it's called medicaid and medicare. That's what I said. Single payer for the old and the poor. That's what we already have. Now if you were to go to your average person and caught them unaware and said real loud ALLEPO would you approve of a plan that covers the old and the poor most before thinking would say yes. That's what we already have. Case closed. Done deal. Now, if you want to talk about the cost of plain old non government healthcare then what really has the government got to do with it and why do we need them to do anything?
Single Payer is they will give us in end
- Thread starter wildchild
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Oh I get it! You think a 'free market' in health care would spontaneously break out like a cheer at a football game. And all the sick people would have great health care, and all the well people would get by without it and everybody will be happy, and nobody will go bankrupt or die from lack of access. Just like in Mayberry. All we need to do is completely deregulate medicine and let the market fix things, right?
While there is no doubt that the insurance companies are just a leech on the system, people need to be aware of the downfalls of "free government healthcare."
Government is rarely capable of sticking to a budget, or plannign for the future, so what happens the vast majority of the time, is politicians fail to provide government with what government deems to be "adequate funding." So slowly but surely the quality of healthcare deteriorates year after year, as as more people need to make use of the system for less and less money.
There is also alot of positives to the way the american system works, for example, 90% of new drugs get discovered in America, ( maybe even higher)
I dont think I have ever even heard of a Canadian or Australian biotech firm. Innovation in the drug industry wouldnt happen if U.S. was fully government run, because government would not be capable of paying for the kinds of price increases necessary to drive innovation.
If I was to think of an example, Martin Skrelly jacked his HIV drug up by like 9000% in America, he sparked massive outrage, its a price no government run system would be able to pay. (i know this because the price didnt change in government run systems)
So his drug sells in america at a drastically higher price, than what it sells for in "government run systems" but at the same time this is where all the money for RandD comes from.
Simpletons look at it as Skirelly simply hosing consumers, but if you watch any of his videos, you learn that his drug company came up with like 10 different drugs to treat life threatening diseases, based on the amount of money they were able to make from "gouging"american insurance companies/consumers.
So what i would say is be careful what you wish for, by any reasonable metric we have a terrible healthcare system in canada, but everyone is covered. Even with a terrible system in canada that is broke, and falling apart, liberals still dont wanT any private healthcare, because they know that the best doctors would all flock to the private system, and people who could afford it would overhwelmingly choose the private system. Even liberals in Canada go to the states when they get sick, if they can afford to pay for it. No one in their right mind chooses our system over America's if money isnt an issue.
So while i tend to agree we need to get rid of insurance company leeches, i still have a very tough time getting to the point where i think government would actually do a better job.
Government is rarely capable of sticking to a budget, or plannign for the future, so what happens the vast majority of the time, is politicians fail to provide government with what government deems to be "adequate funding." So slowly but surely the quality of healthcare deteriorates year after year, as as more people need to make use of the system for less and less money.
There is also alot of positives to the way the american system works, for example, 90% of new drugs get discovered in America, ( maybe even higher)
I dont think I have ever even heard of a Canadian or Australian biotech firm. Innovation in the drug industry wouldnt happen if U.S. was fully government run, because government would not be capable of paying for the kinds of price increases necessary to drive innovation.
If I was to think of an example, Martin Skrelly jacked his HIV drug up by like 9000% in America, he sparked massive outrage, its a price no government run system would be able to pay. (i know this because the price didnt change in government run systems)
So his drug sells in america at a drastically higher price, than what it sells for in "government run systems" but at the same time this is where all the money for RandD comes from.
Simpletons look at it as Skirelly simply hosing consumers, but if you watch any of his videos, you learn that his drug company came up with like 10 different drugs to treat life threatening diseases, based on the amount of money they were able to make from "gouging"american insurance companies/consumers.
So what i would say is be careful what you wish for, by any reasonable metric we have a terrible healthcare system in canada, but everyone is covered. Even with a terrible system in canada that is broke, and falling apart, liberals still dont wanT any private healthcare, because they know that the best doctors would all flock to the private system, and people who could afford it would overhwelmingly choose the private system. Even liberals in Canada go to the states when they get sick, if they can afford to pay for it. No one in their right mind chooses our system over America's if money isnt an issue.
So while i tend to agree we need to get rid of insurance company leeches, i still have a very tough time getting to the point where i think government would actually do a better job.
I pointed out elsewhere that logically we would just look at all the other developed countries and copy the system that seems to work best and is compatible with U.S. demographics. But I also pointed out that we won't do that because vested interests will prevent it. But eventually we will get something that is better than what we have but not as good as it could be, and not as bad is it could be for the vested interests. We will keep tinkering until the public is happy enough that they become complacent, and the vested interests will then lobby their perks back into the system until it is suitably wrecked again, and we start over. I'll be dead. You guys will have to deal with it.
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No, we have single payer for the poor and the elderly and that is just about breaking the budget. You have one thing right and the other is a lie. Nobody is going to die. I have a friend who works as a cook and was bit by a fiddler spider and has over 300k in bills and will never pay it and he sees a specialist and has had over 12 operations. It's the $600/mo antibiotics he has to take that are the problem because he has to pay cash. The bankrupt is correct. And yes, at the very least all medicine should be deregulated. What is it you and your big government are trying to fix? Your side speaks in big imaginary phrases. Damn the democrats or damn the details. You can't have both.
I have spent some time in canada. (Love the country and canadians). Ill be in quebec again this summer. What i hear
from my friends is that Canadians living near the border sometimes go to US clinics near the border and pay cash for some tests or procedures if they are on a waiting list in canada. Or they are just in a hurry. I also heard that these clinics charge canadians less than US clinics charge for the same thing, an mri say, in the interior states. Don't know how true this is, but my impression is that the notion that canadians are coming to the US for care in any great numbers is way overblown. What i do know for a fact is that lots of US citizens get their prescriptions filled in Canada no matter where they live. I do, and my cash price in Canada is half what just my co-pay using insurance in the US is! Remarkable! And that price includes shipping! I can give you the name of my pharmacy in Winnipeg if you want to try them. Just PM me. I have also heard that more is spent by us pharma on advertising than R&D. I suspect that is not true of the composite industry. Unless that is true of the composite, its disinformation because that could easily be true of any one company. There are many great and innovative non-US pharmaceutical companies. Roche, Sanofi, and on and on. The notion that all the innovation is coming from US Pharma is a pipedream, although US companies may be trying to buy all their competitors (Pfizer). The industry is truly international and drugs sold under U.S. labels are manufactured all over the world (Ireland, India, Western Europe, etc.). Everyone needs to be aware of the huge role the NIH (government) and academic institutions (government money) worldwide play in the basic research that underlies drug development. Any view that the US has a near monopoly on innovation and drug development is certainly an exaggeration.
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Yeah i dont think that Canadians are "flocking" to the u.s. for healthcare, what i meant more by that is rich liberals in canada who talk about what a great healthcare system we have, inevitably end up paying to go somewhere else when their own life is on the line.
In terms of drugs, yeah i agree people come from the U.S. to canada, but the drugs are all made in the U.S.
Politicians like Belinda Stronach are a perfect example, shes a Liberal singing the praises of Canadian healthcare, until she gets cancer, at which point she pays up and goes to the states for healthcare.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2007/09/14/stronach_travels_to_us_for_cancer_treatment.html
Im sure there are companies that exist that pay more for advertising than R&D, companies like PFE, or MRK, but they arent exactly in the business of driving innovation, they mostly just buy the rights to drugs off of the struggling biotech firms who are inventing them. If i ever saw that a biotech was paying more for advertising than RandD on the balance sheet, it would be a pretty clear sign to sell/short the stock, it would be an instant sign that the company has no ideas, and no plans for future growth, I cant see why you would hold a biotech company with all the risk of Phase 1 2 or 3 Trials failing, if they had turned into a dividend like company with no concern for growth.
GBSN was a perfect example of this, check out a 5 year chart on that thing, 99.99% dilution, Reverse split/shareoffering over and over and over, and it was obvious it was coming in the income statement, because the amount they were paying for financing, and to keep on raising money was more than they took in in revenues, if you see something like that its a pretty obvious sign which way the company is going. Ive made more money shorting that piece of shit than anything else in the market over the last couple years. Its the same pattern over and over, reverse split, jam the stock price up to screw shorts, then shareoffering to raise cash, then right back down to 0.
Thx for the offer on the cheap drugs, but the only drugs i do are illegal.
In terms of drugs, yeah i agree people come from the U.S. to canada, but the drugs are all made in the U.S.
Politicians like Belinda Stronach are a perfect example, shes a Liberal singing the praises of Canadian healthcare, until she gets cancer, at which point she pays up and goes to the states for healthcare.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2007/09/14/stronach_travels_to_us_for_cancer_treatment.html
Im sure there are companies that exist that pay more for advertising than R&D, companies like PFE, or MRK, but they arent exactly in the business of driving innovation, they mostly just buy the rights to drugs off of the struggling biotech firms who are inventing them. If i ever saw that a biotech was paying more for advertising than RandD on the balance sheet, it would be a pretty clear sign to sell/short the stock, it would be an instant sign that the company has no ideas, and no plans for future growth, I cant see why you would hold a biotech company with all the risk of Phase 1 2 or 3 Trials failing, if they had turned into a dividend like company with no concern for growth.
GBSN was a perfect example of this, check out a 5 year chart on that thing, 99.99% dilution, Reverse split/shareoffering over and over and over, and it was obvious it was coming in the income statement, because the amount they were paying for financing, and to keep on raising money was more than they took in in revenues, if you see something like that its a pretty obvious sign which way the company is going. Ive made more money shorting that piece of shit than anything else in the market over the last couple years. Its the same pattern over and over, reverse split, jam the stock price up to screw shorts, then shareoffering to raise cash, then right back down to 0.
Thx for the offer on the cheap drugs, but the only drugs i do are illegal.
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You're up on a Sat morning just like me, and you responded before I could correct my post. I agree, that there are some diseases, certain kinds of cancer, certain kinds of eye disease, etc. where you might travel to another country for treatment because there is a world renowned treatment center, or physician, for that particular disease in that particular country. MD Anderson has an entire building devoted solely to treatment of lymphoma. If you have lymphoma, that's one of the places you want to go for treatment if you possibly can.
What we have to guard against in judging our U.S. Medical care versus that in other countries is using anecdote to characterize. We all have a tendency to do that, but we know it's not a reliable measure of what is true in general.
This is a fascinating topic that we've discussed many times on ET. Although we seem to be making some progress toward fixing what's wrong with U.S. health care, sadly we are still nibbling at the edges a bit at a time. It is so difficult to change something long established even when it is recognized that changes must be made. Those who profit most from the way things are, even though they may recognize the need for change, want only changes that will not affect them in any negative way, and that may be darn near impossible to pull off. The goal in good two party negotiating is always win win. But their are way more than two parties involved here.
LOL, yep always up early these days looking at the market, I dont think i sleep for more than 3-4 hours a night anymore.
I try not to use anecdotal evidence, when real numbers exist, i like being able to quantify things, but the reality is there is no real numbers to track the number of rich people who go to the U.S. instead of Canada if their life is on the line. What i would say is this, what do you think the odds are that someone who has money in canada, is going to sit and wait in a lineup when they can just pay to get better access to better physicians in the U.S.? What i would also ask is what do you think the odds are that the best doctors in the world are going to stay in a rationed system where theres price controls on wages when they can simply go somewhere else? Its just common sense, I dont need a quantifiable number to understand this, I have seen lots of "anecdotal" evidence that proves my theory, but you are right there is no way to quantify it.
In terms of the drug industry, check out the video below of martin skrelli, i know he is a pretty big douche, and he is basically the worlds Pariah right now, but it is impossible to argue with his logic IMO.
I try not to use anecdotal evidence, when real numbers exist, i like being able to quantify things, but the reality is there is no real numbers to track the number of rich people who go to the U.S. instead of Canada if their life is on the line. What i would say is this, what do you think the odds are that someone who has money in canada, is going to sit and wait in a lineup when they can just pay to get better access to better physicians in the U.S.? What i would also ask is what do you think the odds are that the best doctors in the world are going to stay in a rationed system where theres price controls on wages when they can simply go somewhere else? Its just common sense, I dont need a quantifiable number to understand this, I have seen lots of "anecdotal" evidence that proves my theory, but you are right there is no way to quantify it.
In terms of the drug industry, check out the video below of martin skrelli, i know he is a pretty big douche, and he is basically the worlds Pariah right now, but it is impossible to argue with his logic IMO.