Universal Medical Care

[pitzerwm]

http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php

 

[Jimmy Buffett]

Yep the people who came up with the democratic primary rules want to be in charge of your health care. About 95% of the people on this forum know that these are ridiculous promises, so where in the world are all the people who think it would be a good idea to have 1 of these idiots as president? Love him or hate him Rush has been predicting this election like he is reading a script.

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

Yep the people who came up with the democratic primary rules want to be in charge of your health care. About 95% of the people on this forum know that these are ridiculous promises, so where in the world are all the people who think it would be a good idea to have 1 of these idiots as president? Love him or hate him Rush has been predicting this election like he is reading a script.

Wait.... Socialized medicine is GOOD ENOUGH FOR OUR SERIVCE MEMBERS, GOOD ENOUGH FOR OUR CONGRESSMAN & SENATORS, PRESIDENT, VP, ALL SENIOR CITIZENS & the POOR (lets see... that covers the VA, Medicare, medicade, Champus, tri-care, well-care, WIC, welfare, ... the one vetod last month by Bush for kids... what's it's name? SCHIP). About 35% or more of our population recieves some sort of Socialized medical care (at the tax payers expence) which is RATIONED (have you tried to get an MRI today... I'll bet $10 you can't schedule one). does that mean it will get better...NO it won't it can't by the shear numbers... which is what everyone forgets about! The baby boomers hit retirement age (medicare age) in a few years. By 2012 we will over burden the health system by shear numbers as this age group typically CONSUMES the LARGEST AMOUNT OF HEALTH CARE $$$$$$$. Woman comsume the most.... the poor next (as the take bad care of themselves and usally seek care too late as an illness is in is latter stages).

Our health care system WILL BE BANKRUPT.... PERIOD. Either by the number of elderly living longer (the greatest generation) or the number of Boomers hitting Medicare age and recieving benifits or by 30 million illegals getting FREE health care! So WHATS YOUR SOLUTION? Oh.... wait.... PRIVATIZATION! Sure that's gonna help.... let's see... I remeber some issues with HCA, Humana and Keiser Perm just a few years ago... just like ENRON these guy will eat the system alive and leave all of us to die.... great.... just great. Well I feel confident that I'll recieve medical care only because I work with doctors every day.... but years ago I got much better and more affordable heath care. Now I pay nearly $1000 a month for what I got for FREE as a health care worker for less benifits.

Cont. (Bill... I can't write short post)

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

The US lags behind other major nations in health care (except in medical research). We are something like 19th in infant mortality, we have higher death rates in most catagories or any industrial nation.

Is socialized medical care the answer? I don't know. But the FACT IS since 1964 we have had medicare and medicade, WIC and ALL US PRESIDENT including EVERY REPUBLICAN has expanded coverage or continued the programs. The VA system has been established since (I believe) the late 1800's in some form. To say catagorically that only these groups of people deserve "FREE HEALTH CARE" on my dime is wrong. If you don't want it.... fine... eliminate all SOCIAL PROGRAMS..... none of them are CONSTITUTIONAL BTY. Health care is not a right that is guarenteed, not a privledge.... it is a social benifit for all of us as a population to be healthy as a work force, as "non-transmitters of disease". But that's all.

I hear SILENCE FROM MCCAIN.

 

[pitzerwm]

Doug, I'm sure that congressmen DO NOT have anything like what we would get, they get to go to the head of any line, get real, if you think for a minute that we, would get anything like they get on any level, you are truly with your head in the sand. You defending socialized medicine is a joke. The tax rates in these countries that have socialized medicine is 50+%. None of us pay 50% for health insurance and taxes put together. A little simple math here. And since everyone of these 42M that don't have health care, can walk into any hospital and get better care than you and I can pay for. So take your socialistic programs and move somewhere else..

 

[MikeV]

Amen, Bill. Aren't the countries that have socialized medicine always sending (or the people choosing) to come here for health care? Didn't Obama say he wanted to raise our income tax to over 50%, S.S. tax up to over 50%, Corporate taxes to over 50%, and on and on....I can't afford the taxes, but I can afford my current health care plan. Seems I can afford health care for all the indigents and illegals as well.

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

Amen, Bill. Aren't the countries that have socialized medicine always sending (or the people choosing) to come here for health care? Didn't Obama say he wanted to raise our income tax to over 50%, S.S. tax up to over 50%, Corporate taxes to over 50%, and on and on....I can't afford the taxes, but I can afford my current health care plan. Seems I can afford health care for all the indigents and illegals as well.

Well.... let's see. First none of you linked or quoted where Obama said this, so it's conjecture or hype or at least not in print.

Secondly Bill.... I didn't SAY THAT I WAS FOR IT! I stated that we already have a socialized medical system and a system that is inplace to restict acess to health care (to make more profits). Every year I provide "FREE MEDICAL CARE TO CANADIANS IN MY HOSPITAL", except if it is not truly an emergency... at which sometime we have to literally argue with the Canadian Government to get a patient into Open Heart fo Emergency Bypass. Yet Canidians still enjoy a fairly good quaility of life don't they... hell the loony is now worth more than the US dollar!

Why can't you acknowledge that the US already has a form of Socialized Medicine in the VA, Medicare, Medicare, S-CHIP, Champus, tricare, WIC and a host of other TAX PAYER SUPPORTED PROGRAMS? And again as I said.... NONE are a RIGHT! So why then is it OK from them to get it for free.... and me to pay $1000 a month (plus my taxes in FICA)?

Either get rid of all of it and be fair and equitable or have a balanced system of some type. Either way, I don't personally care... I doesn't effect my ability to get care.... just what I spend either privately (in insurance) or in taxes. But what I do care about is by 2012 when the system begin to sink. Then what will you do? Demand that all Congreesman, elderly, poor and children lose their benifit because your taxes increased to 50% anyway? Who has their head in the sand?

Bill.... I worked in health care for 25 year.... spent 35 year in hospitals... nearly my entire life. I know intimatly how good people are and how they care... I also know how a hospital runs to make $$$$$. Surely there can be a balance between the two.

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

Amen, Bill. Aren't the countries that have socialized medicine always sending (or the people choosing) to come here for health care? Didn't Obama say he wanted to raise our income tax to over 50%, S.S. tax up to over 50%, Corporate taxes to over 50%, and on and on....I can't afford the taxes, but I can afford my current health care plan. Seems I can afford health care for all the indigents and illegals as well.

Mike, I would also say to you.... that that trend is reversing. They are being called CLUB MEDS (Medical tourism). Where now a few insurance companies are paying YOU to take a vacation in Tialand to get a hip replacement or gall bladder removed. My Brother WENT TO CANADA to get RK on his eyes because it was cheeper! So again I would investigate what you say before "FLAG WAVING".

http://travel.msn.com/Guides/article.aspx?cp-documentid=347209

Frustrated with the high cost of medical care in this country and by insurance companies that don't cover elective procedures such as IVF, medically savvy consumers are driving a new trend known as medical tourism. As Leeds discovered, the total price of an overseas treatment—with airfare, accommodations, and even a few days of vacation tacked on—is often far less than the procedure by itself would cost in the United States. According to a recent report by the Singapore-based travel supplier and ticketing firm Abacus International, Asia's medical-tourism industry is expected to generate more than $4.4 billion dollars by 2012. The region already attracts more than 1.3 million medical tourists a year; the majority of these travelers come from within Asia, but the long-haul market is "important and growing," the report says.

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

In fact... I have had conversation with some of my Doctor friends about starting a clinic somewhere to do this. I know of a dive resort for sale that would work nicely!

 

[phred113]

The health care issue is real complex and really depends on for whom you want coverage. I, for one, would like to pay for my own medical care, not someone else's. I would like to opt out of the general risk pool and only pay for insurance for healthy people like me. This opting out would be illegal, as would private insurance, under Clinton care. In this way, health care is like any 'public good' (education, subsidized public transportation, etc...). All of us of means do not want to pay for those that cannot afford it. I firmly believe I should be able to have my 'education' taxes refunded because I send my children to private school - I am paying for my portion of the education drain.

My way does not work since the healthy and 'rich' will not provide for the unhealthy and 'non-rich'. The likely result is the 2 Americas that Edwards was trying to exploit to the Presidency. What do we do? How we answer this question will likely permanently alter the fabric of our society. Are we a society that cares more about others than ourselves? Can we continue to sit by and watch able-body people suffer from disease that strikes them, suddenly?

Rarely is there such a defining question to resolve. Universal health care cannot function without a substantial loss of freedom and liberty. The quality of care is believed to be lower according to every developed country we look at. If subjects living in socialized societies live longer, what kind of life is it? The infant may have lived, but it was a life of servitude, oppressive selflessness and punitive taxes.

If we answer no to UHC, then fewer of us will be able to afford the care we all want, require. Friends and family may become one of the 'non-rich' that cannot afford care. What do you do, then?

I do not have 'the' answer. I believe either answer will harm millions. So, which way do you decide - let some suffer a lot, or everyone suffer a little to a lot?

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

Insightfull. But not all of those nations with UHC who have a longer longevity than the US have a life of sevatude. Italy, Sweden, France, England, Japan.... all have good lives in free economies.

Something Bill said struck me this morning... that is that Obama want to "raise my taxes by 50%"..... I thought about that. I pay $1000 a month to cover my family for dental, health, precription and eyeglasses.... still have a co-pay and deductable..... that's $12,000 a year. In 2007 I payed $6,700 in Federal taxes (which I will get 100% back due to the great tax code) and 7.65% to Fica on my $65,000 salary from the Hospital. So I paid $4972 in FICA plus $6700 in Federal taxes. If you rasied my taxes 50% and eliminted $12,000 in private insurance cost..... I'd save over $5000 a year!

Again Phred, you hit something on the head..... it's not that we live alone and isolated, unfortunately when we get on an elevator the person riding with us in that enclosed space is sharing thier airborne illnesses. So how can we not cover (to some extent) basic health care? Does that mean every person needs the newest drug? NO... I fight that everyday in my work.... it's stupid. But I have 2-3 reps in my work area EVERY DAY pushing new devices and new drugs.... for 4-5X the cost of the old ones that work just as good.

Case in point. I've begun to scrub in to implant PACEMAKERS (I've done 6 now). Thursday I removed a 10 year old defibrilator that still worked but it's near the end of it's life (battery). The one we replaced it with only has a life expectancy of 5 years. Why? Because the company needs to upgrade it, sell another one. They can make it last for 10 years... I just took one out that did! So the health care cost JUST DOUBLED!

Now I love free food.... next week the reps are taking my entire lab out the THE BONE FISH GRILL. Monthly they take us out (one rep or another). Daily we get food. Who pays for that?

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

Wow I read Obama health care plan.

Link (warning pdf)

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/Obama08_HealthcareFAQ.pdf

Q. Obama says his plan will save $2,500 annually for my family. How?
A. Through a combination of developing efficiencies in the system, expanding
coverage to all Americans, and picking up the cost of some high-cost cases.
Specifically:
�� Health IT investment, which will reduce unnecessary and wasteful
spending in the health care system. Examples include extra hospital stays
because of preventable medical errors and duplicative diagnostic tests;
�� Improving prevention and management of chronic conditions;
�� Increasing insurance industry competition and reining in the abusive
practices of monopoly insurance and drug companies;
�� Providing reinsurance for catastrophic cases, which will reduce insurance
premiums; and
�� Ensuring every American has health coverage, which will reduce spending
on the “uncompensated” care of uninsured people who end up in
emergency rooms and whose care is picked up by institutions and then
passed through higher charges to insured individuals.

Seems reasonable. Still I haven't given up on Ron Paul!

 

[phred113]

Insightfull. But not all of those nations with UHC who have a longer longevity than the US have a life of sevatude. Italy, Sweden, France, England, Japan.... all have good lives in free economies.

I work with or have relatives that own businesses in each of the countries you mentioned. ALL reject socialized medicine and ALL have come to the USA for treatment because of the inadequacies of their respective countries plans. Of course, these are 'rich' people since they can afford the trip and 100% charges (non-discounted) for care. Their socialized system does not permit or promote excellence, just adequacy. The McDonald's promise of not the best burger, just same quality (average, acceptable) every time. Of course we need to look to the industrial excellence of these countries....wait, there is not much....(excluding Japan that has a completely different cultural history [servitude is an implicit virtue])

We will no doubt sacrifice achievements of excellence in our efforts to cover everyone to a basic level. Every institutionalized sector devolves to lowest common denominator - it has to - to achieve results. I prefer a system that has the opportunity for excellence, not one that inculcates mediocrity.

Do like they do in Sweden (my relative started the largest private insurance company), let me opt out of the government plan if I can prove, secure private insurance. Clinton care, and soon Obama's probably to match Clinton and mollify liberals, will make private health insurance illegal in favor of universal coverage. This is wrong because it robs everyone of liberty.

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

My Doctor came back from France a few months ago. He's a very interesting guy, strange family situation. Because of a bad business transaction (taxes) his wife (who was a CEO of a Nursing home) lives in St. Barts in the Virgin Islands. It is a French territory. He, his wife and only adopted son have French citizenship. His son graduates next month from HS in St. Barts at 16 years old and is attending MEDICAL SCHOOL FREE in FRANCE (not like here in the US, some universuities combine med schools and pre-med programs). While he was in France he got ALL OF HIS HEALTH CARE FREE. He told me that his EXAMINE was over $5000. Why did he opt for it there? Now this Doc is VERY BRIGHT and he too told me that his taxes there are almost 50% (but his son is going to MEDICAL SCHOOL on the government's dime). I asked him piont blank... "are the RICH still comfortable there"? He answered "Yes". Still most Doctors are very fearful of any socialized medical system that I speak with (and I do that daily). However, they aren't making such great money now and the constant cuts in reimbursments are making them even more frightful of a futher move toward a deepening social system (we're about 60-65% there now with DRG's).

Now agian I'm not arguring FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. But still as you pointed out, your freinds and family can afford to travel here to get "better care".

Again, simple business rule; more customer means lower prices (supply and demand rule). A higher supply of insured customers should lower health care premiums! If everyone had to wash thier car at a car wash, and not in a driveway.... the presure to keep prices higher would drop.

Now, Clinton got paid $800,000 to drop her health care plan in the 90's! So do I trust her?

Remember please, the first heart transplant was performed not in the US... but South Africa (I met the surgeon). I would favor a teared system of private insurance for those who wish to pay more to get better benifits.

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

http://glumbert.com/media/kidneys

Sorry but I just had to post this video!

 

[phred113]

Again, simple business rule; more customer means lower prices (supply and demand rule). A higher supply of insured customers should lower health care premiums! If everyone had to wash thier car at a car wash, and not in a driveway.... the presure to keep prices higher would drop.

Some economic 'rules': More customers (demand) will naturally force greater competition that typically results in lower prices, provided:
1) Supply can increase.
2) The price is not already at lowest point.
3) It is not a controlled (regulated) market.

The car wash was a bad example, but I get your point. There cannot be competition, however, when the supply is regulated and the choice is not optional.