The US Needs a National, Universal Healthcare coverage plan

I\'m reviving this thread because I found a great article that perfectly describes the competitive disadvantage that corporate funded heathcare and pension funds have produced for our american companies.

This is worth reading.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060828fa_fact

BTW, this is only a short exerpt.  Please read the whole article.  It\'s really interesting!

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Here, surely, is the absurdity of a system in which individual employers are responsible for providing their own employee benefits. It penalizes companies for doing what they ought to do. General Motors, by American standards, has an old workforce: its average worker is much older than, say, the average worker at Google. That has an immediate effect: health-care costs are a linear function of age. The average cost of health insurance for an employee between the ages of thirty-five and thirty-nine is $3,759 a year, and for someone between the ages of sixty and sixty-four it is $7,622. This goes a long way toward explaining why G.M. has an estimated sixty-two billion dollars in health-care liabilities. The current arrangement discourages employers from hiring or retaining older workers. But don’t we want companies to retain older workers—to hire on the basis of ability and not age? In fact, a system in which companies shoulder their own benefits is ultimately a system that penalizes companies for offering any benefits at all. Many employers have simply decided to let their workers fend for themselves. Given what has so publicly and disastrously happened to companies like General Motors, can you blame them?

Or consider the continuous round of discounts and rebates that General Motors—a company that lost $8.6 billion last year—has been offering to customers. If you bought a Chevy Tahoe this summer, G.M. would give you zero-per-cent financing, or six thousand dollars cash back. Surely, if you are losing money on every car you sell, as G.M. is, cutting car prices still further in order to boost sales doesn’t make any sense. It’s like the old Borsht-belt joke about the haberdasher who lost money on every hat he made but figured he’d make up the difference on volume. The economically rational thing for G.M. to do would be to restructure, and sell fewer cars at a higher profit margin—and that’s what G.M. tried to do this summer, announcing plans to shutter plants and buy out the contracts of thirty-five thousand workers. But buyouts, which turn active workers into pensioners, only worsen the company’s dependency ratio. Last year, G.M. covered the costs of its four hundred and fifty-three thousand retirees and their dependents with the revenue from 4.5 million cars and trucks. How is G.M. better off covering the costs of four hundred and eighty-eighty thousand dependents with the revenue from, say, 4.2 million cars and trucks? This is the impossible predicament facing the company’s C.E.O., Rick Wagoner. Demographic logic requires him to sell more cars and hire more workers; financial logic requires him to sell fewer cars and hire fewer workers.

Under the circumstances, one of the great mysteries of contemporary American politics is why Wagoner isn’t the nation’s leading proponent of universal health care and expanded social welfare. That’s the only way out of G.M.’s dilemma. But, from Wagoner’s reticence on the issue, you’d think that it was still 1950, or that Wagoner believes he’s the Prime Minister of Ireland. “One thing I’ve learned is that corporate America has got much more class solidarity than we do—meaning union people,” the U.S.W.’s Ron Bloom says. “They really are afraid of getting thrown out of their country clubs, even though their objective ought to be maximizing value for their shareholders.”

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Wow, nice to see what I wrote over a year ago sounded pretty smart.

Interesting debate.  I can see the benefits of both sides but still have to go with a non-universal plan.  Low taxes is one of the reasons USA is so great.

What we really need is some regulation of insurance companies.  National healthcare won\'t happen here - too many people.  Though at the same time medical costs continue to skyrocket and insurance companies are declining to pay for more even though they continue to raise their costs.

This would only encourage people not to work and go to the doctor more often.  Canada has this and they don\'t treat illnesses quickly because there is usually a nice long wait to see any type of doctor.  National healthcare screams Socialism - we are a Capitalist society Core.  We reward those who work and not those who want a free ride.  National healthcare does not encourage hard work and would only weaken our economy.  The Healthcare industry wouldn\'t ever go along with this.  It certainly wouldn\'t be worth going to medical school under this plan and accumulate student loan debt only to be paid a capped government rate for your work.  I could go on, but national healthcare will not happen.

I should tell you, that here in Canada there is not a long wait, and we get to choose our own doctors.  The costs of a visit/checkup/tests are all standardized, and the doctor you choose gets paid that amount by the provincial health plan.  I generally go in same day for a regular doctor appointment.

There are some issues right now, mainly with wait times for more \'serious\' issues.  High-end imaging and treatment for serious illness might have weeks or month wait times (and if you want to fork out 200k-300k you can have it done right away in the US).  There\'s also a bit of a shortfall of new doctors in the country; however, that\'s more do to with insuficient native supply in med-school, and our system relying heavily on imigrant doctors that are only here for a few years to specialize.

The best way, I think, to look at universal health care is to compare it with public insurance.  Everyone pays into a fund, and if you are the unlucky person to get ill (especially a serious illness), your life isn\'t crippled trying to pay the medical bills.  By keeping control public, prices are determined by the government, and there is no gouging of the desperate by medical corporations.  Doctors and clinics make excellent livings, and people fell confident that they will be cared for in any eventuality - basically getting what you pay for in taxes.

To me, the idea that people would sit around trying to get sick or something if they had health care seems foolish.  Lots of the time, I get to nip a major illness in the bud because I go see my family GP within a few days for any serious illness, probably saving me and my dependants (employer, family) much more hassle and time.  I just don\'t see how universal health care would give someone a \'free ride\'.  There\'s lots of things people still have to work for, health is just one of them (house, car, clothes, \'stuff\' for the house, going out, etc, etc).

To me, the idea that people would sit around trying to get sick or something if they had health care seems foolish.  I just don\'t see how universal health care would give someone a \'free ride\'.  There\'s lots of things people still have to work for, health is just one of them (house, car, clothes, \'stuff\' for the house, going out, etc, etc).

Been to an American Emergency Room lately?  Some people go there with no health insurance for an aspirin or even if it is just hot outside so they can sit in the air conditioning.  I am not kidding.

Also in Canada - you don\'t have the population we do.  For small countries national healthcare may work, but not here.

seriously...32 million vs 279 million

Everything scales.  Do it statewide if scale is too much to handle.  I\'m surprised Florida didn\'t do it already....