Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The NHS provides a damn good service in Britain. There are gaps, yes, but there are gaps in your system too. Personally, I'd say it is a model of success for all but a very few unlucky people.

All I am saying is that our systems are bloated and inefficient and maybe if they were the size of yours they would not be so. There are way to many factors in the US system of delivery that most other contries do not have to contend with and mainly that is the outside influence of business interests, private organizations, professional organizations, drug companies, etc. And to take some small countries plans and to try to adopt it in the US would make it be doomed to failure. We need to figure it out, but we do not need to rush it and all the details need to be spelled out before the plan is implemented.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

And to take some small countries plans and to try to adopt it in the US would make it be doomed to failure. We need to figure it out, but we do not need to rush it and all the details need to be spelled out before the plan is implemented.

I hope we get the details figured out. Our system is a complete joke.

NATION: United Kingdom
SERVICE: National Health Service (NHS)
MODEL: socialized medicine
HOW IT WORKS: All hospitals are government-owned. All doctors are government employees. Every citizen is guaranteed a basic level of healthcare. Private insurance exists to cover any gaps in the government system.
AMERICAN COUNTERPART: Veterans Health Administration (VHA)
COST: 40% as expensive as American system

NATION: Canada
SERVICE: Medicare
MODEL: single-payer system
HOW IT WORKS: Most doctors and hospitals are in the private sector. All medical bills are payed by the government. Every citizen is guaranteed a basic level of healthcare. Private insurance exists to cover any gaps in the government system.
AMERICAN COUNTERPART: Medicare (limited to age 65+)
COST: 33% as expensive as American system

NATION: Switzerland
SERVICE: private health co-ops
HOW IT WORKS: Insurance is all private, but regulation and subsidies ensure everyone receives fair and affordable coverage.
AMERICAN COUNTERPART: None, yet.
COST: 67% as expensive as American system

NATION: United States
SERVICE: private insurance
HOW IT WORKS: Insurance is expensive and tied to your employer, who takes it out of your salary. Individual insurance is just as bad, or worse. Having insurance doesn't guarantee coverage, as the profit-driven insurers have financial incentive to disqualify you from coverage if you get sick or injured so they don't have to pay for your care. Tens of millions don't have any insurance at all.
AMERICAN COUNTERPART: n/a
COST: Most expensive system on Earth.

[TheMercenary]

Well here are some news items about the Canadian system.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Fra...143/story.html

http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/06...eads-to-death/

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...-its-toll.aspx

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The NHS provides a damn good service in Britain. There are gaps, yes, but there are gaps in your system too. Personally, I'd say it is a model of success for all but a very few unlucky people.

agreed

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Well here are some news items about the Canadian system.

I'd rather take the word of real people I know like Dana and my two friends who actually use their universal health care system and like it.


anyway,,,I am done with this subject.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

I'd rather take the word of real people I know like Dana and my two friends who actually use their universal health care system and like it.


anyway,,,I am done with this subject.

As long as you personally have to pay for it I would support it too.

[skysidhe]

no thanks

[DanaC]

We have lots of new stories about the things that go wrong in our system...but then they sell newspapers in a way that stories about things going right simply don't.

For every scare story you can find about socialised medicine, there will be a similar scare story about your current insurance system.


[eta] meanwhile we're busy breaking our system by farming out more and more of it to private interests and thereby making it less efficient and more costly.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

We have lots of new stories about the things that go wrong in our system...but then they sell newspapers in a way that stories about things going right simply don't.

For every scare story you can find about socialised medicine, there will be a similar scare story about your current insurance system.

No doubt. And I will be the first to tell you that our current insurance system is quite broken and needs to be fixed.

[DanaC]

Since y'all (the US) have been so forthcoming about the failings of the NHS in recent weeks, our news media has stepped up to defend it. An interesting take on the current American system, and the well-meaning and hard-working medics, doctors, nurses, dentists ,opticians et al who are desperately trying to plug the gaps by working for free:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-sto...5875-21602170/


Worth also checking out the side stories about British conservatives running down the NHS and jumping on the American Right's NHS-bashing bandwagon. This has become a bit of an embarrassing story for the leader of the Opposition, who has spent the last year or so trying to convince the electorate that not only is the NHS safe in their hands, but that they 'are the party of the NHS' and that far from dismantling it they want to invest more. Now one of his own party's MEP's has come out and declared the NHS a 'sixty year mistake', whilst another has published a book which basically calls for it to be dismantled: he must be sitting somewhere with his head in his hands wondering how he can get his hardliners to shut the fuck up :P

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Since y'all (the US) have been so forthcoming about the failings of the NHS in recent weeks, our news media has stepped up to defend it. An interesting take on the current American system, and the well-meaning and hard-working medics, doctors, nurses, dentists ,opticians et al who are desperately trying to plug the gaps by working for free:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-sto...5875-21602170/

That story made the circuit here around 3 weeks ago. NPR did a great 2 part segment on the group.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=111676259

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcr...ryId=111676259

[jinx]

As a family, we pay over $8,000 a year for insurance, plus copays when we use. We use it for check ups - 1 each per year for the kids, doctors and dentist, and one for me at the gyno. I'm the only one in the family on a prescribed med (birth control), which costs $20 (co-pay) every 3 mos.

I don't want to pay any more. We pay too much for what we use of it, but as responsible parents we cannot be without it.

Pharmaceutical companies make billions in profits ever year. Start there if you want to lay the blame of the uninsured at someone's feet - not mine. I have no problem with everyone having access to a basic standard of care, it makes sense all around. But I think as long as people to can choose to be professional students, or have their own struggling business instead of working for the man, or take time off to travel, paint, discover themselves etc... - they shouldn't have the right to take more from me to cover their ass when they get sick or hurt.

If everyone pays in, the same amount per human - then I'm all for it. If people who use more are expected to pay more - then I'm all for it. If it's team politics and those who support 'the war' are expected to pay more because they go to work and collect a bigger paycheck - fuck that.

The problem as I see it is that health care costs too damn much. If the average american can't afford it, it doesn't work. Start there. Throwing more money at the problem with only make the problem worse in the long run, and I'm not for that either.

[Griff]

A coop model seems to have a lot going for it if you could keep it small enough to keep on track but large enough to smooth out big outlays...

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by jinx

The problem as I see it is that health care costs too damn much. If the average american can't afford it, it doesn't work. Start there. Throwing more money at the problem with only make the problem worse in the long run, and I'm not for that either.

But surely that is the suggested plan, in effect? By providing government backed/led insurance to those who need it or want it, the government is making insurance affordable. By mandating some kind of cover then people who can't afford private insurance aren't turning up at A&E for basic healthcare and pushing up the premiums for everyone else.

[TheMercenary]

From what I have been reading the Co-ops seem to be nothing more than another form of a big business getting insurance for a group, even if a non-profit, they have to make money to keep the co-op running and pay the board and president, etc. They in turn just go to regular insurance companies and get insurance for their members, hopefully at a lower price. The down side is that without real insurance reform you just put another layer between you and the doctor.

http://patients.about.com/od/healthc...rancecoops.htm

NPR had a good interview about them today with people representing both sides. I can't get the link to work.

[TheMercenary]

An interesting take on the Cooperative model

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/...y/1634262.html