Affordable Healthcare

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   Glenis Rixposted 6 years ago

   As a British citizen who has benefited throughout my life from health care provided by the State by means of the collection of income tax, I can’t figure out why affordable healthcare is such a big issue in American politics. The U.K. National Health Service may be struggling a little at present due to inadequate funding but most people would fight tooth and claw to preserve it and would happily pay a bit more tax into a ring-fenced budget to maintain the high level of services that are provided. Can anyone explain why they are opposed to a system that ensures that the health of a nation is taken care of ‘from the cradle to the grave’?

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      Kathryn L Hillposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      "The U.K. National Health Service may be struggling a little at present due to inadequate funding, B U T .... they want to preserve it ?????
      
      INADEQUATE FUNDING???
      
      Do tell !!!!!

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         Glenis Rixposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Because the government will allocate more funds, as revealed in the recent budget.

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      promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Because we have a history of individual responsibility that dates back to the pioneers who built the country.
      
      You are responsible for taking care of yourself rather than having the government take care of you.
      
      It mostly worked for a long time in part because health care used to be more affordable. Now it's ridiculously expensive, which is fueling the move toward nationalized health care.
      
      Still, a large part of the country isn't willing to give up the notion of people taking care of themselves.

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         wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I think you're spot on with personal responsibility.
         
         But health care - we used to pay for it because we could afford what little was available.  We didn't all want new knees, new hearts, and a doctor visit every month.  We put on our own band-aids and drank honey tea for a cough.
         
         But we don't want that any more - we want the maximum care possible in a field that has grown beyond anything we might have thought possible.  And we can't afford that, so want someone else to pick up the tab.

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            Ed Fisherposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            ++++++++++++++++++++++

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         Glenis Rixposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         The government doesn’t take care of most of us - we pay taxes for healthcare.Those who benefit from the system are people who need very expensive treatment and unemployed individuals, who don’t pay tax. We have a progressive tax system, in which the better off pay a higher rate of tax than those who are on lower incomes. I have been in both tax bands and didn’t object to paying 40% tax on income over the threshold - we live in a caring society and this is part of the cost.

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            wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            "Better off" Americans already pay upwards of 60% of their income into government coffers.  A "caring society" does not confiscate 2/3rds of what one earns for use by politicians buying votes.
            
            And to provide "free" healthcare for everyone will require half that again.

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            promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            I agree that a caring society should be willing to pay taxes to help people who can't help themselves.
            
            Individual responsibility goes only so far.

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      peterstreepposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I have the same question Glennis. In Spain the Health Care is free too.
      If you have a broken toe, you don't have to pay for X-ray photo's and all the help you get. I pay €1.50 monthly for my medicine against epilepsy for instance.It's a good thing and I hope it stays that way.
      As no matter what your income is, you get the treatment you deserve. No discrimination. Off course their are private hospitals if you have the money. But it would be a disgrace if the healthcare system only cares for those who can pay up the prices of let's say blood cancer or chronic illnesses.
      As the pharmaceutical industry is a billion dollar industry they don't fancy national healthcare. They want customers that pay the most for their wares. It's not about helping but about making money.
      I, personally rather pay a bit more taxes so the whole society can benefit from a healthcare system then pay less taxes and pay more on a my health insurance.

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   Ed Fisherposted 6 years ago

   Studies by The Commonwealth Fund suggest that the US pays FAR more for pharmaceuticals without using more per capita  ,  in fact the study standards set US costs indexed at 100 % of ten top countries , some of them pay less than half of what we do ! 
   
   The USA needs to highly regulate pharmaceutical companies soon. The profiteering at the cost to patients is outrageous .  HOW can we have any semblance of fair play in the market of health care , how could we even afford single payer at the cost of enriching the few ,at the present outrageous cost of ALL?

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      promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Regulate companies more? That's a socialist, anti-Trump and anti-capitalist point of view.

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      wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      There is certainly some unethical profiteering in drugs.  But the bigger problem is development costs; when it takes years and millions of dollars to find a new pill costs WILL rise...or we will do without new drugs.  Which is what, for the most part, Europe is doing - they ride our coattails and let us pay those enormous R&D costs.
      
      Cut back on testing and drugs will be cheaper.  They will also kill more people with poorly designed drugs.

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         MizBejabbersposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Wilderness, there is more to the story than that. For some reason, we fools in the U.S. pay for the R&D and the advertising costs of the drugs, but then they are shipped overseas to be marketed to these folks at ridiculously low prices. Meanwhile, we are not allowed the benefits of the lower priced pharmaceuticals that could be available to us from European countries that still develop them. At the same time that we are forbidden to import drugs from reliable countries like France and Canada, our pharmaceutical companies are allowed to sell us cheap substandard crap drugs from China, including pills that have been found to contain fillers like gypsum or substandard cancer treatments. I don't believe that cutting back on testing will allow drugs to be lower priced for us, just substandard.

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            wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, we are the drug developers for the world.  Compared to the US, no one else is doing much at all there.
            
            You're right - without thorough testing the drugs are substandard.  Probably cheaper, perhaps not (competition plays a part there), but certainly substandard.

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   3. 97

      Glenis Rixposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I disagree. One of my sisters is a pharmacologist and a director of the UK branch of an American pharmaceutical company. She tells me that vast sums of money is invested in developing new drugs, which are necessarily protected by patent until the development costs are recovered. Zantac was once the best selling drug in the world- when the patent expired the share price of the company plummeted because other manufacturers were able to replicate the drug cheaply. Generic medicines are much cheaper than branded.

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