[Rick James]

Despite me being Canadian, I've been following the situation in the United States regarding health care reform for quite some time now. And I have to say that I am more than a little unnerved at what I'm seeing.

I could go into detail about why American health care scares me, but Keith Olbermann does it so much better.

Now, as a Canadian, I realize that our own health care certainly isn't the absolute best out there. We do still end up paying for things like optometry, dentistry, and prescription meds, but we end up paying a hell of a lot less than our American counterparts because almost all employers (at least around where I live) provide some form of health insurance, which usually carries on into retirement as part of the Canada Pension Plan in addition to our regular pension. We can still pay for things like heart medication and teeth care and glasses after we retire. Pharmaceutical costs are set at a global median by government price controls.

But here's the thing: I don't live in America. I'm just a guy looking down across the border, sipping a beer and going, "Damn, what a cluster****."

So, to all our American forumites, I ask: is your health care really as ****ty compared to other health care systems abroad? To all non-American forumites: what's health care in your country like?

[Kosh]

Part of it is because the government in Canada puts pressure on supply companies (like drug companies) to keep the prices reasonable, so often many Americans jump the border to get prescription drugs they otherwise would have to pay out of the ass for. According to wikipedia, in 2006 Canada spent 10% of its GDP on healthcare, while America spent 15%. According to a Harvard Medical School study, the number one cause of bankruptcy in America is, you guessed it, healthcare bills. The government hasn't done any price controls because of the massive amounts of legal corruption in the form of campaign contributions from Big Healthcare (they spend millions and millions of dollars every year).

My mom works in an insurance company (a clerk), and evidently hospitals often intentionally overcharge their patients in order to bilk the insuance companies as much as possible and to make extra $$$$. If your insurance company doesn't want to pay (and yes they sometimes will refuse to pay for important treatment if they think it costs too much), you're fracked. If you lose your job in America, in many cases you will also lose your employer provided healthcare as well so if you can't find a job pronto then you're in trouble. I read 4 years ago (when the economy was supposed to be good) that 40 million people didn't have health insurance, now no doubt that number has gotten much bigger. If you end up in the emergency room and you're without insurance, the hospital by law is required to give you full treatment for free, so many people without insurance wait until there is a huge emergency because they can't afford to get preventative treatment.

[Kosh]

I can also write a section just on the shady stuff the drug companies do. One of the things they do is to flood every doctors office, tv and sometimes even radio station with advertising. The result? People coming into doctors offices convinced they have X disease and want Y medication, regardless of what they doctors actually say. Of course this crap is expensive, Big Pharma says the high drug prices are important for R&D, but in reality most of it is to pay the massive advertising budgets (drug ads are everywhere on TV), the lobbyists, and in some cases buy off the FDA.


EDIT: I'll also throw in some more. The biggest market Big Pharma has been trying to reach in the last couple of decades has been......children and teenagers. On the documentary "Generation RX", they show a coloring book for elementary school students describing a situation where a child's (people were represented with kangaroos) friend moves away so the child feels sad for a couple of days, then gets taken to a "special doctor" where he/she is loaded up with drugs and suddenly is much better. In addition to that, they are always pushing things like ADD (I refuse to use the term "ADHD"), depression, bi-polar, and a few others at various psychiatric and teacher conferences. Teacher sees a problem student, then refers him/her to someone else who will automatically give a diagnosis (usually ADHD) and put huge amounts of pressure on doctors to prescribe medication for it, regardless of what the doctor says. 1/30 kids is on Ridalin, and there are other drugs that are common (presecriptions for children with "bi-polar" are rising fast). Now, of all those kids I'll be willing to bet there might be a very small number of cases (such as extreme hyperactivity and asperger's syndrome) in which such medication is actually appropriate and very helpful, but for the majority of cases it isn't needed and is harmful. When you introduce those kinds of medications to  a normal mind, it just causes problems (serious problems like brain atrophy and an increase in violent behavior or suicide).

[iamzack]

I have US military healthcare. It's pretty great (very low copays) except for the part where almost no doctors outside military bases accept it. :<

[chief1983]

Hospital overcharging is definitely no joke in America.  You can get charged $200 for a "Mucus Disposal System", or something similarly named, which is a box of tissues.  Tissues!  It's recommended that even if you have insurance covering everything, you still scrutinize your bill, because your insurance company won't take the time, and if you have a lifetime limit on your insurance you could hit it that much sooner.  You can also often straight negotiate with the hospital, they'd rather get some money than have you go bankrupt and get none of it.  They're just like any other bill collector, except that sometimes it's actually 10 different collectors because each doctor handles his own billing sometimes, private practice won't usually go through the hospital.

[Janos]

I have US military healthcare. It's pretty great (very low copays) except for the part where almost no doctors outside military bases accept it. :<

you can't but love the people who claim that government-run healthcare simply cannot work and either ignore or, even worse, praise the military healthcare in the next sentence

it's just so weird

[Sarafan]

So, to all our American forumites, I ask: is your health care really as ****ty compared to other health care systems abroad? To all non-American forumites: what's health care in your country like?

Wow, seeing how bad the US system is makes me thankfull of the one here, the problem with health care in my country is that 50% of it works, 50% lets you die on the waiting line (yes, this kind of thing does happen here.).

I'll let wiki explain some more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Brazil

The government has its own health care system (SUS) which is free for everyone; covers treatment for most diseases/accidents/etc; needed medication is handed freely to patients and this is one of the crucial things I like, here you dont see none of the BS those companies make, the government pretty much told the pharmaceutical companies to go ****ck themselves over what they were charging and started making generic versions of their medications and its not only common drugs, for example, every drug HIV treatment needs is given for free (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157628.php), the result? Health improved by leaps and bounds for the entire population, specially those who could have never afforded the drugs before.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1338

The price the companies charge for the medicine they make is completely absurd, some drugs can cost $50 (usually more) on a drugstore but the generic version which is also sold can cost only a 1/4 of the price.

Of course, there's the other 50%, the whole system is understaffed, underpaid and barely receives enough investment and you have to count on a lot of patience depending on what treatment is yours because the waiting lines can go for years, specially if its a transplant. The private health care here is also 50/50, you have to be really careful of which you choose, some work and work well, others are as bad as the US ones but for both you have to work as a slave to pay them.

[Nuclear1]

I have US military healthcare. It's pretty great (very low copays) except for the part where almost no doctors outside military bases accept it. :<

Very true...

[Sushi]

But here's the thing: I don't live in America. I'm just a guy looking down across the border, sipping a beer and going, "Damn, what a cluster****."

So, to all our American forumites, I ask: is your health care really as ****ty compared to other health care systems abroad? To all non-American forumites: what's health care in your country like?

The care is (in general) very, very good. The costs are...insane. And, in some cases, baffling.

For example, I know someone who had a failed pregnancy. The baby didn't miscarry normally, so the doctors had to perform a DNC and basically vacuum out the inside of the womb. Did I mention that said person didn't have insurance that covered maternity costs? And that they couldn't get on Medicaid (or whatever) since they had changed states immediately after the start of the pregnancy? Total out-of-pocket cost to them was over $6000.

You know what's even worse? Had it been an elective abortion, it would have cost less than $500 out of pocket. And the procedure at that stage of pregnancy is EXACTLY THE SAME.

The system is pretty screwed up, and it makes me furious. The current healthcare proposals in congress don't convince me that they will improve the situation at all. IMO the basic problem is that healthcare costs (as charged by doctors & hospitals) are out of control, for a whole host of reasons I don't claim to fully grok. THAT's the problem that needs to be solved. I'd be totally happy paying out-of-pocket for non-catastrophic healthcare as long as the costs were reasonable (which they aren't).

I'm open to the idea of a single-payer system, but what I DON'T want is a system that tries to combine a free-market system with socialized care and end up with the worst of both worlds (indeed, you can argue that the current mess is because we've been trying to do exactly that). If we're going to go down the socialized medicine path, let's do it all at once and go pure single-payer.

What I'd REALLY prefer is for states to have the latitude to set up their own systems (be it pure free-market, pure single-payer, or some bastard mix of both). In other words, get the Federal government out of healthcare completely and let the states do what they want. That way, people have more choice in the system they participate in AND we let natural selection show which systems actually work.

[SpardaSon21]

My family here in America is very happy with its healthcare.

[Grizzly]

America is the only developed country that does not have an health plan for its citizens.

So why the hell do we call it an developed country anyway?

[High Max]

The system is pretty screwed up, and it makes me furious.

I agree and understand your anger on the matter. Sadly these expensive prices and a lot of it just being hoaxes to make people buy their stuff even if it means kids who are fine get hurt in the process is the result of a greedy superficial culture like here. I feel anger thinking how they use those kids as lab experiments or just drugging them up even if they know nothing is wrong with the kid. It is like saying that the kids should be emotionless and heartless, and if they are not, they have depression. Like saying that if a person acts human, there is something wrong. It makes you want to move. It is scary to think about those kids being drugged up and also knowing the Ridalin is said to cause brain damage. I don't believe in much of that western medicine. As you all know, I prefer just eating healthy with no vitamins and I'm healthier than many who take oral medicine and vitamins. Only sometimes will I use topical medicine for anti-fungal treatment.

As a kid, I had bad experiences with certain medicine and I don't need it and I'm fine now as an adult. Most of the time, kids grow out of their behaviors, even if they were diagnosed with certain conditions (mild forms) and think back and feel silly for ever doing certain things and come to wish they never acted a certain way.

A lot of this medication advertizing is just a way for those companies to get your money. After all, they are a business and it is in the best interest of any business to make money. How immoral can people be to put kids in those situations and they don't even have a say in it since they are under 18? Sadly, it will get worse, probably.

[chief1983]

Why does being developed require you to provide nationalized health care?

[MR_T3D]

I have US military healthcare. It's pretty great (very low copays) except for the part where almost no doctors outside military bases accept it. :<

you can't but love the people who claim that government-run healthcare simply cannot work and either ignore or, even worse, praise the military healthcare in the next sentence

it's just so weird

like the other day when jon stewart nailed that guy.

but really, all capitialistic health 'insurance' should be evil: their goal is to make money while doing everything they can to not lose it to bay for some sorry fool's treatment just because they are poor.

[chief1983]

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?

[iamzack]

Because of having the issues with very few to no doctors accepting my health insurance, the biggest thing I want out of government health insurance is a sort of guarantee that almost all doctors will accept your insurance. People talk about the freedom and choice and whatnot with private health insurance, but it doesn't seem very free OR choice-y to me that you don't really get to pick your doctors a lot of the time, and your career is likely to be based on which employers provide insurance.

In a couple years, I will lose my parents' insurance, and I don't know what comes after that. :<

[Grizzly]

Why does being developed require you to provide nationalized health care?

Nationalized health care != Universal Health Plan. It can also mean a 'compulsory regulated pluralist insurance (public, private or mutual) meeting certain regulated standards.' (copied from Wikipedia because I lacked the vocabulary to express it properly), Similar to the system in the Netherlands.

EDIT: Not entirely, actually, but you get the message. somewhat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_Netherlands

[SpardaSon21]

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.  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.

I also disagree with a single-payer government-run health care plan.  There is no free-market incentive to keep prices down through competition, and unlike traditional insurance, you can't really opt of the plan and purchase medical care on your own terms, like you can with insurance today.  It also spreads the costs around, so the healthier users subsidize the unhealthy users, and unlike traditional market-governed insurance plans there will most likely be a mandate to be in the government plan, so people will be forced to remain in a plan that they don't like.

[Colonol Dekker]

I disagree, i pay taxes so i don't have to pay huge bills of rminor ailments.

[Ghostavo]

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.  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.

I also disagree with a single-payer government-run health care plan.  There is no free-market incentive to keep prices down through competition, and unlike traditional insurance, you can't really opt of the plan and purchase medical care on your own terms, like you can with insurance today.  It also spreads the costs around, so the healthier users subsidize the unhealthy users, and unlike traditional market-governed insurance plans there will most likely be a mandate to be in the government plan, so people will be forced to remain in a plan that they don't like.

And may I ask what keeps the prices down in the current system?