I'm just curious as to the opinions of Americans on the health care system. I'm Canadian and our health care system is free, we don't require insurance and if I undergo surgery my government covers the costs.
I was astounded to learn the number of Americans who don't have health coverage, simply because they cant' afford the insurance.
I would love to hear your opinions on the subject. I'm also curious to learn the costs of cerrtain procedures if anyone is willing to share that information as well as the cost of insurance.
Thank you. Our system is broken. It was hijacked by the government and large insurers. Most of the info and "debate" on healthcare is BS full of misinformation. FACTS about our problems:
When 75% of the people who declare bankruptcy over medical bills ARE INSURED, then insurance is CLEARLY not the answer.
"Aldrich鈥檚 situation is "asinine" but increasingly common, said Dr. Deborah Thorne of Ohio University. Thorne, co-author of a widely quoted 2005 study that found medical bills contributed to nearly half of the 1.5 million personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. each year, said that ratio has likely worsened since the data was gathered.
...
Like Aldrich, Thorne said, three-quarters of the individuals in the study who declared bankruptcy because of health problems were insured. "
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201807/
Linda Peeno, MD testified that SHE had often denied treatment JUST to save the insurance company money http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPe...
Furthermore:
"the vast majority of health insurance policies are through for-profit stock companies. They are in the process of 鈥渟hedding lives鈥?as some term it when 鈥渦ndesirable鈥?customers are lost through various means, including raising premiums and co-pays and decreasing benefits (Britt, 鈥淗ealth insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,鈥?15 October 2004, investors.com). That same Investors Business Daily article from 2004 noted the example of Anthem, another insurance company. They said the top five executives (not just the CEO) received an average of an 817 percent increase in compensation between 2000 and 2003. The CEO, for example, had his compensation go from $2.5 million to $25 million during that time period. About $21 million of that was in stock payouts, the article noted.
A 2006 article, 鈥淯.S. Health Insurance: More Market Domination, More CEO Compensation鈥?br>
(hcrenewal.blogspot.com) notes that in 56 percent of 294 metropolitan areas one insurer 鈥渃ontrols more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting." In addition to having the most enrollees, they also are the biggest purchasers of health care and set the price and coverage terms. 鈥溾€橳he results is double-digit premium increases from 2001 and 2004鈥攑eaking with a 13.9 percent jump in 2003鈥攕oaring well above inflation and wages increases.鈥?quot; Where is all that money going? The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article looking at the compensation of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. His salary and bonus is $8 million annually. He has benefits such as the use of a private jet. He has stock-option fortunes worth $1.6 billion."
--Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan pp. 127-128
"Insurance Companies Robbing Patients
Robbing patients to pay CEOs leads to unprecedented medical insurance corporation greed.
Thursday, January 3, 2008 8:52 AM
By: Michael Arnold Glueck & Robert J. Cihak, The Medicine Men"
http://www.newsmax.com/medicine_men/medi...
As you can see the "push" for everyone to have insurance is NOT going to solve ANY of those problems at all--it's just a way to force more money from the working poor into the greedy pockets of the CEOs of insurance companies and I dare say a good deal goes back under the table to the pols who make that possible and refuse to enforce either contract or antitrust law.
Hillarycare has already been shoved upon us in Taxachusetts by Romney and there are only 6.5 million folks there--300 mil in the US and here are the results:
"Massachusetts announced that spending on its health care plan would increase by $400 million in 2008, a cost expected to be borne largely by taxpayers."
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/200...
Last modified: January 29. 2008 5:03AM
That article also explains how California couldn't get UHC off the ground because of expense.
I do have to disagree with you that your care is "free" or that you have no worries. You've apparently been fairly healthy and I pray that continues for you.
Canadian doc on UHC throughout the world, a great set of reasons for just saying NO to that and going with a TRUE free market which we do NOT have in the US:
"...Another sign of transformation: Canadian doctors, long silent on the health-care system鈥檚 problems, are starting to speak up. Last August, they voted Brian Day president of their national association. A former socialist who counts Fidel Castro as a personal acquaintance, Day has nevertheless become perhaps the most vocal critic of Canadian public health care, having opened his own private surgery center as a remedy for long waiting lists and then challenged the government to shut him down. 鈥淭his is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week,鈥?he fumed to the New York Times, 鈥渁nd in which humans can wait two to three years.鈥?br>
And now even Canadian governments are looking to the private sector to shrink the waiting lists. Day鈥檚 clinic, for instance, handles workers鈥?compensation cases for employees of both public and private corporations. In British Columbia, private clinics perform roughly 80 percent of government-funded diagnostic testing. In Ontario, where fealty to socialized medicine has always been strong, the government recently hired a private firm to staff a rural hospital鈥檚 emergency room.
This privatizing trend is reaching Europe, too. Britain鈥檚 government-run health care dates back to the 1940s. Yet the Labour Party鈥攚hich originally created the National Health Service and used to bristle at the suggestion of private medicine, dismissing it as 鈥淎mericanization鈥濃€攏ow openly favors privatization. Sir William Wells, a senior British health official, recently said: 鈥淭he big trouble with a state monopoly is that it builds in massive inefficiencies and inward-looking culture.鈥?Last year, the private sector provided about 5 percent of Britain鈥檚 nonemergency procedures; Labour aims to triple that percentage by 2008. The Labour government also works to voucherize certain surgeries, offering patients a choice of four providers, at least one private. And in a recent move, the government will contract out some primary care services, perhaps to American firms such as UnitedHealth Group and Kaiser Permanente.
Sweden鈥檚 government, after the completion of the latest round of privatizations, will be contracting out some 80 percent of Stockholm鈥檚 primary care and 40 percent of its total health services, including one of the city鈥檚 largest hospitals. Since the fall of Communism, Slovakia has looked to liberalize its state-run system, introducing co-payments and privatizations. And modest market reforms have begun in Germany: increasing co-pays, enhancing insurance competition, and turning state enterprises over to the private sector (within a decade, only a minority of German hospitals will remain under state control). It鈥檚 important to note that change in these countries is slow and gradual鈥攎arket reforms remain controversial. But if the United States was once the exception for viewing a vibrant private sector in health care as essential, it is so no longer."
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_ca...
The little pockets of free market DO work:
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbe...
A doctor owned and run hospital that sees everyone gets care, no matter what happens to the bottom line.
http://www.simplecare.com/ a doctor-driven group where reasonable rates are charged.
Note you can go to a walk-in clinic at Wal-Mart or CVS or the like in many cities and get many of the most typical reasons for seeing a doc addressed for under $100.
The price of LASIK has DROPPED dramatically over a decade. Plastic surgery is CHEAP. Compare a major procedure like a tummy tuck with the bill an uninsured patient will get for a medically necessary appendectomy WITHOUT complications.
The program we ACTUALLY should be discussing:
QUALITY, ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE health care for all.
That means preventative care (physical with follow up). Real medication (no Medicare "donut holes" the really ill are ripped off again.) No bogus ridiculously low "caps" on needed medical procedures. No abuse of the ER. No paying for the silly with the sniffles to go to the doc for free. No more bankruptcies over medical bills. I want THIS plan that ends abuse of the taxpayer, takes the burden off employers, provides price transparency, and ends the rip-off of the US taxpayer at the hands of greedy insurance CEOs (which has been repeatedly documented).
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...
Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com
Cassandra Nathan's Save America, Save the World Costs:
Major tests costs a couple thousand dollars, Cat Scans and MRTs and the like.
A trip to the emergency room will start out at $500 and work its way up from there.
Surgery expect above $10000.
Major Surgery, Cancer, and the like just go ahead and sell the house.
Organ Transplant -Hahahahaha!
Cost of Heath Insurance:
Private- $200-$300 dollars a month
Company- $50-$150 dollars a month
Dental and Vision Insurance cost extra.
Insurance does not cover everything merely a set percentage up to a certain limit, and many companies will refuse to help cover the cost of expensive treatments.
Opinion:
It sucks. I gave myself stitches once because I knew there was no way I could afford it. I don't get treatment or medicines for my medical conditions, because I can't afford it. i agree with the answers above This was a topic in my Political Science lecture. Like all political topics, the issue is very diverse.
To summarize, the US does have free health care, but it only covers the elderly and disabled. The rest are either completely uncovered, or they purchase private medical insurance.
Hence, private medical insurance companies are big players in the politics of health care reform. Because health care is a neccessity (like gas), the private insurance market can drive the cost up with little deterrents and they have driven the cost right up the roof.
The professor showed us charts and statistics and SURPRISINGLY, the amount that the nation spends on health care in the US is higher than that of Canada. Because the insurance providers and doctors are paid more than here in Canada. And most people seem to forget that the majority of the people consuming health care IS the elderly and disabled. So for Canada to cover the entire population vs. just the elderly and disabled will only result in a small increase.
However, the downside of Canadian health care system is the wait time, skill tank, and technology. Because doctors and hospitals DO earn more in the US. Brilliant doctors and technology developers rush to the US to make their big bucks. The US does offer many advanced technology that is simply not in Canada. Also, they did a comparison of wait time and for a patient to see a specialist in US that would take 2 weeks would take a Canadian up to 6 months.
There was a documentary of a Canadian man who had to be sent to a specialist for a potential case of brain tumor but the wait time was 6-8 months. He knew if it WAS a brain tumor, he'd be dead in that time. So he travelled down to the states, and it was in fact a tumor. He paid for the surgery and was operated and recovered all within the time that it would have taken to see the specialist in Canada.
So all in all, the US plan is 'better' for the general public but you'll be able to find many individual cases where it is inhumanely fatal for critical illnesses because of the wait time involved.
Sorry...this is way too long... I'll stop here. If you'd like to discuss this more, feel free to email me. I would like to know if a doctor who removes a in grown toe nail gets paid the same as a doctor that repairers you heart? Under National heath care, all doctors would get the same pay, no matter what. I sure wouldn't want to go to cardiology medical school for ten years or more, when I could of just gone three of four years and still get paid the same. People in canada are dieing on waiting lists. Our health care system is bullshit. It covers only those who can afford it, therefore implying that the rich are somehow more worthy of living then the poor. There is a system for those who can not afford health insurance, but it exists solely to prevent those that can afford health care from feeling bad that others can not, and it is very ineffective. In order to qualify for it, you need an almost impeccable medical background, and can not fall into any of the "risk" categories, leaving many uninsured. The very fact that a human being in this day and age is denied treatment simply because of their social status is sickening, and yet it happens daily, while many of my fellow Americans feel totally indifferent to the lives around them that are being destroyed due to elitist health care laws. Socialized medicine is the way to go, and hopefully our next president will do something about it, or for that matter anything positive at all. There is no universal health care like your country provides. There is low income health care (medicaid/medicare) for people in a certain income bracket. It is little to no cost for people that qualify for it.
Blue Cross has a insurance program for 20-somethings called Tonik. It runs about 100 dollars a month and has co-payments for dr. visits at $40 and ER visits $100.
Thats about as cheap as it comes for individual health care plans.
I wouldn't mind having some sort of universal healthcare system in place.
I went to the ER with an migraine (I didn't know it was a migraine..never had one before and I was suffering with scatoma...If I knew this I wouldn't have went) I sat in a room for an hour..they told me what I had..gave me two vicodins and I had a bill of $865. |
