Those of you in favor of Universal Health Care, do you understand the math?

Look at Norway which has this system, any Norweigian will tell you that taxes are extremely high, healthcare is lower quality, and the government will actually deny healthcare if the person is elderly and the cost outweighs the life left.

I really wish we could all have free healthcare, but many people are on welfare and contribute nothing to society, and are a burden on the state, so either way the working man loses.

First of all, what matters is the amount paid for healthcare in total, not how much tax is paid. I'd gladly pay 21% in taxes to the government rather than 25% of my income to an insurance company. Second, Medicare costs more than universal health care would, because Medicare does not cover many healthy people and involves a small number of people - a large number of people, with a great majority of them essentially healthy, under one program drives down prices. Third, America pays far more per capita on healthcare than any other first world country, and yet our health outcomes are not any better, and in some areas worse, than those countries.

Edit:

The point is not that we're getting less healthcare, but that we're getting less healthcare per dollar spent. Clearly other countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Britain, etc. are spending their healthcare dollars more efficiently, by providing universal healthcare. If nothing else universal healthcare lowers costs by increasing preventive medicine so that more expensive visits and procedures are performed less often.

There can be no reasonable question that our health care system needs to be improved. The only candidate who has proposed a reasonable solution and new idea is Joe Biden.

Biden's 34 years in the senate have taught him that you can't defeat the health care lobby unless you build a national consensus. The health care lobby opposes any change and has threatened to throw $500 billion against any effort to enact significant reform.

Joe Biden knows that one solution is not the way to go and that the goal of universal health care is not politically viable. The proposals of the other Dems are nothing more than election talk. Biden wants the states to set up their own programs with the federal government underwriting some of the costs. In this careful and measured way a new system will evolve along with a national consensus. The health care lobby will simply have been outmaneuvered.

Actually, you forget about the bloated budgets that could be cut in order to pay for universal healthcare.

The issue here is that we need to find a way to have this happen without raising taxes. What you proprose is not the way it has to be, you just don't want to ask how we can do it without such a ludicris scenario. I'm so tired of hearing about making sure that every human being in this country would not have to worry about dying becuase the treatment of their illness wouldn't be "profitable". Universal Healthcare is a human rights issue, not just about economics.

I had a friend who was in the hospital and his roommate was a professor with a brain tumor. It was treatable but he was told by the insurance company, a woman with her clipboard came to his bedside to tell him, that they could no longer cover him and that he had to leave the hospital to go home. That's right, to go home and die. Tell me where in the industrialized world this kind of outcome is acceptable?

overhead for medicare costs is 3-4%

while the overhead of the rest of our healthcare system runs around 65-70% (insurance company bottomline, shareholders, administrative costs,paperworkshifting,etc) 30-35% of each spent dollar actually goes to treatment costs.

Everyone talks about doctors leaving america saying that the reason is because of malpractice insurance, but the real reason is that payments in other country's go in THEIR pocket, not the insurance company's, they don't have to pay extra employess to file insurance claims and spend hours fighting for each of those small payments) they don't have to have insurance bureacrats denying their patients necessary medical procedures. Cut out all the meddle men that are only concerned with protecting their corporate profits and shareholders, and we could afford to provide NECESSARY medical care. People who want to get elective procedures can get other insurance and PAY for those elective procedures.

Insurance companies practice "Murder by Spreadsheet"

THey will deny claims and make you fight for months while you are trying to recuperate (hoping to get you to give up, and just pay those denied claims) They change the rules to protect their bottomline,

1/3 of employers no longer offer health benefits. Just try and find someone to cover you. I am 50, i just tried to get individual insurance through aarp, and yesterday got my letter saying we don't care that you can pay our high price, because we are denying you a policy anyway. Hope you can afford $700 a month for insurance (which i am willing to pay)and hope that they don't deny you a policy after waitng 30 days to find that out. Pretty depressing.

I take a small dose of blood sugar lowering medicine, and that disqualified me. I am not overweight (5.8 130 lbs) and otherwise in general good health

AMeriplan, one simple card, plans are great until you actually get sick or have an emergency. Most hospitals will NOT accept these, and you may get (if you are lucky) 10% discount

50,000 hospital bill - $5000 (discount card) = 45,000 cash owed.

Major thing you missed:

Illegal immigrants and health care for people without insurance. These people receive free medical care at ER's nationwide. That cost is then passed on to everyone else. They also receive free ambulance rides to get there, free life flights, even free meds if they do it right. All of these costs make our costs go up.

To make matters worse, the hospitals have to spend tons of money trying to collect on all of that.

All of that could be minimized if not negated by universal healthcare.

Also, these problems would be handled at an earlier stage instead of as emergencies, that would further lower the costs.

Unfortunately I know no way to itemize this stuff and to factor its costs since so much of it is hidden costs.

That math is way off.

Try looking at the tax rates of countries with universal health care or universal insurance systems.

Also, keep in mind that if we transfer even a fraction of our bloated, gigantic military budget to health care it would help pay for it as well.

It just boils down to values and priorities.

I read most of this but you lost me when you said "hey don't blame me it's Clinton's plan." What plan? She hasn't unveiled a plan yet. Edwards and Obama have, but not Clinton, no details from her yet at all.

UHC can be approached from all different sides with many different scenarios of how to pay for it. I don't know whose plan you used to develop your numbers, but it sure wasn't Clintons.

Right now all the math I truly understand is the numbers on my medical bills that will take me the rest of my life plus some years to pay off.

any way you cut it if it's national health insurance we all lose, except the wealthy. they go and buy special care insurance like they do in England. each state should run their health plan. ex::nj cost would be higher and idaho would be less.

cost of living comes into play.