How will the new socialist federal government affect Atlanta? (unemployed, to buy)

[billl]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

If Americans are lucky enough to have a good job with health insurance, they live in fear of the insurance company chosen by their employer (not them). If their doctor recommends a treatment, they have to ask the insurance company for permission, which may not be granted. I just can't believe that people down here think their system has more choice, because an insurance company you didn't select gets to decide whether or not you get the medical treatment you need. This is choice?

I guess we have had vastly different experiences. Every employer I and my wife have worked for offered several choices for healthcare, not just one. Typically there was a conventional insurance company, an HMO, and a PPO, all at varying levels of cost. My wife has needed some unusual procedures and only once was there resistance from the insurance company to pay (and that was over 20 years ago before much of the recent criticism surfaced). We chose our primary care physicans, usually from a very extensive list. We chose our specialists when necessary (again from a very extensive list). And there have been times when we changed specialists because we didn't like the doctor. And, aside from the one case, there has never been a problem covering costs beyond our modest deductables.

Do you see Canadians or western Europeans clamoring for US-style medical coverage? Of course not. The rest of the world thinks the US system is crazily expensive and inhumane. They don't want it, because they have something better. Americans are just dupes of the insurance companies who have a very profitable business taking our money and denying us treatments.

Actually, I have heard stories of Canadians coming across the border because they couldn't wait (or didn't want to) for the procedure they needed. I can't track the stories down now, so perhaps they are urban legend.

Is paying for private health care still illegal in Canada? "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care".

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by billl

Except, of course, for those who currently can afford the health insurance they are getting through their employer, when said employer decides it no longer needs to provide discounted health insurance to its employees since basic health insurance is free. Those people can't afford the full cost of "extended" insurance and will no longer be able to obtain discounted insurance. They are stuck with basic, which will be fine for regular checkups (provided they schedule them well in advance) and to maintain good health. Hopefully they don't develop anything very serious or obscure that requires immediate and/or expensive treatment that the "free" system doesn't want to pay for.

Bottom line: you get what you pay for.

Canada's reality is kind of backwards from what you're imagining. The Canadian system is very good about tackling serious and urgent medical needs. Your cancer or heart attack will get as swift, thorough and medically up-to-date attention as in the US. But the Canadian system will keep you waiting longer than an insured patient waits in the US, for tests and treatments for problems that are not life-threatening, but do impact quality of life - things like joint replacements and cataract surgery. Canadians have longer life expectancy than Americans List of countries by life expectancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia despite spending less per capita on health care http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/29/52/36960035.pdf

Isn't it obvious that health care is never free nor "free"? In most other countries you pay for it through taxes rather than through premiums, deductibles and copays, that's all. Either way, it costs a lot. However, there are important differences between the US and countries that provide universal health care, those being that everyone gets care, doctors (not insurers) decide what treatments are appropriate, and direct costs to patients are little or none (depending on the country's scheme).

You do get what you pay for. Unfortunately, a sizeable portion of what Americans are paying for, with our bloated per-capita healthcare costs, are profits to all those big insurance companies, and employing rafts of people in doctor's offices to deal with insurance claims.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by billl

I guess we have had vastly different experiences. Every employer I and my wife have worked for offered several choices for healthcare, not just one. Typically there was a conventional insurance company, an HMO, and a PPO, all at varying levels of cost. My wife has needed some unusual procedures and only once was there resistance from the insurance company to pay (and that was over 20 years ago before much of the recent criticism surfaced). We chose our primary care physicans, usually from a very extensive list. We chose our specialists when necessary (again from a very extensive list). And there have been times when we changed specialists because we didn't like the doctor. And, aside from the one case, there has never been a problem covering costs beyond our modest deductables.

Gosh, sounds top-notch. My employer, a large US-based multinational, offers two versions of PPO (basic or premium), always from the same company. It used to be United Healthcare (who weren't bad, in my experience). This year we switched to Anthem, which is unbelievably awful. You have modest deductibles and no copays? You're unlike most Americans. Did you know that more than half of US personal bankruptcies (at least, before the recent mortgage crisis) were due to medical bills, and of those, three-quarters of the bankrupts had medical insurance? People are bankrupted by the bills for the portions of their treatment not covered by insurance. Medical Bills Leading Cause of Bankruptcy, Harvard Study Finds

Originally Posted by billl

Actually, I have heard stories of Canadians coming across the border because they couldn't wait (or didn't want to) for the procedure they needed. I can't track the stories down now, so perhaps they are urban legend.

Is paying for private health care still illegal in Canada? "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care".

Look, I'm trying to be honest here, not propagandize. Health care costs are a huge problem to all countries, nowadays, and no system for managing them is perfect. Canada prides itself on a universal system with minimal private care (there's a little bit, but it's pretty restricted). That's a cheat, really, because the US is Canada's safety valve. Wealthy Canadians who want immediate service do go buy it in the US.

Most other countries, as some others have mentioned on this thread, have a two-tier system that allows more private medicine than Canada does, so that those who have money and are willing to pay for faster or more deluxe treatment than provided by the public system, have private facilities available to them. This approach seems to work pretty well.

As Greg mentioned, and it's so true, waiting a few weeks for an MRI has to seem pretty darned attractive to an American who will never get one at all because they can't afford it. And I'm enough of an idealist that I feel more comfortable myself about participating in a system that provides service to everyone, even at the cost of less speedy service to myself. There's 47 million uninsured Americans out there, and Americans regularly die because of lack of access to health care. I'd rather wait a bit for non-critical medical attention myself, even at the cost of some personal inconvenience, than get swifter service in the knowledge that it's just not available at all to a significant number of fellow citizens.

[billl]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

You have modest deductibles and no copays?

Sorry I was misleading. I think of co-pays and deductibles together. Yes we have co-pays, but they are typical. Currently our PPO is with United Health Care, so you probably have an idea of our level of service and cost structure.

Look, I'm trying to be honest here, not propagandize.

My question was serious, not rhetorical. I know that Canada's health care system went through a legal challenge a few years ago over this very issue, when Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin penned the words "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care". What I don't know is if anything changed as a result of the court's ruling. I hope it did.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by billl

Sorry I was misleading. I think of co-pays and deductibles together. Yes we have co-pays, but they are typical. Currently our PPO is with United Health Care, so you probably have an idea of our level of service and cost structure.

Actually, I was unintentionally misleading as well. Sorry about that. I really meant coinsurance rather than copays. The names are similar and I was mixing them up. Copays aren't so bad, but coinsurance, where you pay 10 or 20 percent of the cost above your deductible, can be pretty expensive. Last year, with United Healthcare, my husband's cardiologist wanted him to have a cardiac MRI. We were concerned about the cost so my husband asked the hospital to check. They announced the cost to us would be $40. We were very relieved and my husband went ahead and had the procedure. It actually cost us $500 in deductible plus another $400 in coinsurance, plus another $600 or so for some portion of the bill that UHC did not cover. I have yet to figure out how a patient can protect themself from these kind of unexpected expenses. Obviously, the clerk that told my husband $40 isn't responsible. I don't know how we could have gone about getting the hospital and UHC to predict the full cost to us in advance. Anyway, the cardiologist was emphatic that this was a very medically necessary procedure for my husband.

Originally Posted by billl

My question was serious, not rhetorical. I know that Canada's health care system went through a legal challenge a few years ago over this very issue, when Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin penned the words "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care". What I don't know is if anything changed as a result of the court's ruling. I hope it did.

My answer wasn't rhetorical either. You probably just missed it because I was so wordy, sorry. There definitely was an initiative to get waiting lists down, as a result of that case. (I neglected to mention this before). As I did mention:

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

Canada prides itself on a universal system with minimal private care (there's a little bit, but it's pretty restricted). That's a cheat, really, because the US is Canada's safety valve. Wealthy Canadians who want immediate service do go buy it in the US.

That's not pretty, but it's part of the truth. The big picture is that Canadians get fair and equal treatment, have better life expectancy than Americans, and no Canadian ever goes broke from medical bills. It's not perfect, but having lived in both places, I say the Canadian system is much better.

[txstate]

Socialist how cute try globalist sounds better.

[teasol]

Just wanted to know if this topic really belongs on this forum?

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by teasol

Just wanted to know if this topic really belongs on this forum?

Health care is something that concerns Atlantans, especially since Atlanta has a higher than the national average number of people who can't afford or don't have insurance, teasol.

If it doesn't belong here or changes in topic enough - the moderators (there are a few, ya know) will move it.

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by billl

Bottom line: you get what you pay for.

So on that note then - the last time I was in the hospital and they charged me $25.00 for two Tylenol capsules ... exactly what was it I got for what I paid for, then?

[gt6974a]

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

So on that note then - the last time I was in the hospital and they charged me $25.00 for two Tylenol capsules ... exactly what was it I got for what I paid for, then?

You subsidized Tylenol for the others who didn't pay for the two pills before you.

Same as higher taxes, you're just paying taxes instead of buying two tylenol, to subsidize some pills for others..

Just think how much those pills would be, if we were land locked with China and India, along with Mexico.

Great thing is after we socialize health care, we'll be socializing another retirement account 'Guaranteed Retirement Accounts',

Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts