What Would Universal Healthcare Look Like in the U.S.?

Dr. David Himmelstein: The goal would be to expand Medicare to all, considering private insurance costs seven times as much to administer compared to Medicare

[Jmriccitelli]

The "REAL REASON" we don't have universal healthcare in the US. I gave a general statement earlier that it was because the top earners in the business community are against it, but let me share a general history of why. One thing entrepreneurs from any and every era know and knew, was that the cheaper the labor, like slaves or wage slavery, the larger the profits, market share, and most important, the more saving to reinvest in other businesses & institutions. Slaves as you know, at least in the south had a cost to the slaveholders. The question is, entrepreneurs have a cost analysis equation, is it cheaper to keep slaves, or is it cheaper to have wage slavery, and what are the costs of wage slavery? Well, one obvious cost is if the worker gets sick, is it cheaper to send them to the doctor, or is it cheaper to have to train someone new. So, my point is, Secondly, getting them to the doctor was a way for the institution of medicine to evaluate women for serialization. Working poor women were primarily protesting child labor, and the American robber barons wrer funding and supporting eugenics. Read Edwin Black's book on this "War Against the Weak". Anyways, my first point is the not only was the business community against FREE healthcare, but it was put in America to keep favorable workers healthy, not because working America protested and received it through democracy. Secondly, and even less well known, you blame the insurance companies & obvious the pharmaceutical companies. YOU LEAVE OUT THE BIGGEST CRIMINAL OF ALL! The American Medical Association.  Not the doctors, the institution. Here's why. Do you know there is a private cartel board called RUC, or the relative value scale update committee. This is a cartel of 30 or 31 doctor bureaucrats serving the interest of power, sitting around the room and telling Medicare, what the prices should be for every procedure, in every community, in every state. It's like a terrorist organization inflating its industry with massive amounts of healthcare inflation. Forget about the free market, forget about markets, forget about price discovery, forget about supply and demand, forget about the business cycle. We have a medical billing problem created by a cartel of doctors, crony capitalist, and protected by crony revolving door politicians. Do you know that certain doctors and the American medical association give more money to lobbyists than bankers and military contractors combined? I can go on for days, my point is basically, the American medical ACC is just another corrupt institution supported by what Chomsky calls "the private ownership class" in an industry made for profit, not for charity, and with the help of the other institutions, with the business communities support and votes, all of the funding and investment and profits end up in the end, to the real corporate masters, the financial institutions like wall street and the 600 TRILLION DOLLAR derivative market. It's a giant nexus of greed!

[dddd]

Civil control leads to corruption, healthcare should not be a business, A business can not always speak for the people, Government is the true voice of the people and their right to be looked after to avoid the attitude of negligence.

[jsgdk]

Danish healtcare is constantly improving, people complain and punish politicians if they are not satisfied, top notch high-tech public hospitals and sensible usage of private hospitals, agressive collective bargaining for meds, virtually no wait time for important things, half the price of what America pays.

[mraaronhd]

The biggest hurdle is convincing American taxpayers to pay more taxes. Everybody wants cheaper medical coverage, but no one is willing to pay the taxes that are involved. We have to convince them first.

[r.dbergman]

They never mention the tax burden on the citizens of these countries, like Denmark. 40% last I checked..

[overseachininadoll]

besides spend lots of energy time worrying about billing, they also spend lots of time to charting worrying about the law sue too.

[hbct]

wow, watching this in Feb 2016 and it makes so much sense. Americanvoted for Obamacare and now regret over it. I do agree with the speaker wholeheartedly (saying out of first hand experince as a medical provider)

[brianedward]

Just. Stop. Putting. All. Of. Our. Tax. Dollars. Into. Fucking. War.

[bono]

Socialized medicine would mean there is now only one insurance company: the federal government. We all know what it's like having a crappy cable company that has cut out all the competition in the area. You call and try to threaten to cancel the service. But all they have to do is remind you that there are no other cable companies to choose from.

[nickfrank]

Yeah of course in total more money pays into insurance than gets paid out by them.... if not no one would sell insurance

[mrfaithandphysics]

Insurance companies are for profit, and where is that profit going?  And how does that money, going to the top 1%, in any way help take care of our health?  I was raised capitalist.  I've had two businesses.  Never again.  Capitalism is legalized gambling, and guess what?  The game is rigged in favor of the house.  Who is "the house"?  Private insurance companies, in this case.  Big business is putting all the small ones out of business, because IMO giant companies can use their wealth like slaves to make them more wealth.  Less money, less able to compete.  Privatization is a horror story and I applaud the Pope for speaking out against this ancient foe.  Money does indeed enslave everyone not in that top percentage.

[trendyblue]

One thing America is worse than North Korea would be the medical system. In North Korea if you accidentally cut your leg and have no money, you can still go to the hospital and they will re-attach your leg for you as soon as possible and without a question. In America same thing happen and you have no money, you might have to hold your own leg and wait for them to check with your insurance company. So America have better technology in medicine. But what is the point developing the damn thing when you make not very affordable? And why is American hospitals so damn slow? I am not an American citizen so I can't care less whatever goes on here. But every time I go to a hospital I wait like an hour to see a doctor. What is taking so long? I cannot stand medical system here. Slow, expensive, but mostly just slow. Slow as fuck. Slowest I have ever seen in my life.

[williamcowan]

No socialized medicine and no more health insurance

[stpx]

How many people in this country have stopped for one fucking second and asked "Why the Hell does Health Insurance exist?"

Seriously, what fucking purpose does this thing serve? Obviously it makes the system more inefficient, obviously it exaggerates costs, obviously it introduces more bureaucracy. And it makes absolutely no contribution to the condition of the individual.

All it does is perpetuate the business of health care-->>>>assuming that if health insurance didn't exist, then we would still have a for-profit hospital system that very few people could afford.<<<< Versus having a universal health care system, if health insurance didn't exist to make it more accessible to the masses.

[Khal]

this conversation is total bs.
First of all, the system in Canada and UK doesn't allow you to see a doctor in a timely fashion, where in the US the plan is that you can go but now you have to make the rich even richer.
What isn't mentioned is the systems like that that existed in pre-war Iraq where anyone from any pay grade went to the hospital and was taken care of including non residents. As well, if the hospital couldn't give you the best care needed for your condition, you were moved to where you could get it. All at no cost EVER to the patient. It was part of what the government was expected to do for it's citizens; to service their needs.
We in the West always get the same option, pick the blue devils or the red ones.

[mariovidmar]

What both sides mix it's not commodity or right it's necessity like breathing , you won't die if you can't afford Lexus but you will most certainly die running out of oxygen, same with medical treatment .

[nobot]

If you look at the numbers, the US kinda already has Univ Healthcare for the majority of its citizens. Baby Boomers (that make up close to 70% of the population) have Medicaid, which is basically U.H for people age 65+. And most of them also get social security too.

[kael]

how much you spend on military spending?