Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 31 Aug 09 - 06:48 PM This video was posted earlier, but it's worth posting again. It shows how money and profits effect the decisions of doctors here in this country as well as the insurance providers... http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08282009/watch.html |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 31 Aug 09 - 06:24 PM Michael Jackson's doctor comes to mind. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 31 Aug 09 - 04:49 PM ""I find it difficult, if not downright impossible, to believe that US doctors knowingly keep their patients ill. The main reason, of course, is that most doctors are ethical, caring people who pride themselves on their skills."" Thank you, Ebbie, for saving me the trouble. Doctors are most certainly NOT the problem, in any civilised country. There are of course the few who batten on the vanity of those who cannot bear to accept the ageing process, but the vast majority want nothing more than to work themselves out of a job, by eradicating disease. The PROBLEM lies in the activities of those venal, corrupt, men who control the supply and the price of what is needed for doctors to successfully treat and cure their patients. I refer of course to the drug company executives, and the health insurance moguls. Private insurers will always bleat about making huge losses, when what they REALLY mean is a small percentage reduction in their obscene profit margins. We have them in the UK too, and I assure you that 60+ years of national insurance funded, free at the point of use, healthcare, has failed so far to bankrupt even the smallest of them. Don T. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 31 Aug 09 - 03:54 PM Your concluding sentence sums up one of my main points, Carol. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 31 Aug 09 - 02:16 PM I've had a lot of really crappy doctors in my lifetime, all the way from ones who cared more about their bottom line than their patients to ones who like to molest their female patients (I had two of those). There's good doctors and there's bad doctors. But our way of delivering health care incentivizes making decisions that are not always in the best interests of patients, which makes it more difficult even for the good doctors to always do what is in their patients' best interests. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 31 Aug 09 - 02:05 PM I can't recall ever having gone to a doctor who seemed more interested in his/her bottom line than in the care of his patient. I have been put through tests that didn't seem necessary to me, but I came away feeling that the doctor was doing the tests in order to protect himself from liability if some complaint were lodged later. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 31 Aug 09 - 01:59 PM I've had doctors who basically told me that I would have to allow them to perform procedures I didn't want and that were medically optional or they would have a hard time justifying keeping me as a patient (for financial reasons). It's a fact that many doctors are more incentivized by their bottom line than by their patients' real needs. Whether or not the poster a couple of posts above likes living in such a world, it is, nevertheless, a reality for a lot of people whether they like it or not. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 31 Aug 09 - 01:43 PM I would agree, Ebbie, that most doctors are quite ethical, and that they try to do the best for their patients. I think that the main problem is that the present day health system is geared more to hastily prescribing a variety of drugs which deal with suppressing or ameliorating symptoms than it is to dealing with each individual case in a more creative way...in terms of counseling patients as to how to adjust their lifestyle, their diet, their exercise routines, and a variety of other such factors that are influencing their health. That is exacerbated by the fact that many patients themselves would rather just get a quick fix...pop a pill in their mouths...than actually address the serious lifestyle problems they have and alter their habitual ways of indulging themselves! So the public is partly to blame itself for the present situation. I've heard of many doctors who complain that their patients are unwilling to follow all kinds of good advice they give them about diet, exercise, and lifestyle...but the patients just want to be given "something" to make the pain go away without any effort. So the problem is not just with the doctors. The doctors, however, are greatly under the influence of the drug companies, and they are sent regular bulletins encouraging them to prescribe the latest expensive drugs. The reason drug companies do that is to make money. The doctors are in between a profit-driven drug system that has become a bit ridiculous, in my opinion, and an often lazy public with bad lifestyle habits who don't wish to change them, plus they are overloaded in many cases to the point where they don't have enough time to deal with each individual case as thoroughly as would be best. So what are they to do? It's a multi-faceted problem, in other words. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Ebbie Date: 31 Aug 09 - 01:20 PM I find it difficult, if not downright impossible, to believe that US doctors knowingly keep their patients ill. The main reason, of course, is that most doctors are ethical, caring people who pride themselves on their skills. The second reason is that most doctors are almost overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who want to see them. Has anyone here made an appointment recently? If you are in actual misery, they will try to work you in earlier; otherwise, most likely you will wait at least a week and a half. Tell me I'm wrong. Doctors just recently out of medical school and setting up practice may try to hang on to their ill patients - but I don't think so. Freshly made doctors tend to be idealistic. Man. The world some of you people live in is not the world I want. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Greg F. Date: 31 Aug 09 - 12:58 PM Surely most people who get elected are actors. Too true, McGrath, but not ordinarily Hollywood types. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 31 Aug 09 - 12:01 PM There's probably something to that. Any profit-based medical service or system is indeed strongly motivated not to cure people of their ills, because it would lose customers if it did! That's why we have so many drugs that don't address the causes of illness...they merely suppress the symptoms. The cause remains, so does the illness, the symptoms return, and the customer keeps buying the drugs. That's a very lucrative setup. Why would a drug company want to tamper with such a cash cow by actually helping to cure the illness? |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 31 Aug 09 - 05:11 AM JtS was telling me why he thinks doctors in Canada are better than doctors in the US this morning. He said that doctors in the US are incentivized to want patients to keep coming back, so they don't have any real incentive to actually help patients get well. He said they don't really do anything to help people get well because they get more money if people stay sick or unwell. He said that doctors in Canada work hard to help the patient get better because they want the patient to not keep coming back with the same problem. This is based on his experiences with doctors in both countries. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: The Barden of England Date: 31 Aug 09 - 05:08 AM Strange - I keep reading Illegal as Ill Eagle, which seems to fit. John Barden |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 31 Aug 09 - 12:39 AM We know who's not being covered. People with pre-existing conditions, people who can't get insurance through their employer and who can't afford individual insurance, self-employed people who can't afford individual insurance, people whose insurance refuses to pay for needed care. And I am confident that the vast majority of those people, if not all of them, would like to get access to health care right now and deal with illegal immigration later. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 30 Aug 09 - 10:20 PM "Rig, if you don't deal with the tiger right away, you may not have a chance to deal with the plague, which may not even be there in the first place." You can shoot a tiger with a 375 H&H magnum. It'a a lot harder to hit a flea with a 375 H&H magnum. But I think it one stands back and analyzes the entire problem carefully, it's becoming more and more clear that the Obama administration would be having a much easier road on healthcare if they'd done something about immigration first. At least that way, the voters would know who was being covered, and who was not. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 30 Aug 09 - 09:53 PM My parents, like me, spent half their lives in the US and half in Canada. Now entitled to free care in either place, they choose Canada, even though some of the wait times, including multiple cancers, have made me a little edgy. There's not a big difference to support all of this drama on either side of the equation, and no reason to be calling Americans monkeys or mushrooms. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Peace Date: 30 Aug 09 - 07:50 PM Shona Holmes never HAD a life-threatening tumor. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Aug 09 - 07:20 PM And Tony Blair was one of the best! ;-) |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Aug 09 - 07:13 PM Surely most people who get elected are actors. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Greg F. Date: 30 Aug 09 - 06:12 PM the state provided avenues for illegal aliens to receive public health care and it drove the state into insolvency No, mismanagement, greed, tax cuts, Reaganomics and NeoCon dogma drove California into insolvency. They'll never learn about elcting actors to positions of responsibility, it appears. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Alice Date: 30 Aug 09 - 05:44 PM Some people are fixated on illegal immigration, some are fixated on abortion, some are fixated on the "red scare" terms like socialism... it all gets in the way of common sense. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 30 Aug 09 - 05:28 PM ""Well, LH, so far it hasn't worked that way in the US, and that's what has people so nervous. In California, for instance, the state provided avenues for illegal aliens to receive public health care and it drove the state into insolvency. Americans are more prone to look at the California experience than the Canadian one."" And the evidence for that is........? Or is it another Private Health Insurers' propaganda snowjob, of the kind so many Americans swallow without question? Don T. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don Firth Date: 30 Aug 09 - 05:13 PM Rig, if you don't deal with the tiger right away, you may not have a chance to deal with the plague, which may not even be there in the first place. Every human being, no matter where they are from, deserves decent health care. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 30 Aug 09 - 04:35 PM "There is a hungry tiger in the room, and Rig is complaining about a flea." That's it, Don. Deal with a tiger or deal with the plague. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Aug 09 - 01:56 PM Sounds like Shona Holmes was a paranoid hysteric without a serious medical problem at all who unnecessarily spent $100,000 in the USA to get treatment for a non-emergency...and she's now looking for someone to blame it on other than herself! I have a friend who was diagnosed recently with a brain tumour (type 4 cancer). He went into hospital immediately. He got operated on after 1 week's observation. The operation was successful in removing the tumor and he has undergone several weeks of chemo and radiation following that. He is recovering well. Cost to him of all this treatment: zero dollars! And he's not anyone important...he works as a small-time contractor renovating houses in the greater Toronto area. But who did the USA propagandists find from Canada to present their case? Shona Holmes! Well, you can find a few fools in any country who are willing to represent a false viewpoint that doesn't have a leg to stand on...specially if someone puts money in their hand to do so. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Aug 09 - 01:56 PM But the flea is foreign!!! |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don Firth Date: 30 Aug 09 - 01:40 PM There is a hungry tiger in the room, and Rig is complaining about a flea. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Emma B Date: 30 Aug 09 - 01:39 PM Fair and honest ads like the one sponsored by the conservative Americans For Prosperity Foundation which spotlighted a Canadian woman, Shona Holmes. This year 'her story was presented as a cautionary tale of what Americans could expect if they were to adopt a publicly-funded health care system like the Canadian health care system. The ad featuring Holmes was broadcast at a cost of $1.8 million in eight US states. "We went 100 per cent into socialized medicine and we lost all our options," Holmes said recently of the Canadian system. According to Holmes she was diagnosed with brain cancer, and mortgaged her home to pay $100,000 for treatment at the Mayo Clinic when she was told she would have to wait six months for treatment in Canada. She is quoted as saying the Canadian health care system failed her. In an ad that was broadcast on American television she said: "If I'd relied on my government, I'd be dead." Ian Welsh, writing in the Huffington Post, reports that while the Mayo Clinic characterizes Holmes's treatment as a success they say she had "a Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland". Welsh quoted the John Wayne Cancer Center: "Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts." Welsh characterized the US coverage that said the Canadian system failed her as "a lie". The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) interviewed neurosurgeons in Montreal and Toronto who described Holmes' claims as exaggerated and stated that her condition was a benign cyst which was not a medical emergency." Wikipedia |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Emma B Date: 30 Aug 09 - 01:07 PM may I quote from 'An Urgent Message From the League of American Voters' "The message I have for you today is simple: we must stop Obama Care and we CANNOT let our guard down. Just over two weeks ago the League of American Voters launched its national campaign to stop Obama Care. In short order, our powerful ad featuring a respected medical doctor exposing the dangers of Obama Care have supporters of the Obama plan reeling. We must continue this battle. As I write this, the League has to firm up its TV ad buys for the next two weeks. We have already raised over $1.3 million. But we need to raise $5 million to kill off Obama Care. P.S. The New York Times reported that liberal groups backing Obama Care are outspending groups like ours 3 to 1. Yet we are still winning the war of public opinion. This means when the public finds out the truth, they are siding with us. We just need to keep doing our work and getting our ads out" - Oh well, good to know all that money is going somewhere really useful unlike medical treatment for the uninsured |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Richard Bridge Date: 30 Aug 09 - 12:44 PM It would also enable regulating the strength |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 30 Aug 09 - 12:31 PM A lot of illegal aliens do pay taxes already. I think another good way to raise money for health care would be to legalize pot and regulate and tax it. That would also have the side benefit of reducing the cost of maintaining our prison system. But that would make too much sense. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Richard Bridge Date: 30 Aug 09 - 12:03 PM Yes, McGrath - capitalism and the ability to block budgets for single issue reasons. As for Californian health, the solution would be simple. Integrate illegal aliens so that they pay tax. Voila! Funding! |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Aug 09 - 11:40 AM Weren't there other reasons why California went into insolvency.? Is there really some built-in incompetance in the American political system that makes it incapable of doing things that other countries can manage to do without great difficulty? |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Aug 09 - 11:35 AM Maybe it hasn't worked that way so far in the USA, Rig, because the powers that be would actually like the situation to be inconsistent and complicated and unfair precisely for the purpose of making Americans angry and reactive and confused, and keeping them suspicious about the possibilities of bringing in a socialist universal health care system. If so, their plan to block reform of a very bad system has succeeded rather well, hasn't it? The Health Insurance companies and Big Pharma want you to fear change, so why wouldn't they do everything in their power to keep Americans ignorant of elegantly simple solutions to seemingly complex problems...problems that are to the insurance companies' advantage? |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 30 Aug 09 - 11:09 AM Well, LH, so far it hasn't worked that way in the US, and that's what has people so nervous. In California, for instance, the state provided avenues for illegal aliens to receive public health care and it drove the state into insolvency. Americans are more prone to look at the California experience than the Canadian one. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: bobad Date: 30 Aug 09 - 11:02 AM Just to add to LH's post, any non-resident can receive health care in Canada but they are billed for it. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Aug 09 - 10:57 AM Canada has a universal health care system, Rig. We do not treat everyone in the world. That's because to get treatment here you must first present your government-issued health card, a standard piece of personal I.D. that every Canadian citizen carries, just like they carry their driver's license or their bank card. Health cards have not proven easy to counterfeit, as they are made in such a way as to prevent it being at all easy. There is your solution, Rig. No problem at all, in fact. In emergencies, however, like the aftermath of a car accident, health care would certainly be provided to a non-resident of this country, as it would simply be criminal not to do so. We are all human beings, after all. That should be kept in mind. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 30 Aug 09 - 10:16 AM And that's one of the problems, Richard. There are people who need treatment who are illegaly living in the US now, and there are people who aren't living there yet, but would be if they thought all they had to do was to sneak in to get treatment. The American tax payer can't afford to provide health care for every sick person in the world. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Richard Bridge Date: 30 Aug 09 - 09:46 AM Er - people who need treatment. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: CarolC Date: 30 Aug 09 - 09:44 AM I don't know why anyone would think that the people who are involved with writing the various bills in the House and Senate haven't already examined the situation as it exists now, and aren't already working out who would be covered. This is precisely what they are and have been doing, so those are non-arguments. I would add to the "pay or die" equation, also "pay and die", since insurance companies regularly deny needed care to people who have already paid them to be covered. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 30 Aug 09 - 09:26 AM "If however I did need treatment... it wouldn't cost me a penny." How would you know? The only point I was trying to make is, in order to reorganize the American healthcare system one would have to analyze the situation as it exists now. Otherwise, it seems to me, any efforts to "fix it," will most certainly fail. One of the first things that would have to be done would be to define who it is you intend to cover. I don't see anyway you would get any cooperation at all from the people who have insurance now until you at least did that. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 30 Aug 09 - 06:02 AM ""Don, you've convinced me we need to do something about mental health in this country. You need treatment!"" Thanks pal, that assessment coming from YOU, convinces me that I am sane. If however I did need treatment, it wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg to get it. In fact it wouldn't cost me a penny. HOW ABOUT YOU, MUSHROOM MAN? Don T. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Richard Bridge Date: 30 Aug 09 - 05:17 AM Don is right - except that the minor highways network inlcudes not nly footpaths, but also bridleways, RUPPS and BOATS. A RUPP is a "Road Used as a Public Path" and a BOAT is a "Byway Open to AL Traffic". Regrettably RUPPS and BOATS, which may carry and do carry (respectively) vehicular rights of highway, have been under attack by ignorant presure groups and opportunist landowners for 50 years and users' rights are being diminished. I am however waiting to see evidnece of heric's strange claim that non-US posters do not understand the US system. What is there necessarily to understand apart from "pay or die"? In some cases it's "pay now": in some cases "pay later"; and there is some tinkering at the zero income end of the scale and the old age end of the scale. The fact that the US system is universally feared can be gathered from the health insurance industry. ALL (as far as I know) non-US systems either exlude cover in the USA or insist on substantial extra premiums for those visiting the USA. Ironically, parts of the political spectrum that want Americans to continue paying through the nose for or in case of illness, and to retain an "employer based" model (handy, that, for workforce mobility, not) are te same parts that attacked the Chrysler practices of paying for retirement plans and health plans as "too expensive". So how come private health and pensions are too dear for Chrysler but affordable for middle and lower Americans? |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Riginslinger Date: 29 Aug 09 - 09:34 PM "Rig, are you telling us you are stupid enough to believe the above nonsense?" Don, you've convinced me we need to do something about mental health in this country. You need treatment! |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Peace Date: 29 Aug 09 - 08:08 PM Well, Don, I figure those folks have the money to do so. I don't begrudge that at all. I simply don't understand the American view that 'as long as I have mine the rest don't matter'. Makes me sick to my stomach. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 29 Aug 09 - 08:06 PM Of course there is a difference in that BUPA is said to be a non-profit organisation (the initials stand for "British United Provident Association"), with any surplus ploughed back into services. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 29 Aug 09 - 08:01 PM ""Other developed nations were able to start anew without pre-existing conditions."" Rig, are you telling us you are stupid enough to believe the above nonsense? Do you really believe that prior to 1948, the UK had NO sick citizens, no poor citizens, and NO moneygrabbing shysters? Of course there were pre-existing issues which had to be dealt with on the road to civilised treatment for ALL. We had people like you, who screamed because they might have to contribute a few pence of their taxes to help those less fortunate. Where are they now?.....Well they are enjoying a generally healthy retirement, at an age they would not have reached pre NHS, and it is funded by the contributions of the next generation, many of whom are the dreaded "immigrants" who seem to inspire your kind to transports of righteous rage, if they need treatment. The USA will never be fully civilised until its citizens become aware of, and responsive to, the needs of their countrymen whatever their financial status, or ethnic origin. I can go anywhere in my country, and walk through a gate, and up the drive to the house, and knock at the door without the slightest possibility of being shot by the owner. The whole of Britain is laced with a network of mostly unfenced footpaths across privately owned land, and provided no damage is caused to crops or livestock, and walkers stick to the paths, there is no objection from the owners. We treat our people with a degree of respect and trust unknown in the USA. We don't kill them for trespassing, and we DON'T let them die for lack of the means to get treatment. Maybe Rig, it's YOU that needs to re-assess YOUR hard wired prejudice, and think for yourself instead of swallowing what vested interests tell you. Otherwise you are just another American mushroom, kept in the dark, and fed on bullshit. Don T. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 29 Aug 09 - 07:57 PM Without a single payer system, this is what a reform template looks like. If you really want reform, you would demand that your Representative tell Congress to start over, with this as the starting point. (It's flaws are all fix-able at a price which can be determined by the experts.) The public option can be the fix for the Medicaid concerns raised in the article. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 29 Aug 09 - 07:20 PM ""Does anyone think that given the choice--Private Insurance or Universal Health Care--that people would willingly choose to keep their private insurance? OK, even if ya have LOTSA money, do you really want to give an insurance company thousands a year when you could give $1000/year?"" Still happens in the UK Bruce, and here it's the difference between paying private insurance, and paying nothing at all. Of course, the private insurance still won't pay out on pre-existing, and long term, conditions, so even those who choose private care have to go to the NHS for those. Don T. |
Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad? From: heric Date: 29 Aug 09 - 07:02 PM Insurers don't want destruction of the employer based model because then they have a middleman with deep pockets, and aren't directly responsible to you. They also have the unfathomable protections of ERISA that allow them to mess with you with IMPUNITY (while you don't get to shop around) - That's how they deny care and cancel coverage even while you are with the same employer but expensively sick. There is an entire employee benfits industry which of course doesn't want this system wrecked. The Democrats behind Obama are not being candid about this. They have already made the Devils' deal in an attempt to get support from those industries. With a public option safety net for those people who run afoul of the employer-based coverage, those insurers would then be faced with recovery experts from the government to enforce their requirements, instead of leaving a sick person in financial crisis to do the fighting. That's even without destrying the employment-based status quo. If you destroy that as well with people having a myriad of DIRECT purchase options AND a public ption to choose from, we would have very serious reform. Nobody is offering that to us. Yet? |