USA dead last in healthcare

Technically no, but he could have benifited from it. We're talking about semantics here really

It'll be interesting to compare the effects of opting in or out of the Medicaid expansion (on a side note). Give it 10 years and I'd love to see what benefits/advantages the divide might have created.

Including the effect of the Federal government not covering 100% of the cost, of course.

Sure.

Oh, TTT, definitely an "impartial" source of content.

Secondly, it's cute to see parallels drawn towards tiny European countries and believe it's comparable to the United States. It's like comparing a mom-and-pop brick and mortar store to the business doings of Wal-Mart.

I'd say the US/Wal-Mart comparison is very approriate

not exactly in the way you'd want it to be though

It can apply in a variety of constructs. The obvious clue remaining in the forefront, mind you.

This idea that the US is "too big" to have an universal health care doesn't make sense at a theoretical level nor is it borne out from real life examples. There's no correlation between population size and ability to effectively manage an universal health care system.

What then should be the best course of action? Assuming we can't draw parallels to European countries (ignoring that we obviously can, same goes with several east Asian countries as well).

The US has a broken health care system. If single payer or a universal system isn't feasible as per your claim then what is the best solution?

Ad-hoc, case by case basis. State business, not a federal issue.

Then what should states do then?

Whatever the states, by the people, deem necessary to do to remedy the variable issues. Ambiguous yes, but it's a state issue -- the varying different mindsets and cultures of states can do what suits their needs best. A collective "fit all" answer does not exist.

Um, yes it does. To say otherwise reveals a fundamental ignorance on the subject. Every other developed nation has been able to implement an uniform, nationwide universal health care system. Calling this a "state issue" is completely arbitrary and very convenient for those who don't have (or don't want) a solution on this issue.

So your answer is to just decentralize the solution and partition it state to state? If you don't think a universal plan is going to work on the US what about state with a population of 50 million? 20 million? 5 million? What sense of scale is applicable to certain European models?

And how is delegating it to the states going to solve the problem? Saying 'what the people want' isn't a solution. All you've done is shrink the size of scale down.

US =/= the World.

To move a mountain, you begin by moving small stones. The States can individualize the notions that best fit their given demographics and social-economic climates. Should the Federal Government really centralize control of a system that would represent a huge portion of the economy? They can't even run their existing social programs.

This is another one of those convenient answers that I just mentioned.

Bolded, again you haven't suggested a solution. All you're doing is delegating the solution be made by state governments instead of the federal. By what means should a state tackle the issue health care reform? (Ignoring the fact that Medicare is run federally just fine)

@Stevo_the_gamer said:

@HoolaHoopMan said:

(Ignoring the fact that Medicare is run federally just fine)

Medicare has helped out tens of millions of the elderly since its inception, has significantly lower overhead costs when compared to private insurers, and is extremely popular among the elderly (both parties included).

You can dismiss it if you'd like.

However I see you still haven't answered my question. By what means should a state government tackle the issue of our healthcare problem?

True, but he could have earned money from every vaccine sold

America has never been in the top 20 or top 30 from what i know. I remember the US government saying it had a better healthcare than the UK but was proven wrong with the UK being 100 times better than the US with its free healthcare. Only certain things in the UK under the NHS do you have to pay for it. America has so much to do to prove it can be very good at the healthcare. America isn't even the number 1 best country to live in, i think Norway has been number 1 quite a bit, i know it's a European country, just not sure which one it is.

I just love how others outside the US still think that the US can have a single payer or universal health care system. I just want to point out what I have stated in the past and has been shown to be even bigger that what people thought. The VA medical system that ended up with dead veterans waiting for just an appointment due to bureaucrats pencil whipping the paperwork. These are federally paid employees who were doing this in more than one hospital. I told y'all about this before, but everyone disregarded it. The federal government does not need to be involved in health care.

Airshocker is right, premiums have gone up, deductibles have disappeared unless you pay even more than what the basic Bronze packages offer. With a $6500 a year deductible, one will have to pay for a doctors visit all the time. One would have to go to the doctor over 87 times at $75 a visit before insurance starts covering your expenses, unless something major happened. The way the ACA set up insurance for everyone now is a farce compared to what we did have.

As this post demonstrates, obviously living in America doesn't mean you have any idea what you're talking about in terms of US health care.

If you honestly think that the US can't have a single payer of universal health care system you simply don't have a clue and have been stupefied by right-wing media.

While the VA scandal is a travesty, it's dwarfed by the scandal that has been private insurance. 40,000 people die every year because they don't have insurance. For a working-age American simply not having insurance increases your chance of dying by 40%. That's the system you want to defend?

And while we're on the topic of the VA, even despite these recent events veterans still reporthigher than average levels of satisfaction with the care they're receiving

Well start fixing it, you obviously can't expect a reform as large as the ACA was to have a guarantee of success and no issues. Getting black Americans to have about equal rights took a hundred years, same for women's rights.

It's the ground work, now start fixing all the issues that sprout up. The Emancipation Proclamation for example only abolished slavery in theory, in almost all cases only really formally removing the possibility of a man owning a black slave. Practically blacks were still forced into servitude to white men until bills were passed that controlled racial discrimination etc.. Same with the ACA, it blew the gates open, all kinds of horrific issues sprung up, now go start making laws that fix those. You won't learn to swim by sunbathing all day.

@-Sun_Tzu- said:

@WhiteKnight77 said:

I just love how others outside the US still think that the US can have a single payer or universal health care system. I just want to point out what I have stated in the past and has been shown to be even bigger that what people thought. The VA medical system that ended up with dead veterans waiting for just an appointment due to bureaucrats pencil whipping the paperwork. These are federally paid employees who were doing this in more than one hospital. I told y'all about this before, but everyone disregarded it. The federal government does not need to be involved in health care.

Airshocker is right, premiums have gone up, deductibles have disappeared unless you pay even more than what the basic Bronze packages offer. With a $6500 a year deductible, one will have to pay for a doctors visit all the time. One would have to go to the doctor over 87 times at $75 a visit before insurance starts covering your expenses, unless something major happened. The way the ACA set up insurance for everyone now is a farce compared to what we did have.

As this post demonstrates, obviously living in America doesn't mean you have any idea what you're talking about in terms of US health care.

If you honestly think that the US can't have a single payer of universal health care system you simply don't have a clue and have been stupefied by right-wing media.

While the VA scandal is a travesty, it's dwarfed by the scandal that has been private insurance. 40,000 people die every year because they don't have insurance. For a working-age American simply not having insurance increases your chance of dying by 40%. That's the system you want to defend?

And while we're on the topic of the VA, even despite these recent events veterans still reporthigher than average levels of satisfaction with the care they're receiving

I think bringing up the VA is a poor example on his part as well. Single payer doesn't mean that it has to be government run. Single payer is simply a method of paying for healthcare, not necessarily administering it. One can still delegate that to private companies through a single payer system. (Ignoring that loads of bureaucracy exists all over private industry as well)

Really? You sure about that? I've never heard anyone say that, but if it's true it's kinda cool for us