universal healthcare

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:44 pm

great system as long as you don't really need it?

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

Shaun41178(2) · Post by **Shaun41178(2)** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:11 pm

inb4EB

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:23 pm

My Fiance is on state health insureance with our newborn son.

My older son and I are on my Works health insurance. I'd gladly pay for her to be on it if I could, but were not gay, so to do so we would have to get married. We dont have the time or money to get married the way we want, and I'll be goddamned if were getting married for health insurance, if we dont have to.

The problem with our system is that per capita we spend too much, about twice the average or similar systems in other nations.

If we actually attacked the cost of healthcare, and realed it in to reasonable levels, our current system, where I john Q. Taxpayer pays for the elderly, poor, and myself, would actually work quite well.

Good standards of care, timely service, and an affordable rate.

We want our doctors and teachers to be the best paid in the world, but it does not have to be an order of magnitude better.

The Dark Side of Will · Sat Sep 06, 2008 5:43 pm

Isn't a lot of the cost of medical care due malpractice insurance more than practioner's pay? I think the cost of a lot of medical products is driven by "product assurance" activities similar to what we do in the aerospace industry. While this isn't a bad thing, the fact that it's driven by the cost of potential lawsuits is...

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 7:37 pm

Yes. Our country is being ruined by lawyers, you will get no argument from me on that.

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:32 pm

<--- Unimpressed.

If you cut out the weasel words, strawmen arguments, and circular logic, you basically end up with a 5 second list of names and places.

I want my 5 minutes back.

:knob:

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 1:44 pm

Since we're on the topic of anecdotal failed logic dictating domestic policy:

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=397&f=3038&t=2926453

USA!
USA!
USA!

:thumbleft:

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:59 am

Mach10 wrote:Since we're on the topic of anecdotal failed logic dictating domestic policy:

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=397&f=3038&t=2926453

USA!
USA!
USA!

:thumbleft:

thats ok by the time he got diagnosed and signed up for treatment in canada he'd be 6 feet under

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:03 am

neither system works that well

if people REALLY want socialized healthcare it would need a big revamp. we are better off having a government based healthcare option along with trimming back the rediculous amounts they try to charge for services before the insurance companies tell em they can only charge $$. Along with limiting the payout from lawsuits and limiting what doctors can be sued over.

malpractice insurance has put a number of good people out of business, not because they ever got sued, but because they couldn't afford it on their smaller customer base.

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:10 am

My best friend (best man)'s uncle had a malignant tumor the size of a large plum near the brainstem.

The first operation got most of it, and bought his family 4 years of time before the seizures started again. He was in for an MRI within 6 hours of that seizure, and Manitoba Health had him on an aggressive chemo regimen within days.

When the followup MRI a short while later showed the tumor wasn't responding, they (Manitoba Health) coughed up nearly a half-mil to send him (and his family) to a teaching hospital in California to try a bleeding edge experimental radiotherapy implant.

The implant bought him another 2 years before the tumor metasticised. His CT scan (can't do an MRI with a chunk of radioactive metal the size of your thumbnail embedded in your noggin) showed him as riddled with small tumors.

He died a few weeks later. His family and friends NEVER complained that our "evil" socialized healthcare gave him anything but a strong fighting chance for what was--from the beginning--a real big fucking problem.

Don't you go spouting that ridiculous conservative bullshit unless YOU have some personal experience in the matter--which you DON'T.

I live in "socialized healthcare" and have been both paying for it AND using it since I was born.

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 11:38 am

Kohburn wrote:neither system works that well

I respectfully disagree; your system doesn't work for beans if the majority of treatment options are not available to the majority of people.

Our system works well. Does it have problems? Sure. Could it be improved? Absolutely. But it DOES work.

if people REALLY want socialized healthcare it would need a big revamp. we are better off having a government based healthcare option along with trimming back the rediculous amounts they try to charge for services before the insurance companies tell em they can only charge $$. Along with limiting the payout from lawsuits and limiting what doctors can be sued over.

You can't have it both ways. A two-tier system always results in sub-standard conditions in the "public" system, with a disproportionate amount of money going to the private system. "Profitable" isn't the same thing as "effective."

malpractice insurance has put a number of good people out of business, not because they ever got sued, but because they couldn't afford it on their smaller customer base.

Another reason why two-tier doesn't work; private rates are inflated from higher insurance rates, while the public system is forced to eat the cost.

This is a particularly prickly issue in Canada for a few reasons, but the biggest one is that people will ALWAYS bitch. Doesn't matter how good/bad/great/awful a system is, someone will always know "someone" that fell through the cracks-blah-blah-whine-bitch-moan. And a person's own situation is always--in their mind--inflated by their own sense of urgency.

Hospital services are ALWAYS triaged--here AND the US. The resources go to the ones that need it the most. I'm sorry, but waiting 6 weeks to get a sprained knee MRI'd because a handul of tumor patients bumped you sucks, but it does not in my mind constitute a "failure of the system." It suggests that the system is either underfunded (ours isn't) or under equipped (ours is; too much money going towards admin).

I was on the campaign as a volunteer for our then (and current) minister of health for the province of Manitoba. There was a group of protesters outside with the same sob-story as your video; how they had to go down south out-of-pocket for treatment for a rare form of cancer. They had pamphlets and everything explaining the "whole" story, along with a letter from their doctor confirming everything. The patient was terminal, and present in a wheelchair with a blanket, spewing poison at anyone that would listen.

The story was awful. However, as it turns out, the reason they went on their own dime was that the doctor hadn't bothered to file the treatment request until after they'd already gone--he lied.

The kicker is that the system even allows for this; you can go, get it done, pay, and have the province reimburse you if you get both the doctor where you got the procedure done, AND your GP to sign off that the treatment was necessary and appropriate.

In fact, the health minister went out herself with the proper forms--filled out--and told the guy that if he got his doctors to sign them, she'd have a cheque for the full amount within 72 hours, delivered by Courier to his door.

In front of a crowd of 30 witnessses, he croaked in a weak voice that he wasn't interested in the money, and that he only wanted to see the "evil" socialized medical system defeated.

The irony is that if it'd been private healthcare, he'd still be dying, because he would have gone for the same treatment, paid the same amount... :scratch: