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Universal health care Poll


 
  
Do you support universal, single-payer, health care system in the US? [109 votes total]

Yes (70) 64%
No (29) 27%
Not sure (10) 9%

Comments

Susan Imberman, Universal Healthcare - malpractice insurance
The piece missing from most analyses of healthcare is the cost that malpractice insurance, awards, and littigation adds onto healthcare in the US. An obstetrician paying $200,000 in malpractice insurance can offer more affordable care if his own bills weren't so high. Other specialists and generalists have similar costs. Many of my physician friends are being squeezed by lower reimbursments and rising costs. Most are considering retirement once Universal healthcare comes into the picture. We will loose many of our most experienced physicians.

Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro, Universal Healthcare: what works and what does not
Excellent question - we just need to look beyond our borders to find what works. Almost every other industrialized country provides universal health care. US pays almost twice as much per capita as other EU countries, and we are #35 in life expectancy.

Scott Burk, Universal Health Care
The US government started trying to constrain health care costs in the early 80s. They have done a miserable job. Why would we think they can do better here?

We need experimental design in social policy to keep what works and what doesn't.

Faui Gerzigerk, Paying per procedure
Paying doctors/hospitals per procedure is not what sets universal healthcare systems apart from the US model. It's the norm in most countries with universal healthcare as well because otherwise doctors would try to avoid patients with complicated health issues.

I'm sure your diagrams show the right tendency, but the real difference may not be quite as big as it appears. I suspect that the numbers for european countries do not include private health care provisioning outside the universal coverage. People in Europe do pay quite a lot on top of what's covered by the official system. For instance, the NHS in the UK doesn't cover dental at all.


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