Universal Health Care? BAD IDEA!?

Currenlty there are 44 million people in America without health insurance. If all these people were able to see the doctor on a regular basis as a result
of UHC, let's call it one annual check-up, and once a quarter for other ailments, that would ammount to 220 million additonal doctor's visits every year.
That would mean if the doctors we had worked 40 hours a week, for 50 weeks a year and can see a patient every 15 minutes, we would still need 27,500 new doctors
to meet the demand. To get these new doctors we would need to provide subsidies for medical school, tax credits for student loans, tax credits for buildings and
office space devoted to medical purposes, and higher fees for medical practices to encourage people to take up the stethoscope. The American Government
spends 1.5 trillion annually on health care already. UHC would increase this cost by %30 initially to a whopping addition $150 billion dollars.

As UHC becomes availabe, the people that WERE insured, won't be any longer because why would people continue to pay for insurance premiums when there is
"free" health care? So now, the demand gets bigger for doctors, and the cost to the government spirals higher. Now, the demand for doctors will be
so high, and the cost will become so unmanageable, that the government will have to start restrict the medical spending. Instituting price "fixes" for doctors
which means that it will start to cost doctor's more to perform a procedure than the government is willing to pay, which in turn means, the will stop performing that
procedure. Now here is where it gets sticky, because the rich will still be able to afford the treatment while the rest of America will just have to take
what the government gives them. How is this a good idea???

Good Job! Universal Health Care is a Horrible Idea. It's a drain on our economy (ie. look at Europe). It's a Drain on peoples pocketbooks. (somehow people think they don't pay? they do) Instead of buying milk for est. $3.10 a gal try $4.75. or $7-$8 for Gas (That is what Europe pays). Also Long waiting list for surgeries. Look at Bill Clinton when He had that life threatening surgery done in the States in 2 weeks. In Canada the news reported the wait was over 2 months which could have been too late for him. Also CareSource is all Free to the needy. I used and got free Dr. Visits, dental, vision, precriptions

so u think money is more important that people's health? wow... what a shame. Report It

Right on.

Yes UHC is a horrible idea

People should pay their bills like the rest of us

First of all if Americans went to the doctor regularly they would have to visit the doctor less as early detection and intervention cost less and take less time. Secondly with around 85% of heart stints being unneeded one might wonder how much we could cut back on pointless spending in the medical field. I am sure that if that much surgery is going on without real reason that their are many more procedures and diagnoses that are completely without reason. Thirdly, medicare has a 3% overhead cost on paperwork, private insurance has a 12% overhead cost in paperwork. And finally, the United States spends twice as much per person as any other first world country and yet has some of the poorest health, and shortest mortality rate amongst said countries. Just some things you might want to think about when considering universal health care.

well first universal health care is not free, people pay small premiums, but if they make under a set amount, lets say $20 000 a year then they don't have to pay those premiums, that would be for most health care but you could get extended medical through work or through a private insurance company that would pay for extra treatments like physiotherapy, optometry, chiropractic etc. And for certain other things you would have to pay, such as for yearly physicals which arent necessary for certain age groups, like after childhood to old age where you'd only go to the doctor/hospital if something is wrong with you/you have symptoms of something/aren't feeling well. Another good thing about universal health care is that because people are able to go to a doctor for "free" the healthcare system in general would be much more motivated to use preventative medicine which would reduce the amount of visits to doctors, such as helping patients quit smoking, exercise, live healthier, etc.

There may be a way to make
Universal Health Care work.
By taxing certain goods.
If everyone had to fork over
20.00 a month, the country
wouldn't fall apart. Wouldn't
that bring in about 6 trillion.
Just a thought.

Concerning insurance: I wish I had been the one to think of that you could pay me a fee every month to keep a document in my file cabinet to say that if you ever needed care once or three times in your life I would help you pay a portion of the bill. I would have a house on the lake with a three car garage, country club membership and yacht by now.

But then, those poor doctors. I know it costs a fortune for their education, and they pay for it even years after they graduate. On the other hand, I never see a doctor waiting at the bus stop because his/her twenty year old car is in the shop and doc can't afford to get it out till next pay day. I never see a doctor in the apartments where I used to live struggling to manage. What I do see are doctors who went to college, not because they care about people and the things that ail them, but because the money is good and others are bound to seek their help (health being a matter of life and death and all...).

So a person works 40, 50, or more hours a week and can't afford high priced medical care. We don't need those kinds of losers in our country anyway.

The American public spends $2 trillion a year on health care,

30% of it, or $600 billion, is administrative costs.

Nationalized healthcare runs about 5% administrative costs, or $100 billon.

Let's think about this with open minds, shall we? You left out most of the argument.

We have the NHS in the UK and we'd be lost without it.

No its not "free" but our taxes are nowhere near as high as Americans seem to think they are plus the extra we may pay in tax is much less than if we all had to take out private health insurance and pay the excess everytime we were ill.

Plus for the poor its a blessing.

The way I see it is that the rich, greedy, selfish spoiled elements in America resent the fact that their tax money might be going to help others who are maybe less fortunate. Well tough crap! You want to live in a country where the poor are left to die on the streets move to the friggin third world. Why do you go n about freedom and equality in your country and then have such huge gaps between people in terms of something as basic to human life as medical care?

Noone in Britain needs "annual check ups"! Some healthy people go years and years without ever needing to see a doctor (like my other half) but then for the very young, the elderly, pregnant women and those with terminal illness/health problems they can see a doctor whenever they want whether they can afford to "pay" for it or not. Mostly people just go to a doctor (their GP or General Practitioner) when they are ill or have a problem or during pregnancy for their routine pregnancy checks.

At the end of the day obviously I'm a Brit and its not up to me, Americans must decide for themselves. But I don't see medical care as a "luxury" that needs to be bought and sold.

I love the NHS and couldn't live without it. Your lack of socialised healthcare is one major reason I could never live in America.

Oh and we do have a private healthcare system as well as the NHS so the rich and spoiled have all the "choice" they want and the poor still get the care they need.

Why do you hate America so much as to believe that something that proves effective and cheap in every other developed nation in the world is impossible here?
Why do you believe that cost should be the determinant of whether or not children die? (you are here presenting an argument to maintain a system that sees the highest rate of infant mortality in the developed world solely based on cost).
And finally how on earth did you come up with the figures for the last two sentences. An increase of 30% on top of 1.5 trillion would be $450bn. But since the figure of 1.5 billion is not true anyway this would seem redundant. Total US health care expenditure (public plus private) is $6000 per capita or 1.8 trillion (and since there is no way that 83% of healthcare expenditure in the world;s most privatised system is public the government cannot spend 1.5tn).