Socialized Medicine - Let's Discuss!

[Karkona]

the part about dentists messing around with teeth, happened to my wife, but she from europe. Dentists are corrupt.

[AzzarTheGod]

Originally Posted by Karkona [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

the part about dentists messing around with teeth, happened to my wife, but she from europe. Dentists are corrupt.

Fortunately for me, I caught on very early and got off relatively easy.. despite the scam, the work done was considered "very good" by dental standards outside of 1 place on my lower left.

But in my teenage years I listened to my parents and thought I was doing the right thing.

Some day I will find the doctor and operating center who can safely remove 1 or 2 of these mercury bombs. I had been evaluated for a removal at a center but the removal doctor was pretty adamant about the fact that 1 tooth will require a root canal/extraction due to the damage already done.

I am over the allowable limit by just 1 or 2 fillings. If I had 3-4 I wouldn't care because studies prove it is within the acceptable mercury limit according to urine tests in most people (there are exceptions).

[maerilith]

Yeah if I do anything it's going to require major orthodontic surgery.

[maskedmelon]

Originally Posted by mgellan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I live in Canada (same town as Yumyums in fact). All people have the right to be put in a position to be successful. For those who are not able to be (whether for mental health or whatever reason) a civlized society bears that burden and tries to help them become productive, or their children. Assigning services to people based on their worth is discriminatory and opens the door to racism, profiling etc.

My country has a single payor health care system with universal access. Doctors are independant contractors who have a collective agreement with their province that sets rates at a sustainable level. Despite what you might hear from the Right, the Canadian system works - not flawlessly. Just like democracy, it's not the best system, it's just better than all the other options. There's all the usual fuckups that happen in any system, but my personal experience with it has been extremely positive. People get the care they need when they need it. Does someone line up for a diagnostic scan for something not life threatening? Yup. Does someone with cancer/CI/stroke etc. go to the front of the line? Hell yes. Thats how it /should/ work.

My Dad had a mild heart attack, was in the hospital Wednesday, and was out with a couple of stents in the following Friday and placed on a rigorous rehab program. All zero cost, very competent, and very fast.

Single payor systems just work, bitches.

Regards,
Mg

Glad to hear it works well for you ^^ It seems that in a nutshell you feel it is "the right thing to do," and it works "good enough" for you.

I find bolded assertion particularly interesting though. How do you make an association between someone's worth and their race?

[JurisDictum]

Originally Posted by MrSparkle001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

"Cheaper" is the operative word here, because it won't be cheaper here in the US. Our health care is ridiculously expensive and the costs are held hostage by the pharmaceutical industry and health care professionals making an incredibly high income charging astronomically enormous fees (the ones that aren't are your friendly neighborhood family practice doctors).

The cost of health care will not be reduced to reasonable levels by insuring everyone. I don't know why people think it will. All that insuring everyone does is ensure the insurance companies remain profitable and doctors, hospitals and big pharma continue to make big bucks.

(I'm aware there are doctors and hospitals that are exceptions and don't make big bucks so no need to mention them. Those hospitals also tend to suck and you wouldn't want to be treated there.)

Until health care isn't a major business it will continue to be prohibitively expensive. Until doctors aren't interested in becoming incredibly high paid specialists that extort insurance companies almost criminally with their fees, until medical malpractice lawsuits are reined in, until hospitals aren't primarily interested in turning hefty profits, until big pharma is more interested in the quality of human life over making huge profits, we will have overly expensive health care in this country.

I've had people from Canada tell me if you want to make good money in the health care industry in their country, you don't become a doctor you become a dentist. I don't know how true that is but I can imagine their doctors don't make anywhere near the money ours do. Again, not talking about the local friendly family doctor, I'm talking specialists in the big hospitals.

The first obvious reason why a government single payer would be cheaper is that they don't have to make a profit (on a publicly traded company that competes with all stocks).

Single-payer health insurance lowers costs by:

1) reducing administrative expenses

2) not authorizing ineffective, cosmetic or "all-natural" healthcare,

3) reducing the prices paid for medical labor, devices, and drugs.

Its easier to make hospitals/doctors charge less when they all have one insurance company that says they will pay x. They don't have insurance that is only for young healthy professionals that pays way more for the same thing. The government pays x, and there's only so much extra most are willing to pay on top of that.

It's not like the people in other countries are better an gentler than Americans. Our doctors make more because the system allows them to -- not because Americans are more greedy.

[maskedmelon]

Seeing as we've been unable to move this issue beyond a moral argument. Let's discuss that. It seems to me that 'care for all' is embraced unenthusiastically, because the ideal solution is unpalatable. I don't understand why a hands off solution is worse though when you consider the damaging effects that subsidizing failure has on humanity.

[maerilith]

Initially insurance allowed people to subsidize themselves privately. Then the world changed and the medical industry adapted to that subsidization.

Then because of insurance, insurance was getting build 1000 dollars for a 100 dollar procedure. Washing a cut, and putting in a few stitches. Or taking an Xray was costing 500 dolars instead of the 18 dollars it costs in the Caribbean for example in a small and economically isolated western economy.

This gets dramatically worse the more upwards you go in cost/procedure/stay. So you end up hospitals billing millions for 40,000s worth of work or 80,000 for 15,000 work.

Most of this is due to insurance. A lot of procedures can get done cheaply, out of pocket, without insurance. I use to grab a 5 pak of zythromax and move on with life for a 40$ doctors visit and a 20$ proscription. But the bigger the procedure... start looking at knee replacements or something else absolutely neccissary... and you start to get problems.

Also in our economy insurance companies were cutting costs by abusing legislative practices and discriminating against people for what procedures they would allow etc...

This just barely scratches the surface, doesn't go into liability, and what your fucking republican pals did about that to make it 100x worse (my mom works in this field in know this shit in depth).

Or talk about how fucked poor people are and how jaded they are that they may have to spend their welfare on antibiotics. It's pretty tough for some people in this country. Though America is fucking awesome for opportunity. But people are fucked up.

Anyway. That's why Obama care happened, and in theory it could have fucking worked, but then you have fucking retarded states being dumb about medicaid/medicare and dumb about the markets and, and dumb about opening up insurance to cover the same shit nationally because some asshole QQ's about what some other asshole can or can't do with their body (let me tell you this affects way more than just "trans people"). Like fuck a girl who needs a hystorectomy for cancer needed permision from their husband not so long ago by state law here... and insurance could deny it.

Crap like that.

Anyway.

The free market economy is out of wack medicine wise and partly because of insurance, not insurance alone though, like insurance + liability + legal law loopholes + pharma + the demographics of where money is... not in rural america, unless some parts, and etc.... But this could be fixed one of two ways. But it won't fix itself because the doctors won't take patients even if it would be economically viable, because they have plenty of big fish who don't have problems with healthcare.

Take it or leave it, it's so much more complex than my laypersons explanation. But we have to do something about the situation and complete deregulation is not a good short term answer unless we can change how the economy works.

Long term, we do need to deregulate enough to remove as much of the legal and financial middleman out of the equation. Doctors and nurses etc can have their wages slowly equalize as the economy adjusts. But it's way to far off for the free market to make any corrections because of the way things have been working.

Anyway, I hope that doesn't come off as sounding like I'm talking down... I just don't know how to explain it better than that. It's fine if you think I'm 100% wrong.

[maskedmelon]

This is straying off topic, but why would think universal coverage would help costs when you spent half your post acknowledging the inflation caused by health insurance? ^^

[maerilith]

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is straying off topic, but why would think universal coverage would help costs when you spent half your post acknowledging the inflation caused by health insurance? ^^

Very good points and I'm super tired and i'd like to clarify or correct my statement, or if you can figure it out and correct me by all means. There are different insurance models in the internet business in different countries.

Ours is kind of shit. But like, there are countries were internet is a bit more good for reasons, also newer infrastructure etc... but also different markets and regulations.

I think the simplest way of saying what I wanted to say is that if your going to have insurance it doesn't work well in a free market. But if the market is governed by a few rules it can work if properly implemented. And it'd be really great if I could grab in a few examples and citations to back this opinion and turn it into more of a solid debate point in favor of a insurance system/universal payer system.

I don't think universal payer may be the right answer specfically.

But the very core problem I think is that insurance companies are controlling the market, and providers are constantly struggling around them, and we have this feedback loop and insurance probably make rediculous amounts of money that gets mismanaged and magically dissapears into deep and mysteriously labyrinthine pockets...

I don't know I'm really way to tired to say anything coherent. This post is bad and shouldn't have been posted as well as my other post.

insurance is really important when it comes down to stuff like those procedures that are one offs and not economically viable, or stuff like antivenoms etc... because they can subsidize those services which are really needed, but wouldn't be affordible in a free market. but here's the thing their not... logistically expensive, just expensive because the paper and beurocracy of it is expensive, not because actual energy/cost/barter/trade expensive, but because the market makes it expensive and this is REALLY hard to explain as a lay person and i'm going to get a lot of people really mad at me for being dumb.

But it's ok [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[maskedmelon]

The problem with insurance is that it distorts demand by lowering costs to the consumer. The insurance provider picks up and disperses among its subscribers, the cost increases that result from higher demand. The only way to combat this is either by restricting demand via legislated rationing or legislating price ceilings which will result in shortages. This is why I particularly dislike insurance in general and think it should be limited to catostrophic care, especially if subsidized. The reality is poverty and stupidity go hand 'n hand. Just as they are more inclined to birth children they cannot adequately care for, they are so inclined to take their child to the ER for the flu because they don't know any better.

Back to my question though, how is subsidizing/sustaining impoverished states moral when it necessarily dilutes the mean via wildly different rates of reproduction? This is the rational argument for and reason why organizations like Planned Parenthood exist. The concern to mankind would largely be eliminated with parent licensing ^^