Where the hell do you all live
My daughter spend the night in the ER for $1200 *included xrays and blood work*. 4 days in the hospital $2400.
Healthcare - Spiraling out of control
- Thread starter mikecarquote
- Start date
Where the hell do you all live
My daughter spend the night in the ER for $1200 *included xrays and blood work*. 4 days in the hospital $2400.
Let us recall the "Fable of the Shoes." In his 1973 "Libertarian Manifesto," the late Murray Rothbard argued that the biggest obstacle in the road out of serfdom was "status quo bias." In society, we're accustomed to rapid change. Not so with government. With police or firefighting or sanitation, government must do those things because that's what government has (allegedly) always done.
"So identified has the State become in the public mind with the provision of these services," he laments, "that an attack on State financing appears to many ... as an attack on the service itself." The libertarian who wants to get the government out of a certain business is "treated in the same way as he would be if the government had, for various reasons, been supplying shoes as a tax-financed monopoly from time immemorial."
If everyone had always gotten their shoes from the government, writes Rothbard, the proponent of shoe privatization would be greeted as a lunatic. "How could you?" defenders of the status quo would squeal. "You are opposed to the public, and to poor people, wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes ... if the government got out of the business? Be constructive! It's easy to be negative and smart-alecky about government, but tell us who would supply shoes? ... Suppose a poor person didn't have the money to buy a pair?"
Read more: Let's walk a mile in Libertarian Rothbard's shoes
"So identified has the State become in the public mind with the provision of these services," he laments, "that an attack on State financing appears to many ... as an attack on the service itself." The libertarian who wants to get the government out of a certain business is "treated in the same way as he would be if the government had, for various reasons, been supplying shoes as a tax-financed monopoly from time immemorial."
If everyone had always gotten their shoes from the government, writes Rothbard, the proponent of shoe privatization would be greeted as a lunatic. "How could you?" defenders of the status quo would squeal. "You are opposed to the public, and to poor people, wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes ... if the government got out of the business? Be constructive! It's easy to be negative and smart-alecky about government, but tell us who would supply shoes? ... Suppose a poor person didn't have the money to buy a pair?"
Read more: Let's walk a mile in Libertarian Rothbard's shoes
Where the hell do you all live
My daughter spend the night in the ER for $1200 *included xrays and blood work*. 4 days in the hospital $2400.
What year did this happen?
My dad just had an MRI on his shoulder.
The cost: $5,700.
Socal.
Right, because employers used to provide sick days, and counseling, and company workout facilities back in the 50s right?
It is broken by the government, which is not allowing the market to work. Why is it that the market can feed and clothe people, but it can't give them basic health care? Because the USG doesn't yet legislate how you must dress or specifically what you must eat.
You guys are supposed to be AM and IM ballers. You are supposed to know basic economics. Health care from work comes at the cost of salary. Salaries are falling because foreign labor is cheaper. It is cheaper because there has been declining capital investment in the US since 1971 when the dollar decoupled from gold. Persistent inflation through fiat money undermines the capital stock, reducing savings when interest rates are held artificially low.
The cost of an employee is a total cost, and health care has to be paid from somewhere. It is like taxes. Taxes are paid by the consumer in the form of higher prices, not by the company. Again, basic economics.
Just a few months ago - around Christmas. It's not like they did anything special. She had Pneumonia so beyond the xray and ER time it wasn't bad at all.
Maybe it's because it's the kid wing... who knows. We had great service and good care, but it is a small city hospital so maybe that makes a difference.
Maybe it's because it's the kid wing... who knows. We had great service and good care, but it is a small city hospital so maybe that makes a difference.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, trickykid. I'd love to dig more deeply into this stuff with you one day.
I was talking to a Starbucks manager a year ago. She had been with the company for many years, and knew their business well. We discussed how Starbucks worked with plantation owners in other countries (e.g. Ethiopia). She mentioned the company tried (sometimes unsuccessfully) to take care of the workers' by providing health insurance.
Starbucks didn't do so because the government mandated it (or, so she said). They did so because providing for the workers' health care needs meant they were likely to do a better job for them.
I'm sure there are problems since the company probably works with the plantation owners, some of whom are likely douchebags. But they try. More importantly, they try because it helps them to run their business better.
But their coffee still tastes like battery acid.
Zero argument that it's broken. But the 50's were a different time. You could and sort of did expect to be with the same employer (and have the same employee) for life back then.
And there are different levels of benefits that you mentioned.
Sure if you are a college educated man working in an office you can expect sick days (that may or not be paid), but no one expects you to be there for more than a few years anymore. They don't want to increase your wages, and you know you'll end up elsewhere.
But that car mechanic working 40 hours a week won't get paid when he's sick. he doesn't have a gym, and his counseling is the boss telling him to shut up and go fix that car
Odds are there is no affordable option to him for health care. When he finally gets hurt or sick enough he'll be in the hospital and you'll be paying for that when he can't pay his bill (*even if it's just through increased costs for services).The waitress supporting her kid(s) doesn't get those benefits...and has ZERO chance of making enough to provide her self or kid with healthcare. You will pay that through medicaid.
The construction worker who gets laid off every 6 months loses his insurance for several months a year -- because a laid off construction worker who had access to benefits can't afford Cobra for example.
It's a multitude of problems. Offering a national (even privatized) plan makes sense. The alternative sucks -- because you need that waitress, you need that construction worker, and you need that mechanic.
While the waitress would always probably have been in the "lower class" that mechanic and skilled construction worker used to be middle class. They aren't anymore - but they are 100 percent required for society to function. hell the middle class can't even afford real care at the moment. What chance do the lower income rungs have? Saying they should have a better education isn't an answer.... because we will always need them.
Those businesses you are touting that will take care of their workers sure aren't - or do you think they are? You can't possibly if you look at the blue collar class. You can't say that business will take care of their employees and look for the highest profit in the same sentence when there is a double digit unemployment rate.
Now I'm libertarian enough to not want government in our lives - but until we accept that half our society isn't getting anything near the treatment that they need to remain healthy and productive we are sticking our heads in the sand. It is costing us MORE in the long run than a nationalized system of basic care (no cosmetics, no frivolous shit) would cost.
Unless you plan to have half of america living in perpetual poverty and bad health at least.
I was a plumber for 10 years. I remember making choices about going to work sick or wondering how to pay the bills.... if you've never had to do that and worry about how you were also going to pay the doctor, good for you. If you expect to get your shitter fixed you have to think about them to --- not just the guys in a tie!
It's not free. Your dad and his employer share the benefit.
Meanwhile, your father is not taxed for the benefit. His employer gets to take a tax deduction.
Except for increasing the age that parent's can carry kids - and kids/young adults are cheap to insure anyway - it's the same as it ever was.
Because of the tax situation, we are all subsidizing other people's heath care anyway. Even G.W. Bush pointed that out.
I understand your position, but I don't share several of them. I'll explain.
While I see the value the NHS provides to the consumer, in my experience, healthcare and social service budgets tend only to get larger, not smaller. The number of people eligible for these services continue to grow annually, and the number of services provided continue to increase. To assume that costs might go down next year is contrary to the data, barring serious reform.
So it's expected to grow and grow a lot. It's expected to eat up a lot of our taxes. It's expected to become ever more bureaucratic, and it's already barely sustainable. What happens 50 to 100 years down the road?
If you were facing such a monstrosity, and could recall a life before universal healthcare where people did not routinely die due to their inability to afford healthcare (charities nearly always kicked in), why would you root for said monstrosity?
At least this is my experience in the US. If it's different in the UK, tell me why. I'm curious and I'd love to know what the US needs to implement.
Aside from that is the question of rights which also tends to fall victim to "rights creep". To life liberty and the pursuit of happiness we have added equal opportunities and healthcare. At least one place in the US has added cell-phone service as a right to all citizens. There are discussions that allude to internet service now being deemed a human right. Sex is now a right in a marriage according to French law.
What an unwieldy concept of human rights we create with this patchwork of privileges that discount the costs associated with them. To provide opportunities to some, you have to take them away from others. Rights all come with costs, responsibilities and sacrifices that is never taken into account soberly.
Surely you agree, yet you don't see that as an issue worth considering?
This rights problem exists even in healthcare. To provide all people the right to free healthcare, you rob people of their right to their own property and skills by reappropriating them by force.
What if someone doesn't want to pay for others' healthcare and in exchange is willing to forgo any benefits he might gain? Are there any such provisions protecting peoples' property rights?
No, because in the socially constructed, arbitrary, constantly evolving notion of what is and what isn't a right, property rights aren't trendy.
I mean, tell me I'm not being reasonable here by expecting some level of control over my property, rather than see fifty percent or higher of my earnings, my property that I have cultivated through my labor be taken from me and given to the government to do with as they please with or without my say in it.
What makes the benefit universally more valuable than its responsibility in a community, thereby deeming it a necessity?
Still better than paying 5k per hospital visit. One major surgery in the states and most people can forget about ever becoming debt free.
Why make an intelligent argument when you can construct a bunch of fictional victim narratives to emotionally blackmail people to your point of view?But that car mechanic working 40 hours a week won't get paid when he's sick. he doesn't have a gym, and his counseling is the boss telling him to shut up and go fix that car
Nice one bro!
I enjoy that you can't format a post and like welfare. I think it validates my worldview.Enjoy
Why deflect a response or ignore the intelligent argument that is buried in my use of 'people'?
Those are NOT fictional people. Replace the "industries" I used as an example with the words blue collar workers and you will be fine.
And my point remains even if it is uncomfortable - there are more than half of the population STRUGGLING with healthcare where their employers don't offer it, or their wages are so low they can't afford their share.
Any attempt to "FIX" the healthcare fuckup in our country is going to have to deal with the middle class, blue collar workers, and the working poor.
Pretending that there can be a transition from where we are to wherever we are going and implying that "business" will take care of their employees is just a cop-out.
Lost my post, an all too frequent fucking occurrence here lately.
Please, some economics...
Make your point without the theatrics. Assertions aren't an argument.
Economics.
Economics.
Lemme guess, "because!"?
Please, some economics...
I agree with you for the most part. However, the system is broke to the point where while you wait on Economics, A HUGE percentage of the population is going to suffer badly.
There has to be a bridge of some kind.... or it's never going to change.
How is that any different from a health care plan? If I'm paying $150 a month for health care and I need $200,000 worth of chemotherapy, who's paying for that? health insurance is a real bargain for the recipients, not so much for the providers.
Not to mention holy fuck $15k a year in the US for family coverage?! I just got a quote from a major health insurance provider here with the absolute top coverage, priority private room in a private hospital, with zero excess and all extras included like dental, optical, teeth whitening, laser eye surgery, speech therapy, chiropractor, massage, acupuncture etc for a family and it's $5500 a year.
Protip: CTRL-A, CTRL-C before you submit.
Otherwise, staying out of this thread. LOL.