Universal Healthcare is Wonderful and Will Ensure Better Health care for everyone

[suncrashesdown]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

This is a very lollipop view of a system bound to be fraught with defecits, shortages, lack of coverage, lack of doctors due to incentive removals, special interest contracts, bureaucracy, oversight, overhead, and fraud.

The system we have now has all of those same problems. To stand as the last industrialized nation without universal health care, especially when we are comparatively better off financially than many other nations that do have it, is shameful. You can plug your ears and go "LA LA LA IT WON'T WORK" all you want, but at the end of the day, numerous other countries with governments just as shitty as ours have made it work, and work well.

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by suncrashesdown

This is an opinion of not even the majority of doctors in the system, and even still, they have to treat whatever the gov't says they have to treat, so fuck their personal opinion. This is no failing in the public health care system.

So the people on the front lines who actually see firsthand where the system's resources are going and feel the brunt of any shortfall in those resources should have no say in the matter? If they say the system isn't going to keep working unless certain classes of patients are excluded, that's no big deal?

[mercurial]

Originally Posted by Corganist

So the people on the front lines who actually see firsthand where the system's resources are going and feel the brunt of any shortfall in those resources should have no say in the matter? If they say the system isn't going to keep working unless certain classes of patients are excluded, that's no big deal?

as an aside from the intended point of your question -

whilst i think input from front line health care professionals should be a key consideration when considering policy - i'm not sure that a health system should be administered by opinion poll, and i'm not sure that front line health care professionals are equipped with all the information they need to form a complete understanding of all the factors taken into account when creating policy.

[suncrashesdown]

Originally Posted by Corganist

So the people on the front lines who actually see firsthand where the system's resources are going and feel the brunt of any shortfall in those resources should have no say in the matter? If they say the system isn't going to keep working unless certain classes of patients are excluded, that's no big deal?

Hey, I like your straw man. You're confusing the issue. Any government-funded health care system no doubt has quite an extensive panel of medical professionals that decide what will and will not be covered as part of any universal health care system. Of course feedback from doctors on the front line have to be taken into consideration, but if 1 out of 3 doctors decide "hey, fat people suck. i hate when i have to treat t**** it's not like overnight the NHS starts denying care to every overweight person that walks into a state-funded hospital. The article Nimrod posted spends most of its content sensationalizing the fact that some doctors have an asshole opinion into the idea that there is some greater failing in England's public health care system, which is simply not the case.

Then they back it up with bullshit useless figures like "60% of doctors say their hospital can't provide full care to everybody", which could mean one of 100 different things. It does nothing to describe specifically what the shortcoming is, and really does nothing to indict public health care systems in particular.

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by mercurial

as an aside from the intended point of your question -

whilst i think input from front line health care professionals should be a key consideration when considering policy - i'm not sure that a health system should be administered by opinion poll, and i'm not sure that front line health care professionals are equipped with all the information they need to form a complete understanding of all the factors taken into account when creating policy.

The problem is that you can probably more easily say the same thing about the politicians and bureaucrats who will put the policy into place (and that's probably being generous).

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by suncrashesdown

Hey, I like your straw man. You're confusing the issue. Any government-funded health care system no doubt has quite an extensive panel of medical professionals that decide what will and will not be covered as part of any universal health care system. Of course feedback from doctors on the front line have to be taken into consideration, but if 1 out of 3 doctors decide "hey, fat people suck. i hate when i have to treat t**** it's not like overnight the NHS starts denying care to every overweight person that walks into a state-funded hospital. The article Nimrod posted spends most of its content sensationalizing the fact that some doctors have an asshole opinion into the idea that there is some greater failing in England's public health care system, which is simply not the case.

So wait a minute, you're saying that if "only" 33 percent of doctors think that resources are scarce enough to start thinking about making the system less "universal" then that says nothing about the system whatsoever? I agree that the negative opinion of a minority of practitioners isn't an overwhelming indictment of the system or a sign of impending crisis (at least not yet), but it's not the trifle you're making it out to be either.

[suncrashesdown]

Originally Posted by Corganist

The problem is that you can probably more easily say the same thing about the politicians and bureaucrats who will put the policy into place (and that's probably being generous).

So then, the appropriate solution is to just give up on state-funded health care because "politicians are dumb" and continue to allow corporations with the profit motive as their driving force continue to attempt to decide who can and can't afford life-saving surgeries, medications, and procedures. Also, let all the people who can't afford health care rot in disrepair? Good call.

[mercurial]

Originally Posted by Corganist

The problem is that you can probably more easily say the same thing about the politicians and bureaucrats who will put the policy into place (and that's probably being generous).

well let's take New Zealand as an example of how expertise is utilised and policy is formed in a public health system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_health_board

The District Health Boards are given a set of objectives by the Ministry of Health, but have a degree of autonomy in how they choose to achieve these. In contrast to their predecessors, the Regional Health Authorities, the DHBs are non-profit providers. The performance of individual DHBs is monitored by the DHB Funding and Performance Directorate. [2]

The DHBs are governed by boards, which consist of up to 11 members: seven elected by the public every three years, and up to four appointed by the Government's Minister of Health. These appointments are largely to balance the board's expertise as deemed necessary. [3] Voting for public-elected DHB board members occurs through the Single Transferable Vote system.

it's by no means perfect (there has been plenty of controversy over DHB spending decisions over the years) but it's a good example of how you incorporate policy making, financial, and vocational expertise into the decision making process with the view to obtaining the best outcome for primary health care users.

[The Omega Concern]

suncrashesdown,

i think part of the problem is that our education system indoctrinates as opposed to educates about many things, in particular the issue of health care.

If health care is a right, then why not a House or a Dodge Viper?


Point is this with health care, there is no natural market flow to any of it. My step-mother is the Head Nurse at Stanford Hospital and occasionally we talk shop and I ask questions.

Just today I found out that if you're uninsured and you get a service that cost, say $5000, the hospital expects that money from you like yesterday. Meanwhile, that same procedure with the same cost to someone who has insurance, will be negotiated by the insurance company and the hospital and will be reduced to about $500 in which the individual would pay about 20% of that...and at that, the insurance company will be late in payments to the hospital, which perpetuates the policy of an inflated retail cost of procedures to the uninsured.

They're needs to be more natural retail cost to procedures, but that doesn't exist in the current system and won't exist in a Universal one either.

Even with insurance, if your provider doesn't have deals set-up with a certain lab that will run a test, you bare the brunt of the inflated cost because your provider doesn't have negotiating rights with that lab.

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by suncrashesdown

So then, the appropriate solution is to just give up on state-funded health care because "politicians are dumb" and continue to allow corporations with the profit motive as their driving force continue to attempt to decide who can and can't afford life-saving surgeries, medications, and procedures. Also, let all the people who can't afford health care rot in disrepair? Good call.

Now who's setting up the straw man? No one's talking about letting anyone rot in disrepair.

Like I alluded to earlier in the thread, a lot of people somehow manage to have surgery or other life-saving treatments in America everyday...and almost all of them also manage to get their insurance companies to pay for it too. It seems you would have people believe that such a thing was some kind of rarity. Do people get screwed by their insurance companies sometimes? Sure. But using that as an excuse to throw out the whole system makes no more sense than other countries throwing out their systems because some people die waiting for surgeries.

And sure, nobody is saying it's a good thing that millions of people here have no health insurance, but there's got to be ways of remedying that short of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and starting the entire system over from the ground up. For all it's warts, the US health care system does have its advantages too (eg., advanced techniques and tech, for instance). I don't see how wanting to preserve those by not going off half-cocked and radically changing things should leave one open to accusations of wanting to let people die and rot in the street.

[mercurial]

Originally Posted by Corganist

And sure, nobody is saying it's a good thing that millions of people here have no health insurance, but there's got to be ways of remedying that

i just want to touch on this - note: i have not watched the latest michael moore film

why do these millions not have access to primary health care? can you boil it down to one or two major factors?

[The Omega Concern]

why do these millions not have access to primary health care? can you boil it down to one or two major factors?

Mercurial,

mainly because alot of employers are not required to provide health care coverage anymore and those without a job can't afford insurance.

[mercurial]

ok so we have a group of people that cannot afford health insurance, either because they are not paid enough or they are not paid at all.

would this include:

- the elderly (retired)
- students
- part-time/casual workers

??

and if they are included, what do they do when they need primary health care?

[Starla]

Liberals have told us how wonderful the Cuban hospitals are, but only show us pictures from the hospitals that the government folks use. The ones the average guy has to go to are infested with cockroaches, have live wires exposed throughout, and are in a condition that no American would consider "healthy".

They tell us Canada's hospitals are wonderful, but there are more MRI machines in the state of New York than there are in the whole of Canada, and when Canadian doctors need treatment (along with some of the wealthier Canadians), they come to the US. No long wait periods, even with the inappropriate government intrusion we already have.

Frankly, as "broken" as our healthcare system happens to be, it's still better than the models Barack and his minions are looking to emulate. In England, if you're too old (by their standard), you don't get help, and even if you are young enough, you still wind up waiting for months when you need a specialist, even if your condition is critical.

On the American side, there were a few issues brought on by the government-created HMO I was insured with, but when my ankle needed attention, I went from initial doctor's visit to the specialist to the surgeon to the operating table and finished recovery in
less time than the aforementioned Brit takes to get to the first visit with the specialist. This could have been quicker had the aforementioned HMO not contributed to higher prices for these services and added unneccessary procedures into the mix.

3. Higher cost

There is absolutely no way injecting even more layers of bureaucracy into the health system can be done without driving up the cost. Whether a medical bill is paid by the patient or the insurer, the bill still must be paid, and the bureaucrats' fee is no small matter, either.

There are only three ways the government could try to get the money to do anything in this area:

a. Cut taxes - A Republican would cut taxes, which would increase receipts, but with all the debt this country already has from this same sort of intrusion into poverty, old age welfare, and the like, it's highly unlikely enough money could be raised even it it were a good idea.

b. Raise taxes - A Democrat would raise taxes, which would cause receipts to fall, and the debt to increase even further - and not a new dime available to pay for this venture. Transferring the cost from the doctor's office to the IRS doesn't to a thing to save anyone money. It only changes whom it gets paid to, and how many people need their cut.

c. Charging fees - This would simply be another form of tax increase.


4. Yet another liberal failure in the making

Liberals told us that we could, with a small income tax, provide supplemental income to the elderly and care for the poor. Today, that very taxation is out of control, and even with a skyrocketing national debt and proof that cutting taxes would bring in more money, more tax increases are on the table.

In addition, the programs that were set up to take care of the poor and elderly are dismal failures, along with programs for education, school lunches, disaster relief, farmers, foreign aid, housing, and more. There is no evidence that this new federal government program will be any more successful. I'm sure you don't mean to tell me that any of the above were huge successes, or that somehow putting a government with such a dismal track record on all of the above things that it never should have gotten into in the first place is going to somehow succeed in this venture AND pay off the financial obligations is got itself into by engaging in the above.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Einstein

[Thaniel Buckner]

my visits to the dmv recently haven't taken very long.

[Debaser]

the government run military does pretty well

[Debaser]

still pretty amazing that the govt can deliver you letter across the country for under 50 cents.

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by Debaser

the government run military does pretty well

Most of the time. But do you want to be around when the healthcare version of Abu Ghraib happens?

[Nimrod's Son]

Yeah, they totally showed the Viet Cong

Also I thought you were a quagmire in Iraq guy

Originally Posted by Debaser

the government run military does pretty well

[dr.benway]

kind of fascist

we're all entitled

a state that'll let people die?

it's quite worrying the doctors feel that

now

how much in taxes do smokers pay buying smokes?
why is the taxation of alcoholic beverages higher than soft drinks?
how much has an old person paid in taxes during the course of his/her life?
obese people don't work and get taxed?

ffs

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

the government run military does pretty well

Are you kidding me? How many civilians have died in this century - heck, in this decade we are looking at hundreds of thousands of people murdered by the government military.

[sppunk]

Canadian healthcare is fucking terrible. My sis broke her leg and couldn't get an x-ray for 3 weeks and my family is not poor.
A U.S. model based on those Canadian princles wqould be devastating.

[Debaser]

where's the demand from the right to privatize the military

[Debaser]

luckily, i haven't heard any serious person suggest we need to model our healthcare reform based on the poor parts of the canadian system

[Future Boy]

Originally Posted by sppunk

Canadian healthcare is fucking terrible. My sis broke her leg and couldn't get an x-ray for 3 weeks and my family is not poor.
A U.S. model based on those Canadian princles wqould be devastating.

Does canada not have private insurance?

What would be the problem of some hybrid public/private system? If the public system is bad/mediocre at the very least those that would get no care are covered, and those that can afford it buy their own. It's like taking the bus over driving to work. If you can drive you'll probably drive, but at least those that cant will still get there. Eventually.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Future Boy

Does canada not have private insurance?

What would be the problem of some hybrid public/private system? If the public system is bad/mediocre at the very least those that would get no care are covered, and those that can afford it buy their own. It's like taking the bus over driving to work. If you can drive you'll probably drive, but at least those that cant will still get there. Eventually.

Except not only do you have to buy your own car and pay for your own gas, now you have to pay for the bus whether you ride it or not. Which makes everything less affordable, and may cause you to give up the car you've already driven for years and enjoy and ride the bus with the scum simply because you're already forced to pay for it and you really don't want to have to pay twice for the same service.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

Except not only do you have to buy your own car and pay for your own gas, now you have to pay for the bus whether you ride it or not. Which makes everything less affordable, and may cause you to give up the car you've already driven for years and enjoy and ride the bus with the scum simply because you're already forced to pay for it and you really don't want to have to pay twice for the same service.

This is the reality right now both metaphorically and literally. you do, right now, pay for the bus whether you ride it or not and you do, right now, pay for other people's heathcare.

[Debaser]

you're also forgetting the fact that one of the main goals of healthcare reform is to make it cheaper in the long term.

[sppunk]

Nimrod, as Debaser said your point is a bit invalid.

I haven't heard of any related setup to Canada, but my fear is this goes the way of theirs. But we are all arguing for nothing - there is no chance in hell any systenwide change gets passed.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Debaser

This is the reality right now both metaphorically and literally. you do, right now, pay for the bus whether you ride it or not and you do, right now, pay for other people's heathcare.

Like I said the system is flawed, however the system being proposed is that you have to buy a ticket overtly.