The government should run health insurance

 The government should run health insurance - The very nature of capitalism runs against health care and health insurance. The basic premise of capitalism is that the market decides what the price for goods or service should be right? So let me ask you, when is the last time you negotiated with your health insurance company how much you would pay for coverage? Could you negotiate the price of getting an operation? I'm not trying to say insurance companies and our doctors are stealing from us, but I don’t see any good reason why an illness should sometimes cost tens or worse, hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat.

Capitalism and health insurance have nothing to do with each other - Health Insurance companies make profit by not offering a service. Now if that isn’t a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be any private insurance companies, but a government run public one would be a better option simply because profit wouldn’t be an issue. In Japan there is private health insurance as well, but it is in addition to their public health insurance and used for things like paying the difference for a private room rather than a shared one during a hospital stay, or getting money to cover the fact that you aren’t working.

Americans are so scared of socialism in America they can’t imagine their government involved in health care. Well, I’m more scared for the fifty million people who can’t go to a doctor. Matter of fact I’m scared of getting sick and I have health insurance, my deductible is 5G and insurance companies give their employees bonuses for finding a way to cancel my policy. Getting sick is scary enough without having to be scared of what my insurance company is planning to do with me. If government (state or federal) run health care is such a problem, why isn’t the fire and police department? What about public schools? Er.. The Armed forces? CIA, FBI, FDA? Why don’t we trade them in for a capitalist version? Maybe it is because they work (for the most part)? How would you like a capitalist fire department? Sorry we will only put out your fire if you can pay us the amount we ask.

Health care should not be complicated and fast - I’ll give you an example based on my personal experience. I was looking for a specialist. I found a dozen of them in my general vicinity. The first three I called wouldn’t take my insurance. The next two all had waiting lists over a month. I live in the world’s wealthiest country, and even with insurance, I can’t find a doctor. Imagine if you were not insured, your only choice would be the ER when you are at the brink of death. And these are the reasons that health care is expensive for all of us; there are two many people who won’t get treated early and when they do, are way past the point of quick help. And on top of that, are not or under insured and can’t pay their bills. There are 45,000 deaths linked directly to lack of health coverage in the wealthiest nation in the world. Link >>>

The main points for health care reform should be:

• Everybody should be required to have health insurance
• Everybody should be able to get health insurance from any company, public or private that they want for 5% of their annual family income.
• Every health care provider, should be required to accept any insurance
• There should be price regulation for health procedures so that a Band-Aid doesn’t cost five dollars.
• Health care providers and insurance companies should put more emphasis on prevention.
• It should be made affordable to become a doctor. Grants should be offered so that more people would be willing to enter the profession. More doctors would allow more competition thus reducing costs to consumers.

Basically, a country with insured, healthy people who have access to health care anywhere, anytime. Oh that is impossible you might think. Take a look at Japan or Canada or most of the other developed nations n the world and tell me it can’t be done.

Universal health care is not socialism (even if it is, who cares?)

This is a no-brainer and makes me crazy. I lived in Japan for years and years, I went to the doctor when I wanted, without an appointment and could go to any doctor I wanted to. I turned in my pink insurance card after the doctor was through with me and on average paid about $10.00 per visit (including medicine). Comparing this to the $40 I pay for visits in Los Angeles plus what I have to pay for medicine, which could easily be in the hundreds. I also went for a yearly physical, at no cost to me because Japanese politicians, companies and doctors understand that preventing me from getting sick saves everybody money in the long run and I get a long healthy life in the bargain. So what did you pay annually for your health insurance you ask? I paid about five percent of my income. So if you make 10G a month, you pay about five hundred bucks. If you make a grand, you’re in for fifty dollars. My insurance in the states costs $649.00 a month with a five thousand dollar deductible and although I can afford it, a lot of people couldn’t (as you have probably heard, Anthem raised my rates about 20% in May). In Japan what you pay is based on your income so everybody can afford it. By the way, the government runs health insurance in Japan and Japanese people have longer life spans and have a better quality of health than Americans. If we compare our system to other developed countries we find that America is the most expensive ($7,290 per capita compared to $3,601 in France) with the most uninsured (13.5%), the highest infant mortality rate (6.7 out of 1,000 live births compared to 3.8 in France) and a shorter average life span. Link >>>

Here is another chart comparing life spans vs price of health care. Just so you know Japanese people live to 83, go to the doctor on average once a month and live to about 83 years old on average while paying an average of $2,581 for their healthcare annually. Link >>>