[quote=HM2Viking;2670384]
Originally Posted by BlueRidgeHomeRN
Education is one ticket out of poverty. Good health is the other. It is a waste of human resources to deny anyone the opportunity to better themselves through education. The things you are bringing up are related to poverty and income issues.If you are truly interested in addressing poverty part of the solution does involve interventions in those areas.
This thread is addressing possible shapes and forms of universal coverage plans. Frankly, the questions that you posed are designed to divert the discussion away from the core issue which is "How are we as a nation going to assure affordable access to everyone?"
People with good health, and an education are able to meet their other needs through work. Besides this thread is not really about poverty or "charity" it is about the ever increasing burden of health care and cost shifting of health care expenses to families.
UHC is a middle class benefit!
.PNG)
Maps like that seem a bit...well, they actually border on misleading to me - because if you look at the biggest spenders, they are first-world, developed countries with high populations and fat bank accounts. (I see the US, Canada, Japan, Scandinavia, Great Britain, western Europe, New Zealand, and Australia.)
(Yes, for all of our problems, I would rather be among America's poorest of the poor than, say, Calcutta's, and I doubt anyone else would feel any different. Even our poorest poor are among the world's wealthiest people - which is what makes life in the US even more ironic and even more screwed up when you start thinking about it.)
Of course the spending in those countries would be higher - the infrastructure and the money exists to do it! Yes, China and India outstrip us in population - but they have neither the money nor the infrastructure to support, say, a Duke Medical Center or a Stanford University Medical Center or a Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. We do, as does the rest of the so-called First World, and therefore we spend it.
Why are our outcomes worse? I believe access to care isn't the only reason - there's a portion of it that rests on the shoulders of the owners of these bodies we work every day to fix. I'm not perfect - I need to be better, and am making my own conscious effort to sort myself out before it's too late for me. Another problem is insurance companies with WAAAYYY too much power - these 24-hour post-birth discharges and 48-hour post-Caesarian discharges iand "drive-through" mastectomies and the other ridiculous mandated (under!)stays have GOT to stop.
There is a huge lot of it that falls on inability to access care - yes - and that needs to be addressed. But UHC - or the lack of it - really isn't the whole problem, nor do I feel it's the only problem or even the biggest problem. Dealing with the permeating sense of entitlement that I see every day - on the news, on the floor, in public - and making people believe that this is the only shot and only body you really get, and that popping a pill is not the answer (thanks Glaxo! Thanks Astra-Zeneca!), and that doctors really AREN'T gods - now if we started there, I believe a great many other things would follow.
Again - universal PRIMARY coverage, yes. Help when you need it - because there are many Americans teetering on the edge of financial ruin just because crap happens, not because they made bad decisions - YES. But cleaning up everyone else's mess? Uh-uh.
Would you like to comment?
Somebody PM me when we get back on topic.
