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Included in the 47 million figure are 12 to 15 million ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.
Also included in that figure are some 10 to 12 million who have consciously and voluntarily NOT PURCHASED INSURANCE - even though they have the financially ability to do so.
You really should take the above into account.
No it's not. Another poster gave me the following link to try and refute one of my arguments (actualy I believe I was making the same argument about the 47 million uninsured) and now I'm going to use it against you.
46,995,000 uninsured in 2007: I know I was off by 5,000 and I rounded up.
10,231,000 uninsured non-citizens. First of all, that's a little over 10 million; not 12-15 million like you said. Second of all, they are non-citizens, not illegal immigrants. This non-citizen category includes legal residents as well as illegal immigrants. For the quote about people that voluntarily don't purchase insurace, I believe you are refrerring to the 8,459,000 people that earn between $50,000-$74,999 and the 9,283,000 people that earn over $75,000. In case you haven't heard, there are people that earn six figure salaries that can't get even get health insurance because they have a pre-existing condition. Or mabye these people had health insurance, got sick and got dumped by their insurance company. Mabye their premiums went up so much that they couldn't afford it despite their $50,000 or $75,000 per year salary. Mabye they are pregnant women. You are aware that most insurance companies won't let you start a policy if you are pregnant right? To assume that anyone that earns over $50,000 a year are voluntarily not purchasing health insurance is ludicrious! I'm sure there are people that voluntarily don't purchase insurance and I don't blame them. The insurance company takes their money when they are healthy and dumps them when they are sick.
More and more French are turning to private insurance to take care of their health needs versus the public system.
This is partially true. Actually almost all French use private insurance as supplemental insurance. The single-payer system covers what it can with the budget it has, but it can't cover everything. Therefore, most people purchase private insurance to cover what the public insurance doesn't cover.
Sick of ridiculous emergency room bills? If the private hospitals have to compete with free government clinics maybe they will be more reasonable. All the new hospitals and clinics need staff and we can train them here instead of import them. That is the most likely avenue for job creation, not 'green'.
Bye bye with lawsuits and bye bye with good care. You will be a number and treated that way...in and out and don't go to a doctor unless you or your child has a high fever for at least 5 days....or you will be send away!
If you die because of it, no way you can sue the government....and who cares...maybe you and your family and your friends, but the governement has 1 less to care for!
Did you even read this whole article? It's saying that the French have a good system.
In 2000, health care experts for the World Health Organization tried to do a statistical ranking of the world's health care systems. They studied 191 countries and ranked them on things like the number of years people lived in good health and whether everyone had access to good health care. France came in first. The United States ranked 37th. Some researchers, however, said that study was flawed, arguing that there might be things other than a country's health care system that determined factors like longevity. So this year, two researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine measured something called the "amenable mortality." Basically, it's a measure of deaths that could have been prevented with good health care. The researchers looked at health care in 19 industrialized nations. Again, France came in first. The United States was last.
So there were 2 studies. The one that I've cited that has France at #1 and the US at #37 and another one that has France at #1 and has the US at #19 (last place). They sure are doing something right that we aren't.
In France, everyone has health care. However, unlike in Britain and Canada, there are no waiting lists to get elective surgery or see a specialist, Dutton says.
Wow, no uninsured, no waits; sounds good to me.
The system is set up both to ensure that patients have lots of choice in picking doctors and specialists and to ensure that doctors are not constrained in making medical decisions.
In other words, contrary to what Rick Scott would like you to believe, there are no bureaucrats standing between you and your doctor. It also looks like there are no insurance companies standing between you and your doctor either. Wish we had this in the US.
"There are no uninsured in France," says Victor Rodwin, a professor of health policy at New York University, who is affiliated with the International Longevity Center. "That's completely unheard of. There is no case of anybody going broke over their health costs. In fact, the system is so designed that for the 3 or 4 or 5 percent of the patients who are the very sickest, those patients are exempt from their co-payments to begin with. There are no deductibles." Treating The Sickest In France, the sicker you are, the more coverage you get. For people with one of 30 long-term and expensive illnesses — such as diabetes, mental illness and cancer — the government picks up 100 percent of their health care costs, including surgeries, therapies and drugs.
So France gives the best coverage to the sick because the sick are going to have more hospital bills and France wants to make sure that everyone has all of their health care needs met. So they prioritize the sick. In the US, the sick are the last ones to get their health care needs met. When they get sick, the insurance company just finds an excuse to dump them or they raise the fees so high, the sick person can't pay and has to dump his/her insurance. If you have a pre-existing condition, they wont even insure you. This is why 62% of bankruptcies are from unpaid medical bills.
When compared with people in other countries, the French live longer and healthier lives. Rodwin says that's because good care starts at birth. There are months of paid job leave for mothers who work. New mothers get a child allowance. There are neighborhood health clinics for new mothers and their babies, home visits from nurses and subsidized day care.
No ****? No thanks, I don't want freedom fries with my burger.
It's expensive to provide this kind of health care and social support. France's health care system is one of the most expensive in the world. But it is not as expensive as the U.S. system, which is the world's most costly. The United States spends about twice as much as France on health care. In 2005, U.S. spending came to $6,400 per person. In France, it was $3,300. To fund universal health care in France, workers are required to pay about 21 percent of their income into the national health care system. Employers pick up a little more than half of that. (French employers say these high taxes constrain their ability to hire more people.) Americans don't pay as much in taxes. Nonetheless, they end up paying more for health care when one adds in the costs of buying insurance and the higher out-of-pocket expenses for medicine, doctors and hospitals.
So France does all of this for about half of what we pay in the US. By the way, they don't pay 21% of their income for health care like you said; they pay about 10.5% and the employer pays about 10.5%. The French pay higher taxes but if you want to count the premiums, co-pays and deductibles as a tax, (after all this is money that we have no choice but to spend) the French pay less.
It looks like the French are doing a very good job. Mabye if we implemented these ideas into our system, it would be as good, or mabye even better, than the French system. After all, we pay twice as much as they do. Why is it that we get so much less?
Yes, I did read the article. And it also pointed out some fatal flaws, health care costs in France are also skyrocketing, forcing the government to cover less of the 70% they currently do, increasing costs of copays for treatments, etc.
You try to argue the "happiness" of the systems, instead of looking at the nitty gritty, it is unsustainable, and will not work long term.
This is partially true. Actually almost all French use private insurance as supplemental insurance. The single-payer system covers what it can with the budget it has, but it can't cover everything. Therefore, most people purchase private insurance to cover what the public insurance doesn't cover.
what? you mean a one payer system does not have enough money to insure 100% of its citizens? that is uposterious..... ohh wait that is what you have been calling for, insurance for all. If your model system cannot even cover 100% of the people, why would you think America can?
EVERY SINGLE one of the single payer systems in the world is GOING BROKE by run away health care costs. I would like you to find ONE system that is solvent (meaning it is not going broke, covering 100% of its citizens, retaining or gaining doctors, not rationing care) I bet you cannot. France is 9 billion in the hole with its health systsem, I can hardly call that "covering what it can with the budget it has"
Yes, I did read the article. And it also pointed out some fatal flaws, health care costs in France are also skyrocketing, forcing the government to cover less of the 70% they currently do, increasing costs of copays for treatments, etc.
You try to argue the "happiness" of the systems, instead of looking at the nitty gritty, it is unsustainable, and will not work long term.
Of course there are flaws in the system. No system is perfect: not Canada's not France's not the UK's not Italy's not Israels's and not ours. But France's system is alot better than ours. Being that France has ranked #1 in all these international studies, we should look at what France is doint right, and perhaps learn something from them. Believe it or not, I have learned something from the French system that brought me a little further to the right on health care. I used to think that there should be no such thing as private insurance. However, after looking into the pro's and con's of many single-payer systems, I now feel that the best type of system is one which provides everyone with basic health care through a single payer system and allows people to purshase supplemental insurance to meet any additional health care needs that they might have. Obviously you and I don't agree on much when it comes to health care and I'm aware that I'm not going to sell you on single-payer health care. However, what I do recomend is that you look at some of these countries systems, and don't just look at the bad, look at the good as well.
what? you mean a one payer system does not have enough money to insure 100% of its citizens? that is uposterious..... ohh wait that is what you have been calling for, insurance for all. If your model system cannot even cover 100% of the people, why would you think America can?
EVERY SINGLE one of the single payer systems in the world is GOING BROKE by run away health care costs. I would like you to find ONE system that is solvent (meaning it is not going broke, covering 100% of its citizens, retaining or gaining doctors, not rationing care) I bet you cannot. France is 9 billion in the hole with its health systsem, I can hardly call that "covering what it can with the budget it has"
But ours is no exception. We have runaway costs spiraling out of control and on top of that we, the wealthiest nation on earth, spend a higher percentage of our GDP on health care than any other nation and we still have 47 million uninsured. Like I said in my most recent post, I'm aware that every system has its problems. But most of the best systems in the world, in my opinion as well as the WHO, are single-payer systems.
Of course there are flaws in the system. No system is perfect: not Canada's not France's not the UK's not Italy's not Israels's and not ours. But France's system is alot better than ours. Being that France has ranked #1 in all these international studies, we should look at what France is doint right, and perhaps learn something from them. Believe it or not, I have learned something from the French system that brought me a little further to the right on health care. I used to think that there should be no such thing as private insurance. However, after looking into the pro's and con's of many single-payer systems, I now feel that the best type of system is one which provides everyone with basic health care through a single payer system and allows people to purshase supplemental insurance to meet any additional health care needs that they might have. Obviously you and I don't agree on much when it comes to health care and I'm aware that I'm not going to sell you on single-payer health care. However, what I do recomend is that you look at some of these countries systems, and don't just look at the bad, look at the good as well.
Take a look at the article I posted again. France is NOT a single payer system, it is a 3 party system. You have your government coverage which is up to 70% of your costs at the moment, although from the looks of things that % will be lower in the next couple years. Then you have your supplemental coverage which "should" cover the rest.
The third party is YOU, you will have to pay both the government in terms of taxes to get your 70%, and then YOU will have to pay the premiums of your supplemental coverage, so in the end, the 3rd party gets screwed by high taxes, and high supplemental costs. Sorry, but 21% of my income I would be forced to pay to cover what I get for far less from my private insurance company, and adding suplimental costs to that 21% does not make good financial sense to me.
Take a look at the article I posted again. France is NOT a single payer system, it is a 3 party system. You have your government coverage which is up to 70% of your costs at the moment, although from the looks of things that % will be lower in the next couple years. Then you have your supplemental coverage which "should" cover the rest.
The third party is YOU, you will have to pay both the government in terms of taxes to get your 70%, and then YOU will have to pay the premiums of your supplemental coverage, so in the end, the 3rd party gets screwed by high taxes, and high supplemental costs. Sorry, but 21% of my income I would be forced to pay to cover what I get for far less from my private insurance company, and adding suplimental costs to that 21% does not make good financial sense to me.
Yes I read that part. One could argue that it's single-payer or argue that it's not. You pay taxes and the government uses those taxes to provide everyone with health insurance, this part is single-payer. However, the system doesn't cover everything, which is why it's a good idea to get supplemental insurance as well. If your saying that a system isn't single payer if the taxes don't pay for everything, than no system is truly single payer. If I want to have 12 plastic surgeries and 8 lyposuction operations, just for the hell of it, there isn't a country in the world that would have the taxpayers pay for all of this, and they shouldn't.
And for the part about you paying 21% of your income for insurance, read that part again. It says that the employer splits the costs and pays a little more than half of this. So that 21% is really more like 10%.
When I provide polls, they are for the purpose of using evidence to make a point. Canada's system works better than ours. The WHO says so. If you think I'm going to take the word of some right-wing lunatic on the internet over a credible worldwide organization, you've got another thing comming. If you read the passage that I cited from the Denver Post article, you'd realize that when Canada does send it's citizens to the US, the UHC covers it. THE CANADIANS GET TO USE OUR HOSPITALS FOR FREE, WHICH IS A RIGHT THAT WE DON'T EVEN HAVE!
You call people lunatics when you are the one screaming that health care is free. Now who is loony?
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