http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/28080.htm According to Nadeem Esmail and Michael Walker of Canada's Fraser Institute, the median wait for an appointment with a cardiologist in Canada's single-payer health-care system was 3.4 weeks in 2003. The wait for urgent bypass surgery was another 2.1 weeks on top of that, while the wait for elective bypass surgery was a further 10.7 weeks. Great Britain and New Zealand have even longer waiting times for bypass surgery. Later it reads... Had America had followed his lead 10 years ago, President Clinton might not have been able to get his diagnosis and surgery appointment so quickly. Instead of waiting overnight for an appointment with a cardiologist, he might have had to wait the 3.4 weeks Canadians do. Instead of waiting three days for quadruple bypass surgery, he might have had to wait more than two weeks. Another... But the future is less certain. Sen. John F. Kerry is aggressively promoting his $1 trillion health-care plan, which borrows heavily from the Clinton plan. Kerry too seems to believe that having government issue a paper guarantee of "coverage" is the same thing as having access to medical care. Read the whole article, it's pretty interesting.
Wow, the article is blatantly false. Or at least manipulated. People in Great Britain do not have that long of a wait. I know someone who's grandfather did in fact have bypass surgery. It was not a wait but was handeled immediately. The fact of the matter is that if Great Britain is booked up and can't perform the surgery they will find a hospital in Europe that can and pay for the the person to go Belgium, Austria, or wherever the facilities are ready, and have the surgery done right away. All of this is done free of charge or for a very tiny amount for some of the meds in follow up. I was in an auto accident in New Zealand, with my mother's uncle who hurt his spine. He had a three week long hospital stay, and surgery on his spine. It cost us zero. We signed a paper the day he got out, and that was it. We even made friends with the physician and would go to her families house for dinner occasionally during our wait for his release. Recently the UN released it's list of countries and their health care quality. The U.S. was 7th or 8th. I can't remember. The number 1 country, and most if not all of the other country's ahead of us all had universal healthcare.
Yes. When have they ever released biased systems of healthcare systems? I'd be happy to read any events when that's happened in the past. If you don't trust the UN look at infant mortality rates, life expectancy availability of healthcare to all citizens etc.
Guess how long you have to wait to get elective bypass in the US if you don't have insurance. How about a hernia operation which my brother in law had to have. Can you say "never".
I'm not saying we have the best system possible you guys. I'm just saying we have the best one available right now.
Have you even read Kerry's plan? Or do you just take the Bush team's word it's a bad deal? The point that other people in this thread have been making is that there are better systems available and they are in use in other countries. Why not ours?
The problem with a government health care is threefold. One - anything government run is inevitable second rate. Research any of the worlds government health care plans and you'll see this. Two - If you guys don't trust the government with your library records why would you trust them with your medical records? Three - Imagine the amount of liberty that could be lost and the problems that would arise when the taxpayers pay for your health costs. Heart bypass? Sorry, you passed your Big Mac allottment for the year. Cavity? Sorry, the Surgeon General told you smoking was bad. So the problem lies in the fact that taxpayers would want certain laws and limits passed on what you could do/eat because they have an interest in your health now. So besides the war on drugs, we'll have the war on obesity and the war on gingivitis and the result of all those could be a loss of liberty much greater than the one most people cry about due to the Patriot Act.
halfbreed: I'm not concerned about invasion of privacy here for two reasons. 1. There's nothing to be gained by the government nosing through medical records. The idea with the library stuff is that the government wants to know what you're thinking and what you're reading. That is chilling in the United States of America. 2. I seriously doubt that Kerry would advocate the government taking an interest in medical records and I further think he would be for safeguards against invasion of privacy. (I do agree it's a good question to put ot him though -- luckily you can attend one of his events without promising to endorse him and you can ask him a question that hasn't been pre-approved by his campaign. Isn't America great?) We know why Ashcroft's Justice Dept. is looking at library records because they've told us. The idea behind the Kerry plan is about making health care affordable, not gaining access to private records. Are you against making health care affordable? I work as a private contracter these days. I write and direct plays for money but it's not enough to survive on, so I also do technical writing. I'm currently writing a manual on governmental regulations and industry standards for property and engineering managers. I basically work two full time jobs, but I can't afford health care. Am I a deadbeat, do you think? Do I deserve health care, do you think? You say our health care will be diminished by this system. Kerry says every American should be able to afford the same health care he gets as a US Senator. What about that do you oppose?
halfbreed: This is the proposal. Where, specifically, does your problem with it lie? http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/health_care/ Affordable, high-quality health care will keep our families healthy, our businesses competitive, and our country strong. Over the last three years, family premiums have increased by more than $3,512 and prescription drug prices have grown four times faster than inflation. These skyrocketing costs have hurt our economy and forced many families into bankruptcy. We deserve a president who understands that in America, regular check-ups shouldn't empty family checkbooks - a president who will put people ahead of insurance and drug companies. John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to address soaring premiums and cut Americans a break. Their plan will lower family premiums by up to $1,000 a year, cut waste from the system, lower the cost of prescription drugs to provide real relief to seniors, and use targeted tax cuts to extend affordable, high-quality coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every child. And because John Kerry and John Edwards believe that everyone's health is equally important, they will provide all Americans with access to the same coverage that members of Congress give themselves. To make affordable health care a right - not a privilege - for every American, John Kerry and John Edwards will: Cut Your Premiums John Kerry and John Edwards will cut family premiums by up to $1,000. That's $1,000 in real savings people can use to buy groceries, pay the bills, and save for their children's future. And that will mean more jobs and more competitive American businesses. Cover All Americans With Quality Care The Kerry-Edwards plan will give every American access to the range of high-quality, affordable plans available to members of Congress and extend coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every American child. Their plan will also fight to erase the health disparities that persist along racial and economic lines, ensure that people with HIV and AIDS have the care they need, end discrimination against Americans with disabilities and mental illnesses, and ensure equal treatment for mental illness in our health system. Cut the Cost of Prescription Drugs The Kerry-Edwards plan will reduce prescription drug prices by allowing the re-importation of safe prescription drugs from Canada, overhauling the Medicare drug plan, ensuring low-cost drugs, and ending artificial barriers to generic drug competition. Cut Waste And Inefficiency Today, approximately 25 percent of health care costs are wasted on paperwork and administrative processing. The Kerry-Edwards plan harnesses American ingenuity to cut waste, save billions, and take new steps to ensure patient privacy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/politics/campaign/17bush.html Bush Says Kerry Is Pushing Nationalized Health Care By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and ROBIN TONER Published: September 17, 2004 OCHESTER, Minn., Sept. 16 - Using terms reminiscent of Republican attacks on President Bill Clinton's ill-fated effort to reshape the health care system a decade ago, President Bush attacked Senator John Kerry's health care proposal on Thursday, saying "it's a plan that is massive and it's big, and it puts the government in control of health care." Mr. Bush's critique won applause from Republicans as he campaigned through Minnesota, a once reliably Democratic state that polls suggest is up for grabs in November. But his words drew a sharp rebuttal from the Kerry campaign, which said Mr. Bush was deliberately misrepresenting Mr. Kerry's plan, and from some independent analysts, who said the White House had little basis for its suggestion that Mr. Kerry was seeking to nationalize health care. Democrats see health care as one of Mr. Bush's greatest vulnerabilities, and Mr. Kerry has made it a central issue of his domestic agenda. Since Mr. Bush took office, the number of uninsured people has risen by 5.2 million, to 45 million, and insurance premiums have risen sharply. There are few signs that Mr. Bush has gotten the political lift he and others hoped for last year when he signed the Medicare law promising limited coverage of prescription drug costs for the elderly. But with polls suggesting that health care costs rank at or near the top of voters' concerns and with Mr. Kerry campaigning hard on his plan, Mr. Bush has struck back by suggesting that Mr. Kerry's solution would be unwieldy, costly and intrusive. "The nationalization of health care would be wrong for the American citizen," Mr. Bush told an audience in Blaine, Minn., standing beneath a banner that read "Affordable Health Care." Recent polls in Minnesota have given divergent readings about which presidential candidate is ahead, and both sides agreed that the state would be closely fought. But even as he traveled through Minnesota, Mr. Bush had an eye on Florida, another highly contested state, and Hurricane Ivan. At the end of the day, the White House announced that Mr. Bush would fly to Florida and Alabama on Sunday to see the hurricane damage and clean-up efforts. Tad Devine, a senior strategist for Mr. Kerry, told reporters in a conference call that Mr. Bush had "demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth" in the way he characterized Mr. Kerry's health plan. Mr. Kerry's plan would encourage employers to offer health insurance by having the government subsidize the cost of catastrophic claims - those over $50,000 - for businesses that provide coverage to their employees. His plan would also give more children access to health care by raising the income cutoff for Medicaid and state-run programs. "It is very pro-business, it is very pro-consumer and it is voluntary," said Sarah Bianchi, policy director for the Kerry campaign. Mr. Bush's plan would offer tax breaks for low- and middle-income families to help them buy health insurance. It would also make it easier for small businesses to band together to buy health plans in big groups, presumably helping them negotiate reduced rates. Mr. Bush would also expand health savings accounts, which allow workers who buy policies with high deductibles to set up tax-free savings accounts to pay out-of-pocket expenses. Mr. Bush also calls for limits on lawsuits against doctors and hospitals, saying excessive malpractice awards push up costs and drive some doctors out of the business. "I have a common-sense, practical plan to make high-quality health care more affordable and more accessible," Mr. Bush told a rally in St. Cloud, Minn. Mr. Kerry has put the cost of his plan at $653 billion over the next 10 years, and has said that to pay for it he would roll back Mr. Bush's tax cuts for people earning more than $200,000 a year. Campaigning Thursday, Mr. Bush cited a study by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization, that put the price tag of the Kerry plan at $1.5 trillion. The Kerry campaign said that estimate ignored some features of the plan, double-counted others and used flawed methodology. Despite Mr. Bush's efforts to draw an implicit link between the Clinton health care plan and Mr. Kerry's proposal, some experts said there was no real comparison. "What Kerry is proposing is like the renovation of a house, whereas Clinton was advocating completely rebuilding the structure,'' said Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute, who as director of the Congressional Budget Office in 1994 scrutinized the Clinton plan. Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group, said Mr. Bush was proposing a bigger change in the nation's approach to health coverage than Mr. Kerry was. Mr. Bush had to grapple with one particularly difficult issue in Minnesota, the dispute over whether to allow the importation of lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada, a practice that even some Republicans in the state say should be allowed. The White House has put off taking a final stand on the issue by saying it was studying whether it could allow the practice without putting patients at risk. Mr. Bush said he would work to speed approval of generic drugs to help reduce costs. The Kerry campaign said Thursday that it would begin broadcasting a commercial calling Mr. Bush's characterizations "not true" and asserting that Mr. Bush was "wrong on health care." Mr. Devine said the engagement would work to Mr. Kerry's advantage by shifting the campaign to an issue on which he had a clear advantage. "The president's decision to attack John Kerry on health care is a costly strategic mistake," he said.
This issue is hugely important to me. I see my healthcare costs...what we pay at our firm for partners and our employees. It's over the top. Absolutely ridiculous. And it goes up CONSTANTLY. Where the f#$* was the tort reform when my rates got jacked up again this year for my employees? What a freaking load of crap. My sister and I were talking about this on July 4th while we sat outside her house by her pool. She said, "We can't afford to take care of everyone's healthcare." My response was, "We can't?? Wait a second...we're sitting here by a pool..behind your huge house...with your BMW in the garage...are you sure we CAN'T afford it? Or is it that we WON'T afford it?" i don't mean to say that to rag on my sister...she's an incredible person whom I love very much. But I think it's indicative of the way we tend to think. We can send someone to the moon...we can talk about colonizing another planet...but we can't take care of the trips to the doctor for the kids across the street. We just can't do it. At some point, a society has to come together and establish its priorities. The health care of its population...particularly of its children...should be toward the very top of that list. The idea that people go without health care in this country is offensive to me.
Mad Max this was an excellent post. And not only because it corresponds with my own views on the issue.
Excellent post Max. Sidetracking towards humor a little bit. This post reminded me of the song 'Whitey's on the Moon.' I don't know who's heard it, but the sentiments are similar to this post in a more black revolutionary kind of way. It talks about someone not being able to afford a doctor, meanwhile Whitey's on the moon.
You certainly deserve health care, and no you're not a deadbeat. However, I don't see how I should be forced to pay for this...
