Universal Health

[clane1987]

It will happen if enough people realise they have been conned and they demand their political representatives deliver it to them.

Its hard for people to come to terms with the truth when all there is on television, internet, and etc. is propaganda.

 

[Diuretic]

Its hard for people to come to terms with the truth when all there is on television, internet, and etc. is propaganda.

It's even more difficult when teaching critical thinking to children has gone out of style.

But wait, isn't the mainstream media, like, migosh, totally "liberal"?? That means television must be flooding people's minds with leftist propaganda and those newspapers too!

 

[editec]

Back when I HAD insurance I typically waited four weeks to see my MD.

If it was so important that I needed immediate attention I had to go to the ER.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Universal health care is not socialized medicine. It does not have to become socialized medicine.

We have over 45 million who have no coverage and we are the greatest nation in the world.

It works. Medicare and Medicaid work. It won't be a hell of a lot different from them.

If I have lost my job or work two or more jobs with not health care plan, all the MSAs in the world don't mean squat.

Much of the stuff that we hear about Canada and Europe are scare tacticts used by those who are making their billions off the current system.

I worked in healthcare for 14 years. Our system is fukking broken and putting more bandaids on the cuts won't fix it.

You have go to the root cause and fixt that, not the damn symptoms.

 

[Andrew2382]

yeah, thanks i have worked in the insurance business for 10 years and still am. That includes healthcare). The system is not broken. You talk about 40+ million uninsured yet you don't want to bring up the fact that over 50% of those are illegal immigrants.

Guess what, 2 of my cousins are doctors in spain. And wanna to know what he told me. If I got 2 phone calls in the middle of the night, one from the social practice, and the other from my private practice.....where do you think I am going to go...His private practice.

you say how the system is so great in other places, yet i isn't. Why is the first PRIVATE hospital in Canada turning customers away?

You still haven't explained medical tourism?

"Nearly 25 000 NHS patients in England will have publicly funded surgery in private hospitals this year. This is the result of a deal between the Department of Health and two private hospital groups aimed at cutting waiting lists for surgery. The first operations under the scheme should take place in a few weeks.
Capio Healthcare UK and the not-for-profit group Nuffield Hospitals have signed a contract to perform thousands of operations in their hospitals, in a deal designed to achieve Prime Minister Tony Blair’s goal of providing at least 125 000 extra operations over the next five years.

Seventy per cent of the staff doing the operations will come from Sweden, Ireland, and other European countries, and the rest will be clinical staff from the British independent hospitals participating or seconded from the NHS to work in their spare time. Fifteen Capio Healthcare hospitals will offer surgery to NHS patients, as well as 35 Nuffield hospitals. All 28 strategic health authorities in England will send patients to the independent hospitals."

Private hospitals to provide operations for 25 000 NHS patients

Yeah, its so great the government is having independent places perform surgeries to undercut waiting times.

You guys are clueless

 

[editec]

You still haven't explained medical tourism?

You mean like when I go to Candada to buy my drugs because they're cheaper there than 100 yards away in the USA?

Or did you mean when I go to Canada to get my teeth fixed becuase its costs half as much there than here?

I have no health care coverage. Neither does my neighbors.

None of us are illegals, champ.

Now I could buy into Maine CARE.

But them after they pay my medical bills the State of Maine can take away my house.

 

[Diuretic]

yeah, thanks i have worked in the insurance business for 10 years and still am. That includes healthcare). The system is not broken. You talk about 40+ million uninsured yet you don't want to bring up the fact that over 50% of those are illegal immigrants.

Guess what, 2 of my cousins are doctors in spain. And wanna to know what he told me. If I got 2 phone calls in the middle of the night, one from the social practice, and the other from my private practice.....where do you think I am going to go...His private practice.

you say how the system is so great in other places, yet i isn't. Why is the first PRIVATE hospital in Canada turning customers away?

You still haven't explained medical tourism?

"Nearly 25 000 NHS patients in England will have publicly funded surgery in private hospitals this year. This is the result of a deal between the Department of Health and two private hospital groups aimed at cutting waiting lists for surgery. The first operations under the scheme should take place in a few weeks.
Capio Healthcare UK and the not-for-profit group Nuffield Hospitals have signed a contract to perform thousands of operations in their hospitals, in a deal designed to achieve Prime Minister Tony Blair’s goal of providing at least 125 000 extra operations over the next five years.

Seventy per cent of the staff doing the operations will come from Sweden, Ireland, and other European countries, and the rest will be clinical staff from the British independent hospitals participating or seconded from the NHS to work in their spare time. Fifteen Capio Healthcare hospitals will offer surgery to NHS patients, as well as 35 Nuffield hospitals. All 28 strategic health authorities in England will send patients to the independent hospitals."

Private hospitals to provide operations for 25 000 NHS patients

Yeah, its so great the government is having independent places perform surgeries to undercut waiting times.

You guys are clueless

Stop that crap. You are seeking out failures caused by ideology. If a national health system is underfunded it will fail. That's a given. In the UK if they have failed to properly fund the NHS then it will fail, in parts. But I don't hear anyone calling for it to be replaced. It apparently needs more funding in the UK.

Now, how about France? What about a success story? No?

In my country we have a successful two-tier system. It pisses off the ideologues in both sides because it allows people to have private insurance and use a private doctor/surgeon and seek treatment in a private hospital if they can afford the insurance. The beauty of it is that it takes the pressure off the public system. Pragmatists love it, the ideologues don't. But neither the free marketeers nor the pure nationalisers will win the debate because the ordinary people, pragmatic voters, know it works.

 

[Bern80]

You're only interested in condemning a policy you don't like. So you look for examples where bad things have happened and you use them to support your condemnation of a policy you don't like.

You are making yourself look clueless old chum.

If the system in Canada and the UK is so bad then why hasn't it been changed? France, Australia, the Scandinavian countries and many, many others have similar systems and they aren't going to get rid of them. Why? Because they are far superior to the dog eat dog approach America has to health care, there is now way will touch the American system with a barge-pole. The rest of us - spare me, "I'm American, I don't give a shit what a ferriner thinks" - are stunned that you people continue with your shitty system. A triumph of propaganda over common sense. If I want to scare America all I have to do is yell, "this is socialist!" and there's screaming and yelling and pitchforks as the good folks come out to do battle with the latest evil socialist programme.

But keep deluding yourself, don't let facts get in your way.

They are superior in cost to the consumer. But we both know that is not the be all and end all of makes for quality health care. In terms of technology, services, resources and responsiveness the U.S. is number one or very near the top. The WHO report so often cited by critics of our system around here will back me on that.

 

[Bern80]

Stop that crap. You are seeking out failures caused by ideology. If a national health system is underfunded it will fail. That's a given. In the UK if they have failed to properly fund the NHS then it will fail, in parts. But I don't hear anyone calling for it to be replaced. It apparently needs more funding in the UK.

Now, how about France? What about a success story? No?

In my country we have a successful two-tier system. It pisses off the ideologues in both sides because it allows people to have private insurance and use a private doctor/surgeon and seek treatment in a private hospital if they can afford the insurance. The beauty of it is that it takes the pressure off the public system. Pragmatists love it, the ideologues don't. But neither the free marketeers nor the pure nationalisers will win the debate because the ordinary people, pragmatic voters, know it works.

Not perfomring enough surgeries isn't underfunding. That's not enough PEOPLE in the publicly funded system to do surgeries.

 

[Diuretic]

They are superior in cost savings. But we both know that is not the be all and end all of makes for quality health care. In terms of technology, services, resources and responsiveness the U.S. is number one or very near the top. The WHO report so often cited by critics of our system around here will back me on that.

You know what quality health care means? It means keeping people (a) alive and (b) well. And the measure of a good health care system is how many people get (a) and (b) when they need it and regardless of their economic status.

No point in having wonderful hospitals when so many people can only press their faces against the windows looking in, envious of what they might have been able to access if they could afford it.

A hospital isn't a Ferrari showroom. "Oh, wow, look at that red car. I can't afford one but it's wonderful to know a few people can".

 

[Diuretic]

Not perfomring enough surgeries isn't underfunding. That's not enough PEOPLE in the publicly funded system to do surgeries.

Eh?

 

[editec]

heath care and health care SYSTEM are two very different things, folks.

We have wonderful health care in this nation, and at the same time we have the worst health care SYSTEM in the industrialized world.

 

[Bern80]

Eh?

You claimed the UK had problems because it was underfunded. But the example was about them not able to perform enough surgeries to meet demand. Maybe the don't have enough operating rooms or enough surgeons or whatever, but that isn't a funding problem.

 

[Diuretic]

You claimed the UK had problems because it was underfunded. But the example was about them not able to perform enough surgeries to meet demand. Maybe the don't have enough operating rooms or enough surgeons or whatever, but that isn't a funding problem.

Oh okay, thanks for that.

But - not being facetious here - perhaps they have too many people or not enough hospitals. Either way it seems to me to be incompetent government. But given the Blair years I'm not surprised and before Blair was Major and the Thatcher nutter, so again I'm not surprised.

 

[Bern80]

heath care and health care SYSTEM are two very different things, folks.

We have wonderful health care in this nation, and at the same time we have the worst health care SYSTEM in the industrialized world.

The WHO report used the term health care system, in which we're ranked like 37th if I'm not mistaken. What was interesting to me was how they got that number. There is stuff in there that you can dig into a see the tables and rankings of all the factors as to how they arrived at that number. In a nutshell they basically bare out exactley what you're saying. Our quality of actual care is the best in the world. The cost to the consumer? Not so great.

The problem for me was the standards by which countries were ranked in cost. Now it looked to me that countries were ranked based on how much healthcare actually cost people. The two main categories were Health Expenditure Per Capita and Fairness of Financial Contribution. The U.S. obviously ranks low there, but what is more interesting is this suppossed 'fairness' of financial contribution. It is define as follows:

Fairness of financial contribution: When WHO measured the fairness of financial contribution to health systems, countries lined up differently. The measurement is based on the fraction of a household’s capacity to spend (income minus food expenditure) that goes on health care (including tax payments, social insurance, private insurance and out of pocket payments). Colombia was the top-rated country in this category, followed by Luxembourg, Belgium, Djibouti, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Japan and Finland.

So essentially they subjectively defined zero as being the most fair. They are essentially saying the less financially responsible you are for your health the higher you will be ranked. As a component of ranking health care systems apparently not haveing to pay for it is a good thing according to them. I would think that most people would agree the individual bares at least some financial responsibility for their healthcare.

Further another factor in the study is overall health of a country. Which the U.S. also ranks very low in. Might that not have a tie into how much we pay per capita? So we have another factor that for the most part individuals, not our hospitals and physicians have the most control over. So many of our countries health problems are simply the result of years of bad habits.

I don't know what the WHO wants people to take away from this to be honest. But saying something like healthcare system and the fact that we are ranked 37th according to them is suppossed to suggest that the industry is not serving the consumer. Yet the rank of one of those factors is directly attributable to the consumer and others are purely subjective in deeming the 'fairness' in paying for healthcare.


Health system attainment and performance in all Member States

 

[Bern80]

Oh okay, thanks for that.

But - not being facetious here - perhaps they have too many people or not enough hospitals. Either way it seems to me to be incompetent government. But given the Blair years I'm not surprised and before Blair was Major and the Thatcher nutter, so again I'm not surprised.

That's kind of exactley the point. Most government are extremely incompetent in providing services, so why are we insisting that they do so?

 

[Andrew2382]

Just remember all this bullshit you are spewing and one day you or a family member ain't feeling well, and the time it takes you to get to see a specialist, order a cat scan, see the specialist again takes more then 6-8 months and you die becuase you had a major issue.

THe shit happens all the fucking time.

Lol you are going to compare buying drugs from canada to people from socialized healthcare systems coming to the states for major procedures like knee or hip replacements?

Wow, you're a dunce.

Like I said the reason insurance is so expensive isno tbecause of the big bad insurance companies. It's America is the most obese fucking country in the world!

Maybe if peoeple took ebtter care of themselves and didn't eat 4 double cheeseburgers every day from Mickey d's they would not be 200 pounds overweight an dpaying double in premiums.

I get beneifts through my corporation now. I used to pay tho for me tho. I am healthy, in shape and a non smoker and had a great plan and paid 120 bucks a month.

That was basically the best of the best. You don't think there is a direct correlation between 40% obesity I think we have here in the states an dhigh insurance premiums?

Americans need to stop bein sto fuckin gluttnous.

 

[midcan5]

If societies are measured by how they treat their citizens, UHC should be a part of the most advanced society in the modern world. If we can get to the moon why can we not help our citizen's obtain healthcare. Seems our values are skewed when no one complains about the money spent on a killing machine but everyone gets up in arms over a healing machine. Fear wins the battle over compassion.



"This is the Bush-McCain economy. Senator McCain may have forgotten, but President Bush already tried his economic policies and the results are not good. We have just been through a business cycle in which the wage of the typical worker and the typical working family fell. This is the first time that has ever happened."

The Whiner's Recession | CommonDreams.org
The Conservative Nanny State

 

[editec]

The problem for me was the standards by which countries were ranked in cost.

To some extent this is almost like a philosophy of accounting problem, isn't it? (If you aren't familiar with FASB debates, just take my word for it, okay?

The problem is: how does one actually measure the value or worth of a system like this?

There really is NOT any one way that is right.

As long as you can evaluate each system by the same standards you can be fair, but are you RIGHT?

Maybe not.

For example....assume that we created a model based on morbidity and mortality versus costs per capita.

That sound easy enough to do fairly, right?

Except the accounting methods that each nation uses for costs, and even for morbidity and mortality are SO wildly different that simply accepting their posted numbers and then plugging them into you model is apt to be very misleading.

My MBA (as yet and forever incomplete) was in health care managment and macroeconomics, Bern. Basically I was training to run the health care systems of this nation.

Believe me, when it comes to evaluating the relative effecacy of different health care systems NOBODY has the final say.

What I do know is that the USA has the highest per capita expenses in the industrialized world, and one of the least impressive morbity and mortality stats in same.

But that might have NOTHING to do with a bad health care system.

That MIGHT have something to do with our society and nothing to do with our system.

How well Americans take care of themselves or all sorts of things having NOTHING to do with the system itself might be giving us morbidity and mortaility stats that are worse than other nations, too, you see my point?

Based on what I can see, and based on my instincts, rather than any specific model I've studied (because they're all flawed as hellas far as I could see) I still think America has the worset health care SYTEM in the industrialed world.

Not that all the others are so damned great, (they are flawed too) just that ours so obviously sucks great big wang.

 

[Andrew2382]

sucks so much that people flock here for medical procedures.

Because it sucks.


When over 50% of your precious 40 million uninsured are illegal immigrants

funny noone like to talk about that