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Has he sent out the talking points yet for you dedicated Trumpists to memorize to defend his version of Socialized Healthcare?

Trump vows ‘insurance for everybody’ in Obamacare replacement plan https://t.co/t14VVe55HF

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) January 16, 2017

@redsteeze pic.twitter.com/0W4oVBhkFw

— Donny Ferguson (@DonnyFerguson) January 16, 2017

I doubt single payer happens now, but government healthcare for all will very likely not be killed by the republicans.

When are you running for President?

Gov't should never dabble in business as very few to none of them have any experience in it. Our former cryer-in-cheif damn sure didn't...

There will never be any such thing as insurance for everyone without Government intervention and/or subsidies.

https://www.amazon.com/Law-Frederic-Bastiat/dp/1614270570

Posting to that effect is classic false dichotomy.

I personally have feared this one issue with him. Here's the deal, emergency services could not be denied before the ACA. Insurance companies were already categorizing procedures as to necessity or a life style choice. It's no different now except it is making the one group it was supposedly intended to help, suffer with the burden of paying for it.

That is socialized medicine. No way around the fact that middle class working Americans will pay for any form of it. And it sucks.

I'm hoping he has an epiphany and wakes up and tells America the cold hard fact that if they want insurance, to earn it. Get the government out of it after making key legislative decisions that will provide freedom to buyers. That will expand opportunity. And drive prices as low as possible.

God Bless men

Clearly, you have NO idea how a free market economy and economics itself work. Do not respond as you will just be wasting everyone's time. You have identified the very problem to the whole thing, government and subsidies.

I have absolutely ZERO faith in them to do anything right.

For the most part, and especially at the higher levels, our government is essentially run by career politicians, most of whom have never had a real job that actually produces a good or service. Their entire concept of problem solving, efficiency and productivity is a polar opposite of what the real world is that the rest of us exist in. And then when they do finally leave elected office they still carry on in the political world as a parasitic leech in one way or the other because that's all they know.

I have come to the point where I believe that if the only qualification one has for an elected position is that they've spent their entire life in government then they are in fact UNQUALIFIED.

No matter how you slice it, whether you provide insurance to these folks or not, it comes out of your pocket somehow.

Just my own experience of the past decade has shown me that. I have saved 40-50% on various health care issues ranging from dental to tests simply by picking up a telephone and shopping. What really PO'ed me the last time I had my annual blood work. I shopped a half dozen labs/testing facilities and they ranged from $450 to $140 for the same exact tests!!! I went with the $140 lab, and when I got there and filled out the form they asked me what insurance I had. I don't. So the did the tests for me for $80.00!!!!

$450 to $80 for the same tests. Unbelievable! That's almost a 500% difference!!! That's insane! The people with insurance or a giverment "subsidy" (handout) don't give a s**t what it costs because they mistakenly believe that they "aren't paying for it"........bullsh*t. We ARE paying...out the wazoo!!!!

Keep the government out of it. WAAAAY out of it.

Why I've said several times that the most depressing revelation to me during this election campaign is how many "so-called" Conservatives really....aren't. It apparently never was about Conservatism or the Constitution for them, they just want their own strongman in the White House.

I'm not arguing for universal coverage. I'm saying we won't ever have it without government subsidies, and even then, it won't work well. Look at Britain, their NHS is nearly bankrupt.

So, in other words, we will not have universal coverage. Not going to happen. If you have a plan to have every American's medical needs fully met, without government subsidies, please feel free to share it. And please feel free further to let us know why every country in the world isn't already using that plan.

Thanks.

I think "ObamaCare" was a gift to insurance companies, and single payer with a private sector would have been the way to go. Before anyone freaks out, I am a Republican and I did vote for Trump.

Nothing at all wrong with that. Just as long as you don't force me to pay for the care of "everyone". If you can figure out a workable plan for "everyone can get some care if they need it", without government subsidies, then please, share it, I'd love to hear it.

Lot of rainbows and unicorns floatin' around in this thread.

Currently, Obamacare is subsidizing both patients and Insurance companies, because they're losing so much money covering "everyone", including those with pre-existing conditions.

Another barrier to returning to medical care that is affordable for a large part of the American population is juries in medical malpractice lawsuits that award people a bazillion dollars for "pain and suffering". And class-action lawsuits that award groups of people a bazillion dollars for some drug they took with side effects, some medical device they used with side effects, etc. Who is paying those bazillion dollar settlements? Insurance companies. Do you think they're sucking up the cost of those settlements themselves? Nooooo. They're passing it on to doctors in the form of outrageously priced malpractice insurance. And not just the docs that got sued. Doctors are caught between a rock and a hard place. They can pass on some of the cost to consumers, but not all, so they have to suck up a lot of the cost themselves. If you're a small town general practice doctor making less than $200,000 per year, and you have to spend $100,000 per year on malpractice insurance.....Many doctors have been getting out of the business because for some it's just not financially feasible anymore for the amount of work involved.

Nothing is free and no one is entitled to anything and that includes respect.

The Rock

One reason you can see different charges for the same lab tests is due to "cost-shifting"; depending on the payer mix a hospital or lab takes in (payer mix can range from great 3rd party insurance plans, basic plans, state health plans, medicare/medicaid, etc) and the % of uninsured patients they see they will charge those who have adequate to great coverage higher fees to recoup the losses from the lower to non-paying groups of patients.

Some of you may also have noticed from time to time a charge on a bill you received from an ER visit that may have read something like "uncompensated care charge" or "uninsured patient charge"; again, your paying the freight for others.

On the subject of doctors allowing insurance companies to set pricing; managed care certainly shifted the fees charged but a lot of doctors went along for the ride as it provided more certainty on fee for service. HMO's have held down the cost of their plans for their consumers by hammering doctors, hospitals and healthcare providers on what they reimburse based on cpt (current procedural terminology) code or ICD-9 codes. Again, look at an EOB (explanation of benefits) you get from your healthcare provider and you'll see the fee charged, the agreed upon reimbursement (coverage) and what, if anything the patient is responsible for.

If anyone honestly though the PPACA was going to be the golden ticket they really hadn't paid any attention to government run healthcare since 1965-Medicare and Medicaid.

Some great points also about removing a good deal of the cost burden on our healthcare system by addressing the illegal immigration issue; obviously this demographic puts a huge drain on the system via uncompensated care-and of course the honest, hard-working tax payer gets hammered for it.

I'll be interested in seeing what type of reform is put forth and then give it a fair hearing before getting worked up into a lather over a lot of supposition.

I don't know one person who would willingly trade the Canadian system for what we had, or will have again, here in the USA. What you see as free, we realize is paid out of your exorbitant taxes. No thanks.

People I know who live in Canada travel to the US for much of their healthcare. My cousin told me it was going to be a 6 month wait for her father to see a Cardiologist. And she felt that she got special treatment since the Doc was a family friend. She drove him across the border got him in in a couple of days. I'll take my chances with a market based solution free of the heavy hand of a Federal government.

Well....I tell you what. If I was in that lab office and asked for a test and was told that it would be $140 with my insurance, and then the guy sitting next to me asked for the same test and it was $80, someone in that office would be getting a VERY large earful.

I would find that to be extremely insulting in that someone would think I was that stupid to sit there and be screwed over. What would REALLY send me over the top is that not only am I paying more, but the premium for the insurance I did have I could barely afford because it's done nothing but go up!!!

That's one of the big problems with socialized medicine.

I am a Medical Imaging Professional, and have heard Canadian Physicists bitching at meetings about not being approved for Imaging Techniques that have been mainstream here for decades (example, Positron Emission Tomography).

I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg for what isn't covered medically in their System. To have the type of top shelf care we have in this Country costs big bucks...and unfortunately, it falls directly on the back of the working class. Which is a good indicator why income taxes may be lower in Canada...payments on a Prius (the Canadian System) are much less, than payments on a Ferrari...

Could be?

My Wife is a critical care nurse...and trust me...the ICU is riddled with "repeat offenders" without insurance. 75 percent are positive for meth or heroin.

I don't know where you're getting your news, but people are not being thrown out in the street to die. They're trying to do it on their own, but we won't let them.

THE ACA was enacted to insure the Middle class self employed, and the middle class employed with no benefits. It wasn't for the poor. Because the poor had medicare and Medicaid already. The problem with the ACA is it was built on the foundation that the middle class 20 somethings would join the exchanges. Which was paramount to keep costs low. The one thing it didn't take into account was that sector is the healthiest class in the country. And, they felt no need to buy into it. They'd rather save their money instead of join for high premiums, higher deductibles, and less than desirable care.

Enter the tax penalty as incentive. Yet, it still failed as the tuition numbers remained low and, the burden climbed as you enter the cost to treat the poor. It was simply cheaper to pay the fines versus pay the rising premiums, higher deductibles, to receive even less coverage. It is faulty by design and, is as UNAMERICAN as anything our government has ever devised.

Healthcare coverage under the old system was not a God given, Constitutional right. However, needed healthcare was a federal law given. This is the only system that supports of Democracy and limits or eliminates government intervention. Healthcare insurance for everyone under the ACA ensured government involvement in deciding healthcare.

Bluntly, we don't want to compromise Constitutional rights to be like Canada. If Canada was so great, Canadian's wouldn't have long wait times and people lining up to come here for healthcare. American principle said we working Americans would pay for those Americans that weren't physically able to do so. We understood that in order to have Healthcare, we must posses a job that provided it or, buy our own. It wasn't unfair. Socialized Health care is unfair and, our healthcare will suffer for it.

On original topic, I sure hope that what I'm hearing on Fox is how this is going to go. Supposedly the REP's are saying his insistence that everyone will get coverage is his way of saying that better coverage will be available for anyone to purchase cheaper than the current alternative.

God Bless men

The questions that have to be answered is who gets the care, what care do they get, and who pays for it?

There is NO path that leads to unlimited healthcare for everyone.

If we're talking about the combination of technical medical knowledge, and the latest high-tech medical equipment, can you tell me how many other countries in the world have a better quality of medical care than the U.S.?

Whenever anyone dies or has a bad outcome in this country (and unfortunately in 2017, people die and have bad outcomes), the patient and family immediately look at it as a potential paycheck. That causes us to practice differently (more expensively). It's a sad truth. Medical malpractice needs to be taken out of the courts and placed in a 3-judge arbitration of professionals that know the difference between negligence and an unfortunate outcome. Lawyers who bring repeated frivolous lawsuits to court need to be sanctioned.

People want to be able to eat like crap, do drugs, drink excessively, abuse their bodies, get fat, not exercise, not take care of themselves, and then expect us to save them when the SHTF.

Unfortunately, even when things aren't that bad, people just up and die or have complications that we can neither foresee nor prevent. And sometimes, unexpected shit just happens because we're not perfect and bad things happen due to no negligence on our part. Just because someone died, doesn't mean the family should automatically get a million bucks. And no, you as the non-medical professional, even as a family member, no matter what you heard from a nurse, a relative, or on Dr Phil, are not qualified to say that "the Dr fxxxx'd up." And neither are 12 random jurors. For every time that one of my colleagues who has been sued for something that was legit, there are dozens of lawsuits that are absolutely ridiculous. Legitimate negligence is actually very rare. And we are not Jesus Christ. We do our best and sometimes bad things happen despite our best competent efforts.

Another huge problem in our country that is driving up costs is the issue of what we must do when someone comes through our doors: We must save them. And we must do everything we can do to save them. When someone comes through our doors that "can't afford it," whether or not anyone in this country wants us to let them just croak, we cant do it. Even if we wanted to; and we don't because that's not what we do. If you're a carpenter, a plumber, a lawyer, etc, and a person comes and asks you to do a job for them and they can't afford it, you can say no. We can't do that and we never will - and people need to realize this: We didn't get into this line of work to sit on our hands and watch people die. The jewish guy laying on the side of the road may be an illegal from Israel, but every Samaritan Dr/Nurse is going to pick them up and do what they can for them because that's what we do. Medicine is different than the rest of the occupations. Our job is to save people's lives and we do it even if we don't like the shitty situation we've been put into. We take care of illegals and drug addicts and people who tried to kill themselves. We do our best to save them all because that's what we do: it's the moral and ethical thing to do - it is righteous.

That creates a huge problem. That means either everyone gets covered or we have to work for free. That means everyone else's costs go up. That means that many hospitals close if the government doesn't help them out. That means that Drs don't make enough money to justify 11-15 years of education if we don't charge the insurance companies more to make up for the uninsured. Or, we cover everyone.

A 3rd problem with the costs of American healthcare, is that it has been shown time and time again, that if you don't cover people, they don't seek preventative and routine care. Then, when the SHTF with their medical problems, Diabetes being a prime example, it costs 10x to treat them when they come into the ER than if we'd just bit the bullet and payed for them to have coverage. This is a big part of the reason that America has the BEST medical system in the world and the MOST EXPENSIVE medical system in the world, yet overall, have some of the POOREST OUTCOMES in the developed world when measured as a whole. Yes - Canadians live longer than us and have a higher satisfaction rating than us. You quote Britain? Japan, Sweden, etc, have very socialistic medical programs, have better outcomes, and have better satisfaction rates than American Medicine. And... they're far cheaper. Do they have some problems? Yes. But they consistently rate higher in user polls and when you measure the actual things that can be measured in outcomes, overall, America falls WAY BEHIND many other countries with socialized medicine - despite having the best medical staff and best medical equipment in the world.

None of us end up getting away from paying for this treatment because ultimately, the hospitals, the doctors, the nurses, etc, all need to get payed or they won't be open/work so the difference is made up on the people who do have insurance and Medicare/Medicaid.

It's all well and good to say, "get a job and buy insurance," but the fact of the matter is that some people never will and so that creates a Catch-22 in so far as we've still got to take care of these people and someone has to pay for it. And "let them die" is not an option.

Obamacare actually had a chance to be a good program that benefited the country. Unfortunately, they ignored the 3 things mentioned above and until we have a system that deals with the 3 things listed above, what we had before Obamacare, what we have with it, and what we'll have in the future will continue to cost more and not live up to its potential.

I still think the better model is socialized health care for everybody and if you want to flip the bill for better service, you can as long as your bank account allows. It's been stated before that we don't deny emergency care at the hospital (we shouldn't). The unpaid cost are already passed on to everyone else anyway whether it's increased premiums or taxes. I don't really care, it's still money out of my pocket and every developed nation in the world has found that it's cheaper to provide some access to everyone. The US's "free market" system has not proven itself to be the best delivery method in my eyes and we don't have the numbers to show for it.

This is not the issue. Everyone agrees that we've got the best people, the best equipment, and the best institutions. The problem is that that system is bankrupting the country and the rate at which the costs are going up are not sustainable.

That may be true, but there is a lot more at work there than just the medical industry.

Immoral Culture, bad diet, and sedentary lifestyles have a lot to do with both of those things. I'd wager that a lot of 1st world countries are more healthy than America, but you can't put all of that on the medical system we have. There are probably a lot of countries where the populace has a much lower rate of obesity, diabetes, AIDS, drug addiction and a host of diseases, but it's not because they have better medical care, it's because overall they have a much healthier lifestyle than many Americans do.

"The problem is that that system is bankrupting the country and the rate at which the costs are going up are not sustainable."

That may be true also, but if you think the solution is "Socialism", then that is no solution at all. "Socialism" is never the answer. Socialized healthcare may bring up the standard of care received by many on the lower end of the income scale, but it always brings down the standard of care received by the rest of the populace. Is that fair? And if the Government can compel the populace to pay for the healthcare of "everyone", then where does the Socialism end? If it can be justified as acceptable there, then it can be justified as acceptable in many other areas of society as well. Show me the country with the best, most financially "solvent" Socialized healthcare system, and I'll bet you anything that a lot of people there do not receive the quality and availability of health care that they would currently receive in the U.S. Particularly senior citizens and those closer to the end of their lives. Sarah Palin has turned out to be half a nutcase, but she wasn't wrong when she warned about the "Death Panels" in Obamacare that she got so ridiculed about. There is no way to have a Socialized medical care system that can be both financially solvent and provide all healthcare needed to everyone. If there was, most countries would be using it. Therefore, value judgements have to be made about who doesn't get the care they need, to cut costs. And the people making those judgements won't be the patient or their families. Sorry, but I don't want to live in a country where someone tells me I don't have the right to decide whether to get necessary medical care to improve the quality of my life.

I think you could easily make the argument ours is already socialized. If we don't deny emergency care to those that can't afford it and then pass those costs to everyone else. I think that pretty much is the definition of socialism. True we don't do it in the form of a tax and then have the government pay the bill. Ours is way more inefficient, we have the government make us pay a middle man to mark it up before it pays for care. The insurance industry doesn't really care how much it costs either because they get a percentage so it's actually in their favor if it costs more. I don't know what you mean by "Solvent" system, because all of them cost money. 100% of them have a lower cost per person for treatment though; by a landslide. The standard of care for the public hospitals is definitely brought down, which is why they have private hospitals for those that can afford to pay for better service exactly like we have in the US. All industrialized countries except the US utilize this model.

Parts of the U.S. medical system are already Socialized medicine, you're right, but that doesn't mean we should pile more and more on top of that.

"All industrialized countries except the US utilize this model."

Not any that aren't Socialist (or worse) systems. Vastly moreso than the U.S.

Again: Socialism is not the answer.

"The false narrative of “Repeal and Replace” is preserving Obamacare"

I'm sorry to say that your credibility just took a big dent on this subject; this link is but one of many that shows the bias of the WHO against the free-market healthcare system and especially against the US.

I'd suggest before you embrace the kind of statistics source that has liberals getting "tingles up their legs" you do a bit more research on the subject.

The WHO's statistics are best suited for gardening; they're more fertilizer than fact.

ObamaCare wasn't a shift towards socialism, it was the insurance companies "golden ticket".

When Americans go elsewhere for treatment, its usually not due to quality. Its to get medication or treatment that that our government either doesn't allow or has made expensive through regulation.

For starters, working on the assumption that you can have better quality care for everyone for less money is a falsehood. If it was attainable, every industrialized country in the world would be using such a system.

Secondly, it's not so much a question of "less" or "more" money. It's a question of "whose" money. It's a question of whether one wants to live in a Free Market or in a Socialist nanny state. I prefer the former.

Wow....just an unbelievable, mind-blowing wow.....

You come on here and indict the US Healthcare system while citing a source that by your own words (see underlined text) you know nothing about how they compiled their rankings.

You know nothing about the metrics, was it an apples-to-apples comparison, what bias(es) may have been built into the rankings; in short you haven't a clue of how they actually calculated the rankings yet you post them as Gospel?

Do some real research into the subject and come back in about 6 months or however long it takes you to get over the embarrassment of realizing the exact scope of your ignorance.

God bless, Steve

I included the link to the executive board members of the WHO and they seem like a pretty credible group and I only cited their study as a reference, and freely admit I don't know what all went into it and I probably wouldn't understand most of it either. If their study has flaws and is wrong, I'm already over any embarrassment, it wasn't my study. The US has a representative on the committee too, so it's not like the US didn't have any input on it. If you know of another source, I'd be happy to read it, but I'm not going to make a career looking into this.

TSI, I'm also baffled by the resistance to this concept (unless of course you're the insurance industry, which is how we ended up with ObamaCare). I find it's sort of analogous to Public transportation, if the bus is fine for you, great use it, but if you don't like the bus, buy whatever kind of car you want, sure the ride on the bus has it's issues, but if all you're concerned about is getting from point A-B, it will get you there. For some reason this concept doesn't cause the same socialism outrage, yet if you replace bus with "public hospital" and car with "Private Care" in that sentence, it's pretty much the exact same thing. Many people in the US like to pretend that we have very little socialism, yet we actually have quite a bit, like all industrialized countries do.

I'm not sure why you seem to take issue with AMERICANS saying they don't want Canadian style healthcare. You have claimed something so grand yet everything I've read about socialized healthcare claims different. Long waits, inferior care, etc....

Heath care in America is expensive. It was hard to afford before. Even harder now unless you don't work. What part of that keeps eluding you is beyond me. The more the government gets involved, the more expensive it gets. Free market is the cheapest way. Competition ensures that. If there were lots of choices for providers of health insurance, they will do the dirty work of debating health care costs for the insured, driving costs down. However, under federal law that demands those in need gets care regardless of their ability to pay, it will never be as cheap as socialized care. Nor will a free market system ever be as dismal.

As stated above, our costs are so high based on medical research and, the free riders. Entitlement programs of any sort has proven human nature will drag it down for everyone. Personally, if ever needed again, I don't want my healthcare second rate because a Canadian says it should be that way.

God Bless men

The US forced to pay "free market" is the most expensive model not the cheapest and there are a lot of reasons for that, some of which you mentioned. My guess is the biggest reason is the insurance industry lobbyists smashed out the single payer idea pretty quick and created their no loose ObamaCare plan.

TSI, From a technical standpoint I be the US is near the top if not #1.

As stated I have no medical background, but I think we should emulate other countries systems who have as good or better patient outcomes at a lower cost, if that turns out to have some socialism components, I don't really care. I do not think this will happen due to the insurance industry who doesn't care what the costs are and they are very effective lobbyists.

How expensive are the private policies in these other countries?

By cheapest I'm meaning for the working middle class. So, yes free market would be the cheapest system.

TSI, what is the population of Canada? 10 times more people in the USA is what I found. The average age of death is only three years difference with our 298 million more people. You are comparing apples to oranges. As satisfied goes, all I can say is what I've read.

Read the link. It sheds light on the whole subject. God Bless

That doesn't change the fact that someone has to pay for the medical care of the people who don't have insurance. That "someone" is you and me. That is Socialism. If you're okay with that, just say so.

All the healthcare in the world will not change genetics, poor eating habits, poor diet, etc....

WV, I'm sure tons of foreigners come to the US for treatment, because technologically I'm sure we're cutting edge. If you got the cash, bring it! I have a friend in Germany who primarily uses the public system, but I know he has a private policy as well if something big happens. I'll ask what he pays and I'll bet it's way less than mine. Interesting article, I'll take a look at that. I think you're right Canada's population is about 1/10th of ours, but that shouldn't matter in terms of $/year/person in my mind, because they'd also have a smaller demand.

Hackbow, I think we were typing at the same time earlier. If we switched our system to emulate other countries with similar results and it costs less money, I'd gladly give up the freedom to pay more. I don't think the forced to pay "free market" is any way a legitimate free market. If we did go free market route and that proved to be the best/cheapest model, I'd definitely support that. Our model is not the best however it is the most expensive, so I'm okay with changing that up.

It was already happening. You were already paying for it. The problem is, that it's much more expensive to pay for someone's trip to the ER or stay in the ICU than it is to treat them out-patient in a clinic and prevent the SHTF visit to the ER/ICU.

It's a Catch-22 and we're already going to pay for it so why not do the smart thing and cover them and do it for 1/10th the price? I'll tell you why: Because you're fundamentally opposed to agreeing to a medical system that resembles socialist states. So you cut off the nose to spite the face. I don't like doing it either, but I have an ounce of pragmatism and am able to swallow my pride enough to realize when a hard-line stance is wrong.

Again, no matter what you do, if you don't cover everyone, then the uncovered people will continue to come to the hospital and rack up hundreds of millions of dollars of medical bills and they're going to continue to get taken care of.

ben, why would cheaper, less than desirable healthcare plans be worth a hill of beans? Also, with the number of clinics and such in this country, healthcare is not hard to come by for the situations you seem to imply would be better suited for government plans. Also, With average premium costs under the ACA expected to go up this year another 65+% country wide, how can it be argued that this socialized idea is even doable. Much less more preferred. this is all the proof I need that cheaper, Socialized heath care is NOT superior to free market healthcare plans in anyway. It might be cheaper but, this is definitely a case of you get what you pay for. Your friend wouldn't have a private plan if that were not the case. Why that is being debated is beyond my comprehension.

Before being diagnosed with Cancer and, before the ACA really took hold, I was able to buy a family insurance plan that had a 80/20 coverage scheme, that offered a prescription plan, with all emergency room costs covered 100%, for $212/month. I am now denied affordable coverage since quitting that job. That's the way the cookie crumbles and I'm fine with it. But, you can take this to the bank from a guy who's been there and done it. If you need cutting edge health care, those premiums we had before the ACA, were WELL worth it in regards to a Socialized medical field that might be cheaper. And, is only suited for boo-boo's and setting casts. Under the ACA, these costs are even higher to individual buyers with plans that aren't even usuable due to high dedcutibles. God Bless

WV, the ACA act is not socialized, it was a complete gift to the private insurance companies who can raise your rates as needed so it doesn't even matter what the costs are, in fact higher medical costs are better for them.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt. Wrong!! Those that cannot afford HC premiums on the exchanges are subsidized, the subsidy provided by the tax payer. Socialized.

Ben, when the government sets regulations determine who can and can't afford insurance, then yes, it is socialized. What part of being involved in the drafting is that not computing with you.

If you guys think it's so great than good for you. Ben, go to Germany. TSI, stay in Canada. Middle class America, as a whole doesn't share your sentiments. And in this case, that's all that matters. God Bless men

I used to have a great source from the Yale Journal of Medicine and Law but the article cited may have been archived as the link doesn't work. Regardless, this link exposes a lot of the problems in the citing of WHO rankings to measure the US Healthcare system by.

For clarity Ben, I don't expect you to be an expert; I'm a bit better versed as I've spent my adult life in the Healthcare sector, from the clinical, research and industry side and obviously have a greater stake in this issue than the average layman.

What I do expect though is that if anyone is going to disparage any institution they should at least have some familiarity with the source(s) they cite prior to referencing them as "proof" of a point. If the source is invalid the point is by extension invalid.

I know that they have been cared for in my lifetime (and probably everyone's lifetime on bowsite), but it wasn't always the case. With truly market-driven private health care, why would provisions for anyone else EVER be inserted, unless directed by government? I like that you have faith that this will be taken care of, but in a pure profit industry, I don't see it.

Numbers are probably higher than you are indicated. I see 50+ million self-declare as disabled. Half of those indicate they are seriously disabled. I would bet that 1/2 of those are truly too disabled to work (mentally, physically or both) - that still leaves 12 million people. In that population, I bet the medical bills are much higher than the general public.

Mike in CT - Who do you trust to give a valid indication of a countries medical efficiency?

Idyll - I like your take on this. I strongly believe in the regular exams/tests that the ACA has put in. I know 4 people (2 of which were uninsured before) in the last 2 years with pre-cancerous growths/polyps removed after a routine colonoscopy. That is not cheap, but colon cancer is a heck of a lot more. Sometimes you have to spend a little now to save a lot later. A pure profit driven industry doesn't handle this model well, IMO.

God bless, Steve

US News & World Report does a very good job at ranking US Hospitals; HealthInsight is a good source, and there are a number of other very good sources to gauge performance (JCAHO, CMS among a few).

What I don't trust is a world-wide organization with built-in biases guaranteed to skew the performance of US Healthcare. I'm not fond of hatchet jobs regardless of who's playing Paul Bunyan.

At the link:

"After Trump’s Washington Post interview this past Sunday, the conservative health-care universe, including some people on Trump’s own team, quickly concluded that the separate administration plan he described was entirely a figment of Trump’s imagination"

Either he's been working on a super double secret probation legislation proposal he's told almost no one about, or this is another example of what he calls "truthful hyperbole" (AKA lying).