
Can the Government Force Us to Buy Health Insurance? - shawndumas
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/01/what-is-truth/68809/
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DennisP
If they had been a little smarter about things, we wouldn't be having this
debate. For example, in Japan there are 2000 private (non-profit) insurance
companies. If you don't sign up with any, they sign you up for your local
municipal plan. If you don't pay the bill, they don't bother you. But if you
go to the doctor, they don't pay until you pay your back premiums.

Nobody's being forced, but the moral hazard is mostly fixed.

Japan has one of the highest-rated healthcare systems in the world, doing
better on us on all sorts of stats like survival rates after diagnosis of
major disease. They have universal coverage. But they pay 6% of their GDP on
healthcare, compared to about 17% for the U.S.

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anamax
> Japan has one of the highest-rated healthcare systems in the world

Japan also has one of the least diverse populations in the world.

As always, I wonder how Japan compares to Japanese-Americans.

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sdsdfvsdf
You Americans are crazy. Look at the rest of the western world, and how common
it is for public health insurance, and how it is a good thing generally.

Out of all your issues, you pick this one to be stupidly paranoid about.

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iwwr
In every case where insurance was made mandatory, prices went up.

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DennisP
[citation needed]

Insurance is mandatory in Germany, France, and Japan. Germany spends about 13%
of their GDP on healthcare, Japan spends 6%, and France is in the middle. The
U.S. spends 17%, and falls far behind the others in results.

Source: The Healing of America by T.R. Reid.

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metageek
> _The U.S. spends 17%, and falls far behind the others in results._

Although you have to wonder how much of the results difference is due to our
lousy diet.

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DennisP
True, but stats like "survival rates after diagnosis of major disease" seem to
focus fairly well on healthcare quality. And Japan has a pretty old
population, with a lot of smokers and a very high-sodium diet.

In any case, our lousy diet is partly due to agricultural subsidies that make
processed and fast food cheaper than raw produce. A really good healthcare
reform would fix that too.

If we really wanted to be smart, we'd phase out coal while we were at it.
Estimates for health problems caused by the coal industry are pretty
startling.

