I notice that Bush doesn't seem to care about healthcare for all. I remember in his debate that he said he was against a national health service. Maybe it's time for the millions to take to the street and protest. For those who want privatized health care it exists in countries with a socialized system anyway, so those with the money can buy their way out of the public system.
No, i guess wanting to spend 400 billion dollars to overhaul Medicare means Bush doesn't care about healthcare. Sorry everything isn't a handout in this country.
Re: Re: Healthcare for all Nah, he'd rather spend all that money on missile systems that with hindsight, even Reagan knows was a stupid idea. I don't really give one, but wouldn't it be a closer approximation to the 'greatness' the US is supposed to possess, to 'hand-out' healthcare than 'hand-out' over-kill defensive strategies that make no real sense?
Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all We're a barbaric country. What kind of industrialized country doesn't provide healthcare for everyone? Having said that, I support missile defense. The risks are very different from 20 years ago.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all Why don't we ask Canada how well social health care has worked out for them, eh?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all They live much longer and spend a small % of GDP on healthcare. They're free to change it any time they want. Curious that they and no other civilized country (that excludes the USA, btw) has our healthcare system.
I'm a geriatric counselor. Part of my job is interviewing people for nurses aide/companion positions. I can see both sides to this arguement. I have seen people who are on fourth generation SSI, public assistance, etc who play the system like a fine violin. Two women have been artificially inseminated while on public assistance (paid for by your tax dollars), and upon the child's birth, got them on SSI immediately. The last time I checked, artificial insemination cost a minimum of $5,000. Should this really be offered to people who can't support themselves? Yes, I have also seen people work hard to get out of the public assistance merry-go-round and have problems in doing so. I have seen elderly clients who are at death's door. I will never forget one woman screaming in pain, but the federally assisted drug program would not allow her to have any more pain medication for 4 hours. She didn't last that long. NO ONE deserves to spend their last hours begging to free of pain. Right now, my own mother has been counseled to consider a lawsuit against a series of doctors and a hospital for a faulty operation - partly because the anestheiologist had to perform x amount of surgeries that day under the federal grant he's doing. How many people who are in the work force have been charged for going to an emergency room instead of a doctor's office, because their HMO wouldn't pay for it? I know I have - the last time cost me over $6,000. Bottom line: our health care program doesn't work for the majority of Americans. It works well for those on public assistance, or for elderly who need minimal care. That's it. Somewhere along the line, we do need to make changes in the system. I don't think socialized medicine is the answer - you only have to talk to someone living in a country with it to see that it doesn't work, either. I don't pretend to have the answer, but I sure do have a lot of questions.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all Curious how Canadians routinely come to the US to get life saving surgery...thanks to those wonderous surgery waiting lists.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all A small %. Stop your ************************ lies. Canadians are much healthier. Curious how Americans go to Canada to get medicine and healthcare as well.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all A small percentage? Get your head out of the sand. Social medical care has failed. When you have free care, people flood doctor's offices with complications that are quite trivial; stomach aches, muscle tightness, and diarreaha cases are common. The doctor can tell them to take a certain over the counter medicine, and that's all fine and well. But that little nugget of advice just cost the state(and in reality, the taxpaper) 600 dollars. Fun times
You guys both need to look a bit more fairly at the issues. A national healthcare program could recognize some efficiencies, but it would have problems. In no way have such programs been proven to fail. Canadians generally are happy with their health care. US Citizens recognize more problems in their system, although individually, if you can afford it, the US system is great. A national health care plan could benefit the poor and the lower middle class. But there are some costs. I think its too bad the Clintonistas tried to bite off more than they could chew back when they tried to get some sort of health plan in place. They pushed the clock back for real change a couple of decades.
Oman, I in no way believe the US way is perfect; I simply believe that the social system has too many obvious faults.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all I wonder why you mention Canada when speaking of this subject...Actually, I do know why: it's the same answer I get from most Americans when we talk about it. "Most Americans" in this case being those who have never lived abroad, experienced different systems, view their world as "the" world, etc. You mention cost, but it isn't so much a question of cost than that of management. No other country spends as much as the US for its health care, in terms of GDP percentage ( close to or at 14% by now): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2000/06/21/nwho21b.jpeg;$sessionid$HSYO3QT3PHCIDQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0 And for what result?: http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html ( you'll notice the US's ranking, 37th, and Canada's as well, 30 th.) Having lived and worked abroad continiously for the past 20 years, and in for 4 different countries, I'll be "glad" to testify that the US system is the absolute worst I have ever encountered (these other countries are also industrialised nations and have universal health care coverage. The US is the only one which doesn't) I have some very personnal reasons to say so, reasons I'd rather not get into as I seriously get upset thinking or talking about them... Basically, it involves me having health problems and having been "victimised", no less IMO, by the US heath care system. I know first hand this would not have and would not be happening in my own country and others where I have lived for extended periods of time ( years). It has nothing to do with my particular situation in the US, as I am a legal alien and have the same rights ( or absence of, in that matter...) as anyone else. Ok, by now, I am pissed off and will get back to this subject later...maybe... But you could learn a lot from someone like me, manny, about this, you really could. And this isn't me putting you down, honest. Just stating facts.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all This is one of the most ridiculous Republican lies imaginable. Right, Canadians are flooding doctors offices. People just love to go to the doctor. Sheesh! You know what, I've gone to doctors in Canada and paid the fees, which often are the same the as the deductibles here in the States. Of course, Canadian physicians don't earn $200,000 a year; they get by on 80-100K somehow.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Healthcare for all Fair enough. However, you seem to believe i am enthralled with the US system. Actually, i'm not a big fan. But i do realize how expensive it is, aswell as how hard it is to find good doctors these days. A lot of great doctors are chased away because their liability insurance outweighs any profit they make. This is killing US medicine. I hope that we can pass legislation that will somehow lower the cost of liability insurance. This can only be done by cutting down on frivilous malpractice suits. Also, i mention Canada because Canada has a close relationship to US medicine. I saw a video about this very subject. A man needed life saving heart surgery, but he languished on a waiting list for a year and half before suffering an inevitable heart attack. He was rushed into a Detroit hospital and he was admitted to the OR right away, and his life was saved. To me,this is not the sign of a good health care system.
Manny wrote: "However, you seem to believe i am enthralled with the US system" *snip* "Also, i mention Canada because Canada has a close relationship to US medicine. I saw a video about this very subject. A man needed life saving heart surgery, but he languished on a waiting list for a year and half before suffering an inevitable heart attack. He was rushed into a Detroit hospital and he was admitted to the OR right away, and his life was saved. To me,this is not the sign of a good health care system" No, manny, I didn't assume you were enthralled with the US system. I simply noticed that it is the only comparison you could make and as I stated, typical of the "answer" I get in the US when discussing this matter. I have never lived in Canada myself, so I won't judge. And again, as I pointed out, Canada's health care system ranks as 30th, so it might not be the right place to look for when looking for solutions. You need to look more into this, manny, and not limit yourself to the US and Canada.
What did you think of this in regards to the US? "But i do realize how expensive it is, aswell as how hard it is to find good doctors these days. A lot of great doctors are chased away because their liability insurance outweighs any profit they make. This is killing US medicine. I hope that we can pass legislation that will somehow lower the cost of liability insurance. This can only be done by cutting down on frivilous malpractice suits."
While I agree with most of this passage, it's the one that I've italicized that I don't agree with. A truly good national health care plan should benefit ALL American citizens, not just the poor or lower middle class. The cases I mentioned were from all socio-economic classes; as I've said before, no one should spend their last hours on earth screaming because they're not permitted the proper amount of pain medication. In reality, it's the middle class that's hurting the most from poor health care maintenance. Their job doesn't provide benefits, they can't afford a good health care plan, or one illness completely wipes the family out.
I must say that i'm interested in Gephart's plan. Instead of cutting corpate operating cost through tax cuts, you give them a 70% subsidy which must be passed on to the workers, In turn the workers get lower premiums. While there might be some technicalities to work out, you can't say that the idea isn't intriging. Companies get more more through the subsidies, so they have more money to create jobs. The money is garunteed to go towards health care and not into CEO saving accounts. People will have more money to spend due to lowered premiums. If your saving money regardless, does it matter if its from a corp. tax break or health care for all?
Canadians flock to US hospitals for elective surgery, and Americans flock to Canadian pharmacies for cheap pills. It's pretty much a wash on the dollars side. But the reason why America will not have a single-payer health care system in my lifetime has nothing to do with quality of coverage. There are just far too many entrenched institutions (pharma companies, private hospitals, HMOs, the AMA, nurses' unions, etc.) that would need to be appeased, and all spread money around Washington like it's strawberry jam. What we're stuck with is this half-assed system that's neither capitalism nor socialism. We are all already paying for every uninsured sick person's hospital stays through both health insurance costs (uninsured visits cost money that hospitals recoup through higher charges to everyone else, which results in higher premiums) and higher taxes (more uninsured sick people results in less preventive care, which leads to more chronic illnesses, which hurts GDP + costs taxpayers more to make up their loss). If we could start by admitting this, we'd realize that we are closer to socialized medicine than we think, but without any of the structural efficiencies that a real single-payer system brings with it. Ask a US doctor about filling out health insurance forms every once in a while and see what they think.
I think Oman is simply saying that the poor and middle-classes would benefit most because they don't have access to expensive plans, while rich people, although they would have access to the public health care, might elect to spend money on even better care. In other words, it would apply to them, but they may already in many cases be able to afford something better.