Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
We're letting the free market work its magic right now with the lower class aren't we? Or will these people suddenly get pay raises and can afford insurance if we cut medicaid and medicare? All it takes is a few people without insurance to get sick and not go to the doctor because of a lack of coverage to cause an outbreak.
The free market is only appearing more efficient because its selective. It can choose who to provide coverage to and who to deny coverage.
Insurance companies are equally as bad as the government in deciding what meds can be paid for, and what procedures. You still have someone in between you and your provider, and I'd rather it be someone who I can vote out of office, not someone who will profit from denying me care.
What you are seeing now is the result of a highly government regulated industry work its magic. The government needs to allow the insurance companies to sell products across state lines which they do not allow now. The only good part of the bills under consideration is a requirement that everyone be insured. About half of the currently uninsured are people who can afford coverage but prefer not to get it.
For the life of me I cannot understand why people believe competion is a bad thing. A public option will stifle competition because employers will dump thier coverage, pay the 8% tax and tell their employees to get their insurance somewhere else. The public option will be cheaper because it is subsidized by taxpayers unluke private insurance if it losses money the government can oprinty more money. Teh result will be private insurance for the rich because insurance companies will changetheir business model froma volume business to a high price low volume luxury item only the rich can afford.
Why does it warm your heart ot have a monopoly (the government) make healthcare decisions for you. What incentives do government workers have to provide excellent service? When has the government proven it can interface with the public effectively much less taking over the most inportant 20% of the economy. After this montrosity is in effect, you can vote whoever you want into office the bureacrats will ultimately run the programs and they do not change. Where do you go if you don't like it?
Americans demand 50 different varieties of soda but want only 1 provider of healthcare. This is silly in hte extreme.
You don't get that the premiums will cost less but the amount you spend for healthcare will go up since you will pay more in taxes. The CBO extimates the cost to be between $1 and $2 trillion. That tab ain't paying itself off.
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'.
what jobs?
you mean the ones that will be paid for by the tax payer and our employers? you mean take more money from my employer so I dont get a raise next year? I wont be voting for any politician republican or democrat that vote for this bill.
It would be nice if you rebutted anything instead of posting polls. The fact that Canadians are happy with their system is immaterial to this discussion. The fact is their system doesn't work when they have to send there people here to be treated.
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!
It's not the private part of the system that is making it go broke, it is government regulation/interference. Did you miss the part about the Shriners and Scottish Rite that DO NOT charge for medical care? It can be done without the government.
Yeah sure. That's why 47 million Americans don't have insurance, 62% of bankruptcies are due to unpaid medical bills and 20,000 people die every year in the US due to lack of health care. Let's see Shriners and Scottish Rite fix that.
I think you should really think about this post. Who stands to gain from all of these problems? No drug competition from other countries (American pharmacueticals seem to be the big beneficiaries). No competing across state lines? (same thing, corporate America is the primary beneficiary of these laws)
Then think about the private health care lobbying. Its not government thats a problem with these. Its corporate manipulation of government.
Well if you think Canadian polls are of significance how about a US poll?
"The most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll (June 21) finds that 83 percent of Americans are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the quality of their health care, and 81 percent are similarly satisfied with their health insurance."?
Yeah, if they have it. Those numbers should be 68% and 66% because 15% of Americans don't even have health care; they for damn sure aren't safisfied. By the way, do you have the original poll and what it said. There is alot of propaganda in the NY post editorials and everything written there should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm not saying it's not true, but they have a way of manipulating statistics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shorebaby
So what the Canadian government pays for it's citizens to be treated in the US, they don't have their own resouces because of their system. If we adopt a similar style program we would not have the resources either. Where will the world run then?
Sure we would. The reason that the hospitals charge so much now is because of the cycle that's created by having 47 million uninsured. Now that is a resource drainer.
I think you should really think about this post. Who stands to gain from all of these problems? No drug competition from other countries (American pharmacueticals seem to be the big beneficiaries). No competing across state lines? (same thing, corporate America is the primary beneficiary of these laws)
Then think about the private health care lobbying. Its not government thats a problem with these. Its corporate manipulation of government.
If insurance companies could sell their product across state lines, the insurance pools would be greatly increased - which would result in LOWER PREMIUMS to the Consumer.
Yeah sure. That's why 47 million Americans don't have insurance,
The above statement is false.
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.
There are problems with America's system, and some very good solutions have been pointed out that does not involve the government take over of private businesses, and relinquishing some of our freedoms. Adding 47 million more people to the Medicaid system is like trying to put 150 more people in a room designed to hold 100. It will not work. Your heart is in the right place. I would LOVE to make sure everyone had the care they deserve, but you are letting your heart override your logic and Common sense. It cannot work, it will not work. It will help bring about a Financial collapse of our federal government.
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?
More and more French are turning to private insurance to take care of their health needs versus the public system.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
