Medicare for All!

[Scout26]

Roosevelt mucking around with Agriculture has only made things more expensive.   And yes, capitalism, in the form of labor saving machinery has made modern farming what it is today.  If the .gov got out of the farming business, food would be cheaper.  It's plentiful an we can easily feed the entire world, with much left over, despite what the doom and gloom prophets were predicting in the latter half of the 20th Century. 

And it's not socialism that did that.  I remember when we were sending food to the Soviets on a pretty much annual basis, because the experienced a bad harvest every year going back to 1917.  Now, the Ukraine, Belorus, and Russia are net exporters of grain.  I wonder what caused that change.

And of course no one is mentioning the elephant in the room.   How many hundreds of people died because the NHS couldn't respond to the flu outbreak in Britain earlier this year.   The Brits won't come out and admit the problems with the bureaucratic inertia that delayed a quick response to the unfolding crisis.  Which showed they learned nothing from 2009 or the winter of 2010/11 when they also had flu pandemics.

And anyone who thinks that single payer is so great go deal with the VA.  I farkin' dare you.  It's an absolute Byzantine nightmare compared to dealing with an insurance company.

 

[Firethorn]

The VA isn't single payer though?  It isn't even the best example of the federal healthcare programs? I mean just on the government side alone we could also look at Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and more.  There are private insurances, and the VA will attempt to bill them if you have them.

Etc...

As such, the argument could be made that the VA is too small and serves too specific of a group to be a good metric for healthcare.  Medicare serves a lot more people.  Medicaid serves more.  

VA:  9 Million.  
Medicare: 44 Million
Medicaid: 70 Million

Etc...

Part of the argument is that when you start going true "single payer", start putting the politicians on the program, they can't continue to allow the programs to be horrible.  Plus, in this case, we'd be eliminating two of three parallel bureaucracies.  

But I'm going to go back to what I said earlier:  I don't think we need single payer, we need an insurance of last resort.  Start combining all the government healthcare systems into it, with some added bits for the military system because it needs to be able to deploy.

[MechAg94]

If such a thing were to happen, the best plan would be to require the politicians to get care in their home districts.  They would still end up getting special treatment, but at least there wouldn't be some special D.C. treatment clinic.

[Pb]

This is actually a good comparison. Food production is heavily regulated and subsidised - more so than in most of the rest of the world. US farming is as close to socialist medicine as our economy gets, and as a result we have some of the cheapest and most available food in the world.

Mass starvation usually happens in socialist economies, not capitalist ones.  Note the current food crisis in Venezuela.

[MechAg94]

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances.aspx

Theres data on this. $20 billion in direct subsidies and $172 billion worth of other investment and value seems pretty significant to me. And this is in an industry that was basically entirely revolutionised by Roosevelt.

To suggest capitalism built US farming is delusional. People get paid subsidies in socialist systems - just because some folks get billions in payments and then get to sell a product on top doesn’t make it capitalism.

Wow.  I am certain you didn't build that, but I am pretty sure a lot of farmers did.  Be better if we knew exactly who that money was actually getting paid to.

[MechAg94]

I contribute data to the Washington Insurance Commissioners annual medmal report and I helped set up the reporting format and data!  The one sticky wicket in the figure you cited is that in many of the settlements and verdicts, the special damages figure is an estimated allocation by the insurer.  It is more straight-forward when you have a jury verdict form and the jury actually allocates a known figure for special damages.  In many cases, however, I would argue that wage loss and impairment of future earning capacity is more of a driver of the total special damages figure than medical costs. If my provider kills a 35 year old Boeing engineer making $ 150,000 a year, 30 years wage loss increasing at 3% per year, will make up a larger chunk of special damages than the $ 55,000 hospital bill.

What is often not factored in is how liability affects decision making at every level.  It seems just about every decision by upper level managers involves taxes and liability in one way or another.  It warps our economy in ways I am not sure can be accounted for. 

[Hawkmoon]

The VA isn't single payer though?  It isn't even the best example of the federal healthcare programs? I mean just on the government side alone we could also look at Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and more.  There are private insurances, and the VA will attempt to bill them if you have them.

But it's, in overall effect, single provider. It's a huge HMO, in which your primary care physician is your gate keeper. You can't see a specialist unless and until your primary makes a referral. That's what almost killed me in 2014. I started having heart rhythm problems. (Actually, they had started a few years before, and the VA doc said it was nothing to be concerned about.) My primary changed the dosage of my blood pressure medication. Arrhythmia got worse. She changed the medication. Arrhythmia got worse. She changed the dosage on the new medication. Arrhythmia got worse ... Nowhere along the way did she send me to see a cardiologist.

Meanwhile, I was to the point that I barely had enough energy to get out of bed. I finally woke up and remembered that I'm on social security, I have Medicare, and I had a Medicare supplement plan. So I called a general practitioner doctor in town and went in to see them. Didn't even get to the doctor -- the PA said I needed to see a cardiologist STAT -- to the point that she made an appointment for me for first thing the next morning. When I got to the cardiologist, he said I belonged in the emergency room. He wanted me to go there directly from his office, but I'm a widower, I live alone, and I had custody of my daughter's toy poodle. So he told me to make arrangements for the dog and go the the ER first thing the next morning. I did so, and a week later they sawed open my chest.

The VA finally contacted me about an appointment with a cardiologist about six weeks after my heart surgery, while I was at home, recuperating.

[Firethorn]

I finally woke up and remembered that I'm on social security, I have Medicare, and I had a Medicare supplement plan.

So your solution to one government healthcare provider screwing up was to use a different government healthcare provider.  Got it.

Also, all your "evidence" is anecdotal.  There's plenty of horror stories out there for private healthcare insurance, remember?

[MillCreek]

^^^^  This just came through on my MedPage newsfeed: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/15/health/cancer-survivor-insurance-denial-battle/index.html

Interesting side topic: I interviewed with the Seattle proton therapy center for their quality/risk director, and turned them down due to their financials. I suspect they will be out of business in a few years.  They have local competition, and the lack of insurance reimbursement for proton therapy is weeding out centers.  So far, the literature suggests that proton therapy is useful in only certain narrow indications, and the insurers are refusing to pay for anything other than those indications.

[Scout26]

So your solution to one government healthcare provider screwing up was to use a different government healthcare provider.  Got it.

Also, all your "evidence" is anecdotal.  There's plenty of horror stories out there for private healthcare insurance, remember?

Oh, there's tons of evidence of the VA killing patients.  While privat4 insurance companies can be a PITA to deal with at times, they haven't actively kill people to the extent of the VA's willful neglect.

We've all seen the NHS in Britain deny treatment to children suffering from rare diseases (including refusing to allow the parents to take a child to a a country that offered free treatment).  Plus the reports of the NHS actively killing children and old people. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161869/Top-doctors-chilling-claim-The-NHS-kills-130-000-elderly-patients-year.html

Now come reports from Belgium of their health service euthanizing patients.  http://www.lifenews.com/2018/07/25/belgium-euthanizes-hundreds-of-disabled-and-mentally-disabled-people-including-three-children/


But you have to break a few eggs to have healthcare for everyone....

[De Selby]

Oh, there's tons of evidence of the VA killing patients.  While privat4 insurance companies can be a PITA to deal with at times, they haven't actively kill people to the extent of the VA's willful neglect.

We've all seen the NHS in Britain deny treatment to children suffering from rare diseases (including refusing to allow the parents to take a child to a a country that offered free treatment).  Plus the reports of the NHS actively killing children and old people. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161869/Top-doctors-chilling-claim-The-NHS-kills-130-000-elderly-patients-year.html

Now come reports from Belgium of their health service euthanizing patients.  http://www.lifenews.com/2018/07/25/belgium-euthanizes-hundreds-of-disabled-and-mentally-disabled-people-including-three-children/


But you have to break a few eggs to have healthcare for everyone....

Okay, so in response to studies you post media. Surely you can see firethorns point - if he comes back with four articles about private hospitals killing children, would he have a stronger case than youve posted?

Or should we maybe just look for research on average outcomes and go from there?

[De Selby]

Mass starvation usually happens in socialist economies, not capitalist ones.  Note the current food crisis in Venezuela.

True. No socialist country has come up with a regulatory and subsidy framework as vast or well funded as the USA.

[De Selby]

I contribute data to the Washington Insurance Commissioners annual medmal report and I helped set up the reporting format and data!  The one sticky wicket in the figure you cited is that in many of the settlements and verdicts, the special damages figure is an estimated allocation by the insurer.  It is more straight-forward when you have a jury verdict form and the jury actually allocates a known figure for special damages.  In many cases, however, I would argue that wage loss and impairment of future earning capacity is more of a driver of the total special damages figure than medical costs. If my provider kills a 35 year old Boeing engineer making $ 150,000 a year, 30 years wage loss increasing at 3% per year, will make up a larger chunk of special damages than the $ 55,000 hospital bill.

Those are great reports - do you know any sources for data that give a firmer picture of the breakdown of awards?

[Hawkmoon]

So your solution to one government healthcare provider screwing up was to use a different government healthcare provider.  Got it.

No, my point was that in order to see the specialist I needed, I had to go out of the VA system. I was specifically responding to a comment about the VA. And I doubt that either my private sector cardiologist or the local university teaching hospital would consider itself to be a government provider.

Also, all your "evidence" is anecdotal.  There's plenty of horror stories out there for private healthcare insurance, remember?

Of course my story (I didn't call it "evidence") is anecdotal. I never said it was anything else.

[De Selby]

What is often not factored in is how liability affects decision making at every level.  It seems just about every decision by upper level managers involves taxes and liability in one way or another.  It warps our economy in ways I am not sure can be accounted for. 

It is important to recognise that liability is costs imposed on other people - it is not warped to take it into account

[MillCreek]

Those are great reports - do you know any sources for data that give a firmer picture of the breakdown of awards?

I do not; I am unaware of any data source that gets to that level of granularity.  It is difficult to find any data that even breaks out special vs. general damages.

[De Selby]

I do not; I am unaware of any data source that gets to that level of granularity.  It is difficult to find any data that even breaks out special vs. general damages.

The insurance returns at that link have at least an approximation. I’ve seen academic examples of local judgment research before but wouldn’t have time to dig on WA. Law student project worthy I reckon.

[Scout26]

Okay, so in response to studies you post media. Surely you can see firethorns point - if he comes back with four articles about private hospitals killing children, would he have a stronger case than youve posted?

Or should we maybe just look for research on average outcomes and go from there?

Sure, if he can post 4 articles about hospitals (not a single deranged person, but the leadership of said hospital conspiring and) willing to kill children and old people.

[Firethorn]

Sure, if he can post 4 articles about hospitals (not a single deranged person, but the leadership of said hospital conspiring and) willing to kill children and old people.

That's moving the goalposts Amy.  Heck, I'd say it is such a move, and of such specificity, that you are still missing the point.  Even the NHS system?  Reading between the lines, that is hospice care.  You kind of need that, I think.  Now, one can have the argument of whether everybody moved into it is actually ready for it.  But several of my grandparents received it before the end, here in the USA.  But phrase it wrongly, and it certainly sounds like the healthcare system sentenced my grandparents to death.  

My core point is that once you remove the anecdotal, outcomes are remarkably similar between "first world" nations, despite the United States spending vastly more.  Marginally better in a few metrics, marginally worse in others, etc...

It doesn't need to be the leadership of the hospital conspiring to kill people.  Nice catch on restricting it to leadership and conspiracies, by the way.  Gotta keep that goalpost shuffling, and make my job difficult as threading a needle because I can't even pick conspiracies against people of average age.  Can't include plain old incompetence because the hospital admins are simply too cheap.  Can't include deaths due to people not seeking treatment because they can't afford it.  Etc...  Instead, I'll deny your goalpost move and stick to my original point.

How about hospital errors killing 440k people a year in the USA?  That rate of death would kill every person in the VA system every 20 years.  

Or that lack of health coverage kills 45k/year?

That people are avoiding healthcare due to high cost?

The CDC reports that, on average, about 11% of Americans delay or do not receive medical care due to cost the previous year.  And we complain about delays in universal systems?

[Scout26]

That's not moving the goalposts.  That's setting the parameters so that same data is being used for both sides, not anecdotes.  For every Nurse Rachet in the US smothering patients, there is a Nurse Rachet in the UK injecting them with a lethal dose of morphine. (relative to population).  Nice try a deflecting the argument.  I'm just trying to compare apples to apples.

I'm referring to the Hospital Administration picking and choosing who lives and who dies (or gets operations).  Mostly due to money. 

And there is also a huge difference between an individual who writes an Advance Directive regarding their care, or a family making end of life decisions for a loved one; versus a bunch of hospital bureaucrats sitting around a conference table deciding who gets an operation and who gets the Bobby Sands treatment. (and without involving the family/loved ones in that decision.) 

And no, the outcomes aren't comparable between us and the UK. Far from it in fact. 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/14/avoidable-deaths-nhs-hospitals-study 
That would be same as if 3,750 people in the US died needlessly in Hospitals in US each month.  That would be a national scandal.  Oh wait, it was with the VA.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/12/hospital-death-rates-england-higher-us
Seems their death rate is 45% higher then ours.  I wouldn't consider that "Similar outcomes."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8668906/NHS-delays-operations-as-it-waits-for-patients-to-die-or-go-private.html
Yeah, I'm sure Millcreek will confirm that his hospital does this all the time...

Even the NHS says that they kill more patients the US hospitals do:  https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/death-rate-much-higher-in-english-than-us-hospitals/

Here's the tl;dr version.  The NHS death rate is 4 times higher then the US'.  Again.  Not a similar outcome by 4x.

How about 15,000 "excess" deaths in the NHS.  That would translate into 75,000 in the USA (our population is roughly 5 times the UK's).  And look at the outcry over Veteran's Death caused by the VA.   https://www.bbc.com/news/health-39204681

And you can do your own research on the woeful response (and the "Zero effectiveness" flu vaccine) of the NHS to their flu outbreak earlier this year.


Regarding your links:
1.  Are your trying to tell me that there are no medical errors in the UK.  You really expect me to believe that ??  (See above links)

2.  As has been frequently discussed here and elsewhere.  No one is the US is denied Healthcare, so that argument is a non-starter.

3.  There is HUGE difference in ME deciding what healthcare I or my family choose to use or forego, versus some nameless/faceless bureaucrat(s) making those decisions (see article from the Telegraph above). 

4.  Again, people are making their own decisions versus some nameless/faceless bureaucrat(s) doing it.   And I will again point out that I don't need the .gov to select my car insurance, life insurance, or which repair shops I chose to have my car serviced, nor can they deny me changing my oil whenever I want.

And yes,



Here's something interesting from one study I saw regarding the increase in mortality rates in the UK.

The period July 2014 to June 2015 saw an additional 39 074 deaths in England and Wales compared with the same period the previous year. While mortality rates fluctuate year-on-year, this was the largest rise for nearly 50 years and the higher rate of mortality has been maintained throughout 2016 and into 2017. These recent trends contrast with the long-term decline in age-specific mortality rates throughout the 20th and 21stcenturies. The majority of these additional deaths were in frail elderly individuals.

The increase in mortality rates has occurred during a crisis in the National Health Service (NHS). The number of NHS trusts with budget deficits has increased sharply since 2014/2015, as did waiting periods for elective surgery in 2015. Issues within the NHS are being compounded by problems with the provision of adult social care to support individuals leaving NHS care7 and pressures of increased demand.

Bolding mine.  To quote Maggie Thatcher Socialism works great, until you run out of other people's money.

[Scout26]

And I can't fathom your belief that government can do it better and cheaper.  Name one thing that government does better and/or cheaper then the private sector.  

ANd just to help shatter your rose colored glasses.  Here's what the US Government projected as the costs of Medicare versus the Actual results:

In 1965, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the hospital insurance program of Medicare - the federal health care program for the elderly and disabled - would cost $9 billion by 1990. The actual cost that year was $67 billion.

In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee said the entire Medicare program would cost $12 billion in 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was $98 billion.

In 1987, Congress projected that Medicaid - the joint federal-state health care program for the poor - would make special relief payments to hospitals of less than $1 billion in 1992. Actual cost: $17 billion.

Yeah, not a good track record.

[Firethorn]

And I can't fathom your belief that government can do it better and cheaper.  Name one thing that government does better and/or cheaper then the private sector.  

And I can't fathom your belief that the private sector has all that much to do with our health care system.  Consider what we've seen in this thread.  People complaining about the VA - so they went to medicare.  Which one of these is private sector or even just not government?

Again, moving the goal posts.  I've never said that a private sector/free market solution wouldn't be cheaper and more cost efficient than a government solution.  However, as I've pointed out before, I believe that our current system is a careful blend of the worst aspects of government control and private sector.  As a result, a more governmental solution can indeed be cheaper than our current system.

Here's a stark little fact:  For no appreciable gain in outcomes, the United States Governments already spends enough money to provide single payer universal coverage for everybody in the USA if we could get our costs down to the median of Europe.  

As in your taxes don't need to go up 1 cent.  Spending remains even or even goes down.  All private payments vanish.

That said, I'm arguing this because you pushed me into this position.  Go back to my previous posts.  Remember how I've made statements not in support of universal single payer coverage, but in "insurance of last resort"?  How my only concession for single payer is "cheaper than our current system"?  Which I've said isn't free market?

That's not moving the goalposts.  That's setting the parameters so that same data is being used for both sides, not anecdotes.  For every Nurse Rachet in the US smothering patients, there is a Nurse Rachet in the UK injecting them with a lethal dose of morphine. (relative to population).  Nice try a deflecting the argument.  I'm just trying to compare apples to apples.

Incorrect.  You are moving the goalposts in order to try to get a better result for your side.  I'm merely moving them back to their original position.  That position is "Which group gets the best results".  One side could have more serial killers in it(though both have had them), but if it still gets better results, on average, it is the better system.

And there have been lots of comparison studies.  On average, countries with some form of universal health coverage, not necessarily single payer by the way, have results that are more or less indistinguishable from our own in all aspects except one.  Cost.

So really.  If you want to convince me what you need is charts like this.  That actually show the USA in the best positions, not the worst.

If you are paying something between 40% and 100% more for your care, you don't want to settle for average do you?

I'm referring to the Hospital Administration picking and choosing who lives and who dies (or gets operations).  Mostly due to money.  

Again, you're attempting to pick out specifics in order to make your side look better.  What about people who decide to not get the operation due to money before it reaches the hospital administration?  What about the insurance companies that refuse to pay, to much the same result?  

versus a bunch of hospital bureaucrats sitting around a conference table deciding who gets an operation and who gets the Bobby Sands treatment. (and without involving the family/loved ones in that decision.)  

Look up what happened in the early days of dialysis.

And no, the outcomes aren't comparable between us and the UK. Far from it in fact.

And here we see that you still refuse to compare apples with apples.  Instead you show a barrel of rotten UK apples and don't show anything at all for the US.

Let's see, 750 avoidable deaths a month.  That's 9k/year.  Vs the US standard of 440k/year.  The population of England vs the USA is more 6X than 5X.  

Still, 54k vs 440k is beating our socks off.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/14/avoidable-deaths-nhs-hospitals-study  
That would be same as if 3,750 people in the US died needlessly in Hospitals in US each month.  That would be a national scandal.  Oh wait, it was with the VA.

US figure for needless hospital deaths is 37k/month.  1/10th that looks very good...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/12/hospital-death-rates-england-higher-us
Seems their death rate is 45% higher then ours.  I wouldn't consider that "Similar outcomes."

Of course, the question comes up why you're concentrating on the UK so much...  They also said that the UK was beat by, well, everybody else.  I mention Europe, Japan, Canada, and others when I talk about this stuff.  Okay, we copy Holland, Japan, and Canada instead of the UK for this.

Of course, they mention in the article that you can't necessarily compare the two systems:

The US has lower life expectancy – two years less than that in the UK – and millions of uninsured people who struggle to find healthcare, so the finding was combustible.

I mean, people might be dying in the hospital in the UK because, well, they can actually be in the hospital!  And people live for an average of 2 years longer there!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8668906/NHS-delays-operations-as-it-waits-for-patients-to-die-or-go-private.html
Yeah, I'm sure Millcreek will confirm that his hospital does this all the time...

Again, different systems = different problems.  You're insisting on measuring individual components in radically different systems, not the overall system.  

Now, please post a study that shows that delays in the UK system are longer and/or more systematic than delays in the US system working through HMOs or attempting to gather money for their surgery.

Because, again, only presenting the problems of ONE side is utterly unmoving to me.

Even the NHS says that they kill more patients the US hospitals do:  https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/death-rate-much-higher-in-english-than-us-hospitals

Let's look at that article:

However, no further methodology has been provided for England or other countries, so we can't say whether the methods used to collect data on HSMRs over the past 10 years were appropriate. Professor Jarman's analysis does not appear to have been peer-reviewed.

So you're depending on an analysis by ONE professor, that cannot be duplicated, where the appropriateness of the data is in question, and hasn't even been peer reviewed.

Sorry, into the junk science pile that study goes.  It's not that I'm disagreeing with its findings, mind you, I just think that there isn't enough support to believe that they're worth anything.

Here's the tl;dr version.  The NHS death rate is 4 times higher then the US'.  Again.  Not a similar outcome by 4x.

]]

tl;dr:  When I used the figures you posted vs the figures I posted, NHS death rate from hospital error is 1/10th that of the US, population adjusted.  

How about 15,000 "excess" deaths in the NHS.  That would translate into 75,000 in the USA (our population is roughly 5 times the UK's).  And look at the outcry over Veteran's Death caused by the VA.   https://www.bbc.com/news/health-39204681

15k, 75k, vs 440k that I posted earlier.  45k dead due to not seeking medical care when they should have, due to cost.  Etc...

They're living 2 years longer on average.  

And you can do your own research on the woeful response (and the "Zero effectiveness" flu vaccine) of the NHS to their flu outbreak earlier this year.

Again, you're not looking at overall results, but at specific negative outcomes.  Any flu vaccine is something of a crapshoot.  It isn't their response, or lack of it, in any specific situation that you have to look at.  It's how they do overall.  The problem you have debating me on this is that I've already done my research.  It's like going into a debate against Crowder in a "change my mind", who's already done the research and has a binder of responses.

So, once more, you'd need to show some contrast between their flu response and the USA's response to it.  Was the USA's better?  Worse?  About the Same?  Same results at double the cost?

1.  Are your trying to tell me that there are no medical errors in the UK.  You really expect me to believe that ??  (See above links)

Nope.  Expecting you to compare rates.

2.  As has been frequently discussed here and elsewhere.  No one is the US is denied Healthcare, so that argument is a non-starter.

Sure they are, they're stabilized in the ER and kicked out.  Often at drastically higher cost than what simply treating the condition earlier would have cost.
 They're denied any further care.  45k people die a year due to not being able to pay for it.

3.  There is HUGE difference in ME deciding what healthcare I or my family choose to use or forego, versus some nameless/faceless bureaucrat(s) making those decisions (see article from the Telegraph above).  

Nameless bureaucrat in a business denying your insurance payment is just as bad.

4.  Again, people are making their own decisions versus some nameless/faceless bureaucrat(s) doing it.   And I will again point out that I don't need the .gov to select my car insurance, life insurance, or which repair shops I chose to have my car serviced, nor can they deny me changing my oil whenever I want.

Never said that I'd band private healthcare, insurance, etc...  Merely said that we need an insurance program of "last resort".

Since you so like giving me orders about what evidence you'll take and such, I'll give you the same back.  Every single one of your examples was the UK.

I charge you to find four OTHER first world universal coverage countries that are as bad or worse.

[De Selby]

Sure, if he can post 4 articles about hospitals (not a single deranged person, but the leadership of said hospital conspiring and) willing to kill children and old people.

Look at the horror - thousands of dead kids, mothers left to be maimed, and euthanasia on a scale not seen since Germany in the 30’s. All proven by double the number of pieces of “evidence” you posted.


https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/28/us/passive-euthanasia-in-hospitals-is-the-norm-doctors-say.html
 

The American Hospital Association says that about 70 percent of the deaths in hospitals happen after a decision has been made to withhold treatment. Other patients die when the medication they are taking to ease their pain depresses, then stops, their breathing.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/
 

Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease. An increase in the number of uninsured and an eroding medical safety net for the disadvantaged likely explain the substantial increase in the number of deaths, as the uninsured are more likely to go without needed care. Another factor contributing to the widening gap in the risk of death between those who have insurance and those who do not is the improved quality of care for those who can get it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221019/
 

Undiagnosed and untreated conditions that are amenable to control, cure, or prevention can affect children's functioning and opportunities over the course of their lives. Such conditions include iron deficiency anemia, otitis media, asthma, and attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/opinion/11krugman.html

Not long ago, a young Ohio woman named Trina Bachtel, who was having health problems while pregnant, tried to get help at a local clinic.

Unfortunately, she had previously sought care at the same clinic while uninsured and had a large unpaid balance. The clinic wouldn’t see her again unless she paid $100 per visit — which she didn’t have.

Eventually, she sought care at a hospital 30 miles away. By then, however, it was too late. Both she and the baby died

[De Selby]

And I can't fathom your belief that government can do it better and cheaper.  Name one thing that government does better and/or cheaper then the private sector.  

ANd just to help shatter your rose colored glasses.  Here's what the US Government projected as the costs of Medicare versus the Actual results:

Yeah, not a good track record.

The house committee in the 1960s could not have imagined the degree of regulatory capture that would occur. In those days other countries were building public medicine which drove down costs worldwide.

Of course the estimates were wrong - they didn’t realise the degree to which private health would inflate peices

[Fly320s]

I think you guys are getting too deep in the weeds here.

My general philosophy is to keep the government out of my personal life.  That includes guns, sex, drugs, health care, etc., because no matter how well a law or program is intended, sometime in the future that law will be completely turned on it's head and used to abuse the people it is intended to help.  The fact we are arguing so much about whether the government should be involved should be a big, red warning flag to us all.