For anyone who doesn't get why we should at least have a "public option" in the health care reform bill:

The profit motive is a huge thing to eliminate, but for both good and bad reasons. If a universal healthcare plan kicks in, the first thing I bet private insurance companies will do is get a wake up slap and make some changes that make them a more attractive choice. This could be anything from better insurance coverage, more options (perhaps to one-up what the government would cover), and the tendency to deny less claims or to attach more stipulations that wouldn't be directly denying, but not outright accepting a claim. After all, anyone that chooses a universal plan over private insurance hurts those companies, so they wouldn't really have a choice in the matter of needing change.

That being said, a system run without a profit motive could have little motivation for improvement and change. Private insurance in its current form may not seem like its a reasonable solution, but as a profit oriented company they face the possibility of death if they are no longer competitive. If healthcare kicks in, expect them to change fast.

In sort of an ironic way, Obama made a great analogy with the postal system that gets to the very point I'm trying to make. He stated that UPS and FedEx were fine, it's the USPS that has issues. I believe it. USPS and FedEx have a reason to keep improving - competition. They face the possibility of death and that alone drives them to make their service fast and reliable. The USPS isn't at all bad, but they don't have the motivator to be the "best" because they are a government agency.

However, I believe universal healthcare is necessary because it will force private insurance to be more competitive which right now is not in the realm of reasonableness. It's hard to believe that a public care option can actually make private insurance better as well, and that's something some people don't understand.

Right, I'm not saying that a public healthcare option would be the equivilent of eating McDonalds as a form of culinary arts, but one thing that is certain is that Private insurance would change. They'll have to fight to get their customers because a huge portion of their business depends on it. Obama certainly wouldn't want his system to look like crap compared to what private insurance does, I sure as hell wouldn't. However, that's not necessarily a horrible thing if they're "worse" than the private insurance companies. If the whole point of this plan is to give people who can't afford insurance some form of coverage as opposed to none, then that's fantastic. The basic insurance standard would be taken out of the palms of businesses and placed into government responsibility which is a fantastic trade, even though it comes at the expense of the prosperity of insurance companies.

However, the United States is going from a previously profit-driven system of healthcare to now a government run (partially) system. In that video with the example of the police and the firefighters and how it would be crap if they charged for fire fighting service, that's kind of a poor example because I don't believe police and firefighters were ever previously profit based. A profit-oriented police system wouldn't work at all, so it's unfair to list that as a case and point like the author of that video did. In a case like that, it would have to be a government system... but that's not the case with health care. Health care can "work" in a profit-oriented system like it has been, but it's flawed. It's flaw is primarily that it's shit because they're the standard of what people know as insurance. They set the rules and have no danger that requires them to be anything else, and the only way that changes occurs is when people can get service and not have to pay for it. It's almost like the Apple vs. PC spiel. In the way in which consumers of those two enterprises have mutually exclusive wants and needs that don't try to satisfy eachother, the government system isn't in the business to become the dominant insurance company. I think the overall goal is to spread the icing over to the areas that aren't covered very well on the cake, not to dominate the icing entirely. I can understand that and I don't think that's a bad thing.

I do like the idea of government-ran competing insurance companies. I can see how that generates comeptition and motivation to improve. It's almost like holding a steak up infront of a pack of dogs and watching them fight over who will be the one that takes the biggest portion. The biggest - and "bestest" (lol) change to help the people with competing government insurance companies would be that the check doesn't come to our side of the table.

EDIT: You also have to remember the fact that in Europe, people are more inclined and willing to pay more in taxes for a better quality system like governmental healthcare that's as badass as France's. The US has a phenomenon in which Americans are die-hard "DON'T RAISE OUR TAXES MOFO." This ultimately doesn't make the pie and bigger or more attractive, especially in comparison to private insurance companies in which people do pay money to solely for health insurance. If we ever want to get to a system that's as badass as France's, Americans in general need to be more willing to make the pie bigger in addition to it being "free", so that people will each get a bigger slice, as opposed to a small "free" pie that people get maybe a bite of each. The current state for private insurance is that the pie is big but it is not free. You get a bigger piece by paying the most. That's what needs to be changed.

Well, the title was right about the "retards" part...

I love how the video holds up "other essential services" as though they're models of efficiency, quality and innovation that should convince me of the merits of a public option.

Public education, the postal service... man, those do awesome jobs! And the lengthy praising of Medicare and how it only takes a tiny percent for administrative costs (and by only discussing administrative costs and leaving everything else in a big "98%" pile, they neatly sidestep the horrendously wasteful spending and record levels of fraud throughout it)... wonderful.

When it got to efficiency, I distinctly noticed they left out the aforementioned services, instead talking about police, fire and water. It's great that the video calls them efficient, but when the government has a monopoly on them, what are you comparing them to? You can't just call something "efficient." It has to be efficient as compared to something. I'm not advocating the privatization of the police or fire departments, I'm just saying that if those are your only sources for citing government efficiency, that's pretty sad.

They go through this horror story of having to buy "fire insurance"... OMG it'd have to come out of my paycheck?? Wait, what's it doing now?
FYI, either you're already paying for it or you're not. If you are, then where's the horror here? If you're not, then by what right do you benefit from someone ELSE'S paycheck?
ROFLMAO... direct quote: "free for everyone, paid for by our tax dollars"

Coverage areas, pre-existing conditions... gimme a break. A) you have to find a fire department in your area NOW. And to make another (and equally inapplicable) comparison, we all have auto insurance, but are you unable to find a body shop your insurance provider will pay for? And
B) Pre-existing condition... um, if you STARTED the fire with your damn BBQ, why should the insurance company have to pay for it (or do so without raising your rates)?

I never thought I'd hear the word "profit" sincerely spoken the same tone someone would say "genocide" or "racism." I'm so glad the government is working just for us.

I'll give you public education, but just barely because I do think universal education is a right and the state is obligated to provide it to the best of its ability. It's really shitty in most poor areas, really good in most wealthy areas, and a mixed bag everywhere else. It's strange though, if private schools can do it so much better why don't they? As far as I've ever seen, funding and demographics are what determine education quality. There are thousands of great public schools and thousands of terrible private schools. Having gone to both public and private schools I would say that they both suck, the entire education model sucks. Public education does do an awesome job

The postal service is actually very efficient as a system and has continuously improved for as long as it has existed. We have one of the best postal systems in the world. I know it sucks when you have to wait in line and the person behind the counter is some old dickhole but seriously, you can send a letter to any address in America with the change in your pocket and know that it will be delivered.

Medicare is more efficient than anything comparable. Really go look at the numbers, dollar for dollar they get more done. That whole "it only counts administrative costs" line has been kicking around the right-wing echo chamber a long time, as far as I've ever seen it's a pile of BS constructed from a single report written by one guy at some obscure insurance industry funded "think tank".
You are right that fraud is a serious problem, imagine how much more efficient they could be if they could reduce it further. This is one area where the insurance companies generally have Medicare beat. So yes, Medicare is less efficient at catching fraud and loses a significant amount of money because of it.
Even assuming Medicare is not more efficient, it doesn't mean a government run health care plan can't be more efficient (unless you think American's are inferior to the French?).

Re: Fire and police efficiency, I don't know if this has been done but you could measure it in various ways via comparison. It would be tedious and the results would generally be a bit fuzzy, but if you had all the relevant data a math nerd should be able to make it work.




It's that whole "public good" thing you don't seem to believe in. From my paycheck people are paid to put out fires in my fire district because it benefits everyone in the fire district. I know that if my neighbors house was on fire the risk of it spreading to my house is going to be minimized by a bunch of dudes who specialize in that sort of thing and have a bunch of expensive gear they are trained to use. It's in everyone's interest to put out fire everywhere.

The same principle applies to health care. What we have now is a health care system equivalent to those dudes not showing up to put out the fire unless you can pay. For those who can pay when they show up it's with the least amount of dudes and cheapest equipment they think they can get away with, and then try to you shake down for as much money as they can while the fire continues to burn. If you're lucky they start trying to put out the fire as they argue and make demands for absurd amounts of money that would bankrupt you if you had to pay.
So I can sit on my porch and laugh at my idiot neighbor who can't pay for anyone to show up and put the fire he started with his cheap ass jury rigged old BBQ that he bought at fucking Wal-Mart more than two decades ago. I sure hope it doesn't set any other houses on fire...
Awesome, now my neighbor is yet another fucking abandoned lot full of burnt wreckage infested with rats and junkies making my neighborhood even more shitty and driving my fucking property values down even further. Then one day I lose my job and I can't afford the mortgage anymore on a house I can't sell because I owe more than it's worth and it's in a shitty neighborhood, let alone afford to pay for a bunch of dudes to show up and put out the fire that's consuming it because some asshole junkie who probably once owned a BBQ wondered over from the abandoned lot next door and accidentally set it on fire when he dropped his crack pipe while he was robbing me. Hopefully I'm not burned to death or horrifically disfigured in the fire.

I hate being right.