Poor people, health care, and the United States

[The Duke]

Level of spending isn't the only criteria for judging health care - I can go to the doctor here for about $4 to $5. 

Of course I'm skeptical of your source, but if there is some spending on the poor for health care it is due to liberal programs such as Medicaid.  Thanks, Democratic Party!

A doctor in Thailand is $4 because the cost of living is so much lower than in the US.

[The Duke]

Why does anyone expect that the cost per person will go down 50% if the government covers everyone?

For the trillionth time, it will go down because of billions saved on paperwork, actuarial costs, and other overhead. In addition, it will go down through cost controls on prescription drugs and medical procedures.

Why is that so hard to understand?

And for the record, it won't go down 50%, but it will go down.

For the trillionth time from me show me the numbers. Why will the paperwork for Medicaid and Medicare be less if the program applies to 295 million people instead of 90 million people?

You talk about cost controls. That means wage and price controls. Getting the costs down to where they are comparable with Canada would require a 50% cut. So you just have to tell the doctors, nurses, floorsweepers and everyone else in the medical field that their salary has been cut in half. Now that I think of it maybe that's not bad since it would probably cause all of them to become Libertarians.

Overall health care costs aren't going to be reduced to Canada's level just by changing the way health care is funded.  That's because Americans just aren't as healthy on average as Canadians.

But we can reduce costs dramatically by setting price controls on drugs if nothing else, or better yet, nationalizing the entire pharmaceutical research industry. 

Most of the truly innovative drug research is already done by the government; it is mostly just minor modifications that are done by private companies, largely just to establish an intellectual property claim to a drug.   The money wouldn't be taken away from doctors and nurses, but from drug company profits and drug lobbyists and advertisers.  Most drugs are incredibly inexpensive to reproduce...there is no reason why they shouldn't be cheap and plentiful to everyone except for collusion on the part of drug companies, and a desire to protect the profitability of their patents.

No sh**t they want to profit off their patents, given that they spent hundreds of millions on each new drug, they damn well need to make some money back.  Or did you not realize that price controls will kill investment in new drugs and reduce the supply of pharmaceuticals, leaving patients screwed?  Do liberals not learn from their idiotic rent control experiments?

I'm simply going to assume that you were speaking in jest when you suggested nationalizing the drug industry, as their is no other rational explaination for that comment.  Speaking of which, have you been taking your medication?