Sounds like you think the proposed Medicare For All is the best way.
Weell—it's not the way that I'd
completely re-tool the US health care system if I was king for a day,
but it's a step in the right direction. In my opinion, our for-profit
system is immoral and everyone who works in it is required to behave
unethically.
Sounds socialist.
Yees. It
is. Maybe you don't know the term you're throwing around like an
idiot. Makes you sound stupid. Are you?
What?
Arre yoou Duumb?
Sounds like you want to pick a fight.
Yuup. I'm
pickin' a fight with an idiot who's never had an original thought.
Ever. Who bows at the alter of FOX on a daily basis, who probably was
grateful to be able to stop reading books after graduation, is proud of that
ignorance, and who's willing to defend that ignorance, rather than learn
anything, . . . with your fist.
Soo, hit me—I won't hit you back.
Instead, I intend to just call the police.
Theey'll come and arrest you for assault,
and you'll begin a journey thru the US legal system. All of which
can be paid for by our government. A court appointed attorney
is paid a flat fee. The judge, jailers, bailiff, all get a government
salary; 'course your fines will go to the government—so it's not
all paid by taxes.
Umm, you might choose
to hire a lawyer who'll charge by the billable-hour. He or she will
find any-and-every imaginable reason to up their price, because—by hiring
them—you've declared that money is paramount and you don't want a public
attorney who chose to work, to help people. If you're found guilty and
go to jail—you'll still pay your lawyer anyway. Refuse to pay the tens
of thousands of dollars they'll charge and they then will sue you into
bankruptcy. One punch. Risk losing your job, getting a felony record
and a 550 credit score.
Sounds like you are trying to make a point.
Annd. What's that point I'm tryin'
to make?
Sounds to me that you think hospitals can be run like the legal
system. But that has never been a thing and would never work.
Ahh bit of honest advice? Me to
you? Not pickin' a fight—just sayin'—that, from now on, you should try
twisting every statement you're plannin' on makin' into a question. So
your last idiotic statement would be changed into: Are you sayin' the
US health care system could be run like the legal system? Has that
ever been a thing that's worked? Can you hear how my voice raises at
the end of the sentences? That upraising tone of voice doesn't make
you sound like a fool making factless-statements, it makes you sound like
you're interested in learning. Get it?
Ohh, before you say
anything, I'll answer those questions. Yes. That's what I'm
sayin' and yes, that system currently works in hundreds of countries.
It also has worked and currently works on every US active duty
military airbase, on every ship, on every post, in
every Bureau of Indian Affairs hospital and clinic and in
every Veterans Affairs hospital.
But that's just a ...shit... OK. How would you switch over the tens
of thousands of hospitals and clinics and pharmaceutical companies and
drug stores and insurance companies and ambulance companies and hell — I don't even know how many hundreds of different companies currently
make stuff designed to be SOLD for health care. Are you saying all
those jobs become government jobs?
Noo. Our legal system buys the
products it needs. The government buys uniforms and vehicles and
bullets and handcuffs. It buys land and hires construction engineers
to build court houses and jails and prisons.
Are you saying the government would buy all the hospitals or build new
ones of their own?
Weell — king for a day — I'd pass a law
which made it illegal to profit from providing any service in
any way related to health care. I'd also make it illegal to profit
from the criminal legal system, which would make private prisons illegal and
the only lawyers able to work in the criminal courts would be government
salaried professionals.
Yea, but you didn't answer my question.
Wiith my new law it would be impossible
to profit from providing health care without going to prison, so every
doctor running a private practice, every clinic, to every
hospital-conglomerate would have three choices: either they become a
non-profit organization with set prices and salaries; or they donate their
entire operation to the government who would take it over and run it like a
VA hospital; or they could turn their hospital into a resort-spa-hotel for
non-health care type services, which would not be banned: like elective
surgeries, drug rehabilitation, autopsies, and the like.
Abortions?
Aahh. I don't know. Hadn't
thought about that. Off the top of my head, all birth control is
immediately free because it's health care; but, since most people who
terminate a pregnancy are doing so as an elective surgery, I think that'd,
mostly, not be covered. So you can add abortions to another service
available at the resort-spa-hotel option.
You said — see, I'm asking questions — the hospitals would be able to become non-profit and then they would
post prices, but the government hospitals in the same town would be free,
right?
Riight.
How would nonprofit hospitals or doctor's offices get any business?
Even with posted prices and set salaries they could never compete against
free.
Buut, how do
non-profit museums or zoos or civil rights organizations or medical clinics
survive today? There are tens of thousands of them.
I don't know. Donations?
Yess, memberships and donations are a big
part. But, I suspect the most successful ones provide a unique service
not available elsewhere. A standard government VA hospital is going to
triage, prioritize, schedule, and provide satisfactory health care
for all. Key word there was satisfactory. Think
DMV. Think police station. Think county jail. Is the
picture becoming clearer?
Not a pretty picture.
Noo. I suspect that there are
millions of wealthy people who'll be willing to pay an annual membership fee
and then pay out of pocket for health care at a non-profit hospital in order
to not stand in line and only receive the standard and satisfactory health
care available to every person in the country. Just like at
Disneyland, money makes it possible to not wait in line.
When you said out-of-pocket I remembered health insurance
companies. Are your new laws going to make them illegal?
Absoolutely not. No company would
be banned or forced out of business or seized by the government. The
only thing that would happen is people or corporations who make any profit
from providing any form of service related to health care would be guilty of
the felony crime of intentional harm toward the greater populace, punishable
by up to ten years in prison and a ten million dollar fine for each
individual whom they profit from. I suspect a limited amount of
non-profit health insurance companies might be created, probably affiliated
with the few non-profit hospitals, but most health insurance companies would
decide to re-tool to become life-home-car insurance companies.
And pharmaceutical companies?
Soo, there are already a couple
nonprofit drug companies out there, but they only make generic drugs.
My new law would make it illegal for any company to profit from creating a
patient on a new drug, as well as selling patients they already own.
The federal government will set all drug prices, not the pharmaceutical
companies, so if they wanted to stay in business, big-pharma
would—obviously—have to become completely non-profit. Or, they would
have to separate and only work on research and production of non-health care
medications. They could still profit from 'elective drugs' like
recreational drug production, penis pills, vitamins.
I'm sensing a theme. Your law would mostly change executive pay,
bonuses and stocks. Non-profit companies don't have stocks.
Thaat's correct. Not for profit
agencies are focused on the best product for people or on people
themselves. At the end of a profitable year, nonprofit organizations
invest all their profits in structural improvements, logistics, expansion,
or saving for a future non-profitable year. Think military—a commander
doesn't get a bonus when the soldiers under their command successfully
accomplish a mission.
Wheen soldiers get paid bonuses or are
promised more money for more efficient killing they are
mercenaries. Soldiers for hire. Or, pirates. Any
job which is best filled by people with no moral code or who are not
required to adhere to ethical behavior, should never be one related to
providing constant and consistent health care to the entire population of a
country regardless of income. My law would force that to happen.
I would call it the Every Community Health Organization and the slogan would
be: Every ECHO is your ECHO where you're an ECHO member.
Why?
Eveentually asshats
will say it or hear it enough to learn the difference between your
and the abbreviated form of you are. Don't ya think? King for a
day!
