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Post by Joe Durnavich on Mar 15, 2010 20:22:19 GMT -4
Our system is not perfect, you'll never hear me say it is. But the other side of your argument is that the Republicans make it sound like health insurance companies never get in the way of people getting proper treatment. Insurance companies decide who gets what treatment, so you've already got those "death panels" that Sarah Palin likes to scare people with. I am not so sure Republicans suggest that. The economics of health care are well understood: the challenge is to meet the virtually unlimited demands of consumers from the finite supply of resources. The argument is that more people can be better served in a private marketplace of competition and consumer choice than in a top-down, government-monopolized system where a small group of bureaucrats dictate the care of 300 million Americans. As for the "death panel" meme, it highlights for us the loss of personal choice in life-or-death matters. True, insurance companies have a say-so, but we are free to choose from among a competing array insurance companies. In Canada, as I understand it, it was illegal to sell or pay for medical services. As with the brain cancer story, the option is available to pay for care here because that is the natural way the system works. What about the guy with brain cancer? Canada treated him once but denied him a second treatment after the relapse. Isn't your point here that such pre-existing conditions would not be denied in the Canadian system, and by extension, one like it? I know you qualify it with the fact that the system is not perfect, but here you are bringing up the pre-existing condition problem with the assumption that government would have a hard time using that excuse. My main point here is that the pre-existing condition problem is being used as the reason for taking public control of the health care system in the States. If people are still going to be denied care because of their condition, then the reasoning is faulty. By the way, not for every year, but government Medicare in the US denies more claims than private insurance companies. Insurance companies have to earn their business, so their is economic pressure to be to minimize denials: Medicare denies more claims than private insuranceWhat are the statistics for the Canadian system? What percentage of claims are denied? Is that stat even tracked in socialized medicine? What do you mean by "basic level of coverage"? Does that include having a family doctor/general practitioner? Norwood, Ontario Holds Lottery for a Family DoctorThe disadvantage of the Canadian system is that everyone is forced into it. When the quality of service deteriorates due to the government monopoly, it is difficult if not impossible to find alternate sources of health care because (1) people have been forced to pay into the government-run system their entire lives, and (2) no well-developed market exists for health care services. You cannot easily shop around and doctors cannot easily try other avenues of serving patients. (Here, for example, stores like Wal-Mart, Target, and Walgreens are experimenting with in-store clinics that offer very low prices for services.) I do understand, though, that Canada is liberalizing its medical care system and more and more private care is being made available. The problem is that all your health care money and time for the past several decades have been invested in the single, national system. Now you are stuck financing that and trying to finance a private system to run parallel to it. Most will not be able to afford that. And that is my worry here. Once we throw away our private health care system in the States, we will never be able to really get it back.
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Mar 15, 2010 20:31:47 GMT -4
As an example, I have psoriasis. One small tube of ointment costs $250 and it lasts about two months. I doubt if I'd use it if I had to pay $125 a month for it. You do pay for it. Chances are one way or another you pay several thousand a year into the medical system through taxes. Over a lifetime that adds up to over $100,000--several hundred thousand bucks if you factor in sacrificed interest earnings. It feels like these ointments, prescriptions, and basic procedures are all being paid for by someone else, but that is the illusion that entices people to buy insurance. People here don't realize that sometimes they spend $5000 to $13000 a year for the benefit of getting $800 in medicine free. (That is, of course, until the big one hits that puts you in intensive care!)
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Post by Ginnie on Mar 15, 2010 21:40:03 GMT -4
As an example, I have psoriasis. One small tube of ointment costs $250 and it lasts about two months. I doubt if I'd use it if I had to pay $125 a month for it. You do pay for it. Chances are one way or another you pay several thousand a year into the medical system through taxes. Over a lifetime that adds up to over $100,000--several hundred thousand bucks if you factor in sacrificed interest earnings. It feels like these ointments, prescriptions, and basic procedures are all being paid for by someone else, but that is the illusion that entices people to buy insurance. People here don't realize that sometimes they spend $5000 to $13000 a year for the benefit of getting $800 in medicine free. (That is, of course, until the big one hits that puts you in intensive care!) Just to clarify, Joe, the case of the psoriasis ointment, it is not covered by our Health Care System. I should have specified that my wife's Private Insurance plan at her work would cover it. I don't know if any drugs are covered by our Health Care system at all unless you're on welfare or a senior. It would be interesting if I had numbers of how much I've paid into health care vs. how much I've used. That would be a good statistic. I've always been relatively healthy, but my wife and kids have asthma and a few other things have come up. I'm trying to understand this table - if the U.S. already pays more per capita for health care than Canada, how much higher would this be if you had Universal Health Care? And according to this - the government of Canada pays for 69.8 % of our health care vs. 45.4% in the U.S. I thought the difference would be much more than 24%.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Mar 16, 2010 11:25:16 GMT -4
Just to clarify, Joe, the case of the psoriasis ointment, it is not covered by our Health Care System. I should have specified that my wife's Private Insurance plan at her work would cover it. Of course, you are paying for Private Insurance plans through work as well. It's compensation that your company is paying your insurance company instead of you. Part of the problem is that no one knows exactly how much more expensive it is going to be. But judging from the past efficiency record of government, it will almost certainly be more.
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Post by Ginnie on Mar 16, 2010 18:01:29 GMT -4
Just to clarify, Joe, the case of the psoriasis ointment, it is not covered by our Health Care System. I should have specified that my wife's Private Insurance plan at her work would cover it. Of course, you are paying for Private Insurance plans through work as well. It's compensation that your company is paying your insurance company instead of you. Part of the problem is that no one knows exactly how much more expensive it is going to be. But judging from the past efficiency record of government, it will almost certainly be more. Jason, I know the someone has to pay for it. Nothing is free - not even cell phones... I would guess the cost of my wife's insurance plan would be around $3000 a year. Now, do we use that much in an average year? Maybe, maybe not. But a dental checkup alone would be around $200 and up. That would be around $1500 a year for us and the kids. And if we have a filling, then it really goes up. Pharmaceuticals - that varies year to year, my wife takes something for her thyroid imbalance, but thats only $6 a month. I don't know what the inhalers cost, but they are not used much. I would imagine that during a typical year we have a few prescriptions that would be over $100. And the insurance supplements our chiropractor treatments (that aren't fully covered by our Health Care system).
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Post by trevor on Mar 16, 2010 18:41:13 GMT -4
When this public healthcare system proposal came up I was in the UK for a couple of weeks. Last August I believe it was.
Much of what was shown on the news was Americans protesting about a public health care system bordering on communism. The National Health system in the UK was being used as an example to show how bad it was as an argument against it. The Brits took great offence to it I can tell you.
Now my brother is a doctor and studied and worked in the UK system and saw first hand how a public health care system strangled by poor management and low funding can cost people their lives. That is the problem, if there is adequate spending, a government run health care system is a great idea but there is rarely adequate spending.
I live in Australia where one has the option for private or public healthcare. Insurance is relatively cheap, about $3000 per year for a family cover and it gives you the option to go private for an elective procedure and get 'done' quickly or wait for a longer period if you decide to go public. You also get to choose your doctor if you go private.
If you want to see a GP some will bulk bill - ie they bill the government and you see them for free and some will charge about $60 to see them a part of which you can claim back from medicare. Any emergency or life threatening treatments are done straight away no matter what regardless of whether you have insurance or not and will be free unless you opt to use your insurance for private hospitals for more 'hotel' like care.
I personally think the Aussie system is a happy medium and I was happy to see our life expectancy was at the top of the list.
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Mar 17, 2010 23:15:38 GMT -4
Just to clarify, Joe, the case of the psoriasis ointment, it is not covered by our Health Care System. Are prescriptions covered? I thought I remember Michael Moore in his movie Sicko at some sort of pharmacy within a hospital making a big deal out of all the medicines being free. I also remember him at some point stuffing all his pockets full of pills, but I think now those were just M&Ms. You have to resist the urge to look at some of these numbers that apply to an entire population and think that the system might be improved if there was an absolute dictator who could increase or decrease this or that number through the sheer will of law. Part of the reason that we spend more on health care is because we are (reasonably) free to do so, and we, as individuals, choose to use more of it. That $7290 per capita expenditure is a value that represents the individual preferences of several hundred million people. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the fact that it is higher than those of other countries. What matters is that individuals find that they get suitable value for their money. More socialized systems put a hard limit on total cost, thus limiting individual choice. The per capita cost is lower, but the results are not necessarily better because of it. I suspect that the per-capita cost would be lower if we had government-run health care because politicians in command of an entire health care market need to satisfy only 51% of the voters to keep their jobs. We call it "creeping socialism." Like most if not all entitlement programs, Medicare and so on are like black holes that consume more and more of the health care universe.
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Post by smlbstcbr on Apr 21, 2010 22:26:46 GMT -4
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Post by gillianren on Apr 22, 2010 0:07:22 GMT -4
Almost everyone in Europe is bald? I am . . . taken aback.
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Post by Halcyon Dayz, FCD on Apr 22, 2010 6:45:41 GMT -4
Morales is a GLPer.
Meanwhile in the real world, the EU is much more restrictive about the use of hormones then most places. There is a de facto trade war going on with Canada and the US about the EU banning the import of hormone treated beef.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Apr 22, 2010 11:33:24 GMT -4
Morales is a GLPer. Meanwhile in the real world, the EU is much more restrictive about the use of hormones then most places. There is a de facto trade war going on with Canada and the US about the EU banning the import of hormone treated beef. When I lived in the Netherlands it was common wisdom among the Americans I knew that Dutch dairy had a different set of hormones in it than American, and that was the reason why we seemed to be growing more facial hair. I do agree with Morales on one thing - Coca Cola really isn't especially good for you.
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Post by smlbstcbr on Apr 23, 2010 17:02:48 GMT -4
I do agree with Morales on one thing - Coca Cola really isn't especially good for you. Considering that its main ingredient is COCA... ;D And, for your entertainment... they just announced the formation of the Ministry for the Mother Earth...(which does... I don't know!!!)
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Post by gillianren on Apr 27, 2010 14:12:47 GMT -4
I don't have any quotes per se, having spent most of the segments discussing the issue screaming at my television, but aren't we all delighted to know that Arizona has brought back the Fugitive Slave Act?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Apr 27, 2010 15:19:11 GMT -4
"Fugitive Slave Act? " That's probably overstating things just a bit, don't you think? How about starting a new thread if you want to discuss it?
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Post by RAF on Apr 28, 2010 10:15:43 GMT -4
...aren't we all delighted to know that Arizona has brought back the Fugitive Slave Act? I really can't imagine that "law" staying on the books for long...as soon as the financial impact is realized, and there WILL be a financial "reckoning", they'll change it in a New York minute.
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