Yeah, but it doesn't cover dental for some reason. Why do teeth and gums get short shrift? And you still have to pay a whopping 13.5% tax on most goods to finance the system. For such a high tax, you'd expect health coverage to be comprehensive, but it isn't. I chatted with a friend from Canada and he says the system in general is quite good. But if you need a specialist or some kind of special test, you have to wait in line for it, sometimes for months. That's kind of scary. Of course, not being able to get treatment because you can't afford it is also pretty scary. Don't claim to know what an equitable solution would be to the situation here in the USA, but I am opposed to Obamacare™ in all its permutations. There has to be a better way, or at least I am hoping there is.
I am opposed to Obamacare™ in all its permutations.
Cut off your nose to spite your face much? Keep in mind that when Social Security and Medicare were first passed, they were much weaker programs than they are now; they were strengthened over time, and used as a framework for dealing with other problems, like dealing with the issues of the disabled in addition to older citizens. It has to start somewhere, and it's not going to be perfect at the outset.
There has to be a better way, or at least I am hoping there is.
While not perfect, I'd take Canada's system over ours in a HOT SECOND. That said - I think it's done better in Japan, France and Germany. Surely we have people with the brains to understand those systems and create one that really works for the USA. I strongly suggest this article: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World.
Despite your petulance you do make good points. I am philosophically opposed to big government and unfunded mandates and confiscatory taxation to finance statist schemes to build a Great Society with cradle to grave services and redistribution of wealth to conform with specious notions of equality.
As on Facebook, it's disheartening that one cannot express a different, i.e. conservative, point of view without being a target of unwarranted vituperation and disdain. Most of my online contacts are on the left yet I somehow manage to engage in civil discourse, which is more than I can say for some of them.
My dear friend. It's bee too long since I've seen or heard from you.
Forgive me for disagreeing with you about health care. I've been at this gig too long, not to have a strong opinion about availability of care and what's wrong with our system of health care access.
As a society, we don't seem to be up in arms about paying public services such as police, fire or road maintainence, yet somehow access to basic medical care is a left wing concept? I went into this business with the belief that health care should be a basic human right. At least several times a month, I see someone in my office that put off seeking treatment because of the cost. This past week, it was a 32 y/o man employed full time in agriculture, who's had abdominal pain for the past month. No coverage. His diagnosis? A ruptured appendix. His delay in care cost him a good sized chunk of his colon, and a 5 day hospital stay, but fortunately for him and his family, not his life. I lost a patient this past fall to metastatic cancer. She was working 2 jobs, putting in nearly full time work, but neither offered her insurance. She was seen twice in this office during the 8 months prior, was asked to go for testing because of her symptoms, which she declined due to it's cost. That was a decision which cost her her life. Would her outcome have been different had she had diagnosis earlier? Hard to say, but we will never know.
I'm seeing too many people who are not getting care because of their deductibles. (I just got off the phone with a patient who is insured through her work, but because her husband just lost his job, she cannot afford to cover her $1000 annual deductible. She has coverage - after the deductible is paid.)
I'm troubled that a full 1/4 of all the bankruptcies filed in this country are due to uncovered health care costs. I'm troubled that the last administration's answer to that dilema was to make bankruptcy harder to file.
I'm troubled that health insurance is most often for profit in this country, skimming nearly 30 cents on the dollar off the top to pay share-holders and for administration of care. If Medicare can administer care for 6 cents on the dollar, what's wrong with this picture?
I can tell you for certain, I would trade our system for a Canadian style system, (or a French, Japanese or German style system) in a heartbeat. I'm seeing too many people that have fallen through the cracks in our current system. Those numbers are going up, not down. It's costing us as a society, in lost productivity, not just in lost lives.
Hello there! So great to communicate with you once again over the interwebs. :-)
Those incidences you state are indeed tragic and unacceptable in any country, especially the USA. We need great minds, not government bureaucrats, to address these critical issues head on and find a viable solution. I for one strongly support the notion of decoupling insurance from employment. I don't think coverage should depend on your employer's willingness to subsidize your healthcare premiums. Insurance should be portable. Opening up the insurance market so that providers can compete across state lines, something that the government does not allow at present, would indeed bring down the cost due to competition.
While our system is imperfect and has serious shortcomings, I would not trade it for the Canadian system because here at least I don't have to queue up for potentially months long periods to see a specialist or to have a non routine test administered. People become ill and die from waiting for treatment in Canada too, despite its vaunted universal healthcare system. Also the tax burden depresses the economy. If Obama had his way, a 20% VAT would be imposed on most goods, in addition to numerous other taxes, especially on the so called rich, who wouldn't be so rich anymore after the government has sapped their earnings to pay for its misguided and grandiose social welfare schemes.
I don't object to for profit healthcare insurance. I do object to abusive practices like everyone else of course and the industry needs reform, although I disagree with the concept of excessive government control of insurance companies.
I don't claim to have a solution but for me anyway, more government intervention is not the answer. Look at the mess that is SSI and Medicare/Medicaid. Those entitlement programs are a disaster. Just because they have the government's imprimatur does not mean they are well run or equitable in the distribution of benefits. If the government cannot efficiently administer such programs as these, how can it be trusted to manage one sixth of the GDP?
Universal health care is an inherently conservative concept; it is, however, NOT a corporatist concept. It keeps costs down, and ensures a healthy and productive workforce. From a personal perspective - I don't want someone running around with a nasty communicable disease, infecting other people [possibly including me] because ey can't afford to go to a doctor. If someone's got, say, tuberculosis - I want eir infectious carcass in a doctor's office PDQ - and I will happily contribute toward that, if necessary, to protect my OWN health.
You decry my "petulance" but you seem to be throwing rocks at the Canadian system without really knowing much about it. EVERYONE complains about health care - but EVERY US citizen I know who's lived and worked there has nothing but praise for it, and I recall a poll of Canadians where they were asked the truly key question - would they trade the existing system for one like that in the USA - and the response was mid-90s NO.
I guess you didn't read the article I linked to; one of the myths it debunks is the "it's all socialized medicine out there." In fact, in many countries - the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and others - it's less "socialist" than it is here. In those countries, ALL health care is provided by private providers and paid for by private insurers; the difference is those insurers are properly regulated and held to a standard of performance, in part because patients are not captives - they can change plans reasonably freely (annually, at least, as I understand it.) Part of that regulation, as I understand it, is that the insurers are required to actually spend the income from premiums on - say it ain't so! - health care, not insane executive compensation. [Insurers can spend the "float" - interest from holding the money - any way they want. But the premiums should damn well be spent predominantly on health care.]
Oh, here's another point - efficiency. Our system is massively INefficient. Taiwan's is a global model, running at about 1.5% overhead - they had screaming matches in their legislature over money being wasted when it bumped up to 2%. As in the article I linked before - Japan has an aging population who go to the doctor far more often than we do - and they STILL pay less per capita and get better outcomes. Isn't getting maximum value for money a conservative value? Remember - preventative care is vastly less expensive than crisis care; keeping a diabetic's blood sugar under control is cheaper than paying for the damage years later, for example.
Oh, and freedom. I hear the rant about "I don't want a government bureaucrat deciding my health care" - yadda, yadda, yadda. What we have RIGHT NOW are corporate bureaucrats - largely unregulated - doing exactly that. If it were a government bureaucrat, I would at least have a chance to get help via my congressperson and/or senators; with a corporate health insurance company, I am screwed. Short of a lawsuit, of course - an avenue some seem intent on cutting off under the cover of "tort reform".
And think of the benefits to entepreneurs - who might be stuck in a job ey hate because they've got a kid or a spouse with a "pre-existing condition" and thus cannot exploit that great business idea ey've had, because ey have to stay with the health care ey've got.
Remember - some people in the USA have socialized health care - the VA and BIA. Older folks and the disabled have single-payer - Medicare. (I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure where SCHIP falls into this - but kids are another exception.) And the rest of us are fending for ourselves. I can understand a particular exception for veterans - but wouldn't it be vastly simpler and cheaper to have a more consistent, less patchwork system?!
And at risk of "unwarranted vituperation and disdain" - stuff the wounded and downtrodden routine and argue from reality.
Keeping costs down is indeed an admirable goal and I'd like to see that approach applied to existing programs such as SSI and Medicare, which are veritable train wrecks. We disagree on several issues and that's fine with me. I am a free market capitalist who eschews the concept of a large, centralized government to solve my problems. I believe in American ingenuity and inventiveness to find a solution to this all too real healthcare crises. I don't believe government bureaucrats are any less venal and mendacious than some corporate executives infected with a lust for lucre. Costs can only be reduced by rationing coverage and that means the government will have the authority to decide what, if any, treatment a citizen can receive. If the course of treatment or medication is deemed fiscally out of bounds, the patient will not be provided the care he or she wants and needs. The government, in my opinion, should have no role in deciding the treatment options available to a patient.
I contend that government administered healthcare insurance would be inherently unworkable and not produce any real benefits to society. Considering the back room deals and outright prostitution committed by certain governors in crafting Obamacare™, I would not be such an enthusiastic supporter. I submit that such schemes would only further damage our moribund economy and produce less than salutary results for our citizens.
I am a free market capitalist who doesn't hate "rich" people who have worked to achieve their status. I don't believe that government has the right to confiscate most of one's earnings to finance its operations and schemes.
Your lack of civility is disturbing but not entirely unexpected.
Government bureaucrats may not be any better than corporate ones - that's debatable - but at least I have recourse against them via my elected representatives. I can legally picket and lobby my elected representatives in ways that would get me arrested for trespassing if I tried it with the CEO of WellPoint or Cigna.
"The government, in my opinion, should have no role in deciding the treatment options available to a patient."
Are you willing to say the same about private health insurance companies? Because they're doing exactly that - denying coverage to people every day. How is it better if someone with a rare form of cancer dies because their HMO denies them coverage for treatment than if they die because your government boogeyman does? Dead is dead.
"I contend that government administered healthcare insurance would be inherently unworkable and not produce any real benefits to society."
I contend that the real-world examples of Japan, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia say that's so wrong it warps the time-space continuum. I find it intriguing how you ignore facts that clash with your ideology. FACT: Japan pays less per capita for healthcare than we do, and gets better outcomes. I thought conservatives (well, the old-style ones anyway) were big on having a factual basis for policy? The actual numbers vary from country to country, but in general the ones I named spend far less than we do, and get results equal to or better than ours. A German can see any doctor ey like - without having to consult a list of doctors on eir "plan" first. Isn't that the very definition of putting the patient in command?
In your response to Weaver, you say "I do object to abusive practices like everyone else of course and the industry needs reform, although I disagree with the concept of excessive government control of insurance companies." Okay - so how on earth DO you propose to control the "abusive practices" without governmental regulation of the behavior of health insurance companies? Allowing health insurers to operate across state lines will only make the problem worse, because they'll all move to the states with the most lax regulation. To use another industry as an example, there's a reason most of the credit card companies are headquartered in Delaware.
Even if I accept for a moment your argument about the state of SSI, Medicaid and Medicare - did it ever occur to you that they're problematic because they're a makeshift patch on a completely screwed-up system? I note you chose not to respond to the fact that we have all sorts of socialized and single-payer "patches" on our supposedly "free market" system because people with any sensitivity do tend to object to seeing children and elderly folks die for no good reason other than lack of access to health care. Would be nice if that compassion extended to all of the 40,000+ who die in this country every year for that reason!
I don't hate "rich" people either; but no one gets wealthy without making use of social and physical infrastructure - roads, electrical grid, schools, police and fire services, the courts - that have been paid for by the public. The richer they get, the more they use it. It's only fair that they pay more because they got to the height they did with the help of others. And frankly - I see a huge difference between a creative founder of a company like Steve Jobs of Apple or Jim Sinegal of Costco - and the sort of insanely overpaid empty suit like Rick Waggoner, who ran GM into the ground. The former deserve to get rich; the latter ... doesn't. (And yet he got a "golden parachute" in excess of $20M. Like GM didn't have a better use for that money in the straits they were in.)
Your lack of civility is disturbing but not entirely unexpected.
I should have guessed that facts which clash with your worldview would be perceived as a "lack of civility."
Oh, and one more thing - I'm all for confiscatory income taxation.
Just like REPUBLICAN President Eisenhower was. During his administration, the top tax bracket - on income over about $2.5 million in today's dollars - was 91% - and had been for some time.
Note that we had a booming economy during that time; what we didn't have was CEOs making many hundreds of times as much as their workers, draining money out of the companies that SHOULD be reinvested in R&D, manufacturing improvements and so on. People wonder why US industry has gone to hell - it's the corporate leeches sucking it dry.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 03:19 am (UTC)Cut off your nose to spite your face much? Keep in mind that when Social Security and Medicare were first passed, they were much weaker programs than they are now; they were strengthened over time, and used as a framework for dealing with other problems, like dealing with the issues of the disabled in addition to older citizens. It has to start somewhere, and it's not going to be perfect at the outset.
There has to be a better way, or at least I am hoping there is.
While not perfect, I'd take Canada's system over ours in a HOT SECOND. That said - I think it's done better in Japan, France and Germany. Surely we have people with the brains to understand those systems and create one that really works for the USA. I strongly suggest this article: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 03:35 am (UTC)As on Facebook, it's disheartening that one cannot express a different, i.e. conservative, point of view without being a target of unwarranted vituperation and disdain. Most of my online contacts are on the left yet I somehow manage to engage in civil discourse, which is more than I can say for some of them.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 04:17 am (UTC)Forgive me for disagreeing with you about health care. I've been at this gig too long, not to have a strong opinion about availability of care and what's wrong with our system of health care access.
As a society, we don't seem to be up in arms about paying public services such as police, fire or road maintainence, yet somehow access to basic medical care is a left wing concept? I went into this business with the belief that health care should be a basic human right. At least several times a month, I see someone in my office that put off seeking treatment because of the cost. This past week, it was a 32 y/o man employed full time in agriculture, who's had abdominal pain for the past month. No coverage. His diagnosis? A ruptured appendix. His delay in care cost him a good sized chunk of his colon, and a 5 day hospital stay, but fortunately for him and his family, not his life. I lost a patient this past fall to metastatic cancer. She was working 2 jobs, putting in nearly full time work, but neither offered her insurance. She was seen twice in this office during the 8 months prior, was asked to go for testing because of her symptoms, which she declined due to it's cost. That was a decision which cost her her life. Would her outcome have been different had she had diagnosis earlier? Hard to say, but we will never know.
I'm seeing too many people who are not getting care because of their deductibles. (I just got off the phone with a patient who is insured through her work, but because her husband just lost his job, she cannot afford to cover her $1000 annual deductible. She has coverage - after the deductible is paid.)
I'm troubled that a full 1/4 of all the bankruptcies filed in this country are due to uncovered health care costs. I'm troubled that the last administration's answer to that dilema was to make bankruptcy harder to file.
I'm troubled that health insurance is most often for profit in this country, skimming nearly 30 cents on the dollar off the top to pay share-holders and for administration of care. If Medicare can administer care for 6 cents on the dollar, what's wrong with this picture?
I can tell you for certain, I would trade our system for a Canadian style system, (or a French, Japanese or German style system) in a heartbeat. I'm seeing too many people that have fallen through the cracks in our current system. Those numbers are going up, not down. It's costing us as a society, in lost productivity, not just in lost lives.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 09:29 am (UTC)Those incidences you state are indeed tragic and unacceptable in any country, especially the USA. We need great minds, not government bureaucrats, to address these critical issues head on and find a viable solution. I for one strongly support the notion of decoupling insurance from employment. I don't think coverage should depend on your employer's willingness to subsidize your healthcare premiums. Insurance should be portable. Opening up the insurance market so that providers can compete across state lines, something that the government does not allow at present, would indeed bring down the cost due to competition.
While our system is imperfect and has serious shortcomings, I would not trade it for the Canadian system because here at least I don't have to queue up for potentially months long periods to see a specialist or to have a non routine test administered. People become ill and die from waiting for treatment in Canada too, despite its vaunted universal healthcare system. Also the tax burden depresses the economy. If Obama had his way, a 20% VAT would be imposed on most goods, in addition to numerous other taxes, especially on the so called rich, who wouldn't be so rich anymore after the government has sapped their earnings to pay for its misguided and grandiose social welfare schemes.
I don't object to for profit healthcare insurance. I do object to abusive practices like everyone else of course and the industry needs reform, although I disagree with the concept of excessive government control of insurance companies.
I don't claim to have a solution but for me anyway, more government intervention is not the answer. Look at the mess that is SSI and Medicare/Medicaid. Those entitlement programs are a disaster. Just because they have the government's imprimatur does not mean they are well run or equitable in the distribution of benefits. If the government cannot efficiently administer such programs as these, how can it be trusted to manage one sixth of the GDP?
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 04:27 am (UTC)You decry my "petulance" but you seem to be throwing rocks at the Canadian system without really knowing much about it. EVERYONE complains about health care - but EVERY US citizen I know who's lived and worked there has nothing but praise for it, and I recall a poll of Canadians where they were asked the truly key question - would they trade the existing system for one like that in the USA - and the response was mid-90s NO.
I guess you didn't read the article I linked to; one of the myths it debunks is the "it's all socialized medicine out there." In fact, in many countries - the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and others - it's less "socialist" than it is here. In those countries, ALL health care is provided by private providers and paid for by private insurers; the difference is those insurers are properly regulated and held to a standard of performance, in part because patients are not captives - they can change plans reasonably freely (annually, at least, as I understand it.) Part of that regulation, as I understand it, is that the insurers are required to actually spend the income from premiums on - say it ain't so! - health care, not insane executive compensation. [Insurers can spend the "float" - interest from holding the money - any way they want. But the premiums should damn well be spent predominantly on health care.]
Oh, here's another point - efficiency. Our system is massively INefficient. Taiwan's is a global model, running at about 1.5% overhead - they had screaming matches in their legislature over money being wasted when it bumped up to 2%. As in the article I linked before - Japan has an aging population who go to the doctor far more often than we do - and they STILL pay less per capita and get better outcomes. Isn't getting maximum value for money a conservative value? Remember - preventative care is vastly less expensive than crisis care; keeping a diabetic's blood sugar under control is cheaper than paying for the damage years later, for example.
Oh, and freedom. I hear the rant about "I don't want a government bureaucrat deciding my health care" - yadda, yadda, yadda. What we have RIGHT NOW are corporate bureaucrats - largely unregulated - doing exactly that. If it were a government bureaucrat, I would at least have a chance to get help via my congressperson and/or senators; with a corporate health insurance company, I am screwed. Short of a lawsuit, of course - an avenue some seem intent on cutting off under the cover of "tort reform".
And think of the benefits to entepreneurs - who might be stuck in a job ey hate because they've got a kid or a spouse with a "pre-existing condition" and thus cannot exploit that great business idea ey've had, because ey have to stay with the health care ey've got.
Remember - some people in the USA have socialized health care - the VA and BIA. Older folks and the disabled have single-payer - Medicare. (I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure where SCHIP falls into this - but kids are another exception.) And the rest of us are fending for ourselves. I can understand a particular exception for veterans - but wouldn't it be vastly simpler and cheaper to have a more consistent, less patchwork system?!
And at risk of "unwarranted vituperation and disdain" - stuff the wounded and downtrodden routine and argue from reality.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 09:45 am (UTC)I contend that government administered healthcare insurance would be inherently unworkable and not produce any real benefits to society. Considering the back room deals and outright prostitution committed by certain governors in crafting Obamacare™, I would not be such an enthusiastic supporter. I submit that such schemes would only further damage our moribund economy and produce less than salutary results for our citizens.
I am a free market capitalist who doesn't hate "rich" people who have worked to achieve their status. I don't believe that government has the right to confiscate most of one's earnings to finance its operations and schemes.
Your lack of civility is disturbing but not entirely unexpected.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 11:55 am (UTC)"The government, in my opinion, should have no role in deciding the treatment options available to a patient."
Are you willing to say the same about private health insurance companies? Because they're doing exactly that - denying coverage to people every day. How is it better if someone with a rare form of cancer dies because their HMO denies them coverage for treatment than if they die because your government boogeyman does? Dead is dead.
"I contend that government administered healthcare insurance would be inherently unworkable and not produce any real benefits to society."
I contend that the real-world examples of Japan, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia say that's so wrong it warps the time-space continuum. I find it intriguing how you ignore facts that clash with your ideology. FACT: Japan pays less per capita for healthcare than we do, and gets better outcomes. I thought conservatives (well, the old-style ones anyway) were big on having a factual basis for policy? The actual numbers vary from country to country, but in general the ones I named spend far less than we do, and get results equal to or better than ours. A German can see any doctor ey like - without having to consult a list of doctors on eir "plan" first. Isn't that the very definition of putting the patient in command?
In your response to Weaver, you say "I do object to abusive practices like everyone else of course and the industry needs reform, although I disagree with the concept of excessive government control of insurance companies." Okay - so how on earth DO you propose to control the "abusive practices" without governmental regulation of the behavior of health insurance companies? Allowing health insurers to operate across state lines will only make the problem worse, because they'll all move to the states with the most lax regulation. To use another industry as an example, there's a reason most of the credit card companies are headquartered in Delaware.
Even if I accept for a moment your argument about the state of SSI, Medicaid and Medicare - did it ever occur to you that they're problematic because they're a makeshift patch on a completely screwed-up system? I note you chose not to respond to the fact that we have all sorts of socialized and single-payer "patches" on our supposedly "free market" system because people with any sensitivity do tend to object to seeing children and elderly folks die for no good reason other than lack of access to health care. Would be nice if that compassion extended to all of the 40,000+ who die in this country every year for that reason!
I don't hate "rich" people either; but no one gets wealthy without making use of social and physical infrastructure - roads, electrical grid, schools, police and fire services, the courts - that have been paid for by the public. The richer they get, the more they use it. It's only fair that they pay more because they got to the height they did with the help of others. And frankly - I see a huge difference between a creative founder of a company like Steve Jobs of Apple or Jim Sinegal of Costco - and the sort of insanely overpaid empty suit like Rick Waggoner, who ran GM into the ground. The former deserve to get rich; the latter ... doesn't. (And yet he got a "golden parachute" in excess of $20M. Like GM didn't have a better use for that money in the straits they were in.)
Your lack of civility is disturbing but not entirely unexpected.
I should have guessed that facts which clash with your worldview would be perceived as a "lack of civility."
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 07:35 am (UTC)Just like REPUBLICAN President Eisenhower was. During his administration, the top tax bracket - on income over about $2.5 million in today's dollars - was 91% - and had been for some time.
Note that we had a booming economy during that time; what we didn't have was CEOs making many hundreds of times as much as their workers, draining money out of the companies that SHOULD be reinvested in R&D, manufacturing improvements and so on. People wonder why US industry has gone to hell - it's the corporate leeches sucking it dry.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 02:45 am (UTC)Seems a no-brainer to me.
Health care (offer void in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennesee and Kentucky).
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 07:30 am (UTC)Dick Chaney has excellent health care, as do all the rest of the crooks over there in Washington.