2008 US Presidential Poll - Page 26

Something I've never understood. If you have something wrong with you, US films/tv show a demand for a credit card when the hapless individual is rushed into ER.

What happens if somebody is rushed into ER, is treated for something really serious (e.g. heart attack), but it is then found that they do not have medical insurance? Do they then get fleeced by sharks and are forced to sell all their worldly goods or are they simply thrown out on the sidewalk?

OR, if they are treated anyway, why bother with medical insurance?

Totally perplexed.

[vegaseat]

Unless you're the lead dog, the scenery never changes.

[jephthah]

Something I've never understood. If you have something wrong with you, US films/tv show a demand for a credit card when the hapless individual is rushed into ER.

What happens if somebody is rushed into ER, is treated for something really serious (e.g. heart attack), but it is then found that they do not have medical insurance? Do they then get fleeced by sharks and are forced to sell all their worldly goods or are they simply thrown out on the sidewalk?

OR, if they are treated anyway, why bother with medical insurance?

Totally perplexed.

no, they just get your ID info and do the insurance paperwork later. if you dont have insurance you get billed. if you don't pay your bill, it just sits on your credit record and negatively impacts your ability to get unsecured loans. if you don't pay bills, then generally you probably dont care about your credit record anyhow.

non-private hospitals and regional trauma centers become the primary care for people with no insurance, becasue they do not turn away patients who need medical care. since these millions of people without insurance are clogging up the trauma center ERs, they drive up costs for everyone else, and consume resources of ER centers that cost probably 4-10 times more than a primary care provider.

it makes no sense to continue such a system. if people can get primary care at a regular provider and deal with health maintenance in a reasonable way without flooding the ERs, then overall costs borne by the hospitals will be reduced.

of course the teabaggers don't see it that way, i believe they are of the general opinion that we should let the indigent languish in the streets until they learn to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. or something like that.

[GrimJack]

Oh, now Dave let's go to the start of the conversation shall we; I asked:

They also talk about all the failed 'socialist' medical care in other countries but don't seem to be able to come up with any actual country names.
I was hoping you would understand what 'countries' means. (Yeah, it was a typo, the 2 letters are somewhat close to each other).

Canada is more an example of the success of socialized medicine along with Sweden, Germany, BeNeLux, etc.

[GrimJack]

leftists never understand (or choose to understand, which amounts to the same thing) anything they don't like (or rather, that their Leaders tell them they don't like, as they're incapable of independent thought).
It's the only possible way that their utter lack of common sense can be explained.

Sometimes I wish the rightists could at least put a couple thoughts together without immediately spreading insults. This is especially true from someone who just whinged about

but if you're getting insults and harassment spewed at you

You spew and spew and spew and sometimes I wonder if you can actually rub two thoughts together to produce a coherent argument without once offering insult.

[GrimJack]

wow... self-righteous much? :icon_rolleyes:

speaking of "Leaders" and being incapable of "independent thought" do you get your rants from Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, or do you just synthesize Fox News talking points in general?

heh,heh - pretty good one.

[Dave Sinkula]

Canada is more an example of the success of socialized medicine along with Sweden, Germany, BeNeLux, etc.

Canada's delays and issues are too numerous for me to mention.

While it may seem as though the Swedish tax rates are off the chart compared to American taxes, it would not take us long to get there if the United States made the mistake of adopting socialized medicine for all, says Sven R. Larson, founder and president of the Hill City Skunkworks, a public policy research firm.

For instance:

* It has been estimated that a Swedish-style single health insurance system in America would cost the median-income household some $17,200 per year in health care taxes.
* Even if this were to replace the cost of private insurance policies, it is far from certain that employers would pass savings along to worker's salaries.
* Some suggest a business tax to pay for a single-payer system; that would effectively be the same as a tax on working families, either in the form of lower salaries or fewer jobs, or in the form of a mark-up on business sales.

As in Sweden, politicians would promise to freeze the tax to pay for a hypothetical American single-payer system at a fixed rate. However, over the past half century, U.S. medical costs have risen just over twice as fast as the payroll on which the tax would be levied. To avoid raising the tax, Congress would have to have curbed spending one way or the other.

This would have resulted in a combination of three things:

* A significant lag in implementing new medical technology.
* Massive reductions in staff, beds, and number of clinics and hospitals
* Widespread transfers of responsibilities for medical evaluations and treatment downward in the skills pyramid.

If we implement a universal, single-payer model in America today, the negative effects will reliably occur about a generation from now, says Larson.

In Sweden, the waiting time for heart surgery is twenty-five weeks. This led to recent privatization efforts in which the government will contract out some 80% of Stockholm's primary care and 40% of total health services, including Stockholm's largest hospital.

Compared to the U.S., Germany’s breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher, the U.K.’s is 88 percent higher and Canada’s is 9 percent higher.

BeNeLux? Got anything of comparable size to the US that ain't subsidized by US? Maybe JT can (or has?) given us a close-up view?

[Dave Sinkula]

Socialist Egalitarianism:

[WaltP]

... Sweden, Germany, BeNeLux, etc.

Isn't BeNeLux a vacuum cleaner? :icon_twisted:

[GrimJack]

Canada's delays and issues are too numerous for me to mention.

BeNeLux? Got anything of comparable size to the US that ain't subsidized by US? Maybe JT can (or has?) given us a close-up view?

More of bull pucky. The old 'too numerous to mention' crap means nothing because it says nothing. You are just blowing smoke again Dave.

[GrimJack]

Isn't BeNeLux a vacuum cleaner? :icon_twisted:

Yeah, it just smokes whatever it is that Brit twit is selling that has only one ball.

@Jeph
Thanks for the clarification.

[Ancient Dragon]

Public socialized health care doesn't mean free health care. Here is a good article, I think, about Canadian health care system.

The first thing to realize is that free public medicine isn't really free. What the consumer doesn't pay, the taxpayer does, and with a vengeance. Public health expenditures in Quebec amount to 29 per cent of the provincial government budget. One-fifth of the revenues come from a wage tax of 3.22 per cent charged to employers and the rest comes from general taxes at the provincial and federal levels. It costs $1,200 per year in taxes for each Quebec citizen to have access to the public health system. This means that the average two-child family pays close to $5,000 per year in public health insurance. This is much more expensive than the most comprehensive private health insurance plan.

<snip>
At zero price, no health services would be supplied, except by the government or with subsidies. Indeed, the purpose of a public health system is to relieve this artificial shortage by supplying the missing quantities. The question is whether a public health system can do it efficiently.

As demand rises and expensive technology is introduced, health costs soar. But with taxes already at a breaking point, government has little recourse but to try to hold down costs. In Quebec, hospitals have been facing budget cuts both in operating expenses and in capital expenditures. Hospital equipment is often outdated, and the number of general hospital beds dropped by 21 per cent from 1972 to 1980.

Aneurin Bevan helped introduce the NHS in the UK and this has been hailed as one of the most important developments for us over here. As mentioned we pay for it through our taxes and "contributions". This however gives the illusion of free healthcare. Even if you pay for private healthcare, you cannot 'opt out' of this tax.

In Wales, we have free prescriptions (free medicine!). This money has to come from somewhere. Although this helps the needy, I really can't see how this is sustainable. Our schools are facing redundancies and curriculum cuts. Our police forces are a very thin blue line.

It infuriates me to think I'm supporting some deadbeat family that go out of their way to eat the high salt/high cholesterol foods, who chain smoke and binge drink and drain the NHS of money and who haven't made any contribution at all. My dad had to wait six months to see a heart consultant (3 appointments cancelled by said medic) and subsequently died before he could receive his bypass. Free health is a post code (zip code) lottery. Some areas will be able to afford 'A' and 'B', with others 'C' and 'D'. You just hope that you're living in the right area if you get sick with something that warrants treatment 'B' for example.

I'm not a proponent of private medical care for all, but the state model isn't as rosy as it is sometimes portrayed. As it happens, I can't afford the premiums demanded by our businesses.

[Dave Sinkula]

More of bull pucky. The old 'too numerous to mention' crap means nothing because it says nothing. You are just blowing smoke again Dave.

Results: 769 for canada health care

U.S. TOPS LIST FOR HEALTH CARE SPENDING
Keep in mind that the WHO rating of health care prioritizes access, not care. The US ranks #1 in care; with access it is #37 -- but that is based on socialism.

12 Year Old in “Vegetative State” After Tonsil Surgery in Canadian Hospital While Canadian Premier Comes to U.S. for Treatment

How Do You Say "Crappy Health Care" in Canadian?

Nahanni points us to a first-person account of the Canadian health care system written by a Times of London correspondent. Visiting Quebec, a friend's young son had his leg severely slashed in a boating accident. An ambulance showed up quickly, the young lad was bandaged up, and off to the E.R. they went.

...nothing can prepare you for the yawning chasm of time that passes in Canada before the healthcare system actually does any healthcare.

It didn’t seem desperately busy. One woman had lost her face somehow — probably a bear attack — and one kid appeared to have taken rather too much ecstasy, but there were no more than a dozen people in the waiting room. And no one was gouting arterial blood all over the walls.

After a couple of hours, I asked the receptionist how long it might be before a doctor came. In a Wal-Mart, it’s quite quaint to be served by a fat, gum-chewing teenager who claims not to understand what you’re saying, but in a hospital it’s annoying. Resisting the temptation to explain that the Marquis de Montcalm lost and that it’s time to get over it, I went back to the boy’s cubicle, which he was sharing with a young Muslim couple.

A doctor came in and said to them: “You’ve had a miscarriage,” and then turned to go. Understandably, the poor girl was very upset and asked if the doctor was sure.

“Look, we’ve done a scan and there’s nothing in there,” she said, in perhaps the worst example of a bedside manner I’ve ever seen.

“Is anyone coming to look at my son?” asked my friend politely. “Quoi?” said the haughty doctor, who had suddenly forgotten how to speak English. “Je ne comprends pas.” And with that, she was gone.

At midnight, a young man who had been brought up on a diet of American music, American movies and very obviously American food, arrived to say, in French, that the doctors were changing shift and a new one would be along as soon as possible.

By then, it was one in the morning and my legs were becoming weary. This is because the hospital had no chairs for relatives and friends. It’s not a lack of funds, plainly. Because they had enough money to paint a yellow line on the road nine yards from the front door, beyond which you were able to smoke.

And they also had the cash to employ an army of people to slam the door in your face if you poked your head into the inner sanctum to ask how much longer the wait might be. Sixteen hours is apparently the norm. Unless you want a scan. Then it’s 22 months.

At about 1.30am a doctor arrived. Boy, he was a piece of work. He couldn’t have been more rude if I’d been General Wolfe. He removed the bandages like they were the packaging on a disposable razor, looked at the wound, which was horrific, and said to my friend: “Is it cash or credit card?”

This seemed odd in a country with no private care, but it turns out they charge non-Canadians precisely what they would charge the government if the patient were Céline Dion. The bill was C$300 (about £170).

The doctor vanished, but he hadn’t bothered to reapply the boy’s bandages, which meant the little lad was left with nothing to look at except his own thigh bone. An hour later, the painkillers arrived.

Seven hours after the accident, in a country widely touted to be the safest and best in the world, he applied 16 stitches that couldn’t have been less neat if he’d done them on a battlefield, with twigs...

Rumor has it that Stephen King's next novel will feature the Canadian health care system though, if Obamacare passes, the setting could easily be your local hospital.

Canadian Health Care Has a Dirty Secret

...and many more.

[GrimJack]

Public socialized health care doesn't mean free health care. Here is a good article, I think, about Canadian health care system.

I started reading that article and got to the paragraph that said

The first thing to realize is that free public medicine isn't really free. What the consumer doesn't pay, the taxpayer does, and with a vengeance. Public health expenditures in Quebec amount to 29 per cent of the provincial government budget. One-fifth of the revenues come from a wage tax of 3.22 per cent charged to employers and the rest comes from general taxes at the provincial and federal levels. It costs $1,200 per year in taxes for each Quebec citizen to have access to the public health system. This means that the average two-child family pays close to $5,000 per year in public health insurance. This is much more expensive than the most comprehensive private health insurance plan.

So I did a quick google of health insurance plans and came up with this:YEARLY PREMIUMS FOR FAMILY HEALTH COVERAGE RISE TO $12,680 IN 2008, UP 5 PERCENT, AS MANY WORKERS ALSO FACE HIGHER DEDUCTIBLES. I saw no reason to read any further because I could not believe anything else he wrote. As a single individual buying COBRA insurance, I was paying $490 a month so I have no idea where he came up with $5,000 a year as 'more expensive'. It certainly seems to imply that he did not do any research.

I use my COBRA payment as an example because it shows the actual cost job-related insurance. They do get to add 2% to cover admin. costs. Once COBRA expires, the cost will increase significantly because I am no longer part of a group plan and would have to look on the open market.

[jwenting]

And for that $5000+ plus hospital and doctors' fees the Canadian has to wait half a year or more to get an MRI or CAT scan performed, 2-3 years for major surgery, etc. etc..

[Ancient Dragon]

And for that $5000+ plus hospital and doctors' fees the Canadian has to wait half a year or more to get an MRI or CAT scan performed, 2-3 years for major surgery, etc. etc..

Compare that to what we receive here in USA today. I had heart surgery five years ago. Took a stress test then was immediately admitted to the hospital and was on the operating table within an hour. My wife is going to have her gallbladder removed, only two months from the time she visited the doctor. Need an MRI? I get them whenever I want, all I have to do is take the doctor's prescription to the MRI place and I get one right away, meaning wait in the waiting area for 10-15 minutes or so.

[GrimJack]

And for that $5000+ plus hospital and doctors' fees the Canadian has to wait half a year or more to get an MRI or CAT scan performed, 2-3 years for major surgery, etc. etc..

This is just wrong; propaganda with no basis in fact or study; mostly, based on single incidents that are completely misrepresented. If you have a study to back your statement, please link to it.

[GrimJack]

Compare that to what we receive here in USA today. I had heart surgery five years ago. Took a stress test then was immediately admitted to the hospital and was on the operating table within an hour. My wife is going to have her gallbladder removed, only two months from the time she visited the doctor. Need an MRI? I get them whenever I want, all I have to do is take the doctor's prescription to the MRI place and I get one right away, meaning wait in the waiting area for 10-15 minutes or so.

Was this private insurance coverage or Medicare?

[Ancient Dragon]

Was this private insurance coverage or Medicare?

My heart operation was private insurance through my employer, but I now continue to be treated twice a year with the same doctor under Medicare and my military retirement health benefits. I just saw him a few weeks ago, had another stress test, MRI and two dimensional echocardigram. Its quite interesting -- they take a series of pictures of the heart then put them together to create a movie which shows the heart beating and the blood flowing. That's how the doctor can easily spot blockages.

My wife's operation will be combination of Medicare, and what that doesn't pay the remainder (except a small co-payment) will be paid by my military retirement insurance. No one knows what will happen under the Obamacare plan, but I suspect it will not be much different than what I get now. The new health care bill does NOT replace private insurance policies as it did in Canada, but just supplements it for those that have no insurance. We will be allowed to keep the same insurance we now have.

My experience may have been a lot different had I not had any insurance at all.

[GrimJack]

My heart operation was private insurance through my employer, but I now continue to be treated twice a year with the same doctor under Medicare and my military retirement health benefits. I just saw him a few weeks ago, had another stress test, MRI and two dimensional echocardigram. Its quite interesting -- they take a series of pictures of the heart then put them together to create a movie which shows the heart beating and the blood flowing. That's how the doctor can easily spot blockages.

Is that the test where you get scanned then they shoot you up with some low-level nukes then take pictures again? I think I recently had one of those - they burned me a cd of my heart (I also got a cd of my brain MRI - not near as pretty as what you see on tv, it is grey-scale so pretty meaningless to me). I ask all the techs for pictures now; I have a couple of spine shots and my ankles on X-ray - I am thinking of turning them into t-shirts.

I just took a look at your link, not the same thing at all. My test used technetium-99m and involved treadmill stress tests. Similarly, the imaging is mostly 2-d slices also built up into a 3-d image

[jwenting]

This is just wrong; propaganda with no basis in fact or study; mostly, based on single incidents that are completely misrepresented. If you have a study to back your statement, please link to it.

Not at all wrong. Anyone surviving under socialist health"care" can tell you that.

It's only socialist nutters like you who believe it works.

[GrimJack]

Not at all wrong. Anyone surviving under socialist health"care" can tell you that.

It's only socialist nutters like you who believe it works.

See, all you do is blather and insult; you have no concept of rational discourse.

Why do you even bother posting this bilge? I know that you have, in the past, complained about being insulted for you views but all I know of your views are that anyone who does not believe what you believe is a socialist. You keep tossing that word around until it has no meaning so why don't you post something of substance so we know what you mean when you use the word and what your beliefs are.

Can you define yourself w/o making negative reference to others? What do you believe?

[GrimJack]

WOW! AIA- you are beginning to become a parody of yourself; you posted pointless reputation message that, at first, I took to be 'shared joke' - then remembered that we don't share much of anything.

[Lardmeister]

Generally the person that wins is the President. Unless you can create a small group of sore losers that are vocal and slanderous.

[jephthah]

I suggest that this thread be closed, out of respect for the deceased.

Dave Sinkula started this thread and largely kept it going as long as it did.

I don't think there's anything left to say, and it will be troubling to see the spammers and other assorted zealots bumping it every month or two.

[jephthah]

I suggest that this thread be closed, out of respect for the deceased.

Dave Sinkula started this thread and largely kept it going as long as it did.

I don't think there's anything left to say, and it will be troubling to see the spammers and other assorted zealots bumping it every month or two.

[GrimJack]

I don't know - maybe keeping the thread open and active would be a sign of respect?!

[jephthah]

I actually rethought this... probably, if anything, Dave himself would have wanted this to carry on. so... ignore my previous post....

viva la debate.