Basically all the fault is on our government letting big business move all of their manufacturing factories off shore and allowing to many mergers, That's why we are in trouble. Also having a free market instead of semi closed markets like most of our allies do.

For you teachers out their with to many pupils I fill your pain my grandfather was a teacher. Check Kahn Academy and if see you can flip the classroom and teach a more efficient way and help more kids.
www.khanacademy.org/
Terry

Edited by socal-nomad on 04/07/2012 08:45:44 MDT.

or rather link..



http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/04/29/why-switzerland-has-the-worlds-best-health-care-system/

Excellent article, thanks for posting, Kat.

That article has a Republican slant

They don't mention that health insurance companies in Switzerland are non-profit

and
"An American adaptation of the Swiss system would not require an individual mandate: there are market-based alternatives for avoiding the “adverse selection death spiral,” such as requiring those who opt to forego insurance to wait a few years before buying insurance again."

What???

If someone gets very sick then they won't be covered for several years???

Then what do they do, lie on the curb in front of the hospital for three years?

Or the hospital will treat them and the rest of us pay for it? That's what we have now.

The mandate is a key component to make health care work. Like they do in Romney-care, in Switzerland, and in Obama-care.

And then they propose a defined benefit plan, as proposed by Paul Ryan. The problem with that is that if medical costs keep increasing faster, then insurance gradually covers less of the total care and only wealthy people will get good care.

It's like the article says - we should do health care in the U.S. like they do in Switzerland, and then they propose a totally different plan that has little to do with Switzerland, which happens to be the plan proposed by the Republicans currently.

Jerry, yes, there is a slant because the article us somewhat trying to sell it to the right. That is why it goes on to explain the parts that could be modified. Truth is, it works. The Swiss are very happy with it, virtually everyone is insured and the standards of care are outstanding when compared to European counterparts.

The problem is, the Swiss plan has a lot in common with Obama-care and Romney-care

Not much in common with right wing proposals

If we took Obama-care and did something about the excessive Insurance Company profits, then we might have something. Maybe the Obama-care "exchanges" will help

If there is an insurance mandate, there is no reason to have for profit, private insurance.

Really I think if we are going to have a mandate for insurance we should just have single payer and be done with it. If you can produce a valid social security number, you get healthcare. If we go that route they should somehow make us all chip in a little bit like 1% for the first $1000 and lower after that. Something so that it's not just a free for all where people feel like they can just go demand a 10 doctor panel to assemble every time they get the sniffles.

Or go the other direction and de-regulate healthcare and insurance and have the government fall back into an advisory/information providing role where the consumer makes more choices, prices are clear and public, allow nurses to have family care practices and prescribe certain medications for routine stuff (do I really need to see a guy with 18 years of post college education for my sinus infection?). De-regulate health insurance so I can buy Wal-Mart health insurance from a broker in Alaska versus only being able to buy from three companies that have each contributed millions of dollars to politicians to protect their monopoly in that state.

The problem we have right now is we have the worst of both worlds. We have a highly regulated for profit beast that has this unholy union between politicians and for profit healthcare and for profit insurance that has slowly degraded into something that is good at nothing. People like to pretend like our healthcare is the wild west of free market capitalism when in reality it is a highly, highly government regulated industry. Any failure of our current health care system is as much a failure of government as it is private enterprise. A doctor, hospital, health insurer can't fart without permission from 27 different forms of government being involved and 32 different politicians requiring a campaign contribution. When I lived in Florida and the town hall debates were going around I learned that Florida DENIED like 18 requests by health insurance providers in the state to LOWER prices that year and 3 requests by other health insurers to enter the state. Interestingly the health insurers that were doing business in Florida were big campaign contributors. Surprise surprise.

@ Jerry - Of course it does, it's in Forbes, and as another poster said the author is trying to sell the Republicans on some sort of reasonable compromise. Now all the Right says is that it's socialism, which does nothing to address this or any other problem.

There is no one problem with health care in the USA. Everything that either the Right of the Left has said is "the problem" has some truth to it. Greedy doctors? Doctors in bed with Big Pharma? Lack of requiring everyone to have health care? Stupid, inefficient insurance companies? Greedy malpractice lawyers and runaway punitive damages juries? Too much government? Paying by the procedure rather than trying to keep people healthy? Costs too much? Doesn't cost the consumer enough? All true, and I'm only getting started.

Thanks Richard.
I think that "reacting" to an article that proposes a reasonable compromise, just because one does not like the source or the intended audience, is also part of the problem.
Like the article says, there is plenty in SanteSuisse that goes against both sides of the American argument. More regulation than the "right" and Libertarians want to see- and taking Health care out of employment and giving the citizen more choices aren't exactly what the left wants either. Both get some of what they want, both get to keep complaining, no one has to "cave in" and best of all, it could potentially insure everyone and save money.
I don't know if this model could work in the US, but I think it is worth looking at, if nothing else as an example of a compromise that ACTUALLY WORKS.

I don't mean to be attacking you Kat, sorry : )

But that's not a compromise - replacing medicare with a voucher and rather than having a mandate, having a three year waiting period.

Obama-care is a compromise. It would be better to have "Medicare for all". But conservatives (including a few Democrats) didn't want that so having insurance companies and a requirement that everyone get insurance was the compromise.

If we had a system like the Swiss, that would be better than Obama-care.

The Republican strategy is to have a compromise (Obama-care) and then when the Democrats agree to it, renegotiate and compromise again further right, ratcheting us all the way off a cliff.

Okay, I'll stop ranting now.

"if nothing else as an example of a compromise that ACTUALLY WORKS."

Americans don't do compromise anymore, Katharina. If they ever come to their senses, we'll probably end up with something not too far from the Swiss system. IF....... :(

Kat,

"Both get some of what they want, both get to keep complaining, no one has to "cave in" and best of all, it could potentially insure everyone and save money.
I don't know if this model could work in the US, but I think it is worth looking at"

As I often said when I was in the Army, there you go being logical again. Tom's right, we Americans don't do that any more. At least not (in alphabetical order) the Democrats or the Republicans.

The biggest difference between Switzerland and the US is that Switzerland has a very small number of people in poverty, while the US has many. So providing coverage in the US costs much more, in absolute dollars as well as per taxpayer. But it still should be possible.

Richard

Edited by richardglyon on 04/11/2012 19:55:38 MDT.

fact is the mandate is not only unconstitutional ( and I don't care what the the fixed sumpreme court says
) it's a blatant gift to the health insurance companies and and a giant finger to the public. The insurance companies proved they where a disaster and dug their own grave. We could have had a public option but special interest had their back door meetings and saved themselves by cutting a deal , they would pay out more but in return the government had to use its powers to force more poor people to contribute to make up the difference so they would not loose so much profit. Now we are supposed to applaud this scam as if we are fixing the problem. All we fixed is the cash flow of the very industry we as a nation were Feed up with. We are compromising with our health. This is a band aid and we as a people lost a real opportunity thanks to the sheepiness and corruption of both party's. The only thing that was saved is Obamas own a@@ and an inhumane corrupt industry. Once again the American people lose..

Brian - Right on. Under the current ObamaCare mandate everyone is required to buy private health insurance, anyone who can't get it or can't afford it gets socialized. So the insurers get all the best customers that are FORCED to buy, the taxpayers pick up the tab for everyone else.

Like I said, if there is a mandate, there is no reason why there should be for profit health insurance. Why? If everyone has to have it it is really not insurance it is a payment plan. Why not just put the money in a locked savings account and when your account runs dry the government picks up the tab from there? It's the exact same thing without the profit for the 'insurers'.

Agree - public option (Medicare for all) would be better

Obama-care is better than nothing - fixes some problems like most people are covered, everyone should be able to get insurance so there should be fewer medical bankruptcies

There's a provision in Obama-care that in a couple years, states can opt out and have publically funded health care. If that happens, some states will probably adopt this and if it works, then the rest of the nation will follow - we'll have "Medicare for all". Something like that happened in Canada.

I think it's constitutional because the government has required similar things in the past - we'll see how the right wing Supreme Court rules - they're more corporate than partisan so they may decide it's okay

We need to fix the "best government money can buy" problem - like corporations can't make politcal contributions and people are limited to some reasonable amount like $1000. Or at least require that donors be disclosed.

Germany has coverage for all.
They have 142 PRIVATE insurers to choose from.
They are running a multi-trillion surplus.
They absorbed East Germany's population into their system.
German conservatives seem to like the system and don't consider it socialism.

I would like to see us disconnect health coverage from employment.
Get pricing out of the hands of the big corporations, unions and government.
Wouldn't mean it would have to be single payer.

Edited by oware on 04/11/2012 12:37:09 MDT.

its broken and we need to completely redo the entire system. but I'm not sure of the answer. just know the current one isn't.

Yes Terry Trimble you are absolutely true. Teachers can do their teaching in more efficient way and educate more kids. They can think of innovative ways to teach children especially through online lessons http://www.youtube.com/user/GuruBix Teachers can spend time to teach poor kids with free online lessons,by this way they contribute more to make many people educated.