Can someone point me to a Free Market Healthcare System that works?

Uh no, you are not forced to buy auto insurance and many Americans do not have it. But, if you choose to exercise the privilege of driving on public roads, yes you have to have insurance. And no, you are not forced to own a car and buy a license plate. You are arguing apples and oranges.

 

You are correct, it is apples and oranges. No one should be required by law to purchase health insurance.

It should be a right bestowed on every American citizen at birth or at naturalization. Period.

 

When Reagan made it a law that hospitals HAD to treat people regardless of their ability to pay ...HE made it a right

 

Not really. He should of pushed a Constitutional Amendment to that end if he intended it to be an enumerated right up there with firearms ownership.

 

Yes, if their salaries are set below market rates. There are more than 12,000 local and State police law enforcement agencies, so salaries and benefits have some semblance of competitiveness, and police and fire unions can always extort more money.

 

Extortion? So, that's what it's called when a certain demographic bands together to negotiate compensation?

That is, literally, what built the Middle Class in this country, and now it's "extortion"?

I have to chuckle at your naivete...

 

Guess what? There is a nurses union and hospital unions so salaries and benefits ARE competitive.

In fact all government employees belong to unions so there is no reason to believe that any medical professional WON'T receive a competitive salary.

But let's just clear up the fallacy that you are laboring under.

Single Payer does NOT take over doctors, hospitals, etc, etc. Single Payer only supplants the health insurance industry with a much lower cost alternative. The private sector health insurance has been promising for decades to lower the cost of healthcare and it has failed miserably. Single Payer does lower the cost of healthcare for the simple reason that it eliminates the private sector profits and bloated executive salaries.

 

What amazes me reading these comments is that it seems you choose health care for yourself and your dependents on political grounds. It's like saying, I know a single payer system gives me complete medical cover for life. I know that, should I become chronically ill and lose my job or become unemployed it will make no difference to my health care and I know that should I or my wife needed a triple heart bypass I won’t have to re-mortgage my home or loose it to pay the bill.
That’s true in all respects but I’m a Republican and a single payer system is a Socialist way of providing health care, so I want no part in it.


Personally, I don’t give a toss whether the Seventh Day Evangelists provide what I’m looking for. You’re supposed to be a nation that only settles for the best deal.

 

Ideologues loathe pragmatism when it does not support their dogma.

The practical reason that all advanced nations - such as Norway, Japan, Sweden, Kuwait, UK, Canada, Slovenia, Italy, Finland, Spain, Iceland, Portugal, etc. - have adopted some form of a single-payer system is not ideological or coincidental. It is because it have allowed them to cover all citizens at around half the cost of what the US spends whilst throwing the medical costs of the millions of uninsured on the taxpayer's tab.

Rabid free-marketeers do not have a single example of their fantasy succeeding anywhere outside of their noggins.

Some folks may just have an affection for the far greater number of private-sector, profit-driven, bottom-line bureaucrats whilst loathing those who work for the People, but their fancying the former over the latter comes at an enormous cost.

 

Your post does not refute his point at all.

In countries with universal health insurance, convenience, not cost drives the decision.

Odd that you would add an unrelated (and undocumented) cliam about Canadians "flocking" to the US and offer nothing to back it up.

But then, you're in the pay twice as much and get less camp.

 

Odder still, when one claims that "Canadians flock to other countries all the time because many of their services are sub standard," one could as easily claim that "Americans flock to other countries all the time because many of their services are substandard."

 

Switzerland has a pretty good model that would fit the US better than say the British model.

Mandatory basic health insurance offered by ALL insurance companies. Insurers sell supplemental policies at a profit (no profit on mandatory policy), Maximum amount any person can pay for mandatory insurance - 8% of income (any overage covered by gov't program) with a max deductible of anywhere from $150 to around $1600.

Notice the absence of CHOICE of being covered or not.

 

"Can someone point me to a Free Market Healthcare System that works?"

Has anyone come up with one yet?
LOL!!!

 

Nope and it's not likely to happen any time soon either

 

He made it a LAW...that makes it a RIGHT

 

Ummmm, no.

That's not how it works.

 

Yes, extortion is the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

Yes, and all the "gains" made through extortion will be wiped away, which is why so many claim the Middle Class is disappearing.

 

You might want to read H.R. 676:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676

 

Nothing in there stipulates that Medicare will be taking over doctors, hospitals, etc.

 

SEC. 103. Qualification of participating providers.
(a) Requirement To be public or non-Profit.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—No institution may be a participating provider unless it is a public or not-for-profit institution. Private physicians, private clinics, and private health care providers shall continue to operate as private entities, but are prohibited from being investor owned.
(2) CONVERSION OF INVESTOR-OWNED PROVIDERS.—For-profit providers of care opting to participate shall be required to convert to not-for-profit status.
(3) PRIVATE DELIVERY OF CARE REQUIREMENT.—For-profit providers of care that convert to non-profit status shall remain privately owned and operated entities.
(4) COMPENSATION FOR CONVERSION.—The owners of such for-profit providers shall be compensated for reasonable financial losses incurred as a result of the conversion from for-profit to non-profit status.
(5) FUNDING.—There are authorized to be appropriated from the Treasury such sums as are necessary to compensate investor-owned providers as provided for under paragraph (3).

In Plain English, it says that only public and non-profit hospitals can participate. For-profit hospitals can convert to non-profit within 15 years and tax-payers will compensate the investors of for-profit hospitals for their losses during conversion.

This effectively makes all public and non-profit hospitals de facto federal government-controlled hospitals.

SEC. 201. Budgeting process.
a) Establishment of operating budget and capital expenditures budget.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—To carry out this Act there are established on an annual basis consistent with this title—
(A) an operating budget, including amounts for optimal physician, nurse, and other health care professional staffing;
(B) a capital expenditures budget;
(C) reimbursement levels for providers consistent with subtitle B; and
(D) a health professional education budget, including amounts for the continued funding of resident physician training programs.
(2) REGIONAL ALLOCATION.....

(2) ESTABLISHMENT OF GLOBAL BUDGETS.—The global budget of a provider shall be set through negotiations between providers, State directors, and regional directors, but are subject to the approval of the Director. The budget shall be negotiated annually, based on past expenditures, projected changes in levels of services, wages and input, costs, a provider’s maximum capacity to provide care, and proposed new and innovative programs.

(F) NO BALANCE BILLING.—Licensed health care clinicians who accept any payment from the Medicare For All Program may not bill any patient for any covered service.
(3) SALARIES WITHIN INSTITUTIONS RECEIVING GLOBAL BUDGETS.—(A) IN GENERAL.—In the case of an institution, such as a hospital, health center, group practice, community and migrant health center, or a home care agency that elects to be paid a monthly global budget for the delivery of health care as well as for education and prevention programs, physicians and other clinicians employed by such institutions shall be reimbursed through a salary included as part of such a budget.
(B) SALARY RANGES.—Salary ranges for health care providers shall be determined in the same way as fee schedules under paragraph (2).

Effectively, it makes all health care professionals de facto federal government employees

 

Nowhere is anyone or any organization REQUIRED BY LAW to convert to non-profit status so your allegation is baseless.

Furthermore the government does NOT CONTROL non-profit organizations. I served on the board of two non-profits and the government had no control over them whatsoever. The boards were the only body that the non-profit answered to and aside from having to abide by tax laws and industry regulations they were no different to the for profit corporations where I worked, consulted or owned.

 

How do you suppose the procedure and technology involved in hip replacement became proficient enough to be garden variety?

 

I'd be good with this less the maximum deductible and remove the percentage of income max. I'm fairly healthy, but that system would have me pay $20k annually to cover other folks. The base needs to be a flat rate and allow others to buy up.

 

It was Britain that pioneered hip replacement surgery.

 

Then, it falls in the minority of medical innovations on the planet.