How Bad Is It ???

[clive]

Coloured? I was correct, you were not born here were you?

Indeed, I've never claimed otherwise, but I've been paying my taxes, and didn't creep across your borders. I'm taxed without representation, so what you bitching about? :bg

I think we've had this conversation before, re health care, and the quality system the UK has, it's not a system I'd wish on anyone. You might mock Sarah Palin and her "death panels", but when some bureaucrat decides you're meds would be better given to someone younger, it won't seem nearly as funny.

[Bill Cravener]

. . .I'm taxed without representation,

Welcome to America clive! :bg

UK health care, . .it's not a system I'd wish on anyone.

Even for those 46+ million Americans who have nothing?

[clive]

Even for those 46+ million Americans who have nothing?

They are not physically bared from hospital grounds, right, or have I missed something? You turn up in an emergency room, they have to treat you, Mexicans cross the border everyday to do just that I'm pretty sure they are getting "free" care now.

We can argue about the efficacy of the care, but failure to treat comes with the prospect of being sued. Now, lets contrast that with the system in the UK, where doctors have huge patient lists, can't get you out of the office quick enough, miss basic symptoms, can't order effective diagnostic tests. If you can get to a hospital with a CAT or MRI scanner, it would be amazing. I'm telling you, the UK health care system is not something to lust after. It is the model you'll get if government runs health care. Paying doctors below cost isn't going to help either.

I know the emergency room philosophy is "we can address the problems that will kill you in 30 minutes", but the longer term care and effective medication is the stuff that is rationed in systems like those in the UK. You're going to get the lowest rent care available.

[Bill Cravener]

Oh I didn't say anything about free health care but how about affordable health care. I assume your employer picks up most of the cost for your care if not all of it. Me, here in PA we have Bluecross/Blueshield and being self-employed it costs me near $700 a month even though I'm quite healthy except for bouts of arthritis pain. Now you take folks (I personally know many) who just make ends meet even though they work just as hard as I, in fact harder then I, but there is no way they can afford health insurance. It's just not possible. As to Mexicans getting free care, that bird just doesn't sing for me pal. They have nothing to do with the ridiculous cost of health care in this country. The cost here in the US is simply based on greed.

If you can get to a hospital with a CAT or MRI scanner, it would be amazing.

Well my friend Edgar who as you know lives in Canada would disagree with you about publicly-funded health care and I'm sure other folks here whose country has publicly-funded health care would disagree as well. So lets face it, you and I will never agree on this subject even though I've been around a lot longer then you and I see how it is, that is to say, healthcare in the US is severely broken controlled by greed and to hell with the health and well-being of its citizens.

[Don57]

It's funny in Canada we have public health care, paid for by the tax payers, and also the lowest per capita debt of any G8 country. Our dollar is worth more than the US dollar, and financial we are in better shape than most of the countries in the world. The problem with health care in the US, is special interest groups and greedy politicians.

[clive]

I think we can agree the costs are out of control, but the alternatives aren't always as appealing as they look.

Well I'm paying a significant fraction of it. Figure $550 per month, family, BCBS PPO 80/20%, with a $2500 per person deductible, my pocket.

I was contrasting the UK/US, where I do have 1st and 2nd degree familiarity, I didn't go into the Canadian system as I'm not familiar with it. What I can tell you is that if you want higher income taxes, ~15% sales tax, and $10/gallon gas the UK system is for you. Personally the American's I hang out with aren't ready for that, perhaps they should be, as stated earlier in the thread I think the whole taxation system needs to be fixed, and we need to stop spending more than comes in. I'm not sure a "soak the rich" approach is viable either, those are the people who are the most mobile, they'll go somewhere else. Again the politicians don't want to grasp this nettle, it will sting.

One thing that does show up consistently with Government health care is waiting lists for things people in the US might consider standard procedures, no weeks and months of waiting, no travelling vast distances. Canada, and frankly the entire world, benefit greatly from the drugs and equipment developed on the backs of US health consumers.

Not worried about the Mexican's and other indigents receiving "free" care at US hospitals? You should be, your costs include paying for them. They cause hospitals to close when there are no paying customers. In order for your costs to be reduced other people are going to have to pay more, and to some degree providers, insurance, lawyers, being paid less. But again you run into the mobility issue. If you start taking greed/motivation out of the system you're going to be left with the "why bother" problem, people aren't going to develop drugs/equipment they can't commercialize, and they aren't going to spend years in school for the honour of treating you.

It wouldn't surprise me if after turning the health system on it's head you'd still be paying as much each month, it would just be coming out of different pockets. Obama care has already increase my costs and deductible, how's it working for you?

The "evil greedy" companies like GE, that *follow* the tax code and tax avoidance strategies, do create the medical equipment we all use. Again the way to deal with that is to simplify the code, and shrink the IRS. The IRS can then focus on compliance, and most of the collection work is done by companies and banks at the point of service. I don't see a good reason why the bulk of Americans should even need to file a tax return, for most it's a threshold and percentage that's automatically deducted.

[clive]

If it's any consolation Bill, Michele Bachmann gives me headaches.

[hutch--]

It seems to be the case that when the financial sh*t hits the fan, the preferred solution (from the big end of town) is to shaft the little guy to make up the short fall. This is part of the problem in Greece at the moment, financiers, crooks and the like have bled the Greek economy into debt and the little guy is expected to pay for it with wage cuts, job losses and drops in living standard.

The problem for me is i am an old fashioned Lasseiz faire capitalist and that means i do not support the incestual relationship that at times develops between an unaccountable corporate sector and governments that they have bought. There is a dirty old fashioned word for this situation that has spread like a disease in the western countries, its FASCISM which means exactly what a corporate sector in bed with government is. Mussolini did it, Hitler did it and they all have the same irritations in common, removal of citizen rights, attacks on trade unions, structural economic policy that favours the owners of government, destruction of the democratic process ALA Thatchers poll tax.

The unbridled attack on the middle class across the western world is the engie that is destroying the economies of Europe, the US and to a lesser degree the resource rich countries like Canada and OZ. The targetted fi9nal destruction of the middle class leaves a two tiered system, the elite and the serfs. Fortunately the fight back after the Bush era has slowed it down a lot but at the price of the global economic crisis which is itslef a product of big money strangling the money supply.

Different countries have different solutions but for the US it is critical that the US government takes back control of US currency. The way to do it is to do a midnight raid on all branches of the Federal Reserve, arrest them all, freeze their assetts and change the law. Teddy Roosevelt changed the law in 1913 to fund his next election and the US have been paying for it ever since.

Reconstruction of the middle class in terms of both employment and small business is how the US will get back on its feet, become competitive again and provide a safe viable life style for all of those Americans that are doing it tough at the moment.

[baltoro]

CLIVE and BILL,
It's interesting reading your discussion,...your perceptions are fairly accurate.
The past couple of weeks I've been reading the book: "Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health', published, 2000, by Laurie Garrett. It's an incredible collection of medical research, describing what the public health system is like in various nations. I just finished reading the section about the evolution of the health care system in the United States. She starts with the creation of the first Public Health Department in New York City, and describes the initial battles with contagious disease epidemics, imported to the city from immigrants from all over the world. The history is enlightening. Much of the real increase in the cost of health care occurred as a consequence of the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. The United States has actually tried four or five times to create Universal Health Care for all the citizens of the U.S. This has been consistently opposed by the American Medical Association, who has lobbied effectively over the years and defeated all attempts. Meanwhile, public health (which provides immunizations for children, health care for the poor and elderly, and, provides the epidemiology necessary to protect the general public from communicable epidemics like tuberculosis) is being reduced in efficacy because of budgetary limitations. What we have now in the United States is a very complex amalgamation of Health Management Organizations, private Health Care Facilities, large insurance companies, state public health organizations, and a number of Federal Agencies that oversee their various domains. The funding for all that is even more convoluted, and, changes with each administration. Costs for quality care have skyrocketed over the last couple of decades,...and, there is enormous variety in the available quality of health care based on demographic factors such as what community you reside in, and, whether you qualify for existing public programs or HMOs.
What really blew me away, was reading about the almost complete collapse of health care in the Former Soviet Union after its dissolution in 1991, and, the rapid development of organized crime groups that introduced illicit drugs and prostitution on a scale that is unimaginable in Western Nations.
And, the chapter that described outbreaks of Ebola in Zaire, because of extreme poverty, corruption, and, a total lack of infrastructure was shocking. If contagious disease specialists, medical researchers, and, doctors from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the U.S., and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in France, and, representatives from major Humanitarian Aid Groups had not intervened, the epidemic would undoubtedly have continued unabated, annihilating the entire population of Central Africa.

[Bill Cravener]

Reconstruction of the middle class in terms of both employment and small business is how the US will get back on its feet, become competitive again and provide a safe viable life style for all of those Americans that are doing it tough at the moment.

Steve,

I doubt that will come to be in my life time. Regardless of how our health care system or the American way of life is explained it all comes down to one single word GREED! I remember growing up as a kid and early teen when a doctor came to your home carrying his black bag. My own local physician decided to give it up and take early retirement because big corp UPMC has taken over my area of the country. America is badly broken, our corrupt political system and big corp money will see that the middle class and most certainly the poor are exterminated.

[hutch--]

Bill,

Funny situation where I live, I have little wrong wth me but I have a local doctor (we call them GPs) who always has a pile of people in his waiting room and has to limit the number of customers while the big (do it all) clinics sit there half empty and usually have young Indian doctors hanging around doing nothing. My GP told me he sends the junkies and gerries to the clinics so he does not have to bother with people who are not serious about their problems.

[dedndave]

...I have little wrong wth me...

we'll be the judge of that
in fact, we can start a new thread in the soap box to make a list   :bg

[hutch--]

 :bg

Well, that's another matter, having suffered from voluntary senile decay once I made 50, I don't remember ever having made a mistake, confess to being truly perfect and even more modest about it. Its only when the senile decay becomes involuntary that it becomes a problem and that should be another 30 years or so from now notwithstanding major medical breakthroughs.  :P

[dedndave]

 :lol
i am sure there is nothing wrong with you that isn't wrong with me   :P

[Bill Cravener]

As I've stated many times it all comes down to greed. America is owned and controlled by greedy corporate idiots! Like Russia America needs to fall before it can ever rise again.

"Yearly public and private healthcare spending is $7,538 per person. That's almost two and a half times the average of other advanced nations. Yet the typical American lives 77.9 years – less than the average 79.4 years in other advanced nations. And we have the highest rate of infant mortality of all advanced nations. . . Doctors and hospitals have every incentive to spend on unnecessary tests, drugs, and procedures. . . Estimates of how much would be saved by extending Medicare to cover the entire population range from $58 billion to $400 billion a year."

Why Medicare is the Solution - Not the Problem