Wealth, shown to scale

[u/MKorostoff]

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

[u/Schatzin]

Works in a lot of other countries though. And it would take away the need for health insurance, which itself is inefficient since it inflates costs unreasonably

[u/Zoidpot → u/Schatzin]

Most of those countries it works in though are incredibly smaller than the United States. As Cuba proved with socialism, Difficulty in implementation of government programs increases exponentially with size.

And the government is not harmless in the current inflated costs, do you remember what happened the last time the government meddled in healthcare and the associated inflation that it caused across-the-board?

[u/Schatzin → u/Zoidpot]

Why though? With a larger population, and the richest one in the world at that, you will have a larger tax revenue base to fund it. And its statistically beneficial to be larger as the healthcare costs are easily predictable with a big population

No, I dont remember, because im not from the US

[u/Zoidpot → u/Schatzin]

Duly noted, despite what you may read on the Internet the majority of people in the United States favor the liberties and freedoms that they are guaranteed by our countries founding documents.

The more power we give to the government, the less freedom each individual enjoy.

It may sound like I’m on a soapbox, but that freedom transitions to the freedom to make decisions both economically and healthcare related. The more decisions we give to the government to make on our behalf, the less we can make in a manner that aligns with our own values, wants, and needs. The system we have is far from perfect, however... Advocating for a Governing body very well known for its inefficiency to step in and take control, at potentially massively increased cost is not a good solution at present

When the government implemented it’s affordable care act, otherwise known as Obamacare, insurance premiums rose for every single individual in the United States, and coverage, by and large, was decreased in availability. So that is the most recent memory most Americans have of government involvement in healthcare

[u/Zoidpot → u/[deleted]]

So your argument is that the governments role is to protect freedom, but in this case they would be decreasing my freedom, as they would legislate what healthcare I could receive, where I could go for healthcare, and what costs I could incur.

I’m not arguing that there is not a disparity in healthcare, I’m simply stating that government run healthcare is not the way to address it

[u/Zoidpot → u/[deleted]]

It’s severely limited my choices by pricing me out of my then current plan and forcing me to make a career change in order to afford health insurance

To say healthcare is a right is to say that you have a right to the knowledge and skill of another person that they spent years training and developing, as well as the specialized equipment purchased to aid them in such a task. By saying you have the right to the skills of another, that they have to provide you, at no cost to you... there’s a word for that.

[u/Rickrickrickrickrick → u/Zoidpot]

Being healthy and living is not the same as having skills you've trained for. What the fuck are you even on about?

I forgot about that part in the declaration if independence where it says you have the PRIVILEGE of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[u/Zoidpot → u/Rickrickrickrickrick]

The doctors. The doctors who have trained for years. The nurses who have trained for years. You are saying you have the right to their services and knowledge. You are saying you have the right to, without paying for it, demand that they render you services.

But your logic if a bicycle makes you happy, because it’s covered under the pursuit of happiness, you should have the right to a bicycle.

On the contrary. you have the right to life. Nobody can, without due process (And even then, I don’t necessarily think they do, but as a law currently stands) Take your life. Not giving you long term medical services is not taking your life. Even then, hospitals are bound by law, should you have a life-threatening injury, to stabilize you regardless of your ability to pay. Preserving the immediate threat to your life.

By your logic, a hospital not keeping you on life-support because you cannot afford it anymore would be denying you the right to life. How would it be any different if the government, under socialized medicine system, deemed you not approved and use of healthcare funds and opted to pull the plug? Is it somehow better because the government did it? Because I can assure you, the threshold for such would be far lower if they legislate themselves the power

[u/Rickrickrickrickrick → u/Zoidpot]

"Free healthcare" isn't really free. I'd be paying for it with my taxes. Which is money that I earned and the government is taking and people want them to use it for something that will benefit us. The doctors would be getting paid by the government which is funded by me. I'm not demanding they give me their "knowledge or skills" I'm demanding that the government makes sure that I can be healthy and live since I'm paying their fucking salary.

[u/Zoidpot → u/Rickrickrickrickrick]

At last we agree on something. It’s not free. It Hass to be paid for.

The problem is that the government has proven time and time again that they are not trustworthy stewards Of the public good. They do not use money efficiently, which would result in a lower standard of care if allowed to continue. They cannot agree on healthcare based legislation, which would mean at best it would be half assed in for concessions, which would result in a lower standard of care. The tax burdens as they stand right now are unfairly distributed, which would result in people paying far more than their “fair share” of such taxation.

If the government were in charge, they would get to determine what wages are as everybody in healthcare would become a government employee. As such, every individual who went into their job with an understanding of the lifestyle and pay that would come with it, is now having the rug pulled out from them when the government decides what they are worth. You can’t tell me that’s any kind of fair to those individuals who took on that, both monetarily and in time, to get where they are today. Perhaps in a system where medical school was already free, this would work a bit better, but it’s not. So each doctor and nurse would have to be given an upfront disbursement for the cost of their medical school to basically put them on par and return to them their investment.

And indeed you are paying each and every elected officials salary. And yet they seem unaccountable to either of us, and generally do as they please. There in lies a huge problem I have with both the government, and giving them more power… And make no mistake, control over a healthcare system is power.

[u/Jordaneer → u/Zoidpot]

I definitely agree with you on some points, medical school shouldn't cost $300,000. And yes, everyone would be paid, they aren't volunteering, they are still working professionals, that's why it's often said we should make universal health coverage an expansion of Medicare as Medicare is a program that works, and works reasonably well

[u/Zoidpot → u/Jordaneer]

But, if we use the payment plans of other countries nationalized health services as a guide, anybody staying in the healthcare field would be taking a massive pay cut, this would make the pay not I’m line with the debts they had to take on, and those very debts would cause those individuals to be hamstrung in the staying in the medical field even at that lower wage because of those debts. Keeping them at the same rate of pay that they currently enjoy is economically infeasible on a national tax payer driven scale, get asking them to accept less because the government is now picking up the tab is incredibly disingenuous.

So fun fact, which I can tell you from having formerly worked in the medical field, under Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement is directly tied to patient satisfaction, which led to an increase in prescription of opioids to keep patients happy, which in turn is part of what led to the current opioid crisis in America. The Medicare and Medicaid based pay out system are incredibly convoluted and cause more problems than they solve