too much from R politicians and their base).  Another, probably the biggest reason, is the Rs are more beholden to the special interests than their D counterparts.  Money is what runs DC... and the health care behemoth has a lot of it... and thus so much to lose if real reform were to happen.

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On 12/3/2021 at 3:01 PM, rmgill said:

Deregulate it. 

Get rid of the controls that restrict and constrain supply and thus raise the prices. But the left won't do that. Cause it impinges on some of their rice bowls. 

The bolded bit is rubbish.  Too many of you default to this argument of "it's the left's fault" if there's an issue in this country without a shred of evidence or a decent argument to back up that claim.

Here's reality - the Rs won't do it, either.  Feel free to point me to their efforts to do so back during the original Obamacare debate or recently when they tried to repeal Obamacare.  The sad reality is if you want to put the majority of the blame on anyone it's likely the Rs... they're apparently more beholden to the special interests who would lose a lot of money from any serious reform.

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On 12/4/2021 at 7:55 AM, Ivanhoe said:

One of many pithy Thomas Sowell quotations is;

There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.

What a garbage quote.  There absolutely are solutions at times... and the tradeoff is that the robber barons get screwed (such as in this scenario).

I'm reminded of a stat I read a few years back.  It posed a hypothetical - if you could go back in time and invest a small amount of money (I think it was $10k in 1990) what would be the fastest way to get you to a million?  Invest in tech stocks?  Nope... invest in US health care related stocks.

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On 12/4/2021 at 10:39 AM, rmgill said:

This spiraling cost issue is one of the key things that folks on OUR side of the pond (or over there with more than 2 brain cells to rub togther) will point out is an expected result of any socialized system. When you decouple the people receiving the good or service from it's cost, so they're insulated from the effects of paying for it and they're NOT encouraged to moderate their expenses. This is not rocket science.

Umm... folks with at least 3 brain cells will point out that even if you have regular insurance of your own and not covered by one of the several US socialized systems that you're still insulated from the effects of paying for a service.  The LASIK example is a rarity in this country.  For the majority of medical services you're simply showing up and paying your copay or whatever... the real cost is hidden from you and worked out between your insurance and the provider.  Hence, as you argue, why our costs keep skyrocketing even if you have regular insurance.

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On 12/4/2021 at 1:23 PM, Detonable said:

  Actually, we already have socialized health care in the US. You can’t turn away patients in need, so someone else pays their expenses. If the hospital system doesn’t have a cash cow in the suburbs to support the system the hospital is in trouble.

Not... really.  Not all health care needs can be handled with a single visit, surgery, or pill.  Someone can have a life-threatening condition and the hospital won't take them in til it's too late.  There's a poignant example of this at the start of The Healing of America (I highly recommend everyone read this book to get a basic grasp of how our system really works and what's wrong with it).  In short, a young woman with no insurance had odd health issues.  Went to the ER a few times and they directed her to a specialist who she couldn't afford.  Condition worsened til she was finally taken in at the ER for the last time before passing away.

It's also not true that if you can't afford a hospital bill that you just have it written off.  Medical bankruptcy is a thing in this country...

On 12/4/2021 at 1:23 PM, Detonable said:

 The other point is that Germany doesn’t have a large population of formerly enslaved peoples that have little interest in working and supporting a family. If everybody pays in, the system can work.

What the fuck...?

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On 12/4/2021 at 4:10 PM, 17thfabn said:

Most of the Western World has aging demographics that making funding social security and health systems tough.

Higher % of elderly increases costs of health care and retirement systems.

This is only going to get worse as the years go on...

We had a brief but interesting discussion about it a while back.

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4 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

Umm... folks with at least 3 brain cells will point out that even if you have regular insurance of your own and not covered by one of the several US socialized systems that you're still insulated from the effects of paying for a service.  The LASIK example is a rarity in this country.  For the majority of medical services you're simply showing up and paying your copay or whatever... the real cost is hidden from you and worked out between your insurance and the provider.  Hence, as you argue, why our costs keep skyrocketing even if you have regular insurance.

If you go and look at people paying for procedures out of pocket, which I've seen first hand, it'll be cutting the costs substantially because there's no insurance mechanism over the top. 

You just have to 1. Arrange it ahead of time as with ANY service. And 2. attempt to negotiate. This is basic methods of negotiation. You shouldn't need Bert to get you to haggle. 

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8 hours ago, rmgill said:

Osties. Socialism/Communism IS enslavement. 

Still makes no sense, try again.

 

The original statement was

Germany doesn’t have a large population of formerly enslaved peoples that have little interest in working and supporting a family.

 

Not your statement, but since you attempted to explain it already...

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Oh. I see where he was going. Have you been to the US and the ghetto? Do you know anyone who escaped and was told by their family that they were race traitors for working and being successful? 

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