A True Tale of Canadian Health Care

Wait a minute, I thought part of the problem was too much testing costing too much money because doctors are afraid of lawsuits

 

There is a reason why laser surgery is not regulated, it is not necessary for 99.99% of the people who are getting it, like buying a new car. You can get it if you like, but you do not need it.

What about bypass surgery? If you don't get it, you die. By that logic we should unregulated it so that the price will drop from what couple hundred grands to oh merely 100 grand maybe, if you cannot afford it, too bad. Same thing with cancer treatments, kidney failure treatments.

The question is not just to reducecosts, it is also a issue of increasing coverage for more Americans.

Obama administration won't attack the cost issue because currently there is no chance in hell it would work. Maybe if everyone get covered and the cost double in say 8 to 10 years, people will scream hell and some serious cost reform measures will be passed (but I won't hold my breath).

 

Im actually more supportive of a single payer system than I am for this pseudo-HCR. At least a single payer is some type of reform. Since you see my concerns as "blatent fabrications or nonsense", then there is no need to argue, since you will believe they wont exist since the government says so. What i find interesting is that you actually agree with my biggest concern, but you are so nonchalant about the problem itself.

Car insurance is something different, but hey, why not try for a nonsensical argument.

 

Is it really your position that the people who cannot afford healthcare should just die?

 

As a starting point for rational discussion about a proposal the ground rules usually include a provision that one is expected to discuss the proposal, and not some alternative reality that is not germaine to anything actually being considered.

Health care reform does not mandate insurance. Your claim to the contrary is known as fabrication.

Failing to address patient quality of care is a red herring that implies any new plan will, by necessity, result in reduced service. This is known as conjecture.

Failing to address a shortage of doctors is similar conjecture, since you have no way of knowing what the doctor-to-patient ratio will be in 2019. It's also non-sensical as it assumes none of the 54 million uninsured folks in the US ever see the doctor currently.

Mandating no end to pre-existing condition clauses is non-sensical and heartless. A big **** you if you really think that's fair or ethically righteous.

I'd love a single payer system. But I've resigned myself to the reality that I live in the USA, where citizens are usually taken care of after corporations in terms of government representation, and where a substantial percentage of the population is intellectually incapable of dissociating media/corporate driven pseudo-patriotic nonsense from rational debate.

It is different, but it's also the same. (It is insurance, after all)

Answer the question: By your logic, there is no reason for someone young and healthy to be compelled to buy health insurance. Is there a good reason why someone with a good driving record and excellent hand-eye coordination should be forced to buy auto insurance?

 

That will be the easiest solution to medicare budget shortfall, die you oldies!

 

Nice. So you choose to pull SamFisherish tactics? Discredit the poster instead of addressing the issue?

You're right. Its not mandated. Speaking for myself personally, since I can't afford to to shell out a couple hundred a month to insurance, we'll just tax you for it instead. We'll call it a poor tax. After all, anyone making over 50k a year is rich.

Your exactly right. Its also conjecture to assume these issues won't exist. As I said, it was a CONCERN. I never implied it was anything else. These two issues go hand in hand. If there is an extreme doctor shortage, then yes, quality will go down. Since you require "expert opinion" on this matter, there is no point discussing this.

This is why I often never respond back to you. You resort to trollish tactics like other posters in this forum. You take a benign comment and twist it into what you believe in my personal opinion. No where did I say or imply that people with preexisting conditions did not deserve insurance. I said forcing insurance companies to take preexisting conditions is not HCR. Taking preexisting conditions is the exact opposite of the definition of insurance. You can't expect private companies to take guaranteed loses and expect them to stay in business.

I would much rather a private solution, but I feel only a single payer system can bring a true competitive private insurance option.

 

If you were struck with a life-threatening and financially-crippling medical condition, would you keep singing the same tune?

I sincerely doubt it.

If not, then I'll salute you as they put your pine box (lord knows it won't be a nice coffin, medical debts and such) in the ground.

 

I am sure shoval face is another one of those conservative who can pay for any health care cost out of pocket no matter what, there are tons of them in this country apparently.

 

Landlord Landry does not care about old people.

 

I never knew insurance was socialist. hmmmm. I guess you could make that argument -- but it's a pretty stupid one. (IMHO)

 

We all hope you die young then.

 

??? I am very specifically addressing the issue. You said mandating health insurance was not HCR. None of the HCR packages mandates insurance, ergo you fabricated such a position. It's not personal at all - it's communication, vocabulary, etc.

To a certain extent the disparity is quibbling. On the other hand, the Senate plan is like 750/yr tax by 2019 - it's a lot cheaper than insurance, even through an employer sponsored plan (at the moment).

Reading through your post, the statement "failure to seriously address patient quality of care" is hardly nonchalant concern, IMO, but fine - if you intended those declarations to be "concerns", I retract my commentary. Certainly, concerns are worthy of debate.

Well, you did not exactly spell it out either. And I have made it a point with you specifically not to be trollish - as I have remarked to you previously I appreciate your honesty in this discussion. I more often than not disagree with you and am constantly frustrated at how you dodge unsettling talking points or refrain from providing further details or quantifications regarding your positions, but I generally think you're open-minded about it for the most part. I try to be the same - but I draw the line at "right to healthcare" or "preexisting conditions". At a certain point the ideology of basic human rights trumps idealized statements about fiscal purity or political persuasion.

It's a bloody important step.

Which is why we need a public option, or better yet, single payer health insurance. I don't understand our country's obsession with maintaining private corporate control of systems that are quite obviously better suited to socialized solutions. We are the citizens, we can and should decide when better care is demanded than a private corporation can offer, and act accordingly. Hell, it's not like all these people will be without jobs - people will still need insurance!

I don't think something like health care is well suited to for-profit entities, as it inevitably pits margins against care. That being said, the current compromise solution maintaining some private control is fine by me - not because I am pleased or comforted by it, but because I understand that a good part of this nation seems to find the idea of better service and better prices unsettling if it means we infringe upon a private entities right to profit. Personally, I think that's capitalistic hypocrisy in the extreme, but I'm not at all surprised...

One final note Space Ghost - a lot of my comments to you are colored by past conversations, many of which you now appear to be shifting away from. That's not a bad thing of course, just pardon me if it takes a moment for me to realize you have altered course or decided a previous position inhospitable.

 

got to love the libertarians/economic conservatives when they let their hair down. Too bad Ron Paul doesn't just come out and say it.

 

Equating the specifics of Canadian health care system to what an American system would look like is a diversionary/scare tactic.

Canada and America (and all of Europe for that matter) are true democratically elected governments. Because Finland has a democracy, maybe America should just abandom the whole idea of democracy and invent a new system of government.

Every country has it's own flavor of democracy.

...and every country has it's own flavor of Health Care.

Nobody is suggesting that America inherits Canada's system.

...and no system, be it America/Canada/Finland are without their problems. the question we should be asking is how do we make our system better because I don't know anybody that says our system is perfect. But the party of "NO" (Repubs) just seems hell bent on oposing anything.

 

america's system just has its issues: when your putting an interest of profit for when they don't treat people, thats a porblem

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2009/12/07/cohen.vet.denied.colonoscopy.cnn

and on top of this, a personal experience where I know a family member who has been paying for a high quality and expensive insurance plan for 20 years, recently became ill and we were suggested to a treatment which was the only option, other than just slowly watching him go down to death...but bc it has a 50 percent chance of working, 1 out of 2 chance between life or death, it was deemed experimental and denied, it was our last and final option...