SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, will it help or hurt research

[merryBe]

weigh in if you want to!!  I think we'd set the clock back 50 years, but that's just me.

[pigeonca]

Socialized delivery of medical care, as in Europe, does not eliminate privately or publicly owned pharmaceutical companies.  Schering and Roche etc. will probably do better under a national health plan than they do today because there will be more customers for their products.

Also, triage is used everywhere and trumps position in lines.  The gunshot wound always takes precedence over indigestion.  To think otherwise is just totally disingenuous.

[Willy50]

other side....agreed.  That would also go for discussions other political or religion polemics.
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"Medical Bills Leading Cause of Bankruptcy, Harvard Study Finds
February 3, 2005
Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.

Bankruptcy Bill
• Senate Passes MBNA's Bankruptcy Bill
• Congress Ready to Tighten Bankruptcy Law
• Medical Bills Leading Cause of Bankruptcy, Harvard Study Finds


The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.

Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.

Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work -- losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most."
(visit the link for the rest of the article.-Willy)
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I think that many people feel that the system is becoming increasingly broken if the people in the above article find themselves in bankruptcy.

I sometimes see arguments that seem based more on fear than on reason.  In spite of the fact that there are other socialized medical systems in place (yes, none are perfect) an appeal is made to scare us; "Yes, but if we change the current system it will be EVEN WORSE.  We must go in a certain direction or else all hell will break loose."  Seems like we got into a Mid East conflict with that same logic......or Viet Nam before that.  : )

It's all Rhetoric with a captital R.  People end up becoming so involved in defending a position that they don't answer other threads that ARE about HCV (this one ain't)....and isn't that why people come to a Hepatitis forum?  There are plenty of political forums out there......

Willy

[beamishboy]

we need to agree to disagree...no more

[merryBe]

finale'

who here knows who founded and wrote the first socialist doctrines?

who knows what USSR stands for?





hint, starts with a K
hint, 3rd word is socialist

[merryBe]

can't answer everybody, too tired.

but to end the night, eventually socializm and population growth and rising costs will mean busier more over crowded "public" hospitals. Period.

No, not all plastic surgery is done in Private quarters, if a person has anything that could mean a complication, they get a regular OR room.

Personally, I don't want my about to burst gallbladder pushed back because 3 plastics took longer than usual, so that whole system needs to change. Electives need to be handled differently and not given the same status as sick people. Sorry, but that has to change.

Also, where do people go overseas for this "better care". I have friends who travel all of whom have horror stories of European supposedly state of the art care. they can't wait to get state side.

Yes there are drug companies abroad as well...we aren't alone in discoveries. Check out the R and D, and patent protections they have as well. One area that can't be socialized in the true sense of the word is that one.
It would spell disaster. You cannot villianize the drug companies for all the ills in health care. It's scapegoatism and far too simplistic.

[merryBe]

I have excellent health care NOW and have for almost 2 of the last 20 years, before that I suffered under insured, no insurance, even had to go on state health care during cancer....every step of the way, even now.....I've had to fight for every scap....and had had to fight like a dog so often I mail myself monthly Advantage just to be safe!

the system is flawed, read my responses instead of just assuming you know how I think,
the question was...to socialize or not.......answer: sounds good BUT< but it won't be "all fixed" by socializing. It will be fixed by holding HMO's DOCS, DRug companies, AND our government accountable. By we as consumers demanding a return to sanity.  Even by using our legal system when necessary. What better cause!!  (and no I'm not a lawyer).

I'm sorry about your friend........been there.

It's unfortunate, but you have to be proactive yourself or have someone fight for you because there is SO MUCH entrenched apathy and stagnation. things in motion tend to stay in motion, well thing lump is stuck.

I lay here writing, prossibly dying, because of ineptitude, denied tests and procedures....
why would you presume someone clueless because they differ in approaches to fix things???

SO< still, I'm telling you socializing is not the answer. I agree your friend needed to be moved up, thank God a liver came in. If you follow the models in Europe and elsewhere, someone far less critical could have gotten that liver not because they were a better match, but because of where they were in the line.

The way it is now people who are too sick to fight still have to, or have someone doing it, or resign themselves to neglect which will deapen exponetially with socializm.....because the docs who should be pro active are too stapped, too busy, too regulated to "only spend 20 minutes with you" and few really advocate for their patients as a result. Only the rich can pay extra for a doc who will do this. AND they do. don't think our politicians wait in line either....they never will!!!!!!!!!!
No lines there.

But if you think socializing it will solve this, respectfully, you are wrong. You are assuming that the system will continue to improve if you remove all reward, all profit, and further regulate how much can be done and for whom. It's like asking farmers to plant corn, and telling them in advance the crop will fail!!

as flawed as our system is, socialing it will dehumanize it even more. Government workers are the least efficient of all classes of people. and the most jaded. I watched a road crew fill a hole on my road last month. It took six workers, who stood for an hour before the truck came, and took another hour when they got the asphalt. On hole, one wheel barrow full. 6 guys, 2 hours. Lazy, jaded, overrewarded bureaucrats. We need MORE of these????

At some point, like the Dutch we will find ourselves legislating to pay docs as much as clerks, and to euthanize the old people.anything to balance the budgets so everyone will get their raise and the elite can have their private non line system. Is that what we want? Hmmm...Hitler used that second idea...too much trouble those old people, line em up and pop!!!

I guess you have more faith in human nature than I do. I see the systems flaws as fixable when you take away the perks docs get from drug companies, and the kick backs from HMO's for denying care. Jail a few of them!!!!! But if you take it to government management you will bog it down to the point that you'll chaos in the ranks and little to no research etc.

ADJUNCT: whoever said medicare can't negotiate for cheaper drugs is misimformed. they can and do, big time.
what they can't do is force a company to GIVE away something still under patent.