Listened to a program today on Universal Healthcare..........

[Cut-Throat]

Thanks Doc! - I figured I'd let a Pro handle it!

 

[dylar]

In my case waiting is not better.

44 million more people having access to health care (at half the cost) vs. you and me waiting a little bit is a tradeoff I'm willing to make. I would love to see the evidence that the supposed waiting causes poor health outcomes. We could double the health spending of every other developed country in an effort to reduce waiting if we wanted to.

 

[Zipper]

The Zipper extended family would not trade our system for yours in a heartbeat.

If you want to RE you are setting yourself up for catastrophic consequences unless you have a goldplated healthplan.

 

[lets-retire]

44 million more people having access to health care (at half the cost) vs. you and me waiting a little bit is a tradeoff I'm willing to make. I would love to see the evidence that the supposed waiting causes poor health outcomes. We could double the health spending of every other developed country in an effort to reduce waiting if we wanted to.

They do have access to essential health care. Just not the elective stuff.

 

[Martha]

They do have access to essential health care.  Just not the elective stuff.

This is not true.  You can get emergency care in a hospital until you are stabilized.  The hospital is not required to give you chemo if you have cancer.  It is not required to give you drugs you need to take on a daily basis to live.  You cannot make an appointment at a hospital to get a suspicious lump checked out.

You also will owe the hospital and doctors for any care you get and don't pay for.  So the 44 million without insurance will have to pay out of their own pocket for care.

As I have said before, this is a problem, not a solution.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I have the solution...


If half the people who now have insurance want universal care. And if Universal care is half as much as traditional medical care.

Then those people who want universal coverage can move to that. The savings of those people who want it will then be enough to subsize everyone else without medical coverage.

Those who like their present traditional coverage can keep it and go on as before.

Everyone gets what they want.

- Sometimes I just can't get over how smart I am  

 

[dylar]

Like Martha says, I think it's more accurate to say that there's access to emergency care. Which everyone agrees is the most expensive, and worst way to deal with health problems.

MasterBlaster, that certainly wouldn't be worse than what we have now.

 

[Martha]

I view the numbers of uninsured and the number of people trapped in jobs for insurance as absolutely unacceptable.

The question for me is how to solve the problem. National healthcare. Regulated insurance. Subsidies to address the poor and uninsurable. Pick you poison or suggest your own.

 

[Zipper]

Master, the way I see it, your traditional coverage can disappear pretty quickly.

The Insurance Co.'s have a gazillion ways they can terminate you.

Then what?

 

[unclemick]

Yep - Guilty as charged - 89 yr old Mom last December - kept her alive on the government's nickel(and against her wishes) long enough for my sister to fly out and say goodbye. Then I ordered the plug pulled.

Not something I'm proud of. Rich is right - it's here now.

heh heh heh

 

[Cut-Throat]

Master, the way I see it, your traditional coverage can disappear pretty quickly.

The Insurance Co.'s have a gazillion ways they can terminate you.

Then what?

Yup, All these folks that think the system's great have never been sick!

They also 'made it on their own' - they seem to forget about Public Education, The Transportation System, The Police Force, The Fire Dept, etc. etc. etc. :

 

[Nords]

I don't think it's controversial to say that insurance and pharmaceutical companies oppose universal care.
There's no tinfoil hat on my head.
If you have information to the contrary, I'd love to hear it.

All I tried to say, without invoking presidents or tinfoil hats, is that if 180+ other countries had a better system then it would be copied.

That goes for the insurance & pharma companies as well. Some of them are learning that prevention is more profitable than cure or that evidence-based medicine works better than the "because we can" philosophy, and they're concepts worth pursuing. While some companies may choose to work with or oppose governements to maintain the status quo, a company that figures out how to make money out of a better system will do an end run around all the political maneuvering.

I think you're reading more into my comments than was intended or appropriate.

 

[haha]

Again, I fail to see how an argument that Americans are sicker (obese, stressed, smokers) than people in other countries is an argument that supports the health care system in this country.

Americans may be fatter than most (not all) other countries, but our ill health can’t be blamed on smoking. We are not heavier smokers. We have one of the lowest smoking rates in the world.

http://www.quit.org.au/article.asp?ContentID=7231


And I don't see why we should be any more stressed than anyone else. After all we are the world's richest nation. Oh wait- maybe we are stressed because we are worried about our health care?

Ha

 

[macdaddy]

I read something about the connection between smoking and obesity. People who smoke tend to eat less. It makes sense. Instead of lighting up, they probably reach into the fridge for a snack now. From this perspective, the war on tobacco may not have much of a dent in health care costs, if we trade one kind of at-risk person for another.

 

[Craig]

With due respect to Rich, he is one doctor, who happens to be on this board, and is in favor of universal government health care.  I know many who are strongly opposed.  Let's quit deferring to Rich as the resident expert  on this political issue, simply because of his medical training ... I'm sure he will admit there are differences of opinion in his profession.

Ironic that we met with an agent in today who explained that more companies are moving to HRA's / HSA's, with success.  Surprise, market forces are being brought to bear in the health care profession, and it is beginning to work.  We spend over $1M/year on group health premiums, and we will likely go this route, and do so in a way that reduces premiums for our employees, and will likely put dollars into their 401k's to boot.

To the comment above that large companies tend to favor universal government health care, this is true ... for the same reason some retirees prefer it.  This solution foists the problem on to someone else's shoulders.  Small and medium-sized businesses tend to oppose such a solution, because they have often been wiser in their judicious offerings of benefits.

Regarding suing the government, I too seem to remember this was a feature of Hillary-care ... exempting the fed's from suit, and forcing us all into the same tidy program.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Yep - Guilty as charged - 89 yr old Mom last December - kept her alive on the government's nickel(and against her wishes) long enough for my sister to fly out and say goodbye. Then I ordered the plug pulled.

Not something I'm proud of. Rich is right - it's here now.

Mick,

I personally see nothing at all wrong about what you did. It was compassionate for your sister and, therefor, for Mom, too.

The more troubling situations are where it drags on for weeks or months after all goodbyes are long done. To me, at least, saying farewell is a damn good use of taxpayers' or anyone else's money. You done good.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

With due respect to Rich, he is one doctor, who happens to be on this board, and is in favor of universal government health care. I know many who are strongly opposed. Let's quit deferring to Rich as the resident expert on this political issue, simply because of his medical training ... I'm sure he will admit there are differences of opinion in his profession.

Of course you are right, Charles. I speak only for myself and there is much disagreement among my colleagues. i hope i haven't given anyone the impression that I am representing my profession at large. Just one small voice.

But perhaps less than you might imagine. It is interesting to see how many of the old school AMA-types who 15 years ago would have resigned before accepting any form of national health or universal health coverage have changed their minds in frustration. In fact, even the American College of Physicians has endorsed some form of the above.

We are a pretty inventive country, compassionate at heart, and I really do think we'll come up with some partial solution. Just trying to stoke the coals, because until we do it is very hurtful to watch what happens every day.

 

[Craig]

Agreed we need changes, and we can debate the best course.

 

[ladelfina]

Master Blaster

Then those people who want universal coverage can move to that. The savings of those people who want it will then be enough to subsize everyone else without medical coverage.

Those who like their present traditional coverage can keep it and go on as before.

Everyone gets what they want.

You're right! Interestingly, you are describing EXACTLY the system that is in place in most of Europe. There is a public system, where you can get adequate-to-good care, but with sometimes longer waits for non-emergency things. If you choose to, you can get private insurance that will let you see private docs and go to private clinics, or pay out-of-pocket (but you are not necessarily guranteed better care.. it's pretty much a crap shoot either way). But I guess you are saying that everyone shouldn't chip in to the public system. I might agree with you if US gov't. (i.e., non-private) healthcare spending per capita didn't ALREADY EQUAL what the public systems in Europe and Japan are paying to cover EVERYONE.

A stupid incident, but a friend of ours fell off a ladder and needed several stitches in her head.. so she just goes to the local hospital and they fix her up.. period. That kind of basic, non-adversarial, humane care should be allocated to everyone in the US; there's just no excuse not to.

Nords, you keep cracking me up by repeating, "I think that if any of the 180+ other countries in the world were doing it both cheaper AND better, not necessarily just one or the other, that their method would have been shamelessly copied by now." and "if 180+ other countries had a better system then it would be copied." 

It HAS been copied.. one hundred and seventy-nine times.. WE are the odd ones out!! Does the US really have nothing to learn from anyone else?

To answer your question seriously, it's because the very big, very profitable, very influential (Frist!) healthcare and insurance INDUSTRY has way more traction in the US than anywhere else. The different mentality re. health care abroad just hasn't allowed this profit machine to overwhelm their systems.

 

[bpp]

I agree with Ladelfina that nationalized health care generally just plain works. The US seems to be the only developed country where this is considered debatable. Try it, you'll like it.

 

[Eagle43]

Rich in Tampa, those real life examples are trumping our theory. But doesn't it make sense, if I run an insurance company and you get an expensive, protracted illness, I'm going to find a way to dump you. You are hurting my bottom line.

And Martha had an excellent point. I have seen 70-year olds working at Mega-Corp because their wife had a serious illness. Trapped by insurance in a loathsome job.

 

[lets-retire]

Martha-- you're correct I should have typed emergency rather than essential.

Has anyone stopped to think that maybe we are the richest/most powerful country in the would because we don't let the lazy suck off those who work their butts off. Americans are generally lazy people. That is why we have developed some of the most innovative labor saving devices (which many bosses figured out their employees can now do more work instead of less because of those devices). Look at the rest of the world they were founded on dictatorships then morphed into a more democratic form government. They still have the momma government will provide mentality and they are no where near us in their wealth or power. Heck the French are seeing an exodus of their most wealthy citizens because they are tired of paying for all of the social programs. You don't believe me, look at the black population. This group of people have 'benefited" the most, as a percentage of their population, form welfare. What has it gotten them, an increase in number unwed mothers when, more poverty, and less opportunity when compared to statistics of before welfare.

I was listening to the news the other day. It was saying many business owners in the Gulf coast region were having a hard time filling their payrolls until recently. They also pointed out that it just happened to coincide with the expiration of unemployment benefits for many Katrina victims. It might be news bias , but I found that rather interesting.

 

[jeff2006]

Has anyone stopped to think that maybe we are the richest/most powerful country in the would because we don't let the lazy suck off those who work their butts off. 

Yes -- this is hardly an original thought. I doubt that many people would disagree that the bare knuckles approach leads to wealth and power. Rather, the disagreement would be about whether it leads to a good life. It may be that people outside the USA understand these issues very well, and choose to follow a different path.

 

[astromeria]

maybe we are the richest/most powerful country in the would because we don't let the lazy suck off those who work their butts off.

Why do you hate non-working spouses, early retirees, and overpaid executives

 

[razztazz]

Why do you hate non-working spouses, early retirees, and overpaid executives

How come I never hear ttalk about the Moral Hazzard of being rich and making 7 or 8 figure salaries? But if working people or those unable to work being have mere suffciency, that is a moral hazzard that would somehow make them not want to work?

If you want everybody to be obscenely productive make everybody worth at least a hundred million THEN they can choose to do, not what they have to do to eat, but all those 7 and 8 figure jobs.

Anybody who owns the income stream generated by the working class or copyright or patent protection is not working but benefitting from a Big Government walth redistribution program. Why isnt that a moral hazzard.? And they can afford medical care too. They dont have to work. They are already rich curtesy of other people and Gov programs but they still "go to work" and make millions. And thats not moral hazzard? Why don't they just drop out and open some 7 and 8 figure jobs for somebody who can use the money?

The object shouldnt be make more people do more work for less money and that'll fix their wagon. That's the Old Soviet style communist thinking. Seems to be what The Rich are up to for everybody but themselves.