Well it looks like the House of Representatives is rolling out what appears to me to be a pretty Health Care Package with at least a form of a public insurance option that is estimated to cover at least 97% of Americans with a combination of public and private insurance programs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/14/cbo-house-bill-would-cove_n_232032.html

 

I don't know if it's true that people flock to the US for medical treatment, but I did read an interesting story a couple of years back which reported that US citizens were going to Canada to get their drugs. I wish I had a link I could post for this, but it has disappeared into the depths of time.

Apparently, some enterprising soul was organising coach-trips into Canada (mostly for retired people it seems) because the savings to be made were well worth the trip.
Whether they were going for OTC or prescription drugs (which could be illegal) was unclear.

The US "authorities" got wind of this and mounted stop-and-seizure operations at the border. Apparently these weren't regular officers, and it was unclear what government agency they were affiliated with, but one of them let it slip that they were working on behalf of the FDA.

Grannies getting frisked for their Ibuprofen.

You gotta laugh!

 

I just heard the opening salvo from the insurance industry coming out swinging against the public health insurance option. It was exactly what Potter predicted especially that the free enterprise system can take care of the problems.

I don't remember the guys name that was giving the interview but he represented Well Point. And if he's the best they can come up with we should get a public insurance program.

 

First off, although this gets said a lot, I've never seen any actual numbers to back it up. But if it's true, it's easily explained. Health care in the United States is very good IF you have a lot of money to pay for it.

 

The alternative IS to do nothing...but politicians never want to LOOK like they're doing nothing, so they'll probably end up passing some kind of lame substitute that creates the appearance of doing something. The test of their success or failure has already be mentioned. If the insurance companies are howling with wounded outrage, Congress is probably doing the right thing. If they're all behind a painful "compromise", chances are the bill is useless.

 

Doctors sucks big old donkey dicks..after years of trying to see a doctor I found out yesterday that I have skin cancer and I have to have it removed on the 16th of July,, what the bitch is, I ask two doctors over 4years ago what this mark is on my neck and was told it was nothing to worry about..so that means I have been walking around with this shit for 4 years..the VA will be hearing from me

 

In Southern California, they go to Mexico (Tijuana) for prescription drugs. That's where Grandpas get their Viagra.

 

Then they may be on the right track because I heard lots of insurance howling this morning. I don't have a TV down here so I don't know if they're running any commercials yet, but I would expect them to.

I remember hearing something about this and I think it was prescription drugs that they could get at a huge savings.

But as far as granny getting frisked for her ibuprofen that might have made her feel better than the medicine.

I've heard of a lot of people doing this. But if I ever make it to Tijuana it won't be for the Viagra.

 

I have been living with the Canadian system from its inception. What started out as an excellent system has been deteriorating drastically over the years. wait times are ridiculous in some instances. My wife waited 9 months for the result of a pregnancy test that told her she wasn't pregnant, DUH!
Yes we do go to Main and pay out of pocket frequently for care that is crap up here. She was told that there was nothing wrong with a painful knee. They wouldn't even Xray it. Turns out she has a badly torn meniscus. And on and on.
There are many reasons which I can go into, but right now I'm too tired. One thing I read is that there are more MRI machines in the state of main than in all of Canada! The Federal and Provincial governments have been cutting funding steadily. The system was really great when it started, but after the Conservatives, under Mulroony got in it was fucked. They have been trying to re privatize it since under both Liberal and Conservative governments.

 

the interesting thing about this thread is that nobody has hit the real issue here. Its not about if health care is better run in the private sector or by the government. Its about if heath care is a right or not.

 

It has been discussed, in one form or another. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's some kind of fundamental, god-ordained right, but I think it SHOULD be a right guaranteed by our society. It's inconceivable to me that in a civilized world, the provision of basic health care needs should depend on how much money a person makes, or whether that person's employer happens to provide coverage as a fringe benefit.

 

Whether or not anything is a right depends on one's value system. Values are beyond the realm of logical proof. You either like something or you do not. Your values are facts about you. They are not truths about the universe.

A discussion of whether the U.S. system of private health care is better than European systems of public health care is a discussion where facts and logic matter.

 

All that stuff in the Declaration of Independence about inalienable rights probably led us astray. Our "rights" are not defined by God, but by ourselves as a society. If we choose to make health care a right, then it IS a right.

And we should.

 

If course I agree with you.

It amazes me that Ayn Rand Objectivists, who are atheists, claim that there are absolute rights, that somehow are true throughout the universe, and have been since the big bang. They claim that they can prove these absolute rights by reason. When I ask one of them to do so, he or she (it usually is a he) fails. It turns out that what he claims has always been true is whatever he wants to be able to do.

 

I'm fairly sure that whatever rights they're talking about, I can point to a place and time in history where they were denied to most people. What does it mean to the slave to tell him he has the right to liberty and freedom?

 

Not many of us are old enough to remember when doctors had their own practices, there were no leeching HMO's, and the only overhead and profit involved were the doctor's rent, nurses, and profit.

Everytime you put a middleman between the consumer and the source, you are placing higher costs on the consumer who pays for all the middlemen's profits, overheads, and taxes.

And the middlemen who don't really contribute anything take the money away from the consumer that should be going into the service of the source.

A good source of information is a book called: The Rape of the Ape.
It documents how the healthcare system got so screwed up by the intervention of the federal government in hospitals in the early 1960's, and other information.

Just an example of costs run wild:

My CABG cost 482,000 for 8 days in the hospital, and that was only the hospital charges; no anesthetist or doctor charges included.

My 8 hour stay to replace my first pacemaker was $8200 only for the hospital cost, and they overcharged $5700 for a set of electrodes not even used. Tell me how 3 wires of very small gauge, maybe 24 or 26 with an insulation on them and of length no more than 18 inches, can cost that much money? So the hospital cost was $1000 per hour roughly. I never had a room I was an outpatient and on a gurney in a room similar to an ER with other patients.

My copay for the hospital was $1000 for the CABG and $1200 for the pacemaker. But I joined a hospital aux group that for $15 per year waives the copay. Didn't know about it for the CABG.

Now AARP has stated in their publication that medicare is no longer paying for surgery for anyone over 75. That means even though I pay the premiums of by then $1500 per year, I can't have a new one and will just have to die with the battery.

The HMO's are nothing but rackets, they need to be outlawed.
The more doctors I see in one clinic the worse is the waiting time and time given to see a patient. They are put on time limits, so many patients per hour or else. I have had a doctor tell me this.

As an example when I was poisoned in 1989 by my sister's Armenian boyfriend, after 2 days of agony she took me to her clinic and I got a no more than 5 minute diagnosis (wrong!) of flu. Later I looked up the symptoms of poisoning, the taste I had, the initial symptoms all indicated it. I had never been exposed to anyone with flu and no one else in the house had it before or after.

That was what led to my heart condition. I was in perfect health prior to that, except maybe for undiagnosed diabetes.

 

This was a real situation, mostly for prescription drugs. While it wasn't technically illegal, it was said that the Canadian system allowed generic drugs where the US did not do so at the time. The seizures were for the drugs that were not legally available in the US.

Today we have a profusion of generic drugs available in the US, due in large part to the grannies who defied the law. This was a classic example of the FDA dragging its feet in approving new and cheaper medicines. Of course the US drug makers didn't interfere in the situation.

 

I guess you just made another statement that further discredits the founding fathers.

All that "stuff" was written in the D of I because of the lack of such rights under the King of England. The made the claim that they were "Endowed by their creator" to wrest the colonies from the King.

However, I do agree that "rights" are defined by our laws, not by religion.

 

Once again, tenguy, you miss my point. I wasn't criticizing the founding fathers...I was only suggesting, as you ultimately agreed with, that those rights don't come from God. If they did, the King wouldn't have been in a position to subvert them.

But doesn't it seem a BIT hypocritical to you that the founding fathers could have made that statement about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and then adopted a constitution that embraced slavery?

 

I've often looked at that and wondered why for all their insight and brilliance the founders didn't notice the contradiction between ALL MEN and slavery, or the contradiction between ALL MEN but not women.

I think there's a very important lesson to be learned there and that is how our ideals and our reality within our current environment can be juxtaposed. I envision a day when future generations of Americans will be able to look back and be amazed there was a time when health care wasn't considered an inalienable right.