Warren Buffett Says America Is "So Rich" It Can Afford Single Payer

You can see how working for the gov corupts someones perspective, they end up with better health care benefits then anyone
(a) I never heard of any congressman declaring bankruptcy due to medical costs. Have you?
(b) I recall reading a paper that for an average elected official in the US, their incomes and net worths tend to go up after they done serving their term.
 
A partly insurance-based scheme will address some of those issues (as it does in some EU countries).

The problem with charging people £20 to see a GP (the New Zealand system, more or less) is that you also effectively have to exempt some very substantial groups of people from the charge (those on benefits, those "poor and with cancer", pregnant women, etc. etc.?) and you end up with the same kind of idea as the exemptions from prescription charges, net of which only about 30% of people actually pay the charge.

It's also a relatively expensive system to run, administratively.

For both these reasons, it actually raises comparatively little, in overall NHS-spending terms.

One of my suggestions would be for the state to offer to pay all medical school fees for students willing to contract to work full-time for the NHS for their first 10-15 years after qualifying: a long-term, gradual, almost "cultural" change in med-economics which would relatively inexpensively boost the ever-rapidly-declining number of GP's, saving a lot of money in the long term by not importing already-qualified doctors through very expensive financial incentives, paying inflated agency fees for locum cover, etc. etc.

The NHS currently spends a fortune on private medicine and private medical facilities, many of which (surprisingly?) are actually of a qualitatively lower standard than its own resources.

But until the NHS is completely de-politicized, no successful, long-term changes are effectively available, in my opinion.
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I like that the UK sent a ship help US when that last hurricanes hit; but that was free will, not required . Good thing the USA just helped stop the ACA [socialzed med] TRAINWRECK/ Mandate===============================================================================.Private sector does medicine so much better; as far as numbers, i like freedom of 1776 + 4th of July freedom.Thanks; like the private sector doctor noted [ non gov doctor]told me -I'm hypersensitive.:caution::cool:
 
(a) I never heard of any congressman declaring bankruptcy due to medical costs. Have you?
(b) I recall reading a paper that for an average elected official in the US, their incomes and net worths tend to go up after they done serving their term.
Ya... Exactly!! How they forever could insider trade is just crazy.. above the law... Meanwhile we have to risk our hard earn savings to race against inflationary monetary policy
 
It makes perfect sense that government employees are given the most socialist benefits. They are ahead of the curve. Everyone at some point will also get free stuff .... until no one will get free stuff when the giant house of cards collapses.
 
A partly insurance-based scheme will address some of those issues (as it does in some EU countries).

The problem with charging people £20 to see a GP (the New Zealand system, more or less) is that you also effectively have to exempt some very substantial groups of people from the charge (those on benefits, those "poor and with cancer", pregnant women, etc. etc.?) and you end up with the same kind of idea as the exemptions from prescription charges, net of which only about 30% of people actually pay the charge.

It's also a relatively expensive system to run, administratively.

For both these reasons, it actually raises comparatively little, in overall NHS-spending terms.

One of my suggestions would be for the state to offer to pay all medical school fees for students willing to contract to work full-time for the NHS for their first 10-15 years after qualifying: a long-term, gradual, almost "cultural" change in med-economics which would relatively inexpensively boost the ever-rapidly-declining number of GP's, saving a lot of money in the long term by not importing already-qualified doctors through very expensive financial incentives, paying inflated agency fees for locum cover, etc. etc.

The NHS currently spends a fortune on private medicine and private medical facilities, many of which (surprisingly?) are actually of a qualitatively lower standard than its own resources.

But until the NHS is completely de-politicized, no successful, long-term changes are effectively available, in my opinion.
I think a small co-pay (say, £5) charged for all doctor appointments and treatments would do wonders. The point isn't that it's going to raise a lot of money, but that it will eliminate a lot of wasteful and often abusive practices. I think they were looking at this in places like Australia, but I am not sure how it worked out there.

As to the state paying medical school fees, those fees aren't as high as in the US in the first place. Besides, it's hard to realistically enforce the requirement for the GP to remain with the NHS for a decade or more.

IMHO, the big issue with NHS is just its plain inefficiency. That means that, as with so many other things, you need to look at how the really efficient people administer things. As usual, that means you want to look at how the Germans do it.
 
In Scandinavia you pay something every damn visit to the doctor. It's just not that much and if you have to go alot, it gets tax deductible. Unnecessary or too dicey operations are privately paid. Health system humping along good though never perfect. Most people are interested in good health, and the lifestyle and industrialized food US has is largely frowned upon. Sounds like a nightmare going bankrupt just because of health, but it can happen here as well, as building businesses are never easy. But then it would be health-related, most probably not money-related due to medical bills. When abroad we need insurance and pay them happily, because in many countries getting sick there can bankrupt anybody.
 
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Why doesn’t WB with the help of other limousine liberals set up a non profit insurance company for the uninsured using their own funds?

Talk is cheap. These guys love to spend other people’s money while growing their own wealth.
 
As a libertarian/academic economist who came from a medical education family, I am forced to observe that most of the world has found it worthwhile to provide taxpayer-funded education and health services, and while the details differ, the delivery of these things in the United States is fantastically inefficient. Unfortunately, the recipient/consumers (being, the students and patients) tend to be the least heard, while the biggest influences in the process are (generally) price un-responsive, and instead are the largest purveryors/suppliers/suckers-at-the-teat.

"Our bad" as they say. It's not the fault of a single-payer system -- it's the fault of the United States for (as a collective) being witheringly stupid in execution. There is an entire planet of good practice available; Warren Buffet (no stranger to value, he) knows this.

Bureaucracy in third world shitholes means several palms get greased keeping the system inefficient. You can replace bureaucracy with shitty crony businesses kept afloat by lobbyists in the US.
 
I listen closely to Buffett's ideas and opinions because he is beyond savvy and has less of an ax to grind than many as he is giving 99 percent of his wealth to charity.

No one is always correct but some people consistently produce better food for thought than others.

The US is awash in abundance and Buffett believes in both capitalism and the ideas that no one should lack opportunity for good education, healthcare, or have to go to bed hungry. He is all for people becoming wealthy through hard work, innovation, and so on.. and even finds this desirable for society.. but he also thinks the wealthy are given too many financial breaks, such as through the tax code. He believes in the benifits to society of technological progress and free trade but does not think hard working Americans should become permanent Road Kill.. and he says we need to work on these things.
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Side Note About Abundance:

There are 10 boys and 100 apples. One boy has 100 apples... how happy are the other 9 boys?
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We are the only first world country without a one- payer system.

Well... we have something in the ballpark in the form of Medicare once a worker with 40 quarters reaches 65. And I will note that Medicare returns a larger portion of what they take in than do insurance companies.

One study ranked US medicine number 18 in the world (behind Cuba) for a prope who are both poor and uninsured.

Another study found US medicine efficiency to be 46th in the world. Another study ranked the US as 50 put of 55. Another study ranked the US in 11th place out of the 11 highly developed countries examined.

Of course the US is number one in many areas if you are wealthy or have tremendous insurance.
 
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Buffett takes advantage of every tax clause loophole that he can but then whines he doesn't pay enough taxes. He's worth more money than god (thanks mostly to his Insurance Company megalith money printer) but eats a cheapie meal at minimum wage employer Mickey Dee's.

He is only cares about making more and more money paying less and less taxes in the process and his "warm, caring, mid-western, folksy, grandfatherly" image - period.
 
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