Do you think the healthcare system is broken?

[beemanbeme]

Please explain "perverted capitalistic systems", also, if it is so great in Canada, why are the Canadians buying suplimental insurance so they don't have to depend on their so great socialized health care?, also, you will find few companies that do not control cost but I have never heard of one that controled profits in a negative sense,  also, if I could make $35,000.00 a month, 12 months out of the year, I'd do it in a heart beat and anyone that says different is full of organic fertililizer I don't care how rightious they pretend to be. In the same tone, if Germany is so great, there are boats and planes leaving all the time........ get my hint.  
Our system is not perfect.  The pendulum has swung perhaps too far toward the corporate side but, I will say again, we --the folks like me and you and the doctors and hospitals-- did it to ourselves.  When I first went to work for the company from which I retired, if we had to go to the emergency room, all cost were covered!  I knew workers that would go to the emergency room to get a tin of aspirin.  $50.00 to the insurance company for a $.10 tin of aspirin. And the hospitals went right along with it.    

[victorcharlie]

Powderman, sorry to hear of your situation.  I assume your looking for a job with better insurance?

[30-30man]

 There has to be a better way than what we currently have.  I've notice that many of those who oppose changing our current system are already on medicare or getting benefits via the VA. I guess they are afraid of not being able to continue getting the same care.  Now they have earned it, but shouldn't every American be able to receive the same care?  My mother-in -law thinks the same way but then she goes to the doctor at no charge or very little.  Her husband is retired military.

There's nothing wrong with getting paid but it is pure greed in my opinion.  If I refused to remove a brain tumor until a family came up with cash they didn't have, I couldn't live with myself and I doubt any of us could either.  What about school teachers and the like, they are not compensated like doctors? Yet the sacrifice is the same.  They never quit going to school as their license demands classes every five years or so.  In my state, they are lucky to make $35,000 their first year alone. 

  I think we live in the best country in the world but our health system is broken.  I never noticed a collection jar for some sick child at any store in Germany.  You never heard of mothers having babies at home  and throwing them in a dumpster because they can't afford care for them.  I never saw that many Germans wishing to leave either.  Here, you can not receive treatment for life threatening illnesses unless you can afford it.   Why are there credit agency signs at the pay window of most hospitals?  They know most people can't afford treatment.  It should not be that way.  People should be able to get treatment no matter what their financial situation is.  Our current system does not treat everyone who should receive care.  All of us who have private insurance are just one illness away from declaring bankrupcy.

[billy_56081]

  I'd vote for litigation protection if it were available on this survey. The cost of malpractice insurance is one of the major factors in health care. I'd like to see what litigation actually cost each Americann every year. I'd bet your income taxes would look like small change compared to this.

[Dusty Miller]

Polticaly I'm very conservative but I've taken a liking to "socialized" police protection, "socialized" fire protections, and "socialized" education.  Somehow "socialized" medicine just does not seem all that bad.  My only concern is whether or no it can be created without building a HUGE government agency to run it. 

[ms]

I have ms the drugs are a lot money one drug cost 1,200 a month. Every time I get a job with insurance And start jacking up there insurance am let go can't get no help thur the state. I get the drugs from the maker at low cost. IF my wife and I make over 59 thousand a year then I have to buy the drugs my self it's bs .All the drugs do is slow it down it doesn't control it but if you look at me you couldn't tell that I was sick. Can't afford to buy insurance but I think we still  have the best healthcare in world.

[beemanbeme]

I'm gonna say we need tort reform before we need socialized medicine.  Name one industry that has come under the control of the government that had reduced its size and gained efficiency?  Name one that has not become a quagmire of turf wars and obstrufication?  OSHA and BATF and IRS being a few prime examples. 
Socialized medicine is not gonna be any yellow brick road leading you to not having to pay for your health care.  You are still gonna have to pay for it and they are gonna pile on a few bureaucrats on top of the load.
While examples of one can grab the heart, they are that.  Examples of one.  And no matter how many of the hot button words you glean from the latest Sara Brady pamplet like "kill" and "maim", the number of folks that go to the hospital, to have a corrective or even life saving operation, and go home, far outweigh any "killings" or "maimings".  Do you have some numbers for those?

[30-30man]

I have seen more than one jar at the convenience store in my area trying to raise money for somebody that got sick and can't afford it. Most often it is a child who is not on Medicaid.   Just about all the stores have one or two around the cash register, so I think it is more than one person who has experienced this.  As far as paying for it, we already are.  We pay more toward insurance premiums and deductibles than we would ever pay in taxes. I pay more in this category that I do in state taxes alone.  Everybody should check into what private health insurance cost for a family of four, you would be shocked.  It is almost as much as most people's house payment.  It's broken, how can anyone say otherwise is beyond me.

[SHOOTALL]

30/30 man , would it work like welfare or social security ? they both have stellar records don't they !

[magooch]

Why stop with socialized health care?  We might as well have socialized car care, pet care, hair care, groceries, housing....  No system is perfect, but I'll bet that no one would be happy with what a government run health system would inevitably become.  You would have some committee, or bureaucrat deciding who would get what operations and who would be judged too costly to care for.  Take a look at the British system's problems. 

If it went the other way and everyone got every kind of medical procedure they thought they needed, the costs would soar and health care would devour everything.

I am still provided with medical insurance from the corporation that I retired from and it has been great, but over the years it got to be a bigger and bigger expense to the company to the point where now the retirees no longer have their insurance paid after they retire. 

I blame, or attribute the ever higher costs of health care to advances in medicine and peoples demands for those benefits.  It all started to really escalate when heart, knee, hip and other surgeries became routine.  The government didn't help matters when it demanded that health insurance pay for certain elective surgeries for women and birth-control and on and on.  That's not to say that I am critical of of these facts--it's just the way things go.

No one plan fits everyone's circumstance, or needs.  Catastrophic insurance should be available for everyone and supplemental insurance for the frills and electives should be a decision based on what you need and can afford.

[Dee]

Could it also include "lawn mowing"? I have a half acre, and I am getting on up there in years. It isn't as easy ridding that tractor as it used to be.

[SHOOTALL]

Why should everyone receive  health care in the first place at the expense of others ?

[beemanbeme]

Okay, get Hillary on the phone.  She needs to appoint a sub-committee to do a jar count so she can properly assess the condition of the United States' healthcare system. 

[Dee]

I believe it is a fairly well know fact that the socialized Canadian heath care system has been a misrable failure. To lump the problem into one ball however is a mistake in my opinion. One must take into consideration "WELFARE RECIPIENT" health care, which will include not only American citicizen too lazy to work, along with ILLEGAL ALIEN, and LEGAL ALIEN recipients of FREE health care are emergency rooms and hospitals, AND ALSO, TRIAL LAWYERS, whom make MILLIONS, sueing not only DOCTORS, but also HOSPITALS AND INSURANCE COMPANIES. And let us not also forget the STRONG LOBBY group from the AMA, and FDA, whom are crossing palms in D.C. to get the kind of votes in congress that they need to make more money.
In this respect we must ABANDON the term SOCIALIZED, and perhaps pick the REAL WORD which would be FACISTS. The government doesn't want to OWN the system but, merely CONTROL it, which means no investment, just profit.
One must remember that the government does not PRODUCE ANYTHING, it merely TAXES those whom do produce.

[30-30man]

What about Spain, Great Britain, or even Italy.  Do you realize that we are running just ahead of Cuba in satisfaction and the accessibility to receive services according to the World Health Organization? We are #37, they are #38. This came from the CNN interview and sure enough the facts are there.  The only option people have now is going to the emergency room.  They know they can't get denied.  The last time I was there, I noticed a woman who came in with poison ivy.  I had to wait with my hand bleeding all over the floor until she was given an ointment she could have easily received at doctor.  The emergency rooms are not meant for these minor problems.  They charge us more for the people who don't pay.   Social Services would not be perfect but it would be better than what we have now.  I don't have the answers but I know that what we have now stinks and the only ones who are benefiting are the ones in the medical field.  I don't think it is a free ride, I think it is something everybody should have a right to as everybody has a right to live.

I vote Republican but I'm with the Democrats on this one.  It seems that many of those who are already opposed to a change are already receiving free benefits in one form or another.

[SHOOTALL]

I for one do not wish to live under British laws of Italian laws or any other laws but the laws in the USA !
Why should an able bodied adult receive free medical services ?

[beemanbeme]

First off, we will set the record straight!!!: I am NOT in the teaching field in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia.  If I were; or rather, had been, I'd be in jail.  For the first time one of these little rotten toothed creeps --ain't no point in buyin' him a toothbrush, we'uns got free dental-- laid a F U on me, I'd feed him his rotten teeth.  And, of course, when I got out of prison, there would be a platoon of lawyers waiting to sue me for infringing little Raeford's freedom of speech. 
By tort reform, I don't mean a cap on how much the bottomfeeders can collect.  I mean tort reform where the person doing the suing has some financial peril himself.  As long as a sleaze lawyer and his bottomfeeding client can bring a frivilous suit against someone (anyone) with the hopes of hitting the lottery via the court systems or at least getting a fat "nuisance" settlement without any liability himself the judicial sysstem is screwed up.  30-30 man, I think it was you that said you had to post your property because of insurance reasons.  Well, at one time, if someone was hunting on your place, with or without permission, and fell out of a tree, it'd be their tough stuff.  Folks'd say "well if the dumb SOB couldn't climb a tree, he shouldn't have been up there." and that'd be the end of it.  Now, the lawyers would be at your door before the dumb SOB hit the ground. 
That is why not just health care cost so much but everything. 
For what it's worth, I can't think of any theory in a pure laissez faire application that works as first conceived. 

[Dee]

TM7 if you are not happy in the US there is not a fence blocking the way into Canada. You can just walk right over there.

[Cement Man]

I work for an international company that does business in 80 countries.  In general, far more people in our company want to live and work in the U.S. than don't.  I have friends in Sweden that, despite their 80+% income tax are very dissatisfied with their health care system.  My Canadian co-workers and those Americans that have lived and worked in Canada have almost unanimously preferred the US Health Care.  If folks in this country had the tax rates in most of the more socialist world, I believe the outcry would be louder than over health care.
I am on the board of a small town hospital..  Our liability insurance is about 3% of our operating budget, not <1%.  We are operating at a loss YTD '07.  I don't claim our singular stats to be representative of the whole system, but these are real numbers - not cherry-picked statistics from some agendized website either. Our hospital tries very hard to deliver the best services at the lowest cost to our community.  A lot of people work damn hard to make it happen too.
I started out over 39 years ago as a laborer and my standard of living has steadily risen since I started.  I have a high school education, live better than ever, raised a family, and put my kids through college.  First, I have been richly blessed.  Second, I realize it and am grateful.  Third, in this country it's still true that hard work, some planning, and some sensible living can give you a wonderful life.  It's not perfect, but as far as I am concerned, it's still the best.
TM7, I believe if you saw a dog whizzing on a fire hydrant you would come up with some contrived conspiracy theory, supported by innuendo, dots pre- connected back to your own conclusion stated in dung babble, and "proved" with suggestively tailored phraseology and "facts" from fringe sources.  I do admire your enthusiasm and perseverance in those endeavors and actually find great humor in observing it.  I hope you don't take yourself too seriously.  

[ironglow]

  Firstoff..when i heard that Micheal Moore made a movie called "Sicko"..I was sure that it must have been an autobiography..

   As far as bothering to see any of the mass propaganda & lies that Moore produces..spare me !

  Fox news said this morning that that bit of wasted celluloid won't be shown outside the "big cities"..He must know that the film will be mildly successful, only where the looney left run in big bunches.

  Yes, our health system can be costly and Dee gave the most cogent reasons why..

  But to take Moore with any kind of a grain of salt is silly..
  I live near the Canadian border..and have heard of many cases of diagnosed cancer or heart surgery in the offing..never hjeard of anyone ever saying " Doc says I need brain surgery or a kidney transplant..forward my mail to Toronto .."

  I don't mean that as a slight against Canadians or Canadian doctors...just a comment on socialized medicine..

  Moore even praised the Cuban health care..

   When the sultan of Morrocco or the President of Bhutan or a leader of any other nation without first class medicine, needs serious surgery..have you ever heard of one of them saying.."I am in need of serious surgery..get my bags packed for Cuba ! ".

  No !..You and I both know that for the best medical care in the world..almost all that CAN do it ..head for the " good old USA !"..."

[Dee]

TM7 if you are not happy in the US there is not a fence blocking the way into Canada. You can just walk right over there.

Don't know what brought that out, but once thought about and liked the people up there too (but I'm thoroughly happy living in the U.S. and foresee a great day coming). They're not too preoccupied with bombing the rest of the world.  Maybe you and Magooch could take up a collection for us. Nah,,,I guess I'll stay and just keep trying to make things better. You know, lift the veil off the hand a bit. But if you want to send that collection to me than go ahead .  BTW, you made blanket statements about how the rest of the civilized world hates their healthcare, and from my sampling I just don't get the same data or conclusion, so I'm wondering what your basis is for that assumption.  BTW, my wife works in the healthcare industry at a large hospital and specifically deals with foreign clients, and she doesn't get the same conclusion either.

...TM7

And which one of my posts might this "blanket statement be"? Specifically, what area of the health care industry does she work? I have a friend that works in the health care industry here where I live.  He is the janitor at the hospital here. He has an opinion on the problem, but I doubt any inside info.
You laud other countries attributes, and criticize the country you live in. How odd that you would stay. One of your favorite conspiracies is the TWIN TOWERS being demolishioned by the government, when the WHOLE WORLD watched them go down after the planes. We have problems here no doubt, but you sound more and more like the DIXIE CHICKS, which by the way, what ever happened to them.

[SHOOTALL]

TM-7 , my experience has been different , I've had opportunity to hunt and meet many in Canada , not one has like the health care system they have ! Never had reason to visit Italy , and figure the ones who moved here did so because they didn't like it there !
Aren't most fire departments still voluntary in most of the USA ? Not govt. run ? never saw a govt. detail raising a barn either !
I feel you should know how i feel , when i consider the way the politicians have fought the wars , administered the education system , welfare system , social security , border protection , drug adm. and more other departments that i don't feel like typing , i just flat don't want them %$@#&^ up my health care like they have every thing else they try to run !
look at the post office ! do you want people GOING MEDICAL ?







/

[gypsyman]

Probably 7-8 years ago, the Ohio Gun Collectors use to hold their gun shows just outside of Cleveland in a huge building called the I-X Center. It was adjacent to the Cleveland airport. When I pulled in, there were 2, 747 airplanes backed up to the fence, with their tails hanging over part of the parking lots. Both planes, in English, had United Arab Emirates, on the tail, along with some hieroglyphics, which I took to be Arabic writing to be the same. I found out later, from a Cleveland swat member, who was getting paid to help guard the ontourage, that a Saudi prince needed a transplant. What for, I don't remember. But the planes were there 2 month's later at the next show. Seems the prince's family BOUGHT one of the floors on the Cleveland Clinic for his operation. Stayed there while he recouperated. GAVE it back when they left!  Now with all the money they could spend for health care, they could have flown anywhere in the world. They ended up in the U.S. IN Cleveland of all place's. Our health care system isn't broken, needs some adjustment. The U.S. isn't importing doctors. They naturally want to work here. Probably tired of getting paid with chickens and goats. -gypsyman

[SHOOTALL]

Bet England checks out foreign doctors better now !
Robin hood must have had more decedents than any-other man that lived , so many want to take from the rich and give to the poor !

[30-30man]

Well you guys have some good points but there needs to be a system other than the emergency room (like the president mentioned) to treat those who can't afford it.  I know we have free medical clinics but I doubt they do transplants or brain surgery.  I have a sister -in-law that is nurse.  She goes on mission trips and gives here services in a traveling doctors office/misssion in India.  She once said to me that all the people she treats over there are so grateful and she never gets that kind of thanks in the US.  I asked her if she gave any of those Indians a bill like you do in the US.  She shut up quick and never mentioned another word.  She knew the answer to her own question.  Lawsuits should be controlled along with cost, that is the only real fix.  Doctors should be compensated but not at the expense they are now.  I don't want to give up what I have either but if it means a 7 year-old girl would have the chance to walk, talk, and live to see eight; I'd do it in a heartbeat.  Hospitals are and have turned those kinds of cases down.  I experienced it first hand thus I hate our medical system and how profit comes before life. 

[toysoldier]

I've worked in hospitals for 34 years, starting as a nurses aid and working up to a low-level supervisory position. 30 years a surgical technician, working in the OR.

The single greatest problem facing not only healthcare but every aspect of the American economic system is the contingency fee for lawyers. You want to contrast the U.S. with the rest of the world? We're the only first-world nation that allows such a practice. In other nations, a lawyer
would go to jail for taking a cut of the settlement. This means that plaintiffs have to put up money, and lawyers don't have a motivation for chasing ambulances. The direct cost to healthcare in the form of insurance premiums is only one part of the expense of practicing "defensive medicine", where doctors have to order every available test just to cover their a## if the outcome isn't perfect.

25 years ago, socialized medicine was a hot topic. I said at that time that we had two choices:
First, a government-run system, where some bureaucrat would decide what care you would receive and where you would get it, with money lost to government inefficiency.
Second, private health care, with an insurance executive deciding what care you would get and where you would get it, with money lost to profit.

We ended up with the worst of both.
 
My prediction was that profit would cost more than inefficiency. A recent survey (and I don't know what markers they measured) showed that Canadians received better health care at half the cost. Can they get off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery? Probably not. But our incredibly advanced medical technology doesn't give us a longer average lifespan than other first-world countries.

You have to understand that competition in healthcare doesn't drive down costs or produce better care. Just the opposite. When a little town like Hutchinson, KS has three MRI scanners (two owned by doctors) there is real pressure to USE those expensive machines to produce a return on the investment. That results in unnecessary, expensive tests. There is also a great deal of pressure in communities to have EVERYTHING available RIGHT THERE. The reality is, the best treatment is obtained in large centers where they do lots of the same procedures, not at a small-town hospital where they do a few of those procedures each year. It also results in much more efficient utilization of resources. Suppose every auto repair shop was expected to be able to perform every kind of repair on every make of auto? What would that do to the cost of auto repair?

Our medical system isn't quite broken---yet. But when---not if---a flu pandemic or other serious illness hits, every hospital and insurance company will be bankrupted. The logistics of caring for an additional 10 million sick people (with tens of thousands dying) will destroy the whole health care system. Who's going to be expected to bail it out? The same entity that bailed out Chrysler, the airlines, and savings and loans---all failed capitalist enterprises.

[ironglow]

 A great example of which Toysoldier is speaking...

   One of today's candidates for President on the Democrat's line from what I understand, made millions from one malpractice suit.
  Was this lawyer the injured party ?.... NO !   Did a doctor cause grevious injury to this lawyer or any of his family ?... NO !

    ...But today this trial lawyer lives in a multi-thousand sq ft mansion and pays from $400 to $1250 for haircuts...

  So, where's the rub ?  He imitated a "baby in the womb" screeching and moaning before an impressionable jury and collected a many-million $$$ settlement..

  Some have questioned the actual validity of the original suit; all should question the percentage taken but an uninjured party in the case.

  If you wonder why your medical bills are high...look to see what kind of a house, car and etc your friendly, local trial lawyer has..

  If you want to make million$..."do it the old fashioned way"...sue your friends and neighbors for their hard earned money..

   All this being said, the aforementioned lawyer is a key member of a political party that endorses KILLING babies in the womb..

  Do you sense any hypocrisy ?

[Cement Man]

toysoldier, good post.
First , you say "lawyers are the single biggest problem" to not only health care, but the economy.  I tend to react emotionally along those lines as well, but that statement is overbroad and hard to define. Then you go on to say what all is wrong with our health care system and take a shot at capitalism as well.  So, which is it - or is everything wrong?
You cite a survey that concludes Canadians get better health care at half the cost, but aren't sure what the markers were in the survey.  My experience (from co-workers) is that it is not the greatest health care.  And what is the cost?  Are you counting tax dollars?  Like you say, you're not sure.  Sure enough to cite the survey, not sure what it means though? BTW, if it is a bonified survey I will have learned something from it and I welcome that.
Competition doesn't drive down cost in health care?  Office visits in my small town cost less than in Chicago.  Insurance companies calculate "reasonable and customary" by locale comparables. Is that a market-driven issue?  Is health care a purely competitive activity? Would you like it to be?
Hutchinson, KS with the three MRI scanners.  Why 3?  Is that competition?  If not, what is it?  Unnecessary tests - right?  The insurance companies let those unnecessary tests slip by?   My health insurance watches everything very closely and there needs to be a good reason for a test
You and I are in total agreement that larger facilities in more populous areas get better results.  Your analogy to the auto repair business does to some extent mirror and justify the specialist system that we have.
As far as our health care system and insurance companies being broken by a pandemic or likewise - and the government will be required to bail them out.  Well, I'm not sure that you should design a total system around the possibility of pandemics.  If your postulation is correct - do you suggest we pay for the pandemic up front?  Taxes and socialized medicine?
There is another point that I truly wonder about.  You did state that we have some some incredibly advanced medical technology - but not a longer lifespan. I always wonder about those statistics when I see so many obese, physically inactive people, drug users, alcoholics, and smokers.  It is undeniable that we as a nation are killing ourselves with our habits.  What effect does that have on lifespans and how do you separate the issues in the conclusion that the health care system is the primary fault?
I still believe that we have it pretty good here.  "Failed capitalist enterprises" - yeah, some do fail.  Remember some of the successes?

[Cement Man]

TM 7 - thanks for the explanation of conspiratorial.  I feel honored - you devote a lot of your time to that subject.  Thanks and keep it up!  We can all sleep better knowing that you are out there exposing all those plots.   

[Cement Man]

TM7,
Could you choose some other words?  Suggestion - "And thank you for revealing how simple-minded you are, Cement Man" or something like that. Your first statement can have an ambiguous meaning (fancy that), and I don't want to be associated with it.  Thanks!