How would the United States be able to afford public health care? We're already hundreds of billions of dollars in dept, and of course raising taxes on the rich probably won't be enough. Also considering our enormous obesity rate, I'm just not sure if public health care would be sustainable at the moment.

Though of course, this is from someone not entirely educated on the subject... >__<

I'll go with the latter, based on recent reports from the UK & Canada.

hm, can someone actually explain just why medicaid and medicare is so broke? I'd suspect it has something to do with them only treating rather sick and poor, thus expensive ppl. in that case, no wonder it is costly and running a deficit. if it is just badly run, then I see part of the problem: no one wants power to a system that has proven its inefficiency. but then ... would you not want to work on that? would you not demand from the government to make it more efficient. then, maybe, more people would be ready to accept government control.

also, I saw the list at the post is constantly updated: on the pro side you can write 'private companies are not only inefficient with their funds, but also greedy'. for the funds they consume, I don't thing services are as comprehensive as elsewhere. I'd bet there are some treatments, necessary ones that fall under the expensive category, that are not covered much, if at all and  that is less performance for more cost, thus lower efficiency.

I can actually offer a theory how private insurers could make our german health care system go broke. I'm not familiar with the funding of the half a dozen US government run health care services so maybe this can't be applied 1:1 to them.

I assume that medicare & co run on a budget granted by the fed. The budget is based on the projected number of "customers" and the per-capita costs of the years before.

Normally this would even out: You get 9 customers requiring no or very minor care for every 1 customer requiring intensive care.

Now here come the private insurers who try to drop a customer as soon as he becomes costly and even prevent potentially expensive customers from getting insurance due to pre-existing conditions. They literally cherry-pick the healthiest people as their customers.

So, in the end private insurers aim for getting 10 out of 10 customers requireing no or minor care while the government run services get 10 out of 10 customers requiring intensive care, increasing the needed budget tenfold!

Laws in european countries bar companies from denying coverage. Private insurers still try to cherrypick customers in increase profits, but they can't simply get rip of their costly patients. 

By the way, this led to insurance companies actively promoting healthy life styles so their precious customers don't get sick or something.

And why don't you believe anyone who actually lives with public health care?

You know, that's why I asked the question about  motives...

Behind the opponents of health care are undeniably strong fincancial motives. And where money is involved, Faux News is ever present.
Behind the advocates of public health care are what motives? Taxes and control? Or really altruism?

Public health works ... and even private health care will work if you put some regulations in and prevent amoral business practices by law.

But you are being told that any reform will make it worse with all their fear-mongering causing you to not even listen to arguments. You react out of instinct, not reason. And that's neither democratic nor christian.

@ aroddo: hm, yes, that was about what I expected. the private insurers to pick only those that have few conditions and thus cost little whereas the public ones get a disproportionate amount of costlier people. which would not be that bad if those costs were distributed over a wider basis or could be compensated by more 'cost-effective' customers. actually, there is a phenomenon like that in economics literature: adverse selection. you can look it up if you want, quite interesting stuff. can even outright destroy a market altogether.

All too true!

The liberal's lament: If we only had more of other people's money and more rules and regulations, we could fix these problems.

Simply look at history - there's never been enough OPM and never been enough rules.

There is a reason the US is different from eurocentric socialist countries - we have different values and beliefs.  I don't consider the 'charge' that the US spends the most per capita on healthcare an insult or a defect.  There is no such thing as a 'right' amount of GDP which should be 'consumed' by healthcare, as if it is money we simply pour down some rathole, never to be seen again.  Our economy is not a zero sum game - every segment of it is an economic engine in its own right, including healthcare.  I reject the premise that we have a 'crisis' altogether - there are strange incentives and unfunded mandates that have crept in over the past 50 years that have driven the costs up, not due to greed, but due to the relentless infiltration of government into the healthcare industry.  We are where we are today because of our government and that government now wants carte blanche to 'solve' the mess it created with more of the same and essentially kill the economic engine of one sixth of our economy.

When you have no argument, bash 'Faux News.'

Soon as David Axelrod's kid does all that work for free, soon as Michael Moore gives away all his money to homeless people on Sunset Boulevard, I'll buy the altruism argument.  You're a fool if you think the advocates of healthcare reform are altruists.  It's nothing more than the greed and financial motives that the left railed about when GWB was in the White House, now just all dressed up in feel-good rhetoric and lining different people's pockets.

As the lovely IL Rep. Schakowsky said - "This is not a principled argument."

What's wrong with rules requiring (private) insurers to pay for treatments, like agreed?

They are selling a product and they are oblieged to guarantee the product's quality. They do not deliver on their promise because they don't have to. Because nothing forces them to. No rules.

Society needs rules and freedoms. Otherwise it's just anarchy and the rule of the strong.

The per capita values indicate effectiveness, though. And by all accounts the US health care system is ineffective and inhumane.

And "the government" that got you into this mess is not the same government that has to drag you out of it. It's the same as saying that the economic crisis is Obama's fault because it happened during his presidency.

But you are right, you have different values and beliefs. And compassion, humanism and justice are apparently not among them.

i daresay the NHS works just fine thankyouvermuch.

being a 'dirty immigrant' to UK myself, I have on numerous occasions used the services of NHS with satisfactory results (both emergencies and preventative care), while having worked and paid taxes in UK for less than half a year.

I do acknowledge the inherent inefficiencies of a large bureaucracy, but i consider it the lesser evil when compared to the aforementioned 'cherry picker' insurance companies.

As for the OPs question i think money is a very likely motive for those opposing reforms.

For pro reformists motives... i am probably blinded by the common-senseness of having public healthcare that i dont really see a need for another motivator here.

No they don't.  They don't tell half the story.  But believe what you will.

What garbage.  Amen, indeed.  Respect for human dignity and self-determination does not require a massive forced transfer of wealth from taxpayers and lowest-common-denominator healthcare.