How do we clean up the American health care mess?

There are two things troubling about this fantasy.

  1. That you fantasize about having absolute control over others’ lives.

  2. That you fantasize about using that power to harm those who disagree with your point of view.

There’s a lot of this sort of thing going around. That’s why people distrust big government, especially when it gets all preachy and self righteous.

Me, I’d rather fantasize about the people in famine zones getting their own societies in shape so they have fewer famines and can deal with them better, instead of having to beg the more accomplished societies of the world for handouts.

But the bottom line is these are both just fantasies, right? We can’t save people from themselves, but we can try to save ourselves from people who want to control us.

It’s interesting that the California secession movement, although motivated by big government values, offers as its main argument that it pays a tiny bit more into the federal government than it gets back in payments. Suppose everyone reasoned this way? We’d soon find out that you can’t have it both ways. And the redistributive regime would be forced to justify its core premise in order to justify its existence.

Wouldn’t it be fun to see California go Galt? Hypocrisies on both sides would be exposed. It’s mathematically impossible for every state to get more federal money than it pays in. And if every state somehow has a zero net balance of transfers, then why bother with the feds?

We let the GOP plan it…

NOT

Preachy and self righteous describes most of you to a T. When it comes to a hungry stomach or a chronic illness you’ll take all the help you can get. GUARANTEED.

Thrown away your NIH card yet?

By law, foreigners have to enroll in NHI. Are you encouraging an illegal act?

doesn’t mean you have to keep the card or use it i assume :smile:

It’s not illegal, you just won’t have access to it.

The National Health Insurance Act stipulates that foreign nationals who with Valid Alien Resident Certificate or Resident certificate for the Taiwan area( including those from Hong Kong, Macau and China) must be registered in the National Health Insurance program upon living in Taiwan for 6 months (6 months of continuous residence in Taiwan or with one trip abroad not exceeding 30 days when the actual residency period of 6 months is reached after the days abroad have been deducted). But those people who get work permits with ARC must join the National Health Insurance program by their employer starting the day they are employed.

I live in France in a country where health care is considered by some to be the best in the world. The funny thing is folks don`t like to call the system socialized and generally think it is far superior to systems that are completely socialized like Canada, Cuba and North Korea.

Government covers 70 percent, you need private coverage for top up in the remaining 30 percent. No waiting lists, affordable, etc. I hate this US versus Canada comparison. Both are less than ideal.

Suck on the NIH tit while you can.

If my moniker is any indication, that would seem like a given. :slight_smile: But healthcare in Taiwan was efficient and reasonably priced long before NHI existed. That’s the main reason why the system works (well, in relative terms…there is a rather large deficit).

I’ve probably paid more into the healthcare system here over the years under NHI than I would have if I hadn’t had any insurance at all, but that’s OK. Either way, you get a lot of value for the money.

Throwing away your card is not an illegal act.
You are so lucky they forced you.
When your girlfriend catches you cheating, just tell her she raped you. She might believe you.

On topic. Can you change a path after being on that road for so long?
Obama tried to fix it, and it is/was far from perfect.

One reason, basic healthcare insurance can’t be a matter of competition, cause all the healthy and rich people will join the club for them and all the poor and sick people are left behind.

The only way out is far too radical, to ever pass.
First of all, if you are in an insurance, you already paid for it for some time. Who can come and say, sorry but your membership is canceled and you have to join the general all people club now?
Nobody, ever will have the power and guts to do so, especially not in the US.
Like I said, the conservative party in Germany put Germany on a similar path and it sucks.
In my opinion, the best system is where everyone pays his/her share for basic health care into one insurance, and after that, people can sign up for whatever extra fancy dancy they wish and/or can pay.

Be careful not to get killed by unnecessary checkups, surgery, medications, etc,

Comparing NIH to Obamacare is like comparing apples to rotten eggs. Who wouldn’t want the apple? Health care premiums for a family of three under NIH are roughly US$100 a month. In the U.S. a bronze plan for a family of three runs $1,000 a month, with the family required to pay the first $5,000 or more per year before insurance even kicks in. Deductible under the NIH? Zero. Yes, there’s a co-pay but it’s pocket change, a few US dollars.

Even with health insurance in the U.S. and after the deductible has been met families still get hit with medical bills because of the infamous “chargemaster” system of billing in the U.S.

And don’t even get me started on the legal lottery system in the U.S. which adds billions in unnecessary costs to health care in the U.S.

So, yes, I happily suck on the NIH’s teat because it gives good milk, unlike the witch’s teat of health care/insurance in the U.S.

[quote]Chargemasters gained national attention in early 2013, when in short succession, there were two important publications made. First, there was a Time magazine cover story published February 20, 2013, titled “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us”,in which reporter Steven Brill examined the overlooked role that chargemasters played in the American health care system’s cost crisis, asserting that they routinely listed extremely high prices “devoid of any calculation related to cost”, and were generally regarded as “fiction” in the healthcare industry, despite their significant role in setting prices for both insured and uninsured patients alike. Then, a couple months later, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published inpatient prices for hospitals across the country in a publicly available format.

However, local and national press have addressed hospital pricing periodically over the past 20 years.

“The ‘full charges’ reflected on hospital Charge Masters are unconscionable”, wrote George A. Nation III in a 2005 piece for the Kentucky Law Journal. Health care economist scholar Uwe Reinhardt noted in a 2006 article for Health Affairs that the approach to chargemasters by hospitals would have to be modified to become more transparent, in order to encourage a form of consumer-driven health care to help improve the system. University of California, Berkeley professor of health economics James C. Robinson pointed out prior criticism of the chargemaster, “Much ink has been spilt bemoaning that incomprehensible foundation of hospital cost accounting and prices, the redoubtable chargemaster.” Robinson called for greater transparency as well as increased price standardization as steps to help remedy the situation.

In a 2007 article for Health Affairs, Gerard F. Anderson observed, “Without knowing what services they will use in advance, it is impossible for patients to comparison shop.” Anderson also noted the esoteric nature of the language on the chargemaster made it difficult for patients and anyone other than hospital administrators to understand. Anderson emphasized the difficulty of patients’ ability to interpret the chargemaster in a subsequent 2012 article: “Furthermore, most of the items on the charge master file are written in code so that only the hospital administrators and a few experts in the field can interpret their meanings.”[/quote]\

Just a lot of idiots complaining about ‘big governnent’ and ‘socialism’ but loving the cheap and great government mandated and supported healthcare in Taiwan.
Some even lie and say its in deficit when it isn’t.
Just listen to yourselves total hypocrites.

It’s obvious to anybody and everybody that the private market has completely failed in the US. It’s been commandeered by special interests. It doesn’t work.

Here’s one that WORKS and you spend your time spitting about Obamacare this and that while KNOWING and USING a great governnent supported system here …what a flipping joke. You don’t even have the excuse of IGNORANCE because you know there’s a better solution here.

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I am for hybrid systems, which the Taiwanese system is. The best systems are hybrid systems such as the heath systems in Singapore, HK, Switzerland, France etc.-- the systems that are often lauded as the best in the world. The US has a hybrid system too but it is what happens when too many lawyers soil a system and efficient procurement purchasing and prices are not mandated. My beef is with Communist systems, which I would describe the Canadian system to be, precisely because it outlaws private options in core care along with countries such as Cuba and North Korea. Not nice company to keep.

I wonder about those who extol the benefits of the high cost/poor quality health care system, high taxes and unfriendly business climate in the U.S. from the safety of Taiwan’s NIH, low corporate/personal tax, business-friendly environment.

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I don’t have time to rant about it, but the “fully socialized” or “communist” nature of Canada’s system is a great myth. It’s not even a national system but rather left to the provinces. And yes, the Don is right :astonished: it’s “catastrophic in certain ways”.

Brian, you’re foaming at the mouth. You’re not drunk-posting again, are you? The comment about the deficit wasn’t a lie, merely an oversight. I forgot about the second generation thing. NHI ran a deficit for most of its existence. It’s only now that they expanded revenue sources beyond premiums and subsidies that a surplus has been created. It’s no wonder they have a balanced budget now that they’re taking a portion of my bank interest in addition to the premium.

But like I said, healthcare here was cheap and great long before NHI…all NHI did was expand coverage and add a layer of bureaucracy, which of course increased costs, but again, not by an unreasonable amount. There’s no contradiction in complaining about ‘big governnent’ and ‘socialism’ and appreciating Taiwan’s healthcare system. Healthcare here isn’t cheap and great because of ‘big governnent’ and ‘socialism’ just like American healthcare isn’t expensive and terrible because of the private market.

I worked for a provincial government so I know that it is under provincial powers. But it is mandated by the federal government under the Canada Health Act. And regulations in six of the 10 provinces make private insurance illegal for the physician and hospital services covered by provincial insurance plans. To me, that goes against the very nature of hybrid systems. Canada has hybrid for non-essential non-core services such as dental with private options available. But core – it is illegal. I don`t like that. Liberals cry out though that such consumer choice would be two tier. Commies hahahah

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Six out of ten means not the other four, but that’s not my point. When you say “fully socialized” and put it in the same category as Cuba, that implies it’s fully funded by taxes, which it isn’t.

Systems in other countries can be used to illustrate how Canada could reduce its healthcare monopoly. In particular, France’s healthcare system is lauded as a model for how Canada might “introduce” private payment and improve the healthcare system without giving up universal access.