The studies cited seem to argue for an insurance voucher system, where everyone gets private insurance, which seems strikingly like something I have heard about. Private insurance patients get better outcomes than uninsured or those on Medicaid. Certainly food for thought, though not surprising, you pay more, you get more. I don’t think the country can afford it, or that the people want to have that obligation, but there is evidence that people’s health would improve with universal private insurance coverage.

The study(s) didn’t seem to control for reasons that put people in the medicaid system, socio-economic factors. The same things that put their wages in the medicaid eligible range, also prevent them from having better health care outcomes, possibly. The person who can’t get around obstacles to get to work on time/regularly (leading to low wage jobs) may have similar obstacles in getting other parts of their in life order, too. IF that were the case, the quality of care wouldn’t be at issue as to more of the patient’s poor choices/lifestyle/following instructions before/after care. The study doesn’t really address that. As has been noted, 17.5 MM of uninsured person have an average income of about $50,000, they seemingly would have their life better in order, and could make the most of their care. That is the flaw I see. The author admits as much, but he claims that Medicaid leads these people into poor choices/lifestyles/etc. “As to social and cultural factors, the question to ask is: is Medicaid causing these problems, or the victim of them? My view is the former.”

Furthermore, I cited evidence that private charity provided essentially the same medical care for poor patients before Medicaid was enacted as they received afterward. There were also a plethora of fraternal societies that insured their members–ranging from the lower to middle classes–against injury and illness in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. See this book for a full discussion:

http://www.amazon.com/Mutual-Aid-Welfare-State-Fraternal/dp/0807848417/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281456518&sr=8-1

So, in response to your question of whether there is an example of private charity providing health care on par with what the U.S. government does now: yes, the U.S. fifty years ago, when the United States had an average life expectancy higher than any country outside of Scandinavia according to GapMinder.org.

People can be very generous in supporting charitable endeavors, but I don’t think it would come close to replicating the (flawed) system we have now. Medical care got a lot better and a lot more expensive in the past 50 years. People are living longer, surviving events like heart attacks and births at a much better rate.

Doctors can still reduce/eliminate their fees and that is generous, but the machines/drugs (that weren’t in existence 1-40 years ago) that are used to diagnose would also have be cost shifted. Insurance companies are driving a hard bargain with providers to get the lowest price for their policy holders, meaning that cost shifting is limited. (Hospitals themselves are finding the most ‘profitable’ procedures under competition from (sometimes) physician owned facilities, Metro Imaging in the STL area, leaving the hospitals with the least reimburseable procedures, like, say, burn units.)

Are there any examples of private charities taking on a majority portion of poor people’s health care and the outcomes even close to what the United States has right now? If there are, they would certainly be worth of study.

I don’t see removing the lowering of the tax burden on ‘rank and file’ people as enough of an enticement to pick up where the gov program is now. Charitable giving doesn’t always go to where the most need is. People, including myself, will donate for the Art Museum to get a Picasso [I actually wouldn't, but people do], yet ignore pleas that would alleviate human suffering like for services for drug addicts.

Thanks for reading.

You ask good, deep questions. The answer is no, we as a society should not be okay with people of slender financial means dying simply because they cannot afford basic treatment for conditions beyond their control. But what many people fail to recognize is that government need not be the solution to this problem. For centuries (even pre-dating the Revolution) Americans formed and supported charitable societies dedicated to serving the underprivileged. This is part of the reason why today we have so many medical facilities linked to religious organizations, and it is why (as the article quoted in the above post points out) doctors would frequently offer their services for little or no charge to those who could not afford the normal cost of such services. Civil society, acting of its own accord in response to the moral imperatives of its constituent members, found ways of taking care of the disadvantaged. It can do so again, if given the opportunity.

It should also be noted that the life expectancies of people have steadily increased(leveled off recently), can’t find hard data, since medicare and medicaid have be enacted. I don’t know how much of that can be tied to those two, but I wouldn’t doubt if it were substantial.

For a solution for me, really limit what we are willing to pay for on a system similar to NICE/QALY in the UK. Yes, it is putting a price on human life, but we do that all the time in more hidden ways. Also, change the mindset from ‘we have this amount of need’, to ‘we have this amount of money, so what should be done’?