Universal Health Care

[superluminal]

Killing a baby is different from giving free healthcare to losers.

Yes. I'm rethinking my position on all of this. I'm anticipating a time when sandy may become terribly ill and I certainly wouldn't want any of my tax dollars going toward helping such a loser as her. Retroactive abortion also comes to mind.

 

[Norsefire]

American hectare, in general, sucks (that's the mean average). However, my friend, the USA does have the best doctors. In our current day in age money buys the best, and the USA pays doctors more than any other nation on Earth. Moreover, doctors are also attracted to other perks like scientific equipment, which is in ridiculous abundance in the USA. College connections and peer contacts round out the overall fact that the worlds top universities and hospitals are all in the USA.

Tell me why the royal family of Saudi Arabia and Jordan (remember: King Hussein went to the Mayo Clinic for his cancer treatment, do you think a man with access to billions of dollars would have gone to "second best"?), the crown princess of Sweden (she came for Anorexia treatment) and the Sultan of Brunei all have come to the USA for treatment?

~String

The French have the best doctors.

 

[superstring01]

The French have the best doctors.

Quick, Norse... if you say it enough, it'll come true.

Tell me Norse: which country over the past fifty years has contributed the most towards medical technology (perhaps a good guide might be the number of Nobel Prizes for Medicine or Nobel Prizes by Nation... funny, no Syrians... hmmm)? The French? Care to substantiate that claim.

Oh... nevermind. I forgot, you're still in elementary school mode: if you squeal something enough it seems true.

~String

BTW, Norse: more Brits have won than French. Lots of Germans, Brits and Americans (but mostly Americans). But, sure, Norse, the French. Hmmm... a little biased towards your former colonial masters?

 

[S.A.M.]

What is medical technology without a diagnostician?

 

[madanthonywayne]

Not really, I can be objective.

Let me give you an example.

I had fatigue. I went to an Indian doctor, regular chap with a clinic next door. He asked questions, did a blood test. 5 minutes. Diagnosis anemia. Gave me a prescription. Problem solved.

I was having severe fatigue and dizzyness. Went to an American doctor. First nurse came, checked pulse, medical history, BP; asked questions. 10 minutes. Went to doctor. More questions, dietary history, looked in ears, listened to heart beat, checked throat. More questions. Filled out forms. Diagnosis: Stress. Recommended exercise; an anti-depressant. 30 minutes.

No effect. Went back again after two weeks. Still not recovered. Repeated entire above procedure with stronger anti-depressant. 25-30 minutes

Went back again after two weeks. Very weak. Unable to work. Did blood test. Mononucleosis. Recommended fluids and bed rest. Stopped all medications. I hour waiting time for blood test

Doctors in the US are encumbered by fear of lawsuits, and insurance companies.

Insurance companies require we ask specific questions at each patient visit or we don't get paid (medicare, the government plan, is the worst, part of the reason for my aversion to a government takeover of healthcare). They also require reams of paperwork for each patient encounter. It's a major pain in the ass, and a huge waste of paper and time. It greatly slows down the process.

Fear of lawsuits requires that, rather than just trying to figure out the most likely problem, we rule out all the worst possible problems. So we must check for everything. Thus almost every doctor visit includes needless tests that the doctor is doing to prevent that one in 10,000 problem that might cost him millions of dollars.

This should not prevent your doctor from getting to the actual problem, but it does increase the cost of medical care in the US and decrease efficiency.

 

[pjdude1219]

It does! :yay:



Uh, yes it is. A very big business.



Killing a baby is different from giving free healthcare to losers.

no it is not it is still government interference. and you have shown a complete lack of understanding about the costs of healthcare and how afforadable it is.

 

[Frud11]

How many here live in a gated community?
Or in Mexico or about any Southern country where the winner/loser formula has always been the setup? Anywhere slums adjoin high-rises and big walls?

Taxes are supposed to be for a public good, including the taxpayer's.

 

[Challenger78]

medicare and medicaid are about to go broke?

how much tax is spent on them?
i am wondering because the medicare levy here is something like 2% of income maybe (could be lower than that) and that pays for most of our health system

oh and on regulating private health insurance, health insurance is regulated here in that they have to submit all there books to the regulater and when they want to increase there fees the regulater decides if they can or not. This is so they can never go bankrupt and yet keep it afordable. On top of that the biggest private insurce company is goverment owned (for want of a better word) so this keeps downward pressure on prices and upward pressure on services

Medicare I heard, was 1.5 % of income.
What sucks is that some Australians don't know how lucky they are.. but then again, people always do complain, and our system is not perfect.

 

[Challenger78]

Rumour has it, Australian doctors invented pencillin , and cured stomach ulcers..
*Is there still a place in history for us ?*

 

[Myles]

Rumour has it, Australian doctors invented pencillin , and cured stomach ulcers..
*Is there still a place in history for us ?*

Can you name the source of these vile rumours ?

 

[Challenger78]

I first read about it in my science textbook. but apparently we are no more than a footnote. Even wikipedia agrees..

In 1939, Australian scientist Howard Florey, Baron Florey and a team of researchers (Ernst Boris Chain, A. D. Gardner, Norman Heatley, M. Jennings, J. Orr-Ewing and G. Sanders) at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford made significant progress in showing the in vivo bactericidal action of penicillin. Their attempts to treat humans failed due to insufficient volumes of penicillin (the first patient treated was Reserve Constable Albert Alexander), but they proved its harmlessness and effect on mice.

Helicobacter pylori was rediscovered in 1982 by two Australian scientists, J. Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall as a causative factor for ulcers.[9] In their original paper, Warren and Marshall contended that most stomach ulcers and gastritis were caused by colonization with this bacterium, not by stress or spicy food as had been assumed before.[10]

I guess we can take a little more credit for stomach ulcers..

 

[iceaura]

Doctors in the US are encumbered by fear of lawsuits, and insurance companies.

Yet anouther potential benefit from socialized medicine. No wonder it works better for less money.

I assure you, our founding fathers would roll over in their graves at the idea of nationalized healthcare.

Our founders would roll over in their graves at the discovery of joint stock corporations as "legal people" with market protection for publically developed medical procedures and drugs.

THERE SHOULD BE NO NEW ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS UNTIL THE NATIONAL DEFICIT AND THE NATIONAL DEBT ARE BOTH ELIMINATED!

How do you plan to even reduce, let alone eliminate, the current national debt with health care costs bankrupting the country ? Your are tossing an extra 10% of the GDP into a hole, compared with ordinary socialized medicine.

Well, so have I. I am well aware of Americans going overseas for "general internal" surgery-- it's simple: how hard is it to remove an appendix, get a nose job, or get a kidney transplant? These are simple and commonplace surgeries.

If simple and commonplace surgeries are not available to simple and commonplace people, what is the advantage of having (significantly imported) the world's best doctors ? It's like a third world island having the world's best beaches - fenced off, for the resort hotels.

Interestingly, the Mayo Clinic started out as something like those Thai and Costa Rican facilities - not that long ago, in a slower changing world. The future of US medical predominance is not assured - the base is eroding. Right now the corporate oligarchy is in a sense mining 150 years of public investment by the richest country the world has ever seen - in the land grant universities, the county hospitals, the public schools, the federal research grant system, the military research, the various first aid and emergency response setups, etc etc. etc.

Mayo Clinic is significant in the way the medical physicians are paid. In most health care systems, medical doctors are paid based on the number of patients that they see. The more patients seen, the more a doctor gets paid. At Mayo Clinic, medical doctors are paid a salary that is unaffected by patient volume. Salaries are determined instead by the marketplace salaries for physicians in comparable large group practices.

 

[superstring01]

If simple and commonplace surgeries are not available to simple and commonplace people, what is the advantage of having (significantly imported) the world's best doctors ? It's like a third world island having the world's best beaches - fenced off, for the resort hotels.

...The future of US medical predominance is not assured - the base is eroding. Right now the corporate oligarchy is in a sense mining 150 years of public investment by the richest country the world has ever seen - in the land grant universities, the county hospitals, the public schools, the federal research grant system, the military research, the various first aid and emergency response setups, etc etc. etc.

I agree and stated as much earlier.

I've also stated that I'm not ethically opposed to universal health care.

1) our system is so fucked-up that nothing short of a total revolution can fix it
2) our system already pays for people to go to any ER they want and the taxpayer flips the bill
3) after two years of surgery (three melanoma spots, two colon polyps, hernia surgery and an appendix removal [should I include my lasik surgery?] and just a month ago a serious staph infection on my chin that had me in the ER twice), I am disgusted with the system which forces people to US the ER and back-up my service when a simple (and far cheaper) doctor's visit would have solved the problem

I get it, I'm just not sure how it should be fixed.

~String

 

[Myles]

I first read about it in my science textbook. but apparently we are no more than a footnote. Even wikipedia agrees..




I guess we can take a little more credit for stomach ulcers..

Was there no mention of Alexander Fleming ?

 

[sandy]

How many here live in a gated community?
Or in Mexico or about any Southern country where the winner/loser formula has always been the setup? Anywhere slums adjoin high-rises and big walls?
Taxes are supposed to be for a public good, including the taxpayer's.

My opinion has nothing to do with owning homes in gated communities. It has to do with SELF-responsibility--something many people know NOTHING about. It's NOT the government's job to take money from the rich to pay for poor/loser/uninsured's healthcare. The numbers are way off too. Many of the uninsured can afford it but choose not to have it. They'd rather take the risk and then not pay. People should be responsible for themselves. Period.

 

[madanthonywayne]

should I include my lasik surgery?
~String

How did your LASIK surgery go? Any problems? How were you treated by the surgeon and his staff?

LASIK is generally a totally free-market procedure with minimal interference from insurance companies or the government.

If you go to a good surgeon, you're generally treated like a king. The surgeon I refer to for LASIK provides massages and aroma therapy to her LASIK patients while they're waiting for surgery so they're nice an relaxed.

Of course, the valium and benadryl help too.

On the other hand, there are clinics that charge cut rate prices and run you thru like cattle. I wouldn't recommend them.

 

[Myles]

My opinion has nothing to do with owning homes in gated communities. It has to do with SELF-responsibility--something many people know NOTHING about. It's NOT the government's job to take money from the rich to pay for poor/loser/uninsured's healthcare. The numbers are way off too. Many of the uninsured can afford it but choose not to have it. They'd rather take the risk and then not pay. People should be responsible for themselves. Period.

What stats have you got on people who can afford insurance but choose not to pay it ?

 

[iceaura]

2) our system already pays for people to go to any ER they want and the taxpayer flips the bill

The patient does not always have their choice of ER.

The taxpayer only foots the bill if the person has no resources.

If they have, say, a couple thousand in an emergency savings account, the ER visit will clean that out first, before turning to the taxpayer.

Hospitals have collection agencies on retainer, in the US. So do the doctors, anesthesiologists, consultants, radiologists, etc.

Each of these also have their own secretaries, bookkeepers, accountants, legal representation, records management personnel, etc.

I know you didn't mean to say any different - just expanding.

 

[sandy]

What stats have you got on people who can afford insurance but choose not to pay it ?

None. I saw it on a news story on CNN. You can Google it and research it if you want.

You also have 50 million uninsured criminal aliens they're figuring (at least some) into the mix.

 

[superstring01]

How did your LASIK surgery go? Any problems? How were you treated by the surgeon and his staff?

LASIK is generally a totally free-market procedure with minimal interference from insurance companies or the government.

If you go to a good surgeon, you're generally treated like a king. The surgeon I refer to for LASIK provides massages and aroma therapy to her LASIK patients while they're waiting for surgery so they're nice an relaxed.

Of course, the valium and benadryl help too.

On the other hand, there are clinics that charge cut rate prices and run you thru like cattle. I wouldn't recommend them.

It went well, I see great (this is why I sort of mentinoed it, but it really doesn't count).

~String