Time for universal health care ? (legal, Clinton, Obama, party)
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Having spent a lot of time in Canada I can tell you that plenty of them up there complain about the system. Until a few years ago we had more MRI machines in Raleigh, NC then they had in the entire country. The average time for knee replacement surgery in Canada is 182 days. I've known several people here that have had it done within a few weeks. Universal is NOT a panacea.
The waiting time in the US isn't always so great, and plenty of Americans wait quite a while to be seen.
For example, the consulting firm Merritt Hawkins, which regularly tracks how long people in 15 major US cities wait for non-emergency appointments across five different specialties (including primary care), found wide disparities between specialties and between locations. In the city of Boston it took on average 66 days to get an appointment to see a family doctor.
The Commonwealth Fund examined waiting times across 11 countries, including the US. It reported that in the US a quarter of adults surveyed (26%) said they waited 6+ days for primary care appointments "when sick or needing care". ( UK was just 16%)
The report: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/me...ys_2013_v2.pdf (Table3)
So, access to health insurance does not always guarantee fast access to a physician. In addition, the survey demonstrates that many if not most physicians in the 15 markets examined are not accepting Medicaid as a form of payment. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/su...pagewanted=all
In the US if you have an expensive, top-tier insurance policy (and many people do) you are likely to have a lot shorter wait than people with cheaper policies, or indeed those in other countries.
How about you ask the Europeans to step up their defense spending so we could cut ours. They rely on us! Of course this allows them to spend more on social programs. I'm betting they wouldn't do it.
As far as comments from those who have experienced "European" healthcare, my friends from England would probably disagree pretty strongly with you. One came here specifically for state of the art breast cancer treatment that just wasn't happening. Felt like she had a death sentence over there. 5 years later and she is doing well. Her comment was the system in England was pretty good in England if you were healthy!
Having spent a lot of time in Canada I can tell you that plenty of them up there complain about the system. Until a few years ago we had more MRI machines in Raleigh, NC then they had in the entire country. The average time for knee replacement surgery in Canada is 182 days. I've known several people here that have had it done within a few weeks. Universal is NOT a panacea.
So why exactly do you think the US should take it upon itself to 'rescue' the European countries? Why are my tax dollars being used to do what other countries should be doing for themselves? The US presence isn't even wanted, more often than not. It's very expensive to play world police, with very little return for the Americans who are required to pay into that.
As far as the taxes go vs national health care countries, if you count what we in the U.S. pay in health insurance premiums + medical bills, I'm quite sure we pay a similar amount for our health care. It's just not on our tax bill. Instead, it's a combination of taxes, health insurance premiums and doctor bills after the fact.
My employer pays over $900 for my health insurance. It uses that as justification to NOT pay me more in actual salary. They send out a "friendly" letter every year that totals up what our "real" compensation is which includes the health insurance. By their reckoning I am "compensated" almost 35% more than I actually am and should be grateful for it.
It would be more efficient to either move toward 1) a completely government-funded system or 2) a completely private system. The fact that we have so many middle-men and rent-seekers in health care is why it's so expensive. You can get college degrees in "medical billing" now. Or at better schools, they call it "health information management." WTF it's a secretary that exists to push the insane paperwork we have from all the middle-men. The fact that exists is a big part of the reason our system is messed up.
Why do we need to follow other countries in their social issues? In other words, I could care less what type of healthcare systems are in other countries.
Because they are better, and your system kills people.
As far as the taxes go vs national health care countries, if you count what we in the U.S. pay in health insurance premiums + medical bills, I'm quite sure we pay a similar amount for our health care. It's just not on our tax bill. Instead, it's a combination of taxes, health insurance premiums and doctor bills after the fact.
My employer pays over $900 for my health insurance. It uses that as justification to NOT pay me more in actual salary. They send out a "friendly" letter every year that totals up what our "real" compensation is which includes the health insurance. By their reckoning I am "compensated" almost 35% more than I actually am and should be grateful for it.
It would be more efficient to either move toward 1) a completely government-funded system or 2) a completely private system. The fact that we have so many middle-men and rent-seekers in health care is why it's so expensive. You can get college degrees in "medical billing" now. Or at better schools, they call it "health information management." WTF it's a secretary that exists to push the insane paperwork we have from all the middle-men. The fact that exists is a big part of the reason our system is messed up.
I have claimed care received in a universal single payer system on American insurance and the American insurance (in the course of months and months spent trying to deny coverage, spending hours of employee time on it) would not believe it was so cheap, would not believe that it was billed by provider time not diagnosis and would not believe that a doctor would treat me before being paid. Says a bit about you vs the rest of the world, doesn't it?
The waiting time in the US isn't always so great, and plenty of Americans wait quite a while to be seen.
For example, the consulting firm Merritt Hawkins, which regularly tracks how long people in 15 major US cities wait for non-emergency appointments across five different specialties (including primary care), found wide disparities between specialties and between locations. In the city of Boston it took on average 66 days to get an appointment to see a family doctor.
The Commonwealth Fund examined waiting times across 11 countries, including the US. It reported that in the US a quarter of adults surveyed (26%) said they waited 6+ days for primary care appointments "when sick or needing care". ( UK was just 16%)
The report: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/me...ys_2013_v2.pdf (Table3)
So, access to health insurance does not always guarantee fast access to a physician. In addition, the survey demonstrates that many if not most physicians in the 15 markets examined are not accepting Medicaid as a form of payment. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/su...pagewanted=all
In the US if you have an expensive, top-tier insurance policy (and many people do) you are likely to have a lot shorter wait than people with cheaper policies, or indeed those in other countries.
I have always had expensive, top tier insurance in the US, but I've never been able to get a pap smear appointment for the next day. I've never had a same day sick visit, and even one for the next day usually involves seeing an NP or the doc that everyone hates so he can't get his own patients. In my country's single payer system I never waited more than 24 hours for a primary care person, and sick visits were always same day with my real doctor. For specialists, in the US the is usually six months or more, in single payer it's about three, unless you're really sick, when they call and get you in. In America everyone sees my diagnosis codes, from the receptionist to the billing people to the insurance company drones. In single payer all anyone who is not my doctor sees is that I had a five or ten or fifty minute appointment. And in single payer everyone can tell me what the cost to me will be, for everything.
We pay for healthcare right now just not in the form of taxes. Almost 18% of my gross pay goes to health insurance right now. That's crazy. And as others have points out we're paying more than most Western countries where healthcare is guaranteed to all. There are ways to do it without "50%+ in income taxes" if you could get past the political rhetoric and healthcare company marketing/lobbying.
All of us who have insurance, either privately or through our employers, are paying crazy premiums..... if that money was directed to a single payer pot, instead of multiple insurance carriers and their layers upon layers of worker bees, it seems logical that actual coverage would improve at lower expense.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by f5fstop
Number one is due to liability. Drs. are covering their rear ends just in case something was not diagnosed correctly without a thousand tests. If we redid our tort system in this country, their insurance would not cost and arm and a leg.
Can't speak for England, but I have plenty of relatives in CAN who will tell you that their health system is not what it is cracked up to be.
If you are sick with a cold, you break your arm, you stub your toe, all is great. Need a knee replaced, expect to wait six months or maybe longer (my cousin waited just under six months). And if their health system was so great, why do their really rich and politicians come over to the USA for serious health problems like heart surgery?
Someone needs to show me, where in the Constitutions, it says healthcare is part of your rights. Of course, those screaming for free healthcare don't understand the word FREE, or they are low income, or not even working and they want everything for free.
I waited longer than that for a major surgery to correct a potentially crippling congenital problem on my hip back in 2004...... but at least my insurance covered everything then..... I now need the same surgery on my other hip, but am hesitating because of how much it will cost me, (out of pocket expenses), now....... It is very painful, but getting adequate pain relief is also next to impossible due to the crack down on THAT here.......
As long as the middle class is willing to pay 50%+ in income taxes, I see no problem with it. The money has to come from somewhere, and there are not enough "rich people" to pay. Check out the tax rates of the above countries
"Our taxes - we just put in a plan the other day - we’re going to reduce taxes tremendously because we have the highest tax rate anywhere in the world and our middle class is being absolutely destroyed," Trump said. "It’s being destroyed."
Donald Trump has said the Americans already pay both more personal income tax and more corporate taxes than anyone else in the world. If Donald is telling the truth and Americans are already paying more than Europeans, then the question is why don't Americans have universal health coverage already.
Same for college tuition, too, if Americans are already paying more in taxes than everyone else, as Donald says.
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