I love that his entire stance is “look at these countries that don’t run their healthcare system for profit, we should be like those guys by funneling aid to Ukraine into our for-profit healthcare system and not being woke” like that’s actually going to accomplish something other than just going to give healthcare execs bigger bonuses.
He identifies a problem and proposes the absolute worst solution to it.
This is why entertainers should stay out of politics.
What does trashing for-profit healthcare have to do with being woke?
Republicans overwhelmingly are the ones that support laws that further privatize healthcare and allow this dynamic, and have been for decades now. It’s weird he’s trying to blame being woke on that.
Maybe don’t take economic input from a largely irrelevant comedian.
He literally does in the article. I read it. That’s where I got this sick quote:
Schneider pointed out, “We need to spend 100 billion dollars [on healthcare] instead of giving it to Ukraine forever wars, when we could end homelessness and get people healthy in one minute instead of just dumping our money.”
What he gets wrong is that the law as it is allows the healthcare industry to be what it is right now, and we could actually support Ukraine and get our people healthy with the right prioritization in Washington. Rob is trying to blame something good for something unrelated and bad to assert a narrative you’re gobbling down.
I agree with that vague statement but that’s not what Rob is saying. He’s saying rather than fund Ukraine we should heal our people. I agree about healing our people, but we can do it both by amending healthcare laws to not run the industry for profit.
No qualitative service (such as healthcare, housing, education, etc.) should be run with a quantitative strategy, because the focus turns from providing an effective service to being profitable. The correct answer is to end privatized healthcare and pay it out of our taxes like these other nations Rob alludes to in the article. Healthcare and Education are every bit as important as a strong Military, border or travel infrastructure.
If we did that there would be no problem funding Ukraine and keeping our citizens healthy.
If we were to just divert Ukraine funds to Healthcare affordability it wouldn’t even make a dent in the amount of healthcare debt the American people have.
Americans are $220B in Healthcare debt
We have provided Ukraine with $75B to date.
So Rob’s plan is unsustainable, weakens Ukraine’s stance against Putin’s aggression and still doesn’t solve the root cause of our healthcare problems.
Ukraine is far from a forever war, unless you’re proposing that Russia will keep invading them forever. They’re literally defending against a foreign enemy, you know, that thing that all soldiers swear to do. It is beneficial to Ukraine and to the United States for Ukraine to stand. If Russia expands into Ukraine then we’re back in a pre-WWII situation where a foreign enemy power is expanding across Europe against the will of every other country on the planet, except maybe China and NK.
I get your approach on this but he proposes the absolute worst solution here.
Taking aid from Ukraine and shoveling that money into our dysfunctional profit-focused healthcare system is not going to do anything more than pad the pockets of healthcare corporations. The fact that he thinks we can just buy more healthcare instead of help Ukraine is so ridiculously dumb I can’t believe anyone would agree with him on that.
If you’re fiscally conservative you should be more focused on how to not need to spend more money in the first place. Within healthcare that’s going to require a focus off of profit and onto actually providing healthcare to citizens without the excessive profit margin overhead of today. Literally throwing even more money at the problem is the opposite of fiscal conservatism.
I think paying into a system that most people agree is broken by being profit-focused as a way of fixing that system is dumb, as do most people.
That would be like boycotting a company by buying more of their product.
We should fund healthcare the same way the countries Rob mentioned funds their healthcare, and they don’t do it by simply diverting resources intended for Ukraine. They do it with a different healthcare system entirely.
It’s not a secret to any of us that healthcare and insurance companies artificially inflate the cost of treatment to increase their profits. Without all that overhead healthcare becomes a LOT cheaper.
That’s because it’s my stance. I clarified for you because you didn’t seem to fully get it with my last post.
Or do you mean the profit-focused thing? Because that’s literally what privatized healthcare is. My citation is gestures wildly at the entire system but if you want specifics just ask and I will provide.
You said most people. That’s is something that needs a citation. Otherwise it should read your opinion which is meaningless since it doesn’t back data.
You isn’t give a citation. I’ve noticed in lemmy people don’t understand what a citations is or how to give one.
A citation is not your opinion of something but an actual documented source that says that with a link and the most relevant section pasted in the body.
Now if it’s general topic, the just the link is fine.
This is a study on consumer shopping behaviors for health insurance, including reasons why a consumer is or isn’t happy with an insurance plan, what they value and what determines their enrollment.
What trips most people up and leaves them unsatisfied with their coverage are the costs for necessary coverage and the actual coverage they end up with.
If you disagree can you cite a source for me that says the majority of people enjoy overpaying for healthcare coverage compared to other country populations, that oftentimes refuses to pay out?
The study has nothing to do with your claim. I should explain citations should be relevant to the topic. Just citing random things doesn’t validate a discussion.
That’s your opinion, I think this is a perfectly valid representation of how a US citizen purchases a healthcare plan and their feelings on that process and their coverage.
We can agree to disagree here.
Now can you show me a citation that shows the inverse?
It isn’t my job to prove your claim. The cite doesn’t say what you claim. I have yet to see a poll to say profit is the reason people are unhappy with the system. Cost is an issue but that isn’t tied just around profit. Our staff is payed much higher than the rest of the world and we are more litigious as well.
I’m not asking you to prove my claim. I’m asking you to show me contrary evidence. I provided some and you didn’t like it, so show me what good evidence looks like.
By “staff” you mean executives, right? How else do they get the money for their salary and bonuses?
How does a healthcare company CEO make over $20M a year when they’re not exploiting their customers by artificially inflating costs? Couldn’t that $20M have helped subsidize the cost of their care provided instead?
Pharmaceutical companies do the same thing. When their motivation is profit it becomes their focus. Their product is secondary. That’s a problem when it’s healthcare or education, which are both qualitative things that benefit society to have.
Hospital staff costs alone are not what drives pharma or health insurance prices up, and has nothing to do with how much the executives of those companies make.
A hospital CEO makes on average about $180k in the US, less than a software developer.
Other countries without as exploitative of a healthcare system are also able to staff their hospitals and provide healthcare at a lower cost as well, so again your argument doesn’t actually account for the exorbitantly high prices we pay in the US.
Look at all the profits made in the healthcare industry. That can only be done by making so much money you have at least this much left after paying your staff and expenses.
Hell of a lot more than simply “breaking even”.
Then you’ve got what the companies themselves make and it’s disgustingly more:
This is why healthcare is so expensive and ineffective in the US. Because the corporations that own everything in the industry set the prices and rake in literally Billions a year from citizens who often can’t afford it or go into massive debt.
I focused on CEO pay to refute your argument that IS Healthcare is so overpriced because of staffing.
If that were true the CEO wouldn’t be making roughly 200 times the salary of their average employee and could easily mitigate the problem with less bonus/stock options (which are typically the bulk of their compensation).
Not sure why you’re having issues with the second article. I can get to it just fine with an adblocker and reader mode but you can still get the code argument from the URL and title themselves:
UnitedHealth Group reported $22 billion in 2023 profits including $5.5 billion in the fourth quarter as its portfolio of health insurance and provider services grew by double-digit percentages.
It doesn’t refute that at all. CEO pay is a fraction of total cost. It isn’t the reason why cost are going up and it’s illogical to come to that conciliation. United health group is an insurance provider. You’re confusing health insurance with medical care. Health insurance does not provide care. They pay the bills.
Their revenue was 370 billion. 22 billion is about 8% profit which is slim.
I’m not confusing one for another, this entire exchange I’ve been talking about the industry at large. CEO pay was one focus, healthcare wages are another, insurance company profits are something else. It’s all part of the same system that exorbitantly overpriced and very ineffective for the cost.
$370B = $370B from health expenses……paid by the insured (us).
8% profit is still $22B. It may be slim compared to revenue but that’s $22B in profit made from citizens who often aren’t even getting the care they’re paying for.
No, I think we should limit the cost of drugs based solely on cost to manufacture and distribute, and pay those operational costs.
I think we should expect to receive healthcare from medical professionals and pay them for their time and operational costs.
I think private health insurance existing as an optional, supplemental option is a step in the correct direction.
I think profiting off such a system is parasitic to out wellbeing and detrimental to the betterment of society.
Ultimately we need to look at healthcare and education as an investment in our country’s well-being.
A population that is healthy, educated and safe is a population that is happier, can fight off threats better and innovate more. A country that fails to produce an effective population is not a successful country for long.
No, I think we should limit the cost of drugs based solely on cost to manufacture and distribute, and pay those operational costs
If we payed for the research. I agree. Otherwise companies will just spend less on research. I don’t mind capping margins unless they don’t enforce the patent.
Yeah research is part of the cost to manufacture cause you first need to know what you’re making hahaha.
Margin-capping isn’t even something to consider when you don’t run it for profit. with wages for workers included in the cost to manufacture and distribute there’s no need to profit further.
I think the people should own the means of production where it makes sense. Healthcare is an obvious example because it’s a service directly for us.
People getting rich and making millions off the suffering of an unhealthy population is morally wrong.
Because even that is too much overhead. Non-profits don’t profit because they have to spend every penny they have left over on operating expenses.
Just pay it from our taxes, like the countries with working Healthcare that Rob mentioned in the post. Clearly he has recognized that’s doable, and a surplus wouldn’t be a violation, it would be a surplus for the next year.
Just pay it from our taxes, like the countries with working Healthcare that Rob mentioned in the post
That isn’t how other countries do phrama. They just negotiate the prices. They don’t do their own R&D, Marketing, or manufacturing, as you are suggesting. They just negotiate pricing.
PPP’s with a range of stakeholders isn’t a bad way to go, just one thought. Those can include private corporations, non-profits, and government-sponsored entities.
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