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Comment by gnaritas | Hacker News Reader

> I've never heard of anyone being forced to wait for weeks for this kind of stuff in a normal hospital in the US.

That's because here they can't afford healthcare at all and they just die. Seriously, criticizing better healthcare systems for problems that don't exist while ignoring all the worse problems with our system, c'mon.

You're spewing the same ignorant bullshit you'll find on Fox News; you're brainwashed.

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This is a ridiculous statement. Only around 15% of the country is uninsured and only a small percentage of that number would be "dying" at any given time. Most people in that number are young and relatively healthy. There aren't huge masses of people dying in the streets from treatable diseases and if that's what you believe, you ought to go outside more often.

Regardless, as I've repeatedly said, I'm not arguing for the status quo. The status quo is bad. We do not have a free market currently. If we decoupled health insurance from employers, provided subsidies to the poor, elderly, and our veterans, and removed ridiculous restrictions that prohibit purchase of insurance across state lines we would be well along the way to having a system with universal coverage without the drawbacks of central planning.

This isn't "ignorant Fox News bullshit". Central planning has been repeatedly tried and proven to be less successful than the market mechanism we trust with every other sector of our economy. We simply can't anticipate supply and demand as efficiently as humans as the market (as a force of interacting people) can. I'm not trying to spew some reactionary propaganda - for Christ's sake, I'm advocating the government give people subsidies to help them get insurance in this proposed truly free market. Free market doesn't mean no government or even no government regulation.

The claim that I'm brainwashed carries significantly less weight when you've ignored my comments up and down this thread.

> This is a ridiculous statement. Only around 15% of the country is uninsured and only a small percentage of that number would be "dying" at any given time.

You ought to stop relying on your gut so often and look at actual data. 45k people[1] a year in this country die from lack of healthcare. The only thing ridiculous here is you.

> Central planning has been repeatedly tried and proven to be less successful than the market mechanism we trust with every other sector of our economy.

In regards to healthcare, absolutely false; socialized systems in the world work far better than market based systems, this is simply a fact.

> I'm advocating the government give people subsidies to help them get insurance in this proposed truly free market.

Subsidies are a shit solution to any problem, they don't work in free markets because markets simply raise prices to feed off the subsidies. See college tuition rates.

[1] http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-find...

"That's because here they can't afford healthcare at all and they just die."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...

The life expectancy in the United States is lower than most European countries, but not that much lower (e.g., 81 for the UK, 79.8 for the US). I suspect much or all of this would go away if you controlled for overweight, violent crime, motor vehicle accidents, etc.

The data is not consistent with masses of people dying in the streets because they can't get medical care.

So the US has lower life expectancy despite spending more per capita than any other country?

> controlling for overweight

I'm not sure what this means. Removing all the over-weight related illnesses obviously reduces death rates, but so what? Obesity causes chronic problems and not treating those health problems causes death.

You're trying to shift the goal posts, but okay.

Life expectancy isn't the only measure. Convenience and speed also count, when it comes to quality of life. That's why you see (e.g.) wealthy Canadians crossing the border to get treated.

"I'm not sure what this means."

The United States has a higher rate of obesity than many other countries. Similarly, it has high rates of violent crime and motor vehicle accidents. These likely account for some of the difference in lifespan, but are not (as far as I can tell) directly related to the presence or absence of socialized medicine.

Anyway, we have Obamacare now, so everything is wonderful, right?

Obesity and the health problems caused by onesity are treated by healthcare. The lack of affordable healthcare has an impact on treating those problems. Diabetes kills people (eg diabetic foot) so giving people access to healthcare means they are more able to control these chronic illnesses and more able to avoid mortality associated with those problems.

I'd agree the Canadian system sucks.

But if being a destination country for "health tourism" is a good thing then England appears to be a great system.

No one said mass people in the streets, and the data shows 45k people a year dying[1] from lack of healthcare. So stop looking at life expectancy and trying to infer deaths from that and just look at the data on deaths from lack of healthcare. It's been studied, no need to try and infer it.

[1] http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-find...

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