I am officially distubed by the truth of U.S healthcare.

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The system pretty much tells me to go kill myself.......I can't get insurance as I cannot afford it and have pre-existing mental conditions, I got denied for medicaid and I have no way to afford any medical treatment for anything. But that does not matter to the buisness model.....according to that it would be better if I were dead because I am only hurting the buisness model right. Also these medical programs for people who cannot afford insurance do not reflect how a national Universal Healthcare system would work so that is kind of irrelevent to this topic.

Universal healthcare is not government interventions.......it is a completely different system then what we have in the U.S. I am not saying I want the government to intervene more in the system we have, I think this system does not work and we need a new one. I am open to ideas other then Universal Healthcare, but thus far I have not seen a better idea.

I have seen a better idea, open up competition where you can buy a policy from an insurance company that is in another state. Either the insurance companies that used to have a monopoly will shape up and cater to their customers more, or they end up losing their customers and going out of business.

But this assumes greed on the part of the developer. I don't think that's necessarily accurate. Sure, there are some developers who would see this as an opportunity for wealth beyond imagination, but others might be pleased, even honored just to be credited for his or her work. This person might want to give it away. I mean, can you imagine the job offers after curing cancer? Greed is not necessary to have significant success here.

Why must we cater our system to those who lack basic integrity and decency? Why can't shift our thinking and our policies to reward the true do-gooders? There are smart people out there with good intentions and great ideas. Why not invest in them instead of CEO salaries?

Why the hell should anyone pay a company who pays employees more for denying more people coverage, finds ways to get out of covering someone when something does happen regardless of how much that individual was paying for insurance?

Also that is virtually what we have already but it so happens many people cannot afford insurance, and even some who can cannot get it because they have a 'pre-existing condition.

This system fails to help those people, fails to help people who cannot afford insurance ect. We should have a system that does not require corrupt insurance comapanies....Universal Healthcare is the only one I know of.

And finally did you think of a response for what people in my situation are supposed to do if we need medical care...or are you going to continue pretending this concern of mine does not even exist.

Good point.

It's a hypothetical scenario meant to highlight the ideological differences.

This system (of the free market) doesn't cater to the greedy, it allows all people regardless of their intentions to produce things for the general good. Only those who produce the most useful things to a society at the lowest cost win out.

Is it better for a man to do good for selfish reasons, or to do bad with noble reasons?

If a man produces the cure for cancer out of self interest, he still has done a good thing - It's much better than producing a bad drug which hurts people with good intentions. It doesn't matter what the intentions are, what matters is the good it does.

It goes back to the invisible hand, this idea that people, out of acting out of their own self interest benefit the whole of society.

Yes but when actually applied people acting for self intrest and profit alone does not actually benifit the whole of society.....I mean if that were the case why does 1% of the population own well over half the nations wealth? while the poor are just getting poorer and more people are ending up there. I don't want to get too off topic as this really was supposed to be specifically about healthcare but the system we have really is not working for the majority of people wether its our healthcare system or economic system in general.

That so called 1% has such a large amount of wealth because they worked to earn that wealth, they invested in things (or their parents did), and it paid off. You are advocating punishing people for being successful.

Oh yes all of those people are good honest hard working americans that earned their positions.....do you honestly belive that? I suggest you watch the documentary the 1% and actaully do a little bit of research and obeservation. If hard work pays off is that why my dad worked his ass off even after getting a knee injury that was never properley treated and never could manage to make a decent living?

I am advocating changing our definition of success because so far it seems success is based on ones ability to step on other people all in the name of profit. You really don't have a clue do you?

I'm not a big believer in the notion of the invisible hand. I guess it all depends on your definition of success. I would describe a successful nation as a healthy nation. One that has easy access to the things that improve overall quality of life such as education, transportation, basic protective services, and health care. You can't have a healthy nation when the citizens lack access to basic healthcare. I think when you focus on the bottom line, you lose sight of what's important.

The free market only highlights functions that produce a profit. Some things simply aren't fit for profit. There is an inherent cost for services like fire protection, road construction, police protection, and I'd argue, healthcare. Free market works well with consumer goods. If you can't afford designer jeans, you buy generic, or go to the thrift store. That's totally fair. I don't think it's fair to treat healthcare the same way. I don't think a poor person deserves to have poor quality care, or worse, no care at all. I feel that quality care is vital for all citizens.

I bolded the statement I found most intriguing. Why the false dichotomy? A person can do good things with noble reasons and bad things for selfish reasons just as easily. I mean, ultimately, there's gonna be some sort of sacrifice. Right now, we're sacrificing healthcare for about 50 million people. I'd prefer to sacrifice the potential greedy developer.

It's all theory anyway. Has there been an instance of a developer who was unable to profit substantially who then turned around and said, "That's it. I'm done?" I think it's wiser to work with what we know, not with what might happen.

Humans tend to have a fallen nature, and one doesn't develop a sudden sense of virtue because they are working in Government.

Can you suggest a good reason why there shouldn't be a lot more government research?

My t-shirt from Argonne says Science Serving Society. Aspies of all people should be able to understand that scientific inquiry is not exclusively inspired by a profit motive.

...or in the insurance, pharmaceutical or health care industries.

Government (in countries with functioning democracies) has one singular advantage over the private sector: it's policy makers are accountable for their decision making on a regular basis.

Corporate leadership responds to one, and to only one metric of success: creating profit for shareholders. And since the most influential shareholders are fund managers (who control significantly more capital all but a very few individuals) typically corporate accountability extends no farther than the next quarterly statement.

You might not trust government--but you do get a choice. Most people do not get a choice about their insurer (assuming that they have one) or about their health care provider. You take the insurance that your employer has purchased on your behalf. You take the doctor who is actually accepting new patients. You take the specialist that your doctor has referred you to. Any choice that you think you might have in health care is largely illusory, and those decisions are made by people who need never be accountable to you in any meaningful way provided that they do not misconduct themselves.

Government's not perfect--not by a long shot. But we are different from private industry in important ways, and the benefits of that should not be dismissed out of hand.

This is where you are wrong, if it is under Government control, there wouldn't be any accountability because the people making the decisions would not be the elected officials, it would be someone whom is unelected and was appointed to that position. There would be no chance for appeal and no accountability. You really think that an elected official wouldn't try to have it so someone else was making the decisions that could get them unseated if it was them doing it.

Insurance companies are also better at catching fraudulent claims than the Government, and there is a reason why I want small businesses to be able to jointly apply for insurance for their employees. An insurance company is less likely to pull any shannigans when they know they could lose a couple hundred paying customers if they started playing games and trying to deny coverage. Also if there is a lot of companies competing, Insurance Companies would be less apt to hose people, because their competitors (as soon as they got wind of it) would use it as a talking point in an advertisement to get people to switch to their company.

Also, believe it or not, Insurance Companies have a rather small profit margin compared to most companies.

A good argument was proposed in that documentary...the governments in many of these countries with universal healthcare are 'afraid' of their people because if they do something that pisses the people off they will protest and maybe even riot...so they kind of have to be accountable.

Here everyone trusts the illusion that we are some how more free than everyone else on the entire planet.....when in reality we are more opressed but instead of the government doing most of the opressing its the corporate system doing most of the opressing. And many are afraid of the government......they don't want to stand up to them because they are afraid of losing what little they do have.