Free healthcare in the US ?

[spice756]

Do you think free healthcare in the US will work? Do to the major debt ,economy the way it is , and US government lack of money that free healthcare will work?

What I'm getting at is the government will set up free healthcare but run it so bad and lack of money going to it to get people to go to the private sector and say I told you free healthcare does not work.

The government do to they are not socialists but represent the business will allow sloppy free healthcare to say I told you free healthcare does not work.Some say the US was giving Canada money if they do not put much money into healthcare so Canada slowing turning into the US .

[redguard2009]

Full-blown universal healthcare would be a traumatic experience for the US economy. At best a transition towards split public/private healthcare would be necessary; clinics and hospitals which provide free healthcare (all services and costs being paid by the government) alongside private healthcare (private clinics and hospitals).

Not to mention the fact that private corporate interests would do everything possible to sabotage any socialization effort. And corporate interests in the United States are unimaginably more powerful in the US economy and public offices than in Canada.

[Labor Shall Rule]

The amount of wasteful spending devoted to corporate welfare and military spending could definitely be enough to provide health care to everybody.

The very high profits of Humana, Aetna, Centene, and WellPoint, as well as the fact that a sizable part of their revenue goes to advertising Viagara and Prozac products while a vaccine for the flu is scarce, just shows that the level of financial parasitism in the health care industry is disproportionately high. If it was put under national medical boards, owned and operated by doctors and patients themselves while centralized into a publically-owned bank's hands, such waste could be cut, and quality rehabilitative, skilled nursing and extended care could be focused on.

[spartan]

Healthcare is never free.

I think what you mean is publicly funded healthcare like we have in Britain with the National Health Service (NHS).

If that is what Obama is aiming for then good luck to him as though it is far from perfect it is still ten times better then getting into debt everytime you get a major illness and need lots of treatment like it is now in the US.

The trouble with a national health service in America is how does it deal with the powerful competition from private health services and drug companies?

One way is to make it mandatory but Obama said he isn't going to do that.

Another way is to simply let the people make the choice and when it comes down to it people will never pass up an opportunity for receiving something beneficial (healthcare) for free.

I mean if you are a blue-collar American earning less then 250,000 Dollars a year would you rather pay tens of thousands of those 250,000 Dollars for your wife's cancer treatment or put a couple of thousand of it a year (along with every other citizen) into a healthcare system where your input covers all treatment and care?

I know which I would prefer and it certainly isn't the former!

Anyway there was problems early on for the NHS in the UK when all the doctors unions were threatning to not join the new NHS and instead remain private.

When it became known that most people in the country would rather have free healthcare and that these non-NHS private doctors would consequently lose the majority of their "customers" and source of income they finally relented and joined the new NHS, realising that getting a government paycheck and being overseen by bureaucrats was probably better then no paycheck and patients to treat at all.

Bevan and the people of Britain won against the greedy capitalists!

Can this happen in America? Yes it bloody can and yes it bloody will if Obama and the Democrats have the political will to do it (which is another topic entirely).

Do the Democrats have an equivalent to this great man right now?

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/67/62067-004-1E116C04.jpg

[Zeus the Moose]

Nye Bevan? I doubt it...

[spice756]

Healthcare is never free.

I think what you mean is publicly funded healthcare like we have in Britain with the National Health Service (NHS).

If that is what Obama is aiming for then good luck to him as though it is far from perfect it is still ten times better then getting into debt everytime you get a major illness and need lots of treatment like it is now in the US.



I'm not sure how the UK gets free Healthcare , if it so much every year people pay go to Healthcare taxes or just so much money of workers pay
goes to Healthcare taxes .Like 20% of you pay goes to Healthcare taxes or every month you pay Healthcare taxes or just taxes .

But hay police ,fire and EMS are not free you pay taxes .Or you school or library you pay taxes .Or you road or highway you pay taxes so on.

The point of taxes is you get service for free.Than going to a hospital saying you need $50,000 for treatment.

It is how the the goverment gets taxes to provide free service :lol:



Another way is to simply let the people make the choice and when it comes down to it people will never pass up an opportunity for receiving something beneficial (healthcare) for free.

The problem with this is the poor ,lower class will go to state run healthcare and the people who have money to private run healthcare to get better treatment or done faster.The private run healthcare will lower the standard of state run healthcare .



I mean if you are a blue-collar American earning less then 250,000 Dollars a year would you rather pay tens of thousands of those 250,000 Dollars for your wife's cancer treatment or put a couple of thousand of it a year (along with every other citizen) into a healthcare system where your input covers all treatment and care?


Is this joke most people in the US do not make $60,00 + a year and people pay x amout on health insurance or you foot the bill for healthcare .Most health insurance are crap and do not cover your treatment .Look the movie stars and pop stars they do not have to get health insurance they have more money they know what to do with it.

[progressive_lefty]

For the persons that suggest that universal healthcare could come to the US, where does that optimism come from? The drug companies would NEVER let it happen.

We all remember Clinton, he was going to establish it, he's own party said NO.

[Rosa Provokateur]

Free health-care can only work on a local level. If tried nation-wide, it'll fail.

[KC]

Free Healthcare will not happen in the US. The private lobby is much too strong.

[Elway]

I believe it will happen, though of course I'm not referring to "free" health care, as nothing is free.

To those who say it will never happen due to the powerful interests of corporate medical and insurance lobbies, I say to them that something has turned a corner that many, on both the far right and far left can't accept: Americans, or a large number of them, no longer believe in capitalism as THE definition of the economic model.

I don't mean that Americans are rushing to socialism; not by any means. My argument is that the corprate welfare state has shot themselves in the foot, regarding this $1 trillion, "We had to do it to stimulate the economy" nonsense."

When First Lady Clinton presented a plan of this kind to Congress, the health care insurance lobby ran ads on tv about two idiot 60 year olds who couldn't understand what the hell it was all about. If the insurance companies try it again it won't work. Their credibility's shot to hell, as is the credibility of most corporate execs.

I believe more Americans are voting their situation, which is shitty. BY THAT I DO NOT MEAN THEY ARE VOTING THEIR CLASS INTEREST. I mean they are ANGRY, and on levels I've never seen Americans angry before.

I believe a national health program of some kind, akin to one in Europe, will occur over the next 10 years.

[Charles Xavier]

Private lobbying was very strong in Canada too, in fact when first introduced the Doctors went on Strike because they wanted to profit off of the suffering of others. Canadians pay less per capita on healthcare than the US despite more people using it. Only a right-wing social democrat would join the bandwagon, they will never do it so I'm not going to waste my time struggling for it. That is a very anti-democratic voice for healthcare.

You can only be a communist if you demand and struggle for democratic gains within society, Healthcare being one of them.

The poll doesn't make any sense so I am not going to vote in it.

[BraneMatter]

Healthcare is never free.

I think what you mean is publicly funded healthcare like we have in Britain with the National Health Service (NHS).

If that is what Obama is aiming for then good luck to him as though it is far from perfect it is still ten times better then getting into debt everytime you get a major illness and need lots of treatment like it is now in the US.

The trouble with a national health service in America is how does it deal with the powerful competition from private health services and drug companies?

One way is to make it mandatory but Obama said he isn't going to do that.

Another way is to simply let the people make the choice and when it comes down to it people will never pass up an opportunity for receiving something beneficial (healthcare) for free.

I mean if you are a blue-collar American earning less then 250,000 Dollars a year would you rather pay tens of thousands of those 250,000 Dollars for your wife's cancer treatment or put a couple of thousand of it a year (along with every other citizen) into a healthcare system where your input covers all treatment and care?

I know which I would prefer and it certainly isn't the former!

Anyway there was problems early on for the NHS in the UK when all the doctors unions were threatning to not join the new NHS and instead remain private.

When it became known that most people in the country would rather have free healthcare and that these non-NHS private doctors would consequently lose the majority of their "customers" and source of income they finally relented and joined the new NHS, realising that getting a government paycheck and being overseen by bureaucrats was probably better then no paycheck and patients to treat at all.

Bevan and the people of Britain won against the greedy capitalists!

Can this happen in America? Yes it bloody can and yes it bloody will if Obama and the Democrats have the political will to do it (which is another topic entirely).

Do the Democrats have an equivalent to this great man right now?

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/67/62067-004-1E116C04.jpg

I believe you have pointed the correct path, but getting it passed in the U.S., with the powerful medical, insurnace, and drug industry lobbyists, is not going to be easy.

Obama's plan leaves things in private "for-profit" hands, and that will surely bankrupt us and there will be massive corruption. It is not the answer.

We need true socialized medicine, with a system of hospitals and clinics, much like the VA system, for everyone. We must nationalize the entire medical, insurnace, and drug industries, and take the health care system totally out of private hands.

The U.S. already spends far more on healthcare than any country with socialized medicine, like the U.K. The money is there, it just has to be taken out of the hands of the greedy medical industry.

[cyu]

Haha, nice choices. Way to be optimistic about free healthcare :laugh:

[ev]

Free healthcare in the US? Ahahahahahahaha!!!!
The idea of that existing in the near future of the US is hilarious..

[Labor Shall Rule]

Obama's plan leaves things in private "for-profit" hands, and that will surely bankrupt us and there will be massive corruption. It is not the answer.

Agreed.

A single-payer health insurance plan would jeopardize the labor market for the private insurance industry to Obama - certainly not true whatsoever, redirected private and public investment could easily minimize the rising marginal costs of a wasteful medicinal system.

[spice756]

I believe you have pointed the correct path, but getting it passed in the U.S., with the powerful medical, insurnace, and drug industry lobbyists, is not going to be easy.

That is the dam problem there are no lefty in power just moderate conservative and ultra conservative government that get way too much money and represent the rich and buissnesess.

My fear is if they did have free healthcare the government will allow it to be run sloppy to try to prove to people it does not work.



Obama's plan leaves things in private "for-profit" hands, and that will surely bankrupt us and there will be massive corruption. It is not the answer.

sorry I don't understand how his plan you will have massive corruption or be bankrupt .


We need true socialized medicine, with a system of hospitals and clinics, much like the VA system, for everyone. We must nationalize the entire medical, insurnace, and drug industries, and take the health care system totally out of private hands.

But how will this happen? The government does not want this to happen .And will try very hard and so is the media to stop this.



The U.S. already spends far more on healthcare than any country with socialized medicine, like the U.K. The money is there, it just has to be taken out of the hands of the greedy medical industry

If they have no free healthcare than where does that money go or what is it use for?

[Lynx]

Spice756:
It's consumed by paperwork, fraudulently billed to those who have insurance and extracted as profit.

[spice756]

Are you saying the government is giving insurance companies money or hospitals?

[Lynx]

Are you saying the government is giving insurance companies money or hospitals?
The US system is a mix of private and public funding. In some cases, the government pays (Medicare, Medicaid). Sometimes, when a hospital treats people who are uninsured, they are left with having to find a way to recoup those costs. So they pad the bills of patients who do have insurance. This leads to higher insurance premiums.
A lot of money is wasted on administrative costs, as hospitals, insurers and the government try to find ways to reduce costs or 'pass the buck'. This is money not spent on treating patients.

[spice756]

The US system is a mix of private and public funding. In some cases, the government pays (Medicare, Medicaid). Sometimes, when a hospital treats people who are uninsured, they are left with having to find a way to recoup those costs. .

So if Medicare or Medicaid pays the people who are uninsured what is the incentive to get insurance ?



So they pad the bills of patients who do have insurance. This leads to higher insurance premiums.
A lot of money is wasted on administrative costs, as hospitals, insurers and the government try to find ways to reduce costs or 'pass the buck'. This is money not spent on treating patients.


So all this insurance the people pay and government pays to Medicare or Medicaid ?

[AAFCE]

I dont see it happening but if it does... Thank the Matrix for programming such a wonderful blessing!

[Lynx]

So if Medicare or Medicaid pays the people who are uninsured what is the incentive to get insurance ?
If you own a house or stuff you are at risk for bankruptcy. I believe there are circumstances when it is better to have zero insurance, but I don't have any details.


So all this insurance the people pay and government pays to Medicare or Medicaid ?

What is not paid for by government programs is paid for by private insurers or by the patient. Insurance is paid for by the employer, by you, or through your HMO (don't know how HMO's work). Drug manufacturers also make profit and that too is a health care cost. I live in Canada, so I can't say for sure how their system really works.

[Charles Xavier]

You can't be a communist if you are against nationalizing health care.

The US Government has a lot of money, they have millions and billions to spend on war, give huge bailouts to private companies, they have billions to give in corporate tax cuts.

[Q]

Do you think free healthcare in the US will work? Do to the major debt ,economy the way it is , and US government lack of money that free healthcare will work?
Free healthcare will indeed fail in a capitalist framework, nationalising the big monopolies is necessary to be able to fund this and other public services.


What I'm getting at is the government will set up free healthcare but run it so bad and lack of money going to it to get people to go to the private sector and say I told you free healthcare does not work.

The government do to they are not socialists but represent the business will allow sloppy free healthcare to say I told you free healthcare does not work.Some say the US was giving Canada money if they do not put much money into healthcare so Canada slowing turning into the US .

In the UK the government is using the same strategy of underfunding the NHS to make further cuts and privatisations. That being said, the NHS was instituted as a major victory of the working class to deflect revolution after the second world war. A free healthcare system in the US today would be a hugely progressive step, why would the capitalists willingly want to spell out to working class people that an alternative is possible?

They won't.

The only way free accessable healthcare is going to happen is by the working class movement organised in campaigns to achieve it, forcing free healthcare from the capitalists. It is our job as socialists to point out that the only lasting way to free healthcare is by abolishing the system based on making profits.

[Charles Xavier]

they have money, the labour movement needs to step in to stop this shit but they are almost all led right-wing social democrats who sit on their hands because while they don't like private healthcare they think its inevitable to privatize

Public health care works and has worked under capitalism for many many years, the underfunding is not accidentally but done on purpose to destroy the system. they could raise taxes on the rich. In fact Canada has a lower corperate tax rate than the US.

[Comrade B]

The US has shown that they clearly don't give a shit how huge of a debt they are in, they will just continue pretending money exists until the countries they owe demand their money back. This of course, means that the country is inevitably fucked to becoming extraordinarily poor, but until then, they could easily pretend to have the money to support a national health insurance agency for everyone, just as they pretend to have the money to wage wars world wide.

[spice756]

they have money, the labour movement needs to step in to stop this shit but they are almost all led right-wing social democrats who sit on their hands because while they don't like private healthcare they think its inevitable to privatize

Public health care works and has worked under capitalism for many many years, the underfunding is not accidentally but done on purpose to destroy the system. they could raise taxes on the rich. In fact Canada has a lower corperate tax rate than the US.


Do you think the NDP will fix this in Canada?



retending money exists until the countries they owe demand their money back



You mean the money they borrow from China and Japan?

[Charles Xavier]

Do you think the NDP will fix this in Canada?



You mean the money they borrow from China and Japan?

No the NDP are a class collaborationist party, they will just stop the hemorrhaging of the health care system, not save it. It was the trade unions and working people of Canada that fought for health care. Healthcare is decentralized to the provincial level. The Ontario Health Coalition needs to be built up to fight back. But the fucking NDP sabotage the Health Coalition for their own electoral means and when they finished with it they cast it aside.

And they call us sectarian.

[spice756]

No the NDP are a class collaborationist party, they will just stop the hemorrhaging of the health care system, not save it


What do you mean by class collaborationist are you saying they are for the working class?

By hemorrhaging of the health care system are you saying they will allow it to get bad so they can use it has votes to get in to fix it?

[Q]

What do you mean by class collaborationist are you saying they are for the working class?
He's saying the NDP are working with (collaborating) the bourgeoisie.

By hemorrhaging of the health care system are you saying they will allow it to get bad so they can use it has votes to get in to fix it?
Could you rephrase that? I don't understand what you mean.

[Charles Xavier]

The NDP are working with the bourgeoisie to dismantle health care. They are doing this in Saskatchewan, in Ontario, in Manitoba, where they got elected into government. The NDP here in Ontario under Bob Rae lead the charge for attacks against working people, which was accelerated under Mike Harris. The NDP only take a strong stand when the trade union movement is ready to fight hard for something, otherwise they will sit on their hands, trying to gain more votes at the expense of working people.

[spice756]

The NDP here in Ontario under Bob Rae lead the charge for attacks against working people, which was accelerated under Mike Harris. The NDP only take a strong stand when the trade union movement is ready to fight hard for something, otherwise they will sit on their hands, trying to gain more votes at the expense of working people.


So than really they are don't that much better than the conservative.Than what is the NDP for now if any thing?

Why is the NDP doing this ?


It was the trade unions and working people of Canada that fought for health care

Can you explain this better? And what year did this happen ?



The Ontario Health Coalition needs to be built up to fight back


Who are they? And why are they doing nothing ?

[red-carnations]

You can't be a communist if you are against nationalizing health care.

The US Government has a lot of money, they have millions and billions to spend on war, give huge bailouts to private companies, they have billions to give in corporate tax cuts.

INDEED!!!! The re-distribution of wealth, stopping the bailouts, ending the war etc.etc. would absolutely cover national healthcare and then some!!! Healthcare..Food..Housing..etc.etc FOR ALL is an important part of socialism..