<p>I think VeryHappy’s posts are spot on. Anyone thinking about health care should consider these two points, in my opinion:</p>
<p>1) We have universal health care in America. We just deliver it in possible the most inefficient manner possible, both medically and financially. Why?</p>
<p>2) Other than tradition, why is health insurance linked to employment? Is there really some logical nexus there? Doesn’t that just make for bad business decisions and bad medical decisions?</p>
<p>Thinking over those two facts gets you a long way down the road, in my opinion.</p>
<p>My SIL (in Paris) kept on having headaches. She went to her doctor several times, and each time he diagnosed the famous French “crise de foie” (which has been shown to be a myth). One day. my brother comes home from work to find his wife passed out on the floor. He calls the doctor’s office only to find out that the doctor is on equally famous “mois de vacance.” There is a locum, fresh out of med school, who does make house calls. He is so scared by the sight of SIL passed out that he decides not venture a diagnosis and calls an ambulance instead. In the hospital, a battery of tests is administered. SIL has a cerebral aneurysm. Nothing to do with her liver. But once SIL was in hospital, she did get superb care.
Oh, by the way, that same year, brother was offered a new job at an increased salary. He decided to stay put when he found out that 80% of the salary increase would be eaten up by increased taxes and “charges sociales” (covering health and pension).
I also have stories about the British NEH. H’s cousin was a nurse in a major London hospital, and regaled us with stories about private patients jumping the queue and getting superior accommodations unlike regular patients who were in wards with 20 other patients.</p>
<p>Now with what has been two pages of a laundry list of complaints about the system currently IS it going to really be different with government run? You don’t think Uncle Bucks will ever say no? Deny treatment? Create less paperwork? Is the same government that’s been running OUR country?</p>
<p>This was my point previously, we are building up a single payer to be a cure all, and it can’t possibly be one. Your moving the people out at the top, claims will still need to be processed, forms filled out… I mean come on, look at the tax code…My tax return is a half inch thick. It’s going to be simpler? This is a real grass is greener situation and it’s greener because it sits over a septic tank full of you know what?</p>
<p>You know why insurance carriers say no to some procedures? because the FDA says “no”, Carriers wait until the feds give an OK? So if we wait for the feds to approve now, is that function going to go away? </p>
<p>Very happy makes some good points except for HC as cause of job loss here. Jobs are going overseas because they found people who will work for pennies a day, not because of healthcare. American car manufactures are losing ground because they no longer want to mass produce autos for a reasonable price. They’ve added so much fru fru stuff into cars that they are squeazing the market narrower and narrower. Cars are about three years away from having toliets installed…</p>
<p>Veryhappy, the reasons health care companies can’t pick and choose according to the norms, is that the norms are constantly changing, practically weekly, every time a new study is released. </p>
<p>In addition, there are, in general, many opposing philosophies among medical professionals about how a disease should be treated. When you consider the legitimate reasons stated above, and add in the kickbacks to Drs., Corporate dominance in the political realm, greed, etc. what you propose is unrealistic.</p>
<p>My husband got a house call from the German doctor when he had back spasms so bad he couldn’t get out of bed. I got to stay in the hospital with my jaundiced baby for five days. And the food was good too.</p>
<p>Marite, maybe not topping thisoldman’s story as the outcome was so serious - did SIL make a full recovery? - but the foreign ambience is appealing!</p>
<p>“That’s a scary thought. The same entity giving permission for “new experimental” procedures being the same entity that pays for it.”</p>
<p>We should be careful what we wish for… we might get it. </p>
<p>We could do what the other industrialized nations do and simply limit the profit margins in these industries. RX around the globe is limited to 20% or it was 15 years ago when I looked into it. I would imagine it still is. That is also another reason why the rx industry has such a heavy lobby here to prevent it from happening.</p>
<p>If it did, I wonder in what direction R&D would go. Would we pretty much be done with new drugs? Would drug companies do what tobacco did and invest in other sources of profit? I think it would take decades to solve this problem as EVERY aspect of our system is flawed including US.</p>
<p>My father, a Reagan Republican, about had a stroke when President Clinton’s wife had something to say about National Health Insurance. A few years after that, his wife’s nephew was diagnosed with leukemia. Recommendation: A bone marrow transplant. The nephew was in his early 20s, a carpenter, and had no health insurance. My father calls me up (I’m a cancer nurse) and says “They’re telling him it’s going to cost half a million dollars.” “That’s about right,” I answer. “Well, how do they expect people to pay that?”</p>
<p>Aarrgghh.</p>
<p>Many bake sales and car washes later, the young man in question is cured and my S has a great topic for college essays. He can’t wait to see “Sicko”.</p>
<p>I’m eager to see this movie. After 17 years with a terrific company, they are pulling out of my state. UBH and Humana are my best options, but both will cost a lot more even with huge deductible. It would cost between $6-7000 a year for reasonable deductible, but one could only pay down that deductible by using network MDs. Doing preventative care would be prohibitive.</p>
<p>I can understand why a 26 y o self-employed carpenter would delay joining a health insurance plan.</p>
<p>Northeastmom: Insurance companies are for-profit companies. They’ve chosen to be in the nsurance industry, but they get to manage their risk. They can determine rules – for example, if they want to, and if it’s not against the many state laws that exist (and that, BTW, are different in all 50 states) – they could decide not to cover – oh, antibiotics. Or well-baby check-ups. Or appendix removal. They are allowed to determine what they cover.</p>
<p>And my point is, if we had a single-payer plan, one entity would make those determinations, and everyone’s coverage would be the same.</p>
<p>In that case, Opie of Maybery2, it would not be true that
</p>
<p>It would be simpler because pateints, doctors, claims payers would all know what’s covered. There’d be only one claims payer for each claim, not two or three if you also have Medicare or coverage through a spouse. It’d be “one and done.”</p>
<p>Think of the billions of dollars in savings in administration alone.</p>
<p>Jamie, yes, thanks. Afterward, she boasted she was the only person of her acquaintance to have platinum in her brain! A small piece was put there to clamp on her vein (artery?)</p>
<p>VeryHappy, I am “veryhappy” too, that insurance companies don’t always get away with it. H is an attorney and I can tell you that insurance companies do not always get away without paying for what some believe that they are obligated to pay for. Yes, they state what they cover and what they do not cover. Sometimes there are gray areas, or they determine that something is not covered when others believe that it is covered.</p>
<p>We all have to realize that EVERY country rations health care. The Brits and Canadians do it by a queuing theory (two year wait for hip replacement surgery, drug formularies), or denying care in the last year of life.</p>
<p>The US rations care by price. Look at the Medicare budget and you’ll see that the vast majority of its bucks are spent on seniors in their last year of life, most of which would not be spent (bcos there would be no care provided, save for hospice care) in Canada or Britain.</p>
<p>I’m not sure to what you’re referring when you mention that seniors are not cared for in Canada. This is simply not true. Perhaps you could elaborate?</p>
<p>Also, I personally know seven individuals who have had hip replacements (two of them, more than one!) and not one of them had to wait anywhere close to two years.</p>
<p>I have a friend with relatives who live in Canada. My friend told me that there were long waits to see a specialist, but I don’t know if this still occurs, b/c I was told about this many years ago.</p>
<p>Oh, seniors are definitely cared for, but the care is not as extensive as in the US, particularly in the last year of life. Instead of experimental or high cost procedures, and/or drugs (as noted previously by Very Happy), the stock response is: ‘Sorry, there is nothing more we can do’ and recommend hospice care.</p>
<p>Quite frankly, that may be better for a person’s quality of life in the last year, but the standard of care and extent of care is just different.</p>
<p>Kluge hit right on what I was going to say.</p>
<p>Obviously the current system in American is ineffective. That does not mean that UHC administered by government is the way to go.</p>
<p>As Kluge asked, why is health care managed by employers? During WWII wage limits were placed on employers which limited companies’ abilities to attract the best workers. Since fringe benefits weren’t counted, companies started providing health benefits to workers as a way to slide past the wage limit rules. This developed into the employer-provided health insurance seen today. The question is, why is it still like this? There is no rhyme or reason to it. You need to deal with this stupid quirk in our system before getting anywhere, I think.</p>
<p>Medical costs are incredible because new technology and new drugs cost more than old technology and primitive drugs. We need to find a way to make these expensive things affordable. You can do this by limiting their use in any number of ways, forcing the cost on someone else, or making it cheaper.</p>