$276 a visit?!?!  Please tell me where you live... I'll relocate my practice there in a heartbeat.

Sounds like you could use a system with less bureaucracy & more consumer choice.

thank you for those numbers, it's always good to have a sound factual basis for agreement. I also see that here finally my country's numbers are in too. Austria is - as I expected - close to Germany with some 9.6% cost in terms of GPD. and let me tell you, from a service point of view it absolutely rocks and is generally regarded as one of the best world-wide. so, for me culturally, a system of mandatory government-provided health insurance is logical and a good thing and it works they way it is intended to. employer and employee pay ~ 10% of wage each and with that you're in. and trust me, there is almost nothing medically necessary and beneficial that you would not get paid, a co-payment for any medication of less than 5€ per packet and so on.

but I think that is beside the point. I think there is a fairly fundamental difference in attitude and opinion here. some said healthcare is not a right, but a luxury, which is a statement I strongly reject. I guess it's something you cannot really argue for, it's just a sentiment and opinion. I'll just never understand Americans deep mistrust for everything state and taking so-called decisions away. if the private market cannot handle it, then the government should try to step in and make it better.

Shadowhal -

Get ready for the influx - 300 million Americans headin' your way.

(Ooh, gonna be a tight fit)

yeah. and if we tell them it's the country from sound of music they'll even pay to get in. on the other hand, good talent is always appreciated. it would be an ironic pleasure to lure off americans here and create our very own little melting pot of nations. global dominance here we come again.

to also add something at least somewhat on topic: let's not drift off into the financial crisis, as some hints show. that's really another topic altogether.

I'm from Spain, and I totally agree to this, healthcare (any type, from simple to horribly complex and expensive) is a right.

Thomas Sowell has done a nice job, much more eloquently and succinctly than I could, of getting at the essence of the 'death panel' issue and the ethos of UHC in a two-part column -

#1 here and #2 here.

wait, not again! the last time an Austian strived for world domination it went terribly wrong and everybody is blaming us Germans ^^

but btt: From a German point of view I might add this little story: Some of you Americans complain that you would have to pay everybodys wellbeing with your taxes. Here in Good Old Germany our government passed a law some time ago, which forced every patient to just pay additional 10€ per quarter (!) the first time he or she visited a doctor in that quarter and there was a public outrage that we suddenly had to bring along money when we visit a doctor. So the same way you want to pay everything by yourself, we are accustomed to not having to pay anything (cash) for basic healthcare. Granted, we have to pay 5-10€ for prescribed medication and 10€/day (max280€/year) for clinical treatment, but that doesn't lead to bankruptcy. Furthermore there are hardship regulations.

on the other hand (and now I just referring what I have heard, because it doesn't affect me, sadly enough^^), if you earn more than 49000€/year for at least 3 years in a row or work as a freelancer/civil servant and some other professions, you are allowed to leave the public health insurance and enter a privat (more expensive but better and more all-embracing) one. These insurances have prices per month based on your health, age and sex and no %-quota of your income, but you get single rooms in hospitals, you can choose your clinic, you get more services for free like glasses or first classdental prostheses and stuff like that.

To me, this system seems great: Everybody get basic health care (and you get much more than a smile and a band-aid) and those who have given much to the system because of a high income may leave it and get better treatment at higher prices.

In principle, this is not an unreasonable approach.  The devil is always in the details, of course.

In the US, we've always had a hybrid system of private health insurance and a public safety net.  What has changed, beginning with the passage of Medicare in 1964 (which they swore - swore - would be cheap and not lead to socialized medicine) is the progressive infiltration of government into every nook & cranny of the healthcare industry, culminating in this push to eliminate private health insurance & put everybody (except the dissemblers writing the law, who can't possibly subject themselves to their own laws) into the public safety net.

Morons.  You don't have a right to someone elses time.  Health care is a product provided by the work of others, just like any other.  You're all a bunch of fascist fucks and you don't even know it.  The right to life does not excuse you from providing for yourself, it simply bars someone else from actively taking it from you.

Ke5trel, wonderfully misinformed post, you liberal misanthrope.  Switzerland doesn't have public health insurance.  Switzerland has compulsory health insurance, from private insurance companies.  Since there's a non-profit requirement, they're losing them in droves too.  It's weird how facts get in the way of things, huh?  Compulsory insurance actually does cut costs, by, you know, compelling people to get insurance.

Inaccurate, incomplete links don't mean you have a clue.  I'd shred the rest of it, but I've already met my quota for off topic posting, and you're too stupid to learn from it in any case.

@daiwa

Why don't you want the government in every nook & cranny of the healthcare industry? If your taxes get used to keep you healthy and alive then there's no problem, no?

And what is socialized medizine anyway? As far as I know it's just a swear word invented to encourage people to think it's a communist attack on america.

You should look up what fascist means. I'm pretty sure you have no clue. Also look up misanthrope, because you got that wrong, too. I have to ask Ke5strel if you got the "liberal" right, but even then you got it only by accident because you probably think it's just a swear word.

Like "fucks".

You should probably look that up, too, in case mum didn't give you The Talk yet.

Like many have said before on this thread, unless you are familiar with Medicare, or have relied on Medicare payments to run your business or make due for your family, you will not understand just how terribly the government fails at healthcare.

Medicare's broke & going broker.  Medicaid's broke & going broker.  The VA's broke & going broker.  There's 3 reasons.

And I won't sell my health and well-being for false security.  This is the nubbin of the current healthcare debate.  It really does come down to self-determination and free will vs. the false security of the nanny-state.  Once it is completely in charge of healthcare, there will be no recourse, the decisions of the state (the de facto 'death panel') will be final.  They have no intention, of course, of 'pulling the plug' on you - they just intend to put an 'expert panel' protected lock on all the outlets.

You mean like 'patriot,' 'freedom,' and 'free markets' are swear words to the left?

Aroddo, avoid correcting someones english unless you're actually right.  Or perhaps that would be left in your warped reality?

A misanthrope is someone that hates or distrusts people, rather simple.  By attributing a class or spectrum to which someone belongs, you alter the meaning to be everyone not in the group, in the case of a diametric political system, the other side.  I would be a conservative misanthrope, but I don't believe the conservative politicians are actually conservatives in the first place, so I obviously don't trust them either.  His post is quite obvious, right wingers are just a bunch of rich people screwing others out of their money.

Fascism.  Compliments of Webster: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

You wish to force people into a nationalized health care system run by a central government enforcing rigid price controlling regulations on private industry.  Hitler was elected, so don't bother pointing out a lack of complete uniformity with the definition.  The current administration would have been the poster child for national socialism fifty years ago, for that matter so was the last for that final year.  Today we pretend they're free market capitalists.

You didn't really need your mom to explain that, did you?

1. So, your fear and driving motive against the health care reform is that a government run health care system will run out of money and in the end ruin the country (even more)?
2. Do you acknowledge that public health care in other countries works or do you think we are hallucinating?
3. Drugs in the USA are tremendously overprized. Famous example: Asthma inhalers apparently cost up to 120$ in USA and 0,05$ in Cuba. Pharma coorporations succeeded in outlawing drug imports from countries like Canada to protect their profits. Shouldn't free market rules apply?
   

Probably. Explains why it's so hard to debate honestly when half the words are ideologically charged.

This is one of the most misinformed, naive statements I have read in this thread. Do you have any idea why drug costs are so high in the US? Do you have any insight whatsoever into the pharmaceutical industry? Do you honestly believe that the industry would still be able to invest billions each year into R&D if new-to-market drugs were available for pennies-a-dose?

Also, healthcare in Cuba is terrible. If you trust sources like Michael Moore, well, you might think otherwise, but he's hardly an impartial videographer. I invite you to go to Cuba to get surgery for pancreatic cancer. Sure, their state-trained "medics" may have less training than nurses in the US, but they should at least be able to find your pancreas after cutting you open, right?