Aa
Dont Knock our Health System
Canada's system is called Medicare, and is much like Medicare in the U.S. for over-65-year-olds, except that this one treats virtually the entire Canadian population of 33 million.Canadians are setting aside their criticisms of Medicare and rallying to its defense. The reason: Their system has been dragged into the debate over President Barack Obama's health care reform proposals by opponents who say Canada proves Obama is wrong — that Canadians endure long waits for critical procedures, medical rationing, scant resources and heavy-handed government interference.
http://www.the33tv.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-cn-canada-medicare-for-all,0,5821607.story
http://www.the33tv.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-cn-canada-medicare-for-all,0,5821607.story
"So, my friends, we WILL be paying for illegals."
So, seriously we aren't already? And even if we are I would rather have the compassion to want to find a solution and risk a couple falling through the cracks than throw out the baby with the bathwater and just chuck it all completely.
OHAWK - I LOVE YOU. You made my heart happy.
LL - I have at times waited tables just to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads with no insurance. The fact that one "doesn't qualify" for the pittance that most times doesn't even cover the monthly bills DISGUSTS me. I would RATHER pay an extra 1% taxes out of MY paycheck and make sure that woman had her colonoscopy than let her go through what she is going through.
If everyone just took a small small part of the burden to themselves and accepted the responsibility for doing for those who do not have - what a better country we would be. How much stronger and proud.
But unfortunately many people have not walked in those shoes and they just don't care. Let me keep my extra couple bucks a year in the bank where I can look at the number grow.
It's not about "knowing the plan" because quite honestly most of us aren't financial or medical experts and won't understand it all anyway - the elected officials and such are supposed to do what is the right thing by us, it's not "our" job\. It's about putting the needs or others up there with your own......that is where it gets sketchy because quite honestly there are just an awful lotta people who could care less.
So, seriously we aren't already? And even if we are I would rather have the compassion to want to find a solution and risk a couple falling through the cracks than throw out the baby with the bathwater and just chuck it all completely.
OHAWK - I LOVE YOU. You made my heart happy.
LL - I have at times waited tables just to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads with no insurance. The fact that one "doesn't qualify" for the pittance that most times doesn't even cover the monthly bills DISGUSTS me. I would RATHER pay an extra 1% taxes out of MY paycheck and make sure that woman had her colonoscopy than let her go through what she is going through.
If everyone just took a small small part of the burden to themselves and accepted the responsibility for doing for those who do not have - what a better country we would be. How much stronger and proud.
But unfortunately many people have not walked in those shoes and they just don't care. Let me keep my extra couple bucks a year in the bank where I can look at the number grow.
It's not about "knowing the plan" because quite honestly most of us aren't financial or medical experts and won't understand it all anyway - the elected officials and such are supposed to do what is the right thing by us, it's not "our" job\. It's about putting the needs or others up there with your own......that is where it gets sketchy because quite honestly there are just an awful lotta people who could care less.
Thank you med help! I for one, learn a lot on these threads and health care is one of my #1 issues in our country. I don't know all sides tho, and appreciate hearing them here, even if I don't agree with all. Whomever is hitting the abuse button, please allow us to discuss and learn in an extrememly important issue.
NYgirl...(Hi! :)......
"Maybe if Americans would quit trying to help everyone else out and concentrate on ourselves, we would have the money to provide a FREE State of the Art Health Care System second to none. "...........
That was RGlass. And I have to 'ditto' him thru most of this. Not having read all replies through yet, I have to say..........
I am 51, not 'low income' and still can not afford all I need done, even just pre-screening tests...colonoscopy, labs, mammogram's, pap test, etc. I have to pick one and do it. My last bout with a severe kidney infection cost over $2000. , not including the $160. I paid for TEN pills to clear it! (Levaquin) . Had I not gotten into a trial, I would not be SVR today!!
I have a waitress friend that is in IMMEDIATE need of a colonoscopy and has no money for it, doesn't qualify for health department and if we're going to go into long waits here, or mths. to get a procedure done ......anyone ever been to OUR emergency rooms and/or health depts???? A person waits 6-8 hrs for a 1st appointment at a health dept, MANY with standing room only, then gets scheduled for another, 1-3 mths away, then gets an appointment for that specialist/procedures (and that is a big IF) and thats 1-3 mths off, your looking at 3-6mths for a person that has been bleeding rectally for mths already and if it's colon cancer, your now stage 4 in that wait! I can not count how many people I know that have died from lack of health care, lack of insurance, SERIOUSLY! Many that gave up at the health dept., one that is in cirrhosis from Hep C due to being 'dismissed' from the health dept, many that couldn't get a simple colonoscopy. Our health care, insurance rates, pharmaceutical cost.....in NOT working! ANYONE dying from lack of health care.......is a crime and well should be!
My mother and sister passed from colon cancer. I am about to pay the $1500. out of pocket as I fall in the cracks of our health care (and yes, have tried to get insurance, denied due to Hep C and cervical cancer, even if I would pay their $500. mth!) , then I have to pay for my other testing, then try and get an answer to my post tx issues so more testing.....we're looking at $10,000 easily. Not 'low income' but do I have that in my pocket without letting important things go, and not luxuries....no!
I fully agree that we need to know the 'plan', the exacts of any reformed or future health care plans, but the government needs to hurry up on it! There will be problems, issues in any plans, but what could possibly be worse then what we have now? This poor waitress makes $300. a week, yet doesn't qualify for help!! In 'my America'.....this is the one area I am 100% not happy with.
There's a lot of good discussion up there, again, thanks Med Help.
Copy and pasting just in case ;)
LL
NYgirl...(Hi! :)......
"Maybe if Americans would quit trying to help everyone else out and concentrate on ourselves, we would have the money to provide a FREE State of the Art Health Care System second to none. "...........
That was RGlass. And I have to 'ditto' him thru most of this. Not having read all replies through yet, I have to say..........
I am 51, not 'low income' and still can not afford all I need done, even just pre-screening tests...colonoscopy, labs, mammogram's, pap test, etc. I have to pick one and do it. My last bout with a severe kidney infection cost over $2000. , not including the $160. I paid for TEN pills to clear it! (Levaquin) . Had I not gotten into a trial, I would not be SVR today!!
I have a waitress friend that is in IMMEDIATE need of a colonoscopy and has no money for it, doesn't qualify for health department and if we're going to go into long waits here, or mths. to get a procedure done ......anyone ever been to OUR emergency rooms and/or health depts???? A person waits 6-8 hrs for a 1st appointment at a health dept, MANY with standing room only, then gets scheduled for another, 1-3 mths away, then gets an appointment for that specialist/procedures (and that is a big IF) and thats 1-3 mths off, your looking at 3-6mths for a person that has been bleeding rectally for mths already and if it's colon cancer, your now stage 4 in that wait! I can not count how many people I know that have died from lack of health care, lack of insurance, SERIOUSLY! Many that gave up at the health dept., one that is in cirrhosis from Hep C due to being 'dismissed' from the health dept, many that couldn't get a simple colonoscopy. Our health care, insurance rates, pharmaceutical cost.....in NOT working! ANYONE dying from lack of health care.......is a crime and well should be!
My mother and sister passed from colon cancer. I am about to pay the $1500. out of pocket as I fall in the cracks of our health care (and yes, have tried to get insurance, denied due to Hep C and cervical cancer, even if I would pay their $500. mth!) , then I have to pay for my other testing, then try and get an answer to my post tx issues so more testing.....we're looking at $10,000 easily. Not 'low income' but do I have that in my pocket without letting important things go, and not luxuries....no!
I fully agree that we need to know the 'plan', the exacts of any reformed or future health care plans, but the government needs to hurry up on it! There will be problems, issues in any plans, but what could possibly be worse then what we have now? This poor waitress makes $300. a week, yet doesn't qualify for help!! In 'my America'.....this is the one area I am 100% not happy with.
There's a lot of good discussion up there, again, thanks Med Help.
Copy and pasting just in case ;)
LL
I live in Texas, and my PCP accepts medicare,and so does my neurologist. I don't understand your comment regarding the difficulty in finding a dr who accepts Medicare.
I have BCBS, and am not eligibile for medicare (yet). I know there are some dr's who don't accept medicare, but I have encountered a lot of drs who didn't accept my BCBS when I was looking for a surgeon. A physical therapist I trusted gave me the name of the top 3 surgeons (in his opinion) and only one was in network for me.
Also, regarding medicare supplemental insurance, members are allowed to :"Choose any Medicare-eligible doctor that accepts the plan's terms, conditions and payment rate"
Turns out they're still getting a dr who accepts Medicare.
Since I live in a more rural area, (30 mile from the metroplex) some medicare supplements consider any skilled nursing facility out of network since it's not located within the city limits.
Several years ago, the leading medicare supplement refused to cover people in our county and I know of a few people who lied about their residence, then had to drive farther to be insured. The leading reason seniors pick the medicare supplement was cost. They go for a higher deductible on the gamble that they won't need it, or under the assumption that they have the same coverage as medicare.
I'm sorry to have to disagree with you, but I know what I'm talking about on this subject. I'm an admission coordinator now, and I'm the one who has to discuss a persons coverage with them. I hate to be the one who says "Your supplement has this co-pay or your supplement considers us out of network so you're not eligible unless you want to pay a 3,000 dollar deductible"
Have a great Labor day everyone. We deserve this holiday, right?
Janice
I have BCBS, and am not eligibile for medicare (yet). I know there are some dr's who don't accept medicare, but I have encountered a lot of drs who didn't accept my BCBS when I was looking for a surgeon. A physical therapist I trusted gave me the name of the top 3 surgeons (in his opinion) and only one was in network for me.
Also, regarding medicare supplemental insurance, members are allowed to :"Choose any Medicare-eligible doctor that accepts the plan's terms, conditions and payment rate"
Turns out they're still getting a dr who accepts Medicare.
Since I live in a more rural area, (30 mile from the metroplex) some medicare supplements consider any skilled nursing facility out of network since it's not located within the city limits.
Several years ago, the leading medicare supplement refused to cover people in our county and I know of a few people who lied about their residence, then had to drive farther to be insured. The leading reason seniors pick the medicare supplement was cost. They go for a higher deductible on the gamble that they won't need it, or under the assumption that they have the same coverage as medicare.
I'm sorry to have to disagree with you, but I know what I'm talking about on this subject. I'm an admission coordinator now, and I'm the one who has to discuss a persons coverage with them. I hate to be the one who says "Your supplement has this co-pay or your supplement considers us out of network so you're not eligible unless you want to pay a 3,000 dollar deductible"
Have a great Labor day everyone. We deserve this holiday, right?
Janice
MH : thanks for allowing this discussion to continue. The current national discussion about health care futures is more than politics-as-usual and a seems very appropriate topic for a health-focused site.
Desrt: yes!agreed. "Money" is just a proxy; the larger point is that the total demand for health-care resources (staff, training, percent of GDP, etc.) exceeds what can reasonably be made available. We can't all get what we want and need to start thinking about what we need.
Trish : OK maybe you're right, but as the last couple of threads have shown, mistrust of government-run health care runs very deep on this side of the border.
Re Medicare advantage it's as if the Canadian government told you could take your pro-rated share of what they expected to pay out on your behalf and buy private insurance with it instead. Does it work ? Mr. L paints quite a rosy picture with free gym memberships etc. and Karl Rove recently roasted Obama on this very topic in the WSJ for wanting to eliminate the program:
"Medicare Advantage also has built-in incentives to encourage insurers to offer lower costs and better benefits. It's a program that puts patients in charge, not the government, which is why seniors like it and probably why the administration hates it."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374584177632694.html
Needles to say, there's another side to the story. The reason the administration sees this as a prime example of misdirected spending has nothing to do with putting patients in charge and everything to do with eliminating excessive insurance company profits (obtained by denial of coverage).
"Another GAO report released last year and based on 2006 data shows Advantage insurers' profits were $3.36 billion, far exceeding a projected $2.03 billion. And though enrollment grew quickly, medical expenses were $360 million lower than projected.
A year earlier, the insurers' profits were nearly triple projections.
The Obama administration already has announced new restrictions on Advantage plans, including closer scrutiny of high-deductible coverage, but more are expected and might be included as part of the overall health reform bill."
from a recent LA times article
http://www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-us-medicare-advantage,0,3056520,full.story
BTW, notwithstanding my gloomy comments, I'm a big fan of the public option (not the pubic option as I wrote above..) I just think there will be (painful) limits to what can be covered.
MrL: yes - going after tort/malpractice makes all kinds of sense. If it doesn't happen in this round of reform it certainly should stay on the agenda. But how many malpractice lawyers do you think can match H. Hanways 78.3 million in compensation over the past 5 years? (and I just picked Cigna at random) If a key goal of health care reform is to reduce extraneous expenses, insurance company profits and executive compensation seems a more productive place to start.
Re your later post, describing a 'heavily subsidized' public option sounds more like single-payer plan, which is not realistically under discussion. As proposed, subsidies would apply to the purchase of insurance, not to the administration of the public option.
If private insurance companies don't find enough room for profit to remain in that part of that market where exactly is the problem?
Desrt: yes!agreed. "Money" is just a proxy; the larger point is that the total demand for health-care resources (staff, training, percent of GDP, etc.) exceeds what can reasonably be made available. We can't all get what we want and need to start thinking about what we need.
Trish : OK maybe you're right, but as the last couple of threads have shown, mistrust of government-run health care runs very deep on this side of the border.
Re Medicare advantage it's as if the Canadian government told you could take your pro-rated share of what they expected to pay out on your behalf and buy private insurance with it instead. Does it work ? Mr. L paints quite a rosy picture with free gym memberships etc. and Karl Rove recently roasted Obama on this very topic in the WSJ for wanting to eliminate the program:
"Medicare Advantage also has built-in incentives to encourage insurers to offer lower costs and better benefits. It's a program that puts patients in charge, not the government, which is why seniors like it and probably why the administration hates it."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374584177632694.html
Needles to say, there's another side to the story. The reason the administration sees this as a prime example of misdirected spending has nothing to do with putting patients in charge and everything to do with eliminating excessive insurance company profits (obtained by denial of coverage).
"Another GAO report released last year and based on 2006 data shows Advantage insurers' profits were $3.36 billion, far exceeding a projected $2.03 billion. And though enrollment grew quickly, medical expenses were $360 million lower than projected.
A year earlier, the insurers' profits were nearly triple projections.
The Obama administration already has announced new restrictions on Advantage plans, including closer scrutiny of high-deductible coverage, but more are expected and might be included as part of the overall health reform bill."
from a recent LA times article
http://www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-us-medicare-advantage,0,3056520,full.story
BTW, notwithstanding my gloomy comments, I'm a big fan of the public option (not the pubic option as I wrote above..) I just think there will be (painful) limits to what can be covered.
MrL: yes - going after tort/malpractice makes all kinds of sense. If it doesn't happen in this round of reform it certainly should stay on the agenda. But how many malpractice lawyers do you think can match H. Hanways 78.3 million in compensation over the past 5 years? (and I just picked Cigna at random) If a key goal of health care reform is to reduce extraneous expenses, insurance company profits and executive compensation seems a more productive place to start.
Re your later post, describing a 'heavily subsidized' public option sounds more like single-payer plan, which is not realistically under discussion. As proposed, subsidies would apply to the purchase of insurance, not to the administration of the public option.
If private insurance companies don't find enough room for profit to remain in that part of that market where exactly is the problem?
"Mike points out one of the weirder inconsistencies in the arguments opposing the public option - if the publicly-administered, unsubsidized, insurance plan will be another hopeless, bureaucratic nightmare how will it possibly outcompete our thriving, efficient, well-managed, private sector ins. cos?"
Because the gov't has a non-profit, heavily subsidized plan. If they run in the red (which they will) all they have to do is print up some more money. The private insurers are publicy owned and need to make a profit to remain in business.
A man with 400 employees (small businesses are those with fewer than 500 employees) is going to stop providing private ins because it is cheaper to put his 400 employees on a gov't plan and pay the 8% penalty resulting in large savings for his company. As soon as one company does this to save money they all will follow. The gov't plan can compete easily with private insurance simply because employers who provide health insurance to the majority of the citizens in this country are going to quit providing private ins to save money. You cannot infer from this that the gov't plan can compete head to head based on health services covered. It can't and it won't.
Because the gov't has a non-profit, heavily subsidized plan. If they run in the red (which they will) all they have to do is print up some more money. The private insurers are publicy owned and need to make a profit to remain in business.
A man with 400 employees (small businesses are those with fewer than 500 employees) is going to stop providing private ins because it is cheaper to put his 400 employees on a gov't plan and pay the 8% penalty resulting in large savings for his company. As soon as one company does this to save money they all will follow. The gov't plan can compete easily with private insurance simply because employers who provide health insurance to the majority of the citizens in this country are going to quit providing private ins to save money. You cannot infer from this that the gov't plan can compete head to head based on health services covered. It can't and it won't.
" Socialism? Isn't that what our libraries are?"
Not by a long shot. Socialism is when you take something away from someone and give it to someone else. Socialism is both a form of gov't and/or an economic policy.
"Am I the only one who wants a compassionate society?"
The majority of my post above is all about showing compassion for our aged, disabled and seniors. Did I choose the wrong groups to show compassion to ?
"And please Mr. Liver, leave the illegal immigrants out of this."
How do you leave 16,000,000 illegals out of a conversation about nat'l healthcare ? You mean just look the other way and pretend they aren't there? Pretend that I won't be paying part of it ?
And you really should aim your criticism to those before me who brought the topic of illegal immigrants up . The topic was broached several times before me and I threw in what I know about it. I didn't see you saying anything when others posted about illegals. Why is that ?
This is a very important topic for our country. One-sixth of our economy is being discussed when we talk healthcare. What we do will could affect America in profound ways. This thread has allowed discussion that has raised many points worth debating over. If Obama had gotten his way this would have been passed already and none of the important discussions like this one would have been held. Passing a bill no one has read is becoming a bad habit with this administration. Like cap and trade, the stimulus bill, and now healthcare if he had gotten his way.
Not by a long shot. Socialism is when you take something away from someone and give it to someone else. Socialism is both a form of gov't and/or an economic policy.
"Am I the only one who wants a compassionate society?"
The majority of my post above is all about showing compassion for our aged, disabled and seniors. Did I choose the wrong groups to show compassion to ?
"And please Mr. Liver, leave the illegal immigrants out of this."
How do you leave 16,000,000 illegals out of a conversation about nat'l healthcare ? You mean just look the other way and pretend they aren't there? Pretend that I won't be paying part of it ?
And you really should aim your criticism to those before me who brought the topic of illegal immigrants up . The topic was broached several times before me and I threw in what I know about it. I didn't see you saying anything when others posted about illegals. Why is that ?
This is a very important topic for our country. One-sixth of our economy is being discussed when we talk healthcare. What we do will could affect America in profound ways. This thread has allowed discussion that has raised many points worth debating over. If Obama had gotten his way this would have been passed already and none of the important discussions like this one would have been held. Passing a bill no one has read is becoming a bad habit with this administration. Like cap and trade, the stimulus bill, and now healthcare if he had gotten his way.
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