http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,439607,00.html

I guess the abysmal failure of exactly such an initiative in hawaii wasn't enough (and neither the failures of it in europe and canada etc...), oh well...

 

I think the funniest part is their suprise at this:

"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,"

 

 

Well it is kind of hard to keep up with events half a world away.  You should go home more often.

Be it ever so humbel, there is no place like home.

Sigh... the health care thing again... 

I live in Canada, and have friends and family members that have had life-threatening conditions requiring operations. They recieved these operations very promptly with no problems.

The horror story that you hear about wait-times are mostly over blown and almost always misunderstood. If you have a serious, life-threatening condition you get priority and you will certainly not be waiting half a year with nothing stopping you from dying until then.

But, the proof is in the pudding, which is that per capita Canadians have a lower infant mortality rate, longer lifespan, and pay less for healthcare (through taxes) than you do in the U.S!!!!

There is a good reason why ALL of the other G8 nations (with exception of the States of course) have a form of universal healthcare.

hhmm, that's interesting. There must be some pretty big holes in that system that folks can slip through as I have some friends from the States who almost cried when they moved to Canada and realized the difference between your healthcare system and ours- namely, they had a litany of friends and family who had to take out second mortgages or declare bankruptcy to pay for medical bills...

Also, a co-worker of mine was working in the States and he collapsed on the job. They rushed him to a hospital where it turned out he needed an operation to remove one of his organs. Price tag in the U.S- approx $ 100,000 once all was said and done, or, he could go to Canada and have it done for free. He asked the docs to stabilize him and he had the operation done in Canada, almost immediately after he arrived back in country

 

I love the term "non life threatening"... sure it is non life threatening.. and by the time you get it your health is severely deteriorated...

In theory some people can fall through the cracks in the USA, on the other hand some people have to wait longer in canada... both systems have their flaws... BUT!:

1. Bankrupcy is not PAYING for an operation, it is saying you cannot pay so the bill just goes away... if I have 50k in assests that i worked hard to get, but then i need some expensive operations to live and it costs 500k, i can just get the operation, declare bankrupcy, and start again from scratch, really it is no big deal. (and that is assuming i did not have insurence to begin with! in which case how the fuck do I have 50k in assests?). Your crying friends were just ignorent of the systems and full of fear, so they chose what SEEMED like a better plan...

2. As daiwa said, the COST is the same, it still costs 100,000k... you only make other people pay for it, so instead of taking a second mortgage, the healthier tax payers pay for it, like the ones who didn't smoke, eat healthy, and excercise regularly, yea, they are paying for your mistakes...

Ofcourse it COULD be something completely random and beyond your helping, such as genetic factors, in which case bad genes are subsidized to permiate through society...

And before you bring accidents / attacks, incedents are covered by the insurence of the place of incedient (got shot somewhere? the store insurence pays, etc...)

And at the end of the day, both systems limit how much you can get. Once your health goes south you can get infintely expensive treatments... But I doubt cadana pays millions per person on anti aids drugs or other such insanely expensive operations.

Hum, false. You know why? the Market.

The market is, in theory, a marvelous thing to set the "proper" value of a thing, based on who is ready to offer how much, and who is ready to supply for how much. That way, there is the most economical efficient production available.

So, in the US, hospitals have to turn a profit. They are an industry, right? The cost they charge for their operation is defined by the market, not the situation. While in Canada, it is always "at cost", since no one is looking for a profit in the universal healthcare system. So, that 100K operation might have become... 80K? 60K? Who really knows how much costed the staff, the doctor and the operation room? When you take out the "hunt for profit" of the equation, you might end up with much lower costs.

You know that the U.S. have the highest rate of unnecessary surgeries in the world? That's what happen when your hospital is more concerned about its profit margin than your health.

Because I really don't understand that point. Getting bankrupt is a valid healthcare plan in the USA?

What about follow-ups on the operation? What about the time in observation? What about medication you have to take afterward?

Good doctors? Not that tough. Very good doctors? Yhea. They are all going into the Very Expensive Hospitals of the U.S.A., and are only providing for the very rich. So I'd say it would be just as hard for you to get very good doctor as it would be for me. Except if you have a practically limitless insurance, off course.

But then, if you have that kind of money, you can very well take a plane to go take Very Good Doctor pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't see the Canadian's system weakness here.

 

A myth.  Just as you explode the myths of the Canadian system, I must call you on these myths as well.

Ok. But please tell me exactly how can an hospital that is looking toward a (juicy) profit margin can pay a lot more their doctor without charging more?

I think his point was that if you don't have the money, even in the US government will pick up the bill. But if you do have the money, you should get health insurance.

The example here of someone working in the US and going back to Canada for an operation was apparently about a person who did have an income, could have bought health insurance, and didn't. Instead he got his fellow Canadians to pay for it, from a fund he didn't pay into as he worked in the US. Is that not right?




Well, all I can say is that I saw (and felt) the difference. And I am neither very rich nor do I have limitless insurance.




The point is I don't have that kind of money. I just have enough to buy insurance.

Most of the major charities are nation wide.  The United Way, Salvation Army, Purple Heart, Red Cross, American Cancer Institute, etc. are all just a few examples.

Moreover, there are a ton of charities that fit the bill when it comes to medical coverage. I think you need to research this topic a bit more.

This is true, depending on how you look at it. My follow up question however is what about the old and retirees? By and large, it is this group that is and will be putting most of the strain on your healthcare system with the retirement of the baby boomer generation.

A retiree needing dialysis, hip replacement or even precscription drugs...there's a nice side business for U.S seniors coming to Canada to buy the same drugs at significantly cheaper costs...most likely is not going to be a very productive member of society. Even though they've worked a lifetime, if they don't have good medical coverage or are dependent on an inadequate fixed income (a pension that's stayed the same over the years and has fallen way behind compared to inflation) what should happen to them?

Should they be penalized for no longer being productive, and not having an adequate retirement plan? Should maybe we just euthanize them? That is, after all the most efficient and cost-effective solution.

Because the value of a life cannot be pegged to how much money you do or do not contribute to society. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the decision of who gets treated first should be based on who needs it more and the seriousness of the condition.

Because if you go the route of biggest contributor gets first bids, you kill democracy and might as well go back to the middle ages with a feudal system where those without are beholden to those with.

Again, let's use the fire department analogy.

A fire starts in your town. The Fire Department, being a branch of the municipality, gets more of it's funding from the nicer houses in town and the property taxes and moreover, business taxes, of the people who live in the biggest houses and probably own a couple shops locally.

So, when the fire hits, what would happen if the fire department ignored the less well off houses and ran around to different parts of town to douse the nice houses to ensure that they couldn't be touched by fire? Meanwhile, since the biggest contributors are getting "first dibs" there's no co-ordinated response to the fire or if there is it's an afterthought.

Again, you are correct this is an ideological thing. What kind of society do you want to live in? That is the question. I believe in the concept that we're all in it together. I'd rather live in a system in which no one is left behind, than a dog-eat dog world in which the motto of the day is "screw you, I'm fine!!"

What are you going to peg it to?  Seriously, you have 2 people dying - all things being equal, how would you decide?