mistake. apology. apology accepted. Let's get this country moving forward shall we. Let's be concerned about the details. Let's communicate. Let's clarify. Let's Demonstrate. I was laying in bed.
Wow -- thanks for that. Mrs. B-Bob is from North Carolina, and has long run-down South Carolina in the way that I run down Oklahoma. I'd long thought it was in good fun, but more and more, having spent time in both states, I can say there is a substantive difference, and I'll leave it at that. (I really love North Carolina, for what it's worth.)
Funny how the more America becomes tolerant and progressive....at the same time the more partisan our politics are. I really feel that a lot of the vitrol has been building up since Clinton. We had Carter, then 12 straight years of republican presidents. There was always negative campaigning...Then when Clinton came, Newt ushered in the era of lowering the office of the presidency by saying it's ok to hunt down a president on frivilous and stupid charges and basically demean the office. Liberals were incensed and had their revenge on Bush. And the negative campaigning all along just kept building and taking things to new levels until last year - when you had Sarah Palin making all those ridiculous claims. Now we've reached a point where the vitrol is so deep rooted and there is actual hate from each side. This isn't good, it's really dangerous. I've never seen it this bad in politics. And that's saying a lot. I can't remember anything like the level of open hostility. before it was gentlemanly - but it's so negative that I wonder if these two parties will ever get anything done working with each other on a major initative for very long time.
Well the other countires all have single payer or a variant of it. We are going to add 45 million new health care consumers with vague ideas of cost reduction while paying $ hundred million dollar bonuses to health care CEO's' and maintaining much higher administraive costs for private insurance company bureaucracies.
If we could propose a single payer system that: 1. Will not result in taxation in excess of health premiums, 2. Will not cut doctor payouts to the point they cannot make a living commensurate with the sacrifice made to obtain the education, 3. Will not constantly decrease the things that are covered, AND 4. Will not go broke (ie Social Security and Medicare) the...and ONLY THEN will I be convinced that it will work. I remain open to looking at the details of any proposal, because what we have now is horribly and irretrievably broken.
I just watched the movie Sicko last night for the first time. It is amazing how much better off Europeans are. They laugh at the idea of paying for health care. They think of health care the way we think of the police or the fire department -- it is necessary to their safety and well being and so the government sees that its taken care of. With their tax dollars of course, but they all believe they're getting a great bargain. I highly recommend the film to anyone who hasn't seen it. Even if you hate Michael Moore (he made it), you'll be blown away by a lot of what you'll learn, particularly about how things work in other countries.
Just don't get hit by a taxi in Amsterdam? (couldn't resist!) Yeah, most of them live longer than we do. Much be that damned universal health care. And they take much longer vacations, in the main. Four to six weeks every year. I've always thought that contributed a lot to their well being and longer life spans. Most people I know here don't use the vacation they earn. They're "too busy working" to take it off, have too much comp time to even get to their vacation time, almost never take it all in one "chunk," and/or are too afraid they'll be looked at the wrong way by their bosses if they do. Bummer.
Ouch!.... seriously.. hopefully it's not one of those injuries that take forever to fully heal,... (I have a co-worker that still limps a year after a car wreck.)
Amsterdam is the key word there. Apparently if I'd been in Canada, England or France, I'd have been well cared for. And The Netherlands too give great care to their citizens; but they do not share those other countries' generosity toward non-citizens.
Thanks, man. It may and it may not. It's been over three months and I still don't know my long term prognosis. Hopefully I'll find out at the end of the month whether or not I'll need a second surgery for a bone graft (a la Yao). But it will probably be about nine months before I'm walking again even without that surgery. And, even though I have insurance, I'd be a million times better off if we had single payer, national health care. I've overdrawn my bank account several times this summer trying to meet co-pays, buy needed drugs and equipment, etc.
And they are -- see the data posted by Grizzled. I haven't read the transcript of Obama's speech yet, but did he say anything about the personal responsibility of health? I guess that would send Glenn Beck off on tangents related to government run fat farms, but the point is: no matter how much legislation you pass, we are going to need more healthcare/GDP than Europe as long as we are more obese than Europe.
Sorry to hear your leg is taking so long to heal but from my own experience major breaks take a long time. It took years for my femur to heal and I broke it in my late teens so for someone in their 30's its probably going to take awhile.
But, you’re already paying for those 45 million people, aren’t you? Aren’t these the people who show up at emergency wards without insurance? If you can make health insurance more affordable and prevent insurance companies from denying people coverage then a lot of these people will return to private insurance plans and will come off the government’s books entirely. As for the ones who join the government plan, some of these people won’t be able pay a lot but most will likely pay something towards their insurance, which they weren’t before, and once they have good health care coverage they’ll get regular doctor’s appointments and this will help catch health issues earlier and save the government money in the long run. You’re right that you’re not going to save the whole $1 trillion because you’re not changing the whole system, but if you can even save 10% of the difference you can pay for the new plan without having to raise taxes even in the short term, and that’s a big selling point. As you know I’m a Canadian and a big proponent of the single payer system, but I take Obama’s point that given the current state of the US health care system it would be too difficult to scrap the whole thing right now and implement a completely new system. There is also the very important question of public support. If you try to take too big a step all at once you could end up with nothing. To use a golf analogy, the ball is in the woods. If you take out the fairway wood and go for the flag you’re taking a low percentage shot and you will likely end up not advancing the ball much if at all. Chipping it out into the fairway is a less ambitious but much higher percentage shot and usually the best choice after the risk vs. reward calculation is done.
Have a look at the OECD link. I believe every one of those countries has some variation of a single payer system and they all cost far less than the US system does. If the US does at some point choose to go the single payer way I would suggest having a close look at this aspect of the Canadian system. In Canada each province and territory runs its own system. The funding is split between the federal and provincial governments and the federal government sets minimum standards but each province and territory runs its own system. They each determine what they pay their doctors, but if they start underpaying their doctors they find that new doctors stop coming to that province and instead go to other provinces, and sometimes they find that doctors start to leave, so each province is forced by this inter-provincial competition to pay their doctors market value. In the US you’d have 50 state plans competing for doctors and specialists, so a good market price could be set. In Canada the federal government sets the minimum standards ties its part of the funding to those standards. This provides an effective check and balance system which came into play about 20 years ago when the federal government had to threaten to withhold its share of the funding for Alberta’s system when Alberta was doing something in contravention of the Canada Health Act, and Alberta backed down. On the flip side the federal government has no say in how each province runs its system. Each system is independent and tailored to the needs of the citizens of that province. http://www.health.alberta.ca/default.html http://www.gov.bc.ca/health/ http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/ http://www.ramq.gouv.qc.ca/index_en.shtml The US system faces two major issues. The first is the inefficiency in the way it’s currently structured, and the second is the rising cost of health care. The first is a problem unique to the US, but the second is a problem that all advanced countries share. Ultimately no system will go broke because decisions will have to be made before that happens about what basic health care systems should cover. In the short term there are lots of little things that can be done to reduce costs, but In the long run big decisions may have to be made. I can foresee Canada, for example, making a decision that it’s no longer possible to insure certain very expensive end of life procedures that only extend a person’s life by a few months. As long as there is a very long period of early warning before this comes into effect I think this kind of change would make a lot of sense. For example, I think they should give maybe 20 years notice before such changes kick in to allow people to plan, save, or buy insurance to cover the cost of such procedures themselves. I think a basic health care system should first and foremost be directed at keeping people healthy and productive throughout their lives, and this will allow them to save enough, or buy insurance, for these end of life procedures should they need them and if that’s how the decide to spend their money. This is how I would prioritize health care spending anyway. Spending many tens of thousands of dollars to extend a 90 year old person’s life by a few months is fine if we can afford it, but when health care dollars grow short I think this is where the responsibility should be shifted to the individual and the family. I think a very long lead time should be given to allow individuals and families to prepare to take on this responsibility, however.
I thought this bit from the Grizzled link was interesting: What a mess. The US public system pays more to cover a small subset of its population then other countries pay to provide basic universal coverage for all their citizens. Bizarre. On Grizzled's golf analogy -- I tend to think that without a public system you're just wacking the ball further into the woods. Or perhaps using a putter from the deep grass. (I'm really not good with this golf stuff). Perhaps a very limited public system -- with lousy -- but universal -- coverage would be a better compromise. Otherwise -- it's simply insurance reform. Or a subsidy and regulation to the insurance companies.
