[iamzack]

He almost had it right. I think he's getting better.

[BloodEagle]

The USA should stop their petty wars and evil invasion games that those generals love so much and spend the money on improving the out-of-date infrastructure here too besides the health care. If some military men love shooting or bombing, they can play FS or hunt an animal.

  did that come from? And which infrastructure are you speaking of?

[iamzack]

Our public education system? Especially at the post-high school level?

[Liberator]

And this is where it falls apart.

The Liberals(bleeding hearts, eco-nuts, whatever) see this as fundamentally about human rights, which should be guaranteed at all costs.  The Conservatives see this as fundamentally about freedom, or more accurately the absconding thereof by an evermore larger and invasive Federal Government.  And the actual issue gets lost in the middle, as it does so often.

Both sides agree that the primary causal agent for the perceived inequalities in health care stem from ridiculous cost overages like the $200 box of Kleenex noted above.  Do you honestly think this aspect would get better under a program run by a government who pays $2000 for a toilet seat or $500 for a claw hammer and doesn't bat an eye?

One of the main reasons for these massive is a lack of competition.  Many patients seldom seek a second opinion from they're family doctor, much less price shop that $2000 test that they might get for $1500 somewhere else.  Perhaps they feel like they would be judged to be skimping on grandma's health or they're childs health.  Regardless, these are the kind of changes that need to be made.  Not some sweeping Government program that would hand over the keys to my bank account should I not pay for some reason.  If you think collection calls are bad, just wait till the Big G can perform an electronic funds transfer directly out of your account for non-payment.  It's in there, something like page 310 or something like that as I recall(probably incorrectly)

Nevermind that one of the primary proponents of this program just requested three 65 million dollar private jets for her personal use in the midst of the largest recession in 40 years.

[IronBeer]

You seem to speak sense, sir. That's gotta count for something.

Nevermind that one of the primary proponents of this program just requested three 65 million dollar private jets for her personal use in the midst of the largest recession in 40 years.

But, may I ask for a source for this anecdote?

[NGTM-1R]

One of the main reasons for these massive is a lack of competition.

This is straight up bull****. It's a deregulated basic service. You can't afford not to have it, like water or electricity. As in any deregulated basic service, the name of the game becomes how much you can charge the customers without provoking the government to regulate you again. Competition or lack thereof has nothing to do with the high costs of the system; the fact that they can charge whatever they want until they provoke public rebellion does.

This is why Federal Employee healthcare, which I've spent my whole life under, is so excellent and costs nearly nothing; it will be noticed quickly by the government if they start screwing with it, leading to regulation.

[Flipside]

It's difficult for a man to pull himself out of the gutter when one hospital trip can put you back in it, I suppose.

I'm all for the Right for a poor man to rise to President, but does that Right actually exist in the USA, or is a lie people tell themselves in the hope it will someday be true? It is good to have an ideal, but sometimes I fear that people ignore the realities in the belief that doing so will make the system work.

I suppose for my part, if someone wants to make a complete mess of their lives, then that is their choice, but many injuries and illnesses are not a matter of choice, your living quality affects your vulnerability, and your vulnerability affects your ability to improve your living quality.

It's like growing celery in the desert, if the soil isn't right, ain't nothing gonna grow, it's the same with people, those living in slums don't just need to 'pull their socks up and straighten up', they need to know that someone outside their local group actually gives a damn.

[High Max]

Our public education system? Especially at the post-high school level?

I'm talking about electrical, transportation, roads, bridges, etc. We still use a system that the electrical companies can't even monitor in real time and they can't know if the power goes out unless someone calls it in. These days they should have it connected to an internet-like sensor and communication system that gets real time data and current status of the power infrastructure and how it is being received by the places it is being sent to and be able to sense damage or power problems. They still have to have the electrical company manually read your meter by sending people out in every case instead of using communication tech to do so from their company. Very out of date.

Roads are falling apart with pot holes, and bridges are old and have been collapsing and the vehicle fleet should be updated with its fuel economy increased and a sleek design like they are doing in parts of Europe, instead of continuing to have the inefficient cube-shaped nose.

Old copper telephone wire and tech is all over the place here in the year 2009 while other parts of the world get fresh fiber optic installed since they didn't have an old infrastructure to replace to the degree that is needed here. Actually, satellite internet and phone communication would be better than wiring up the world and the quality of the phone audio needs improvement along with objects that have automated voices with poor sound quality, like in busses or speakers in elevators.

Buildings are also out of date and old in most cases. Also, same with the sewage system. The program I watched about the USA's crumbling infrastructer gave the infrastructure here a D grade in its current condition.

Also, less health care would be needed if people took better care of themselves when it comes to lifestyle choices.

[Grizzly]

Also, less health care would be needed if people took better care of themselves when it comes to lifestyle choices.

Making sure your health care is in order is an awesome lifestyle choice.

[Kosh]

And you think the corrupt politicians who have let it get the way it is are just suddenly going to be enlightened and create something that actually helps people?

That goes into another big problem and that is our tolerance of corruption, mostly in the form of campaign contributions. Based on annecdotal evidence from a friend of mine Germany has an excellent healthcare system, and it is free (except the delicious meals, but even those are at reasonable prices). If they could do it why can't we?

I'm going to come right out and say I have to disagree with compulsory health care of any kind.  The poor can't afford health insurance, otherwise they would already have it, so that means everyone else ends up paying for the health care of the poor.  The poor end up getting free health care simply because they are poor, and everyone who isn't poor gets stuck with the bill.

They already do to a degree, everytime they end up in the emergency room it costs the taxpayers more than it would have to simply let them get preventative treatment in the first place.

And a compulsory health care system reduces competition in the marketplace since the providers have a captive market.  There is a reduced incentive to keep prices down because you are forced to buy health care from one of the companies.

Perhaps you would care to show me where these mystical low prices are? It is also in the Land of Makebelieve? The only low prices I saw in the US were in Canada. But you're also failing to take something into account, even people with insurance sometimes end up going totally broke because their insurance only covers a certain percentage of the cost. 50% of $80,000 is still $40,000, and not a lot of people have that much lying around.

but legal business practices and totally uncontrolled payouts in malpractice suits.

What about the obscene cost of precription drugs?

I guess what it boils down to is that certain people in America want to use this issue to exert they're will over the populace en toto.  I mean if the Government is in charge of making Life and Death decisions concerning your health, that basically gives them the right to force you to do pretty much anything they want to "ensure your continued health" including exerting said control on what and when you eat, what kind of car/truck/motorcycle you are allowed to drive, ect. 

Fallacy.

That aside, I do agree that there is a serious problem with healthcare in this country.  There's something blatantly wrong when tens of millions of Americans can't even afford basic coverage, and there's something wrong when overly-exorbitant costs and unnecessary executive bureaucracy prevent people from getting the care they need.  (This rather heartrending blog details some of the ridiculous hoops that one set of parents has to jump through to care for their epileptic daughter.)  I don't know what the best solution to the current situation is, whether it's the current plan before Congress or some alternative way of cutting down the current pricing scheme (I'm kind of against the single-payer idea on principle), but something does need to be done, and now.  At the same time, I don't want whatever is done to result in major tax hikes or shoving the country further into ridiculous debt.

Taxes are going to get bumped anyway, probably the $1.3 trillion annual deficits have something to do with it. My question to you is what do you suggest we do about it? About the out of control costs and the massive blatant corruption?

One of the main reasons for these massive is a lack of competition.  Many patients seldom seek a second opinion from they're family doctor, much less price shop that $2000 test that they might get for $1500 somewhere else.  Perhaps they feel like they would be judged to be skimping on grandma's health or they're childs health.

Often you aren't allowed to get a second opinion, insurance companies typically force you to go to a certain doctor and getting them to change it is quite a pain. Say you're on vacation and something goes wrong, so you go to see a doctor in another state. Good luck getting the company to cover that since the doctor is outsite "The Plan".

 

It's difficult for a man to pull himself out of the gutter when one hospital trip can put you back in it, I suppose.

It's social darwinism at its finest. Read the book "Deerhunting with Jesus" for more sordid details about this kind of thing.

[Mars]

I am uninsured as of last week. It's kinda scary, because now there's no way I can pay for emergency care. 

[Kosh]

The emergency room is free by law if you don't have insurance and can't afford it, but nothing else is.

[Turambar]

Free because taxpayers pay for it. And boy-o is it expensive. (see iamzack's $14000 emergency surgery)

[Nuke]

i think the real problem is the legal system, malpractice insurance, and available technology. doctors have to buy malpractice insurance incase they screw up, because if they do then they can be sued for thousands or even millions of dollars. so they have to pay malpractice insurance which increases the overall cost of medical services.

the insurance then requires them to use more diagnostic technologies. more x-rays, more mri scans, more ulrasound scans, pet scans, cat scans, ekg, eeg, ect. firing up some of that equipment can cost thousands of dollars in materials, power, maintanence expendable components (xray film for example). malpractice insurance sometimes requires the doctors to perform more diagnostics than are neccisary. the doctor can no longer use gut instinct or skill. and must be certain what the problem is before they can perform any treatment.

you go to the emergency room with a broken arm, when back before doctors became money magnets, he would use his skills to locate the fracture is and set it in a cast, xray made things slightly better, but for somone with a low income it was considered optional. you do the same thing today, your arm will be in 4 different scanners before you even see a doctor, and your bill will be through the roof. then they tell you its just a sprang give you a sling and an overpriced bottle of asprin. it used to be you could go to a dentist to get a tooth pulled, now only an oral surgeon can do the task, and not without a bunch of xrays. were talking about a procedure you could get done at a barber shop for 5 bucks and a bottle of whisky a hundred years ago.

the insurance wont let them work without those scans as part of a legal agreement. i think that this level of certainty should be considered a luxury and not a requirement. the result of all of this is that medical bills are a lot higher than they need to be. average joes are being forced into paying a rich mans bill. some people just do without any health care at all because all they can get is top of the line care, which they cannot afford. the idea is that some care is better than none at all. dont even start with government funded health care till you can streamline the existing medical industry. only then would you be able to pull it off.

[Sarafan]

the doctor can no longer use gut instinct or skill. and must be certain what the problem is before they can perform any treatment.

If I'm sick. I sure as hell want the doctor to be sure of what do I have instead of him going by his "guts". And if you want cheap tooth removal, pick a fight.

[Liberator]

If you present with ambiguous symptoms then usually it's either the "gut" feeling or a $40,000 test.  Which would you pick first?

[Sushi]

If I'm sick. I sure as hell want the doctor to be sure of what do I have instead of him going by his "guts". And if you want cheap tooth removal, pick a fight.

Well, in some cases, I agree. I would, however, prefer it if doctors actually asked me ("I'm 80% sure, but the test to confirm absolutely is $5000...") before ordering funk-nasty-expensive tests. Also, obviously, some things (like cancer) are more deserving of extensive testing than others (like a broken arm).

[Flipside]

The thing that I'm wondering, is why these tests and stuff cost $40000, that might be the fee but the cost is probably considerably less than that sum.

In part pharmaceutical and medical corporations such as Glaxo-Smith-Kline are responsible for that problem. in much the same way that a pill magically varies in cost by, quite literally, thousands of percent, depending on the country it is being sold in.

In order for medicine to work, it must NOT centre around profit, it's like paying for the Fire Service, it's just begging for unscrupulous individuals to go standing round a house of a prospective customer mentioning how flammable it looks, and how just one 'carelessly' placed match could send it up in flames. Funding should obviously be a consideration, but there has to be a limit on capitalism when it comes to the requirements of basic human survival.

[High Max]

Who says medicine works? I think if often times doesn't and the goverment wants to keep natural cures or remedies a secret so they can give you a pill that if it works, it only does so temporarily like a magic spell. Seems a lot of these medicines help you by hurting you and causing other problems (severe side effects and some medicine basically being rat poison (coumadin), maybe so they can get you to buy medicine for those new problems created by that other medicine. Maybe those bad effects were purposely put into the medicine to make you buy more medicine to make more money even at the expense of your health.

They won't encourage you just to change your diet, huh? that would prevent having to buy certain medicines to begin with by helping to prevent certain problems. Only the doctor encourages that, I suppose, but maybe even they do not as much as they should and they may not care either. You know you can buy natural foods and some other things that are much cheaper that don't have the nasty side effects? You can use banana peels to help your skin, for example. I would trust that more than these comapines that just want your money. That is why Japanese live so long and have less health problems while America seems to have diseases more commonly. Because they eat smarter than people here and have enough self respect and discipline to take care of their health, on average.

Now it makes sense, the word syndrome is going around more so these days to trick people in thinking something is wrong with them so they will buy more medicine and they make more money. It is very selfish to the point that it is heartless. No wonder many people start to think USA is evil since that is one of multiple reasons I would think so. But it isn't just the government you have to watch for but the way the average citizen here thinks and behaves and what they support. You got many blinded by patriotism and more. This was something I saw yesterday that was disturbing:

http://themoralcollapseofamerica.blogspot.com/

The most disturbing thing in this article is the pic you see of that innocent baby as you scroll down from the top of the page. Nevermind the parts that seem religious though.

[iamzack]

Don't read that blog. You're already a conspiracy nut. You don't need their help.