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Liberals? I guess you haven't noticed that a considerable portion of the GOP is starting to murmur in the background.
Subsidizing in your context is not really the correct word. "Payment" would be more apropo.
Instead of your monthly premium going to an insurance pool it goes to a governmental budget pool instead. Your self employed doctor (whom you've been free to choose without restrictions like "in-network" limits) performs his service to you and submits a bill to the government who do not provide any form of second guessing other than to monitor for fraudulent claims.
No cubicle denizens involved. No delay or denial of treatment due to questions of costs or "fine print disclaimers" just reimbursement to the doctor's and hospital's accounts receivables.
Thank you for asking. There is a phenomena called " granny dumping". It refers to when a family takes an elderly person to the ER and leaves them there. Often, the patient has dementia and the family just could not cope anymore. Sometimes, they are just selfish bastards who dump granny at the ER so they can go on vacation.
In the past, doctors would admit these patients to the hospital where social services could be called in, to find placement, even though they didn't have any emergent medical needs. This costs money.
I sat in the boardroom and listened to the discussion of how we were no longer going to pay for social admissions, and our doctors were to "street" patients that had no emergent need. Dementia does not count as an emergency. We told our doctors that they would be fired if they admitted these patients. So I guess we were just going to put elderly patients with dementia on the streets.
The hospitals revolted because 1. They make money from social admissions, and 2. Most people that work directly with patients have at least some empathy. The hospitals told the doctors that they would lose their privileges at the hospital if they followed the payers directive.
The doctors and elderly demented patients were simply pawns in a corporate pissing contest over money. I don't know how it turned out, because I quit.
I can also tell you about Dr. Desai, who exposed hundreds of patients to hepatitis C ( some died ) to save some cash, and was the only gastroenterologist on our plan. All of this was pre-Obamacare, btw.
But hey! Our CEO was paid millions and our shares on Wall Street were great.
A little known fact is that when Canadian politician Tommy Douglas (father of Donald Sutherland's wife, actress Shirley Douglas) put his career on the line by championing the first vestige of single payer health care in the Provincial legislature of Saskatchewan, Canada he would have no idea that 50 years later he would assume the position of the most revered Canadian in the country's history.
Reading the article gives one an understanding of what America is presently facing as regards this conundrum.
My tongue in cheek "health care plan" does have a caveat. You need a market-based health care system. It won't work in the convoluted system we have now. Insurance, whether it is home or auto, is fundamentally the same business. Why is it that you never see or hear an Aetna commercial but can't get away from Geico commercials? If you can answer this question, you have found what is ailing the industry.
I have seen such commercials. Not nearly as common today, bu they were very common in 1993.
Eliminate the FDA and licensing requirements for healthcare providers and healthcare costs will drop dramatically. That is free market healthcare.
The FDA has nothing to do with my MD. As a doc one of my core philosophies is "First do no harm". Without FDA oversight I would have a very hard time. I have seen patients damaged by bad drugs. I have been damaged.
Maybe some Americans exaggerate the numbers but Canadians do go abroad for medical treatment as an alternative to their system. I don't know why Ali Velshi tried so hard to deny this.
“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”
--Thomas Sowell
We can. And run a few wars in the ME, save VT from floods, and Joplin from tornado damage. All at the same time.
Of course they do and will continue regardless of costs for those who choose concierge services in Monaco over a semi-private room in Weazle-P*** Creek, Saskatchewan and can afford it.
Summer of '77 Cree reservation northern Saskatchewan I visited their local clinic where they had a satellite hook up to Ottawa. Audio and video, where a university specialist could view, discuss, examine patients and make recommendations.
People have been doing that under free-market USA health care.
Yes. My ex-boyfriend went to Thailand for surgery, and many people go to Mexico for dentistry.
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