OT: COVID-19 thread #3

[Dresden]

Kimberly Guillfoyle, Eric Trump's girlfriend, has tested positive. It's just a matter of time before the Trump family starts getting infected, with all the risks they take.

[coldfish]

The US medical system has done a fantastic job with covid so far. They have identified treatment methodologies and quickly distributed them nationally. As we are learning, ventilators are a bad idea. Giving people oxygen in other ways has drastically reduced fatality rates. Our doctors and nurses deserve an incredible amount of respect.

This is an unfortunate truth though. The US is certainly undercounting deaths but its by 20%. The numbers in europe are far higher though with estimates as high as 50%. Some of the stories out of Italy, Spain and the UK are abhorrent. If the US had the same case fatality ratio that the UK has, there would be 320,000 more dead americans.

Some of the nationalized health care systems have done well (Germany, Canada) but many have done just a terrible job. The US is going to have the lowest infection fatality rate in the world by a good bit.

Its sickening just how many infections we have had and I blame that squarely on Trump. As I have said before, his performance (or lack thereof) on this is going to be studied for centuries. That said, let's not hold up a lot of these other countries as wonderful examples of competence. Just because the news isn't running stories on just how bad the NHS did here doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Fish, I do think we have an underlying public health problem. Covid is exploiting that shift underbelly.

We have a large population that already has several pre-existing red flags that Covid is just converting into ICU hospitalizations.

I think we as Americans need to really rethink our priorities going forward. Health is everything.

Covid really hasn't done anything to exploit that.

Regardless, our health care is too expensive for society in general and too many people have limited health care options. That said, the majority of people have cheap access to fantastic health care through retirement or their employer. We can't lose sight of that. People really oversimplify this issue and speak in half truths. There are a lot of uncomfortable realities out there, like:
- These other nations don't have free health care. They pay for it with VAT which would take away a considerable percentage of your purchasing power (ie standard of living).
- Other nations benefit off the US overpaying for healthcare. We pay the world's drug and treatment development costs. If we cut way down, the world's medical system might stagnate.
- England has a rather large private health care system on top of its public one. Apparently a pretty large number of their citizens see the need to find alternative health care. Canada? See below.
etc.

I'm all for a better system but let's not lose sight of what we have.

On a personal anecdotal level, if I drive down to the Cleveland Clinic and walk through the long term parking lot, a lot of the cars will have Ontario plates. If the US starts rationing care, where can I go?

[dice]

The US medical system has done a fantastic job with covid so far. They have identified treatment methodologies and quickly distributed them nationally. As we are learning, ventilators are a bad idea. Giving people oxygen in other ways has drastically reduced fatality rates. Our doctors and nurses deserve an incredible amount of respect.

This is an unfortunate truth though. The US is certainly undercounting deaths but its by 20%. The numbers in europe are far higher though with estimates as high as 50%. Some of the stories out of Italy, Spain and the UK are abhorrent. If the US had the same case fatality ratio that the UK has, there would be 320,000 more dead americans.

Some of the nationalized health care systems have done well (Germany, Canada) but many have done just a terrible job. The US is going to have the lowest infection fatality rate in the world by a good bit.

Its sickening just how many infections we have had and I blame that squarely on Trump. As I have said before, his performance (or lack thereof) on this is going to be studied for centuries. That said, let's not hold up a lot of these other countries as wonderful examples of competence. Just because the news isn't running stories on just how bad the NHS did here doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Fish, I do think we have an underlying public health problem. Covid is exploiting that shift underbelly.

We have a large population that already has several pre-existing red flags that Covid is just converting into ICU hospitalizations.

I think we as Americans need to really rethink our priorities going forward. Health is everything.

Covid really hasn't done anything to exploit that.

Regardless, our health care is too expensive for society in general and too many people have limited health care options. That said, the majority of people have cheap access to fantastic health care through retirement or their employer. We can't lose sight of that. People really oversimplify this issue and speak in half truths. There are a lot of uncomfortable realities out there, like:
- These other nations don't have free health care. They pay for it with VAT which would take away a considerable percentage of your purchasing power (ie standard of living).
- Other nations benefit off the US overpaying for healthcare. We pay the world's drug and treatment development costs. If we cut way down, the world's medical system might stagnate.
- England has a rather large private health care system on top of its public one. Apparently a pretty large number of their citizens see the need to find alternative health care. Canada? See below.
etc.

I'm all for a better system but let's not lose sight of what we have.

On a personal anecdotal level, if I drive down to the Cleveland Clinic and walk through the long term parking lot, a lot of the cars will have Ontario plates. If the US starts rationing care, where can I go?

the US already does ration care via the private market, the goal of which is to charge as much as possible while denying/delaying care as much as possible. because of cost, a greater percentage of americans do not have access to timely care than canadians. and more wouldn't if they didn't pay through the nose for it. and, of course, americans pay more for timely care than canadians do

canada's wait times are determined by availability and need. here it's primarily availability and cost

there are 20-25% more doctors per capita here, and they work slightly longer hours, and cost lowers demand considerably here, so it stands to reason that wait times are proportionately longer on average in canada, but it's hardly night and day. varies considerably depending on the kind of doctor, of course. then again, americans have more health issues, so that closes the gap

every system has its problems, but the bottom line is cost vs results. and the good ole US of A fares very poorly comparatively. as does canada. so why not compare ourselves to the best performing systems in the world?

commonwealth fund rankings, best to worst:

quality of care

UK
australia
new zealand
netherlands
USA
canada
switzerland
germany
france
norway
sweden

access to care

netherlands
germany
UK
australia
norway
sweden
new zealand
switzerland
france
canada
USA

[coldfish]

Fish, I do think we have an underlying public health problem. Covid is exploiting that shift underbelly.

We have a large population that already has several pre-existing red flags that Covid is just converting into ICU hospitalizations.

I think we as Americans need to really rethink our priorities going forward. Health is everything.

Covid really hasn't done anything to exploit that.

Regardless, our health care is too expensive for society in general and too many people have limited health care options. That said, the majority of people have cheap access to fantastic health care through retirement or their employer. We can't lose sight of that. People really oversimplify this issue and speak in half truths. There are a lot of uncomfortable realities out there, like:
- These other nations don't have free health care. They pay for it with VAT which would take away a considerable percentage of your purchasing power (ie standard of living).
- Other nations benefit off the US overpaying for healthcare. We pay the world's drug and treatment development costs. If we cut way down, the world's medical system might stagnate.
- England has a rather large private health care system on top of its public one. Apparently a pretty large number of their citizens see the need to find alternative health care. Canada? See below.
etc.

I'm all for a better system but let's not lose sight of what we have.

On a personal anecdotal level, if I drive down to the Cleveland Clinic and walk through the long term parking lot, a lot of the cars will have Ontario plates. If the US starts rationing care, where can I go?

the US already does ration care via the private market, the goal of which is to charge as much as possible while denying/delaying care as much as possible. because of cost, a greater percentage of americans do not have access to timely care than canadians. and more wouldn't if they didn't pay through the nose for it. and, of course, americans pay more for timely care than canadians do

canada's wait times are determined by availability and need. here it's primarily availability and cost

there are 20-25% more doctors per capita here, and they work slightly longer hours, and cost lowers demand somewhat here, so it stands to reason that wait times are proportionately longer on average in canada, but it's hardly night and day. varies considerably depending on the kind of doctor, of course. then again, americans have more health issues, so that closes the gap

every system has its problems, but the bottom line is cost vs results. and the good ole US of A fares very poorly comparatively

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

If we change the healthcare system, we need to not lie to ourselves. Telling 70% or so of the population that they are going to pay more for worse service is not a solution and that's really what most of the proposals do.

Side notes
1. People will try to come up with "tax the rich" schemes to move away from a VAT or income tax system. Well, an employer pay system is a "tax the rich" system. You can't get much more progressive than having a corporation cover 90% of your health care costs.
2. IMO, we should go back to the original ACA and have a government option while deregulating the hell out of the insurance industry. Let them compete straight up. Its kind of the best of both worlds where the people without insurance can find their way onto some crappy european style health care coverage where the rest of us can not get our butts kicked by it.

[dice]

Covid really hasn't done anything to exploit that.

Regardless, our health care is too expensive for society in general and too many people have limited health care options. That said, the majority of people have cheap access to fantastic health care through retirement or their employer. We can't lose sight of that. People really oversimplify this issue and speak in half truths. There are a lot of uncomfortable realities out there, like:
- These other nations don't have free health care. They pay for it with VAT which would take away a considerable percentage of your purchasing power (ie standard of living).
- Other nations benefit off the US overpaying for healthcare. We pay the world's drug and treatment development costs. If we cut way down, the world's medical system might stagnate.
- England has a rather large private health care system on top of its public one. Apparently a pretty large number of their citizens see the need to find alternative health care. Canada? See below.
etc.

I'm all for a better system but let's not lose sight of what we have.

On a personal anecdotal level, if I drive down to the Cleveland Clinic and walk through the long term parking lot, a lot of the cars will have Ontario plates. If the US starts rationing care, where can I go?

the US already does ration care via the private market, the goal of which is to charge as much as possible while denying/delaying care as much as possible. because of cost, a greater percentage of americans do not have access to timely care than canadians. and more wouldn't if they didn't pay through the nose for it. and, of course, americans pay more for timely care than canadians do

canada's wait times are determined by availability and need. here it's primarily availability and cost

there are 20-25% more doctors per capita here, and they work slightly longer hours, and cost lowers demand somewhat here, so it stands to reason that wait times are proportionately longer on average in canada, but it's hardly night and day. varies considerably depending on the kind of doctor, of course. then again, americans have more health issues, so that closes the gap

every system has its problems, but the bottom line is cost vs results. and the good ole US of A fares very poorly comparatively

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

again, there are plenty of people with insurance (coverage varies wildly) who have to wait a long time to see specialists. and insurers are quick to, for example, kick people out of hospitals to lower costs. and reject claims. almost everybody has a story about being jerked around by their insurer. and insured or not, almost nobody who is in an american hospital isn't lying there thinking about cost. almost every industrialized nation has reduced or eliminated those stressors on the infirmed

If we change the healthcare system, we need to not lie to ourselves. Telling 70% or so of the population that they are going to pay more for worse service is not a solution and that's really what most of the proposals do.

you're lying to yourself if you think you'd be paying more. almost EVERYBODY would be paying less for health care. don't forget that employer-provided insurance is effectively paid entirely by you. it is part of your compensation package. it's not a free perk of employment. your free market insurance cost is just lower due to being part of an employee pool. and even that advantage has been marginalized due to obamacare subsidies for the unemployed

People will try to come up with "tax the rich" schemes to move away from a VAT or income tax system. Well, an employer pay system is a "tax the rich" system. You can't get much more progressive than having a corporation cover 90% of your health care costs.

it's hardly "tax the rich" when the cost is equally shared by the lower middle class insured and the wealthy insured. and the uninsured end up paying MORE as a function of being uninsured (astronomically more as a percentage of income)! that's the definition of regressive, not progressive

IMO, we should go back to the original ACA and have a government option while deregulating the hell out of the insurance industry. Let them compete straight up. Its kind of the best of both worlds where the people without insurance can find their way onto some crappy european style health care coverage where the rest of us can not get our butts kicked by it.

agreed. except that very few people wouldn't be getting their butts kicked by staying in the private system. and those who wouldn't are the wealthy - those who care not about the cost of insurance. it may well be that anybody who has to stop to compare private insurance costs would be better off in the public system

[Dresden]

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

Low cost? Last time I checked, the US spent more per capita for health care than any country in the world, and our outcomes were only about 19th best, tied with countries like Croatia.

[Dresden]

If we change the healthcare system, we need to not lie to ourselves. Telling 70% or so of the population that they are going to pay more for worse service is not a solution and that's really what most of the proposals do.

Side notes
1. People will try to come up with "tax the rich" schemes to move away from a VAT or income tax system. Well, an employer pay system is a "tax the rich" system. You can't get much more progressive than having a corporation cover 90% of your health care costs.
2. IMO, we should go back to the original ACA and have a government option while deregulating the hell out of the insurance industry. Let them compete straight up. Its kind of the best of both worlds where the people without insurance can find their way onto some crappy european style health care coverage where the rest of us can not get our butts kicked by it.

There is no reason a govt. run health care system has to result in worse care. I have Kaiser Permanente HMO coverage, and it's been talked about as a model for a what a govt run system would look like, and I think the care is fine. But I pay about $800/mo for it, too. The whole idea with a govt. system is that it would lower costs, by cutting out the high admin costs that HMO's now charge, taking out the profit that are going to hospital systems, and cutting out insurance companies. As well as other savings, such as negotiating on drugs.

I think the one big failing with Obamacare is that it did not include enough cost cutting measures, I assume due to pressure applied by lobbyists.

[coldfish]

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

Low cost? Last time I checked, the US spent more per capita for health care than any country in the world, and our outcomes were only about 19th best, tied with countries like Croatia.

If you tell someone who has healthcare now that his employer will drop it and the government will pick it up at the cost of a 15% VAT, its going to cost him more. Your typical person pays more out of pocket. Overall the cost is higher in the US but its largely covered by employers.

As far as quality of system, let's shoot the fat people and then compare.
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/concord-2.htm
Here is a more apples to apples comparison. Out of the 7 major western health care systems, the US ranks:
1st for breast cancer survival
1st for colon cancer survival
2nd for lung cancer survival
1st for prostate cancer survival
4th for leukemia survival

When you are talking about going from the US to the UK for something like breast cancer, you are talking about a ton of dead women. The difference would amount to 14,000 extra fatalities in the US every year for just that one problem.

These are the type of inconvenient facts that are frequently left out of the discussion.

[the ultimates]

From the number of studies, I've seen the United States pays more money and gets similar or worse results than other nations with universal coverage. That's not even taking into consideration how the U.S. gets screwed over on drug pricing. The vast majority of people still get coverage through their employer. We've probably either known people who have crappy coverage or worked a job that offered sub-par coverage just to be in compliance.

The United States should offer a base level of coverage for things like check ups and what not and base prescriptions for things such as anti-biotics and insulin which come to mind. Insurance companies would still play a role by filling in the coverage gaps for things the government won't cover which is exactly the role insurance companies play for seniors when they sign up for Medicare. It's why some people may have noticed supplemental insurance for seniors or Medicare advantage plans. If employees wanted to partner with insurance companies for this fine. Also, any universal healthcare should include price controls or negotiation protocols because it's a slap in the face to know the government gave up its ability to negotiate drug prices for Medicare when they are doing the insurance companies basically a favor in taking their most expensive clients off their hands.

[Dresden]

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

Low cost? Last time I checked, the US spent more per capita for health care than any country in the world, and our outcomes were only about 19th best, tied with countries like Croatia.

If you tell someone who has healthcare now that his employer will drop it and the government will pick it up at the cost of a 15% VAT, its going to cost him more. Your typical person pays more out of pocket. Overall the cost is higher in the US but its largely covered by employers.

As far as quality of system, let's shoot the fat people and then compare.
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/concord-2.htm
Here is a more apples to apples comparison. Out of the 7 major western health care systems, the US ranks:
1st for breast cancer survival
1st for colon cancer survival
2nd for lung cancer survival
1st for prostate cancer survival
4th for leukemia survival

When you are talking about going from the US to the UK for something like breast cancer, you are talking about a ton of dead women. The difference would amount to 14,000 extra fatalities in the US every year for just that one problem.

These are the type of inconvenient facts that are frequently left out of the discussion.

That's like saying, yes, our overall team free throw shooting is only mediocre,( even though we spend more on our roster than anyone else), but hey, we do have three players who shoot over 90%.

[coldfish]

Low cost? Last time I checked, the US spent more per capita for health care than any country in the world, and our outcomes were only about 19th best, tied with countries like Croatia.

If you tell someone who has healthcare now that his employer will drop it and the government will pick it up at the cost of a 15% VAT, its going to cost him more. Your typical person pays more out of pocket. Overall the cost is higher in the US but its largely covered by employers.

As far as quality of system, let's shoot the fat people and then compare.
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/concord-2.htm
Here is a more apples to apples comparison. Out of the 7 major western health care systems, the US ranks:
1st for breast cancer survival
1st for colon cancer survival
2nd for lung cancer survival
1st for prostate cancer survival
4th for leukemia survival

When you are talking about going from the US to the UK for something like breast cancer, you are talking about a ton of dead women. The difference would amount to 14,000 extra fatalities in the US every year for just that one problem.

These are the type of inconvenient facts that are frequently left out of the discussion.

That's like saying, yes, our overall team free throw shooting is only mediocre,( even though we spend more on our roster than anyone else), but hey, we do have three players who shoot over 90%.

Hey, as long as you are up front and tell everyone "Hey, most of you are going to pay more for worse service and 10's of thousands more of you will die than would have otherwise but on average it will be better" then go for it.

[PaKii94]

Why can't we have both better healthcare AND lower costs? It doesn't have to be one or the other

[musiqsoulchild]

The US medical system has done a fantastic job with covid so far. They have identified treatment methodologies and quickly distributed them nationally. As we are learning, ventilators are a bad idea. Giving people oxygen in other ways has drastically reduced fatality rates. Our doctors and nurses deserve an incredible amount of respect.

This is an unfortunate truth though. The US is certainly undercounting deaths but its by 20%. The numbers in europe are far higher though with estimates as high as 50%. Some of the stories out of Italy, Spain and the UK are abhorrent. If the US had the same case fatality ratio that the UK has, there would be 320,000 more dead americans.

Some of the nationalized health care systems have done well (Germany, Canada) but many have done just a terrible job. The US is going to have the lowest infection fatality rate in the world by a good bit.

Its sickening just how many infections we have had and I blame that squarely on Trump. As I have said before, his performance (or lack thereof) on this is going to be studied for centuries. That said, let's not hold up a lot of these other countries as wonderful examples of competence. Just because the news isn't running stories on just how bad the NHS did here doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Fish, I do think we have an underlying public health problem. Covid is exploiting that shift underbelly.

We have a large population that already has several pre-existing red flags that Covid is just converting into ICU hospitalizations.

I think we as Americans need to really rethink our priorities going forward. Health is everything.

Covid really hasn't done anything to exploit that.

Regardless, our health care is too expensive for society in general and too many people have limited health care options. That said, the majority of people have cheap access to fantastic health care through retirement or their employer. We can't lose sight of that. People really oversimplify this issue and speak in half truths. There are a lot of uncomfortable realities out there, like:
- These other nations don't have free health care. They pay for it with VAT which would take away a considerable percentage of your purchasing power (ie standard of living).
- Other nations benefit off the US overpaying for healthcare. We pay the world's drug and treatment development costs. If we cut way down, the world's medical system might stagnate.
- England has a rather large private health care system on top of its public one. Apparently a pretty large number of their citizens see the need to find alternative health care. Canada? See below.
etc.

I'm all for a better system but let's not lose sight of what we have.

On a personal anecdotal level, if I drive down to the Cleveland Clinic and walk through the long term parking lot, a lot of the cars will have Ontario plates. If the US starts rationing care, where can I go?

I was trying to be kind.

The health problem that I am referencing is an individual problem:

Fat
Diabetic
Cardiac issues
Cancer is rampant
Piss poor diet
Sedentary lifestyle

I am talking about how Covid is exploiting that .

[dice]

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

Low cost? Last time I checked, the US spent more per capita for health care than any country in the world, and our outcomes were only about 19th best, tied with countries like Croatia.

If you tell someone who has healthcare now that his employer will drop it and the government will pick it up at the cost of a 15% VAT, its going to cost him more. Your typical person pays more out of pocket. Overall the cost is higher in the US but its largely covered by employers.

As far as quality of system, let's shoot the fat people and then compare.
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/concord-2.htm
Here is a more apples to apples comparison. Out of the 7 major western health care systems, the US ranks:
1st for breast cancer survival
1st for colon cancer survival
2nd for lung cancer survival
1st for prostate cancer survival
4th for leukemia survival

i'm sure that the US does very well in other things as well. but then again, vs comparable nations the US has...

-worse than average mortality rate for hemorrhagic strokes
-worse than average for diseases of the circulatory system
-worse than average for respiratory diseases
-merely average for heart attack mortality rate (disregarding those who died w/o being hospitalized, of course)
-merely average for obstetric trauma during natural childbirth
-a 70% higher death rate for endocrine/nutritional/metabolic diseases
-highest % of adults (19%) who have experienced medical, medication or lab errors/delays in the last 2 years
-post-op suture rupture rate that is double the average

% of adults able to make a same or next day appointment when needed care, 2016:

77 netherlands

67 australia

57 UK
56 france
53 germany
51 USA
49 sweden
43 canada

apples to apples is great when you also avoid picking the cherries

When you are talking about going from the US to the UK for something like breast cancer, you are talking about a ton of dead women. The difference would amount to 14,000 extra fatalities in the US every year for just that one problem.

-which is 8 additional breast cancer deaths per 100,000 women
-on the other side of the coin, the USA sees around 220 additional infant deaths per 100,000 over the UK. and 480 additional vs finland (whose rate is lowest in the world) ****ing infants!

Watch on YouTube

that coming from one of the few people who has the perspective of having had access to the canadian system as a lower middle class individual as well as access to the american system as a filthy rich individual. of course, he and his family and friends apparently never experienced the downsides of the canadian system that some obviously do

[dice]

If you tell someone who has healthcare now that his employer will drop it and the government will pick it up at the cost of a 15% VAT, its going to cost him more. Your typical person pays more out of pocket. Overall the cost is higher in the US but its largely covered by employers.

As far as quality of system, let's shoot the fat people and then compare.
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/concord-2.htm
Here is a more apples to apples comparison. Out of the 7 major western health care systems, the US ranks:
1st for breast cancer survival
1st for colon cancer survival
2nd for lung cancer survival
1st for prostate cancer survival
4th for leukemia survival

When you are talking about going from the US to the UK for something like breast cancer, you are talking about a ton of dead women. The difference would amount to 14,000 extra fatalities in the US every year for just that one problem.

These are the type of inconvenient facts that are frequently left out of the discussion.

That's like saying, yes, our overall team free throw shooting is only mediocre,( even though we spend more on our roster than anyone else), but hey, we do have three players who shoot over 90%.

Hey, as long as you are up front and tell everyone "Hey, most of you are going to pay more for worse service and 10's of thousands more of you will die than would have otherwise but on average it will be better" then go for it.

which, again, is false

it is almost NEVER mentioned that US wages have stagnated for 40+ years even though total compensation has gone up significantly. that is due to health care costs. because employers are responsible for insuring their employees. which brings up another thing that is never mentioned: our health care system makes it harder for many small businesses to survive and is a drag on corporate profits (outside of the grossly bloated medical industry, of course)

and even out of pocket costs have gone up. in 2010 22.5% of employee insurance plans had no deductible. in 2016 that was down to 16.5%. and the average family deductible increased over that period as well: from $1975 to $3069

out of pocket expenses for people ON MEDICARE is 14% of household spending. for people not on medicare it is only 6%. so again, like sales tax, our health care system is regressive. so what about the middle class...

total compensation per employee per hour nationwide:

median worker $28.40 ($22.97 payouts, $3.17 health insurance premiums, $2.26 legally required benefits*
90th percentile $74.17 ($63.07 payouts, $6.28 health insurance premiums, $4.82 legally required benefits)

*SS/medicare/unemployment/workers comp

-11.1% of the average worker's compensation is health insurance premiums vs. 8.5% for the more well-off worker
-8.0% of the average worker's compensation is in the form of legally required benefits vs 6.5% for the wealthier worker

germany and france pay 11.3% on health care as a percentage of income (GDP). lower for the average worker, i assume. the average american worker pays 11.1% on premiums alone. then add in deductibles, co-pays, associated stress (often while sick)...

[PrimzyBulls81]

Trump
Biden
All what I will say..

promise?

another trump supporter that wants nothing more than to grow up and be a troll just like him. it's not about the ideology (he has none other than self-interest). it's about revenge for centuries of losing the culture war. well, that losing has just continued under trump and will continue to. progress always wins out. and ignorant, self-serving intolerance inevitably goes the way of confederate relics

Trump is a smart guy, he just likes to goof around with stupid and fake media. He sometimes provoces deliberately some of them too.
He aint a war general like Bush and Obama, who attacked 6-7 countries in his mandates,for war profits and oil. Its not Trump's fault for your stupid healthcare, education and guns laws and money issues. Its the money lobbies behind the scenes. If you couldnt just print and print more money, I mean the FED does it, you would be sliding down the top countries ladder very quickly, but unlimited money supply and USD gives you power you many times dont deserve.

[chitowndish]

The important thing to look at with mortality numbers is how long the infection has been in an area. If you look at IL and NY we have already had a massive peak months ago so most of our cases are not active (I think we both have significantly under 50% of our active case rate). It takes time for people to die of this and that time has occurred for IL and NY but it hasn't happened for Florida or a lot of these recent hot spots, the demographics in Florida do not look good either if the coronavirus gets out of control in Florida it will be one of the deadliest outbreaks in the world because of the concentration of elderly people and the combination of that with pre-existing conditions. This is an underrated aspect of what happened in Italy too they had a very aging population which is part of the reason they were hit so hard but their aging population eats a lot better than our population.

The coronavirus story is about in the middle right now I think some places have already been through their peak like Chicago, New York and a lot of north eastern states and the rest of the country is facing it now. If you look at the graphs of these new hot spots they locked down without even really seeing any Covid (which was why testing was important) and then they got upset that they locked down for no reason and are now finding out why. They need to respond quickly because rural hospitals can become overwhelmed much more easily and there are already a lot of rural areas underserved with healthcare without a pandemic going on meaning that even in the best of times it's hard to get healthcare in some areas and this is going to make it harder.

[moorhosj]

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

Please explain the cost of colonoscopies in the US (one of the most standard procedures one can get). In the US it costs $2,500 out-of-pocket even with good insurance. Other wester countries pay well under $1,000.

Americans go to Canada for healthcare all the time. Senator Rand Paul, a rich man, chose to have a procedure done in Canada, even with their socialist medicine.

American pharmaceutical companies spend more money on advertising than R&D.

[coldfish]

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

Please explain the cost of colonoscopies in the US (one of the most standard procedures one can get). In the US it costs $2,500 out-of-pocket even with good insurance. Other wester countries pay well under $1,000.

Americans go to Canada for healthcare all the time. Senator Rand Paul, a rich man, chose to have a procedure done in Canada, even with their socialist medicine.

American pharmaceutical companies spend more money on advertising than R&D.

I'll try to be polite but I can't explain what isn't true. I have pretty average health insurance and given family history, had a colonoscopy last year. It cost me like $150 out of pocket.

That $2500 is what the insurance company pays. What you quoted isn't "out of pocket" for a person with insurance.

.....

I'm all for improving our health care system, increasing access and reducing costs. The problem is that the people discussing M4A and such are in an echo chamber telling each other how smart they are while ignoring real issues with it.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2019/may/how-much-us-households-employer-insurance-spend-premiums-out-of-pocket

There is the real data. Other websites have done similar analysis. The median household with health insurance spends $3000 per year on premiums and out of pocket costs.

If we were in, say, Canada, we would have a national VAT that would take roughly twice that out of the median household's pocket to pay for health insurance.

That is kind of a problem.

If we are going to fix this, we can't start by lying to ourselves.

[MrSparkle]

The US is really two systems. Those with health care and those with marginal or none. Without healthcare coverage, the system sucks. With it (which is the majority of the population), the system offers world class healthcare with minimal wait times and a low cost.

Please explain the cost of colonoscopies in the US (one of the most standard procedures one can get). In the US it costs $2,500 out-of-pocket even with good insurance. Other wester countries pay well under $1,000.

Americans go to Canada for healthcare all the time. Senator Rand Paul, a rich man, chose to have a procedure done in Canada, even with their socialist medicine.

American pharmaceutical companies spend more money on advertising than R&D.

I'll try to be polite but I can't explain what isn't true. I have pretty average health insurance and given family history, had a colonoscopy last year. It cost me like $150 out of pocket.

That $2500 is what the insurance company pays. What you quoted isn't "out of pocket" for a person with insurance.

.....

I'm all for improving our health care system, increasing access and reducing costs. The problem is that the people discussing M4A and such are in an echo chamber telling each other how smart they are while ignoring real issues with it.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2019/may/how-much-us-households-employer-insurance-spend-premiums-out-of-pocket

There is the real data. Other websites have done similar analysis. The median household with health insurance spends $3000 per year on premiums and out of pocket costs.

If we were in, say, Canada, we would have a national VAT that would take roughly twice that out of the median household's pocket to pay for health insurance.

That is kind of a problem.

If we are going to fix this, we can't start by lying to ourselves.

That's because people aren't using their health insurance (to save money). I'll speak for my family and myself, lot of us have been self-employed, independent contractors, or small businesses - been a juggle between "catastrophe insurance" to basically pay the lowest premium possible and just insure in case of a near-death emergencies or major surgeries (relatively healthy people so it made sense). But that also meant we basically would never go to the doctor unless it was really, really necessary. And you know, over years, my dad got really bad hip and knee problems from minor injuries that added up until he needed a hip replacement... which when you add the premium, deductible, out-of-pocket limit, it cost around $20k or so with a decent plan.

My wife recently got corporate insurance. It's night-and-day. It's like a nearly-free 5-star hotel instead of ratty Motel 8 that costs $500 a stay with a mini-bar that costs $100 for a Coors Light. I don't know, I'm used to the BS because I've tried many different plans over the years. They all felt like highway robbery. Not to mention when the disputes for a bill come up with the more nuanced plans. Talk about anxiety. If I'm paying $600 a month as a 27 year old , and I'm healthy like 11 out of 12 months, can I at least not have to worry about the possibility of being snuck some $300 bill that happened to examine part of my *** that wasn't covered by the policy (j/k, but kind of)?

Now here's the problem; she hates her job and wants to go back to a smaller business or self-employment. Here's the catch; we're both getting older and we can really benefit from the insurance, but I don't want her to be miserable. So I guess we're going to have re-evaluate in the next year whether we take the big ole savings hit and play health care roulette again.