Yes here it is, your arguements were proved to be full of holes so you start the personal attacks...the ad hominem. This is a classical error in logic my friend, and very typical of limbaugh, hannity, levin followers. Your conservative scientist example makes NO SENSE at all. I gave you the proof that the insurance industry was making stuff up and using allies in the Republican Party and conservative media to promulgate lies and dirty tricks.I GAVE YOU A CONFESSION FROM A HIGH RANKING INSURANCE EXECUTIVE DOING IT. You understand what a confession is right? Not only does the guy confess, he gives you details, facts and other evidence which you of course just ignore...funny. You are not a seeker of truth. Your response shows you to be pushing a biased agenda...ignoring facts that go against your preconcieved positions.
I think the American system has proven that they do not want to go down that route. And I think the American system clearly shows that one should not put the fox in charge of the chicken house.
Of course it's not panacea, It's just seems that way because the current state of the U.S. healthcare system is so bad. Why not do what Australia did ? We still have private providers, but they operate in tandem with our public system. You have a choice of which provider you want to use. But everyone is covered under the public system, for most operations. It's not all free, there are fees and what not. But mostly it's ok.
Well, I always take anything a insurance adjuster says with a grain of salt. Man could easily be a disgruntled ex-adjuster who was "convinced" to speak out. And personally, I don;t care. I just do not like Obama's bill. Too much bureacracy. Same thing could be performed with a series of smaller steps and not require an abundance of oversight. Want affordable insurance coverage for the masses of employed. It's real easy pass a laww that insurance companies must provide a set level of coverage for a set price. Once 80% or more of the population is covered healthcare prices will plummet as there will be far few bills gone to collection. While the system adjusts to this you can prepare for the next big change. The merging of private hospitals and VA hospitals. This allows them to pool resources for equipment and facillities and also allows vets to receive treatment near home.
LOL, do you know the difference between a Vice President of Corporate Communications and an insurance adjuster? Apparently not. Potter was the guy who helped to plan and implement these dirty tricks and information distortion campaigns. He had a long and succesful career but voluntarily quit after he saw Americans waiting in lines and traveling thousands of miles for traveling free clinics....similar to what occurs in third world countries. Potters morals got the best of him after he saw where insurance companies were going with healthcare insurance which is less coverage and more cost...shifting more cost to individuals. In the 90's about 95 percent of every premium dollar went to cover medical claims. This century, 80 percent of every premium dollar is spent on medical claims. That means the insurance companies went from keeping 5 percent of every premium dollar to 20 percent of every premium dollar under george II and his merry band of Republicans.
I think that is similar to the way the US is going. There will be private insurance. The biggest issue here is what is being referred to as the public option. Insurance companies do not want the competition and are trying to scare people...they are good at it. From what I read of Mad's link there is no "IMPLOSION" mentioned in the arti cle...just more scare tactics. The article focuses on improvements in the system. And I think it is great that there are ongoing operational reviews and feedback loops looking to optimize service. That is a good thing, not a bad thing as Mad is trying to make it out to be. All of your best performing operations operate with a feedback loop so they can monitor performance and identify and seek out new opportunities for perfromance improvements.
I honestly think that the Canadian health care system is one of the best in the entire world . Unfortunetely the rich want a special system for them .
Did you read the OP? The portion of the article I quoted included this statement from Dr. Anne Doig: "We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
We're just pointing out that what a Canadian doctor calls an "implosion" is a step up from what Americans call their health care system, "the best in the world".
France has a hybrid healthcare system and they have a WHO rating of #1. The bill presently in congress and the senate make such a system as well.
Yes I did and it struck me as a special interest ploy in order to get more of the pie for the physician. When I see more independent assesments with evidence then I might start thinking there is some smoke there. But until then it smacks of a special interest group trying to game the system.
The bills now in Congress set up a system more like the Swiss have, than the French. The most expensive of the First World options, and not the best statistically, the Swiss setup would nevertheless be a great improvement over the current US setup.
The president speaks, sort of ... and other notes President Obama took to the broadsheets over the weekend, attempting to inject some sanity into the discussion. ... reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable. A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans in the previous three years because they had a pre-existing illness or condition. The companies either refused to cover the person, refused to cover a specific illness or condition or charged a higher premium. We will put an end to these practices. Our reform will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of your medical history. Nor will they be allowed to drop your coverage if you get sick. They will not be able to water down your coverage when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. And we will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. No one in America should go broke because they get sick. Most important, we will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups, preventive care and screening tests like mammograms and colonoscopies. There’s no reason that we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and prostate cancer on the front end. It makes sense, it saves lives and it can also save money. This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies. (Obama) This is what the president wants; indeed, we could go so far as to say it is what he is promising. This might be news to some people, of course, because the public discourse is so fraught with disingenuous noise. But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate. (ibid) This is exactly what Obama's opponents don't want. They tell us that there should not be a bloated government bureaucracy standing between us and our doctors. They do not wish to address their tacit advocacy of a bloated private bureaucracy standing between us and our doctors. They tell us the government should not ration—decide who does or doesn't get care—but the loudest voices seem to have no problem with a private corporation making those decisions. They do not believe the government can be held to account for the best interests of the people, but don't wish to discuss the corporations' dedication to greed of their executives and shareholders. In short, they are simply trying to project all of the problems with the current system onto the government. Eternal vigilance, as the saying goes, is the price of liberty. Yes, we will have to watch our government closely in this. But the naysayers show little concern for guarding against private interests. Our social contract with the government is clearly spelled out in the Preamble to the United States Constitution. Yes, we should hold our public servants accountable under this contract. But the alternative put forth often and prominently disregards the social contract of the corporation, which is simply to make money. The American Medical Association has thrown in, as has the American Nurses Association. AARP is in. This is a start. President Obama suggests there is "broad agreement in Congress on about 80 percent" of the reform package, but that number means there is a significant amount left to do. It would be helpful if Congressional Republicans would give the issue some genuine effort instead of hanging back and waiting for the midterm election. But that doesn't seem to be part of their plan. Meanwhile, the loud, angry, dishonest push continues: In the coming weeks, the cynics and the naysayers will continue to exploit fear and concerns for political gain. But for all the scare tactics out there, what’s truly scary — truly risky — is the prospect of doing nothing. If we maintain the status quo, we will continue to see 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day. Premiums will continue to skyrocket. Our deficit will continue to grow. And insurance companies will continue to profit by discriminating against sick people. (ibid) Our friend Madanthonywayne suggests that, "We should pass reform in small, bite sized bits. You know, bills small enough that everyone can actually read them." This seems about in line with his political needs: It extends the debate, gives the insurance companies as much time to adapt and figure routes to exploitation, and keeps the noise machine going as long as possible. Yet what are the primary challenges demanding reform? (1) Cost: Long have we blamed medical costs on lawyers, and there is some share of blame that falls with malpractice suits. However, the counterpoint there is that doctors and nurses are accidentally killing as many as a hundred thousand people a year, and injuring countless more. The solution to our health care problems does not rest in cutting compensation to those affected by malpractice. We might consider some degree of tort reform, but the bigger challenge is to reduce the number of malpractice incidents. Additionally, the cost of services and equipment is constantly rising. Manufacturers and providers have obvious need for some degree of profit, but at some point we have to recognize that this isn't the same as charging forty bucks for a dildo, or twenty dollars for a compact disc. This is, as the president noted, "about people's lives and livelihoods." The insurance companies as well are far too devoted to profit. If the neighborhood lemonade stand doesn't put enough sugar in the mix, you're out a quarter, or maybe a dollar. If the insurance company decides to cancel you because you need to file a claim, you might well be out your life. We might add R&D to that, because some of it is very strange. After all, research is vital to health care, but why is the most prominent recent product of expensive pharmaceutical research an erection drug? Aren't there more important challenges to focus on? And, yes, the profits from such drugs can be poured back into research, but what will the next big product be? Maybe a drug for excessively shy people that has the side effect of making them lose bowel control? Oh, wait, we already saw that several years ago. (2) Service Provision: Nurses' strikes are always controversial. When talking to a friend of mine who is an RN, we discussed how overworked she and her colleagues are. And this isn't just a matter of whether nurses are trying to be lazy. Understaffed, overworked nursing corps make more mistakes. Which, of course, leads back to the malpractice issue. There is an issue of wait times, but therein lies a question of staffing, personnel availability, and profit margins. (3) Recission: This is the big, emotional one. And for good reason. What is the purpose of having insurance if they just drop you when you file a claim? In Congress recently, health insurance executives testified about the practice of recission, by which one company saved an estimated $300 million by dropping 20,000 policyholders after the fact. These policies were cancelled for alleged fraud, but if you want to talk about redundancy and bureaucracy, what they were looking for in reviewing those policies was any failure to cross every t and dot every i. This is one part of America where you are presumed guilty, and opponents of health care reform haven't done much to address this point. Furthermore, when asked directly if they would stop canceling coverage except in cases of demonstrable and intentional fraud, the three executives called to Congress flatly said no, they would not. What else? Add to the list. And then let's take it in small chunks, then. Recission? How dare the government meddle in business! It's anti-American to tell a business they can't make money! Service provision? Well, let's do some union busting. We can't let better staffing interfere with excess profits, after all. Cost? Let's take it out on the malpractice patients, because don't you know a business needs grotesque profits to survive? No matter what, it all comes back to money and liberty so long as we treat health care as just another market commodity like lemonade, dildos, or snow globes. But that's the American way, right? Free enterprise? The American dream? Where were the teabaggers when it was a bogus war? Where were the teabaggers when it was petrol companies gouging people for gasoline? It wasn't the black man with a strange name in the Oval Office, so they were just fine with how things were going. The noise and bluster holding back the public discourse has little to do with health care itself. It's time to get over this, and move on with the real issue. But grim, complex discussions about family finances over the kitchen table late at night just don't make sexy headlines. So we can fault the media for its role in pushing the story and thereby granting the ludicrous disruptions the kind of legitimacy reporters and pundits were unwilling to extend to arguments against the war in Iraq. The problem is that there are more than two sides to every argument, and the argument against health reform receiving the most attention right now is the least legitimate. If the Republicans want to take up the banner of reasonable and productive opposition, I think even liberals would welcome that at this point. In the first weeks of the Obama administration, many were giddy about the apparent collapse of the GOP. But nature abhors a vacuum, and what has risen to fill that void is something altogether uglier. The challenges are known. The end goal is known. But in between is a tangled nest of misdirection and hives of angry, buzzing wasps aiming to chase people away from the issue altogether. If they succeed, we won't ever get there. I would ask my neighbors to consider that simple prospect, and what it means to them. Maybe you have health care today, and like your policy. But try to promise yourself that it won't disappear as soon as you truly need it. Some people are so paranoid about government that it's the idea of government, not the violations, they focus on. This results in the appearance that they're just fine with the private sector committing those very violations. And if that's truly the case, there is not much good to be said for them. _____________________ Notes: Obama, Barack. "Why We Need Health Care Reform". The New York Times. August 15, 2009. NYTimes.com. August 17, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/opinion/16obama.html
Would like a system more like U.K (from what I understand) rewards Doctors for "treating" and "preventing" ...somehow. Currently they are paid by the patient visit...which kinda rewards more visits and that sucks. Lump sum DOES have it problems... there is waste. The waste varies from province to province depending on how good the Auditors are and how well the punish, reward good hospitals/clinics etc. Though they actually ARE paid by the patient. There is a real dollar value the hospital sends to the government for each patient, which makes me question the validity of that article. In Alberta for instance, they have hip surgery setup as an outpatient procedure. Yes one day, in and out. No fucking way can you get that in Ontario. Alberta does not have to deal with massive numbers of immigrants and cross border health care leeches either. Rural communities do routinely get screwed over, so yes basing the system around patients(I mean that's the whole point of health care), would be better.
Thoughts on a notion And, as then, it can be construed as an attempt to drag out the status quo as long as possible, and give opponents of change as many opportunities to drag the discussion down into the expected, distracting rhetoric as possible. To look at it more sympathetically, though, there are two other stiff challenges facing the idea of smaller bills that everyone can actually read. The first is Congress' way of writing bills in the first place. If the can bury the language, they will. Instead of writing, "Section X is amended to read as follows ...," they frequently write, "The second sentence of the third paragraph of Section X is amended as follows: Strike the first 'the' and replace with 'a'; strike the word 'and' in the second clause of the sentence and replace with 'or'." This makes the bill unintelligible to the citizen until it is published in the Federal Register, and how many people really read that? To the other, maybe they should spend more time sifting through the Register. But I'm probably a fascist for suggesting that the best way to find out what's going on with the government is to read the source documents. The Register is dauntingly huge to begin with, and large bills can often skip all over the place, amending this law, striking that one, inserting this bit here. The second major challenge is the nature of the reform. At any scale, the key word here is lawyers. After all, how many of us have criticized lawyers at some point in our lives because of the way they nitpick in search of loopholes. To the other, of course, we want a nitpicking shark on our side when we need a lawyer, but that's beside the point. Not only is there a lot of technical and sector-specific language, but everything has to be phrased in such a manner that it can withstand the waves of litigation that will occur under its rubric. Congress often fails at this part, either despite or because so many legislators are lawyers to begin with. But even in smaller chunks, the legislation is likely to be largely incomprehensible to a society with a basic literacy expectation ranging between the sixth and ninth grade. In the end, people's understanding of the legislation will depend on competing, often partisan explanations, flow charts, and bullet lists.
Wait a tic, America has how many millions of uninsured? Isn't it something like 18% of your nation has no coverage? The Canadian system has it's own problems which we will hopefully improve, but I'll take our set-up over the American one 365 days of the year. As a doctor I know who moved from America up here once said; "the worst feeling on earth is denying treatment to someone who badly needs it just because of money." Mad, you and I just have a bit of a philosophical difference here. You often argue that not much is more important than personal freedom. I agree with you in many areas, but not this one. I'm willing to forfeit a minor bit of my freedom (the freedom to choose an insurer is not so dear to me), and take on the responsibility of maintaining my health and not abusing the system*. For me, universal health care is a freedom of it's own kind; to be free of ever worrying about medical expenses or inability to receive treatment due to bizarre loopholes in coverage contracts. Health care helps to level the playing field. It means poor families don't have to give up $3,000 a year of their child's college fund just to make sure they have coverage. And you know what? If it means higher taxes for me, I really don't care. And neither do most Canadians in higher brackets. Oh, and we also just get better bang for our buck than you guys. * I happen to agree with certain social theorists (see Mario Bunge) that rights ensured by the government imply responsibilities for each citizen covered by those rights. The right of free health care implies that I have the responsibility to be healthy and not abuse the system in order to help my fellow citizens.
With respect to the original article, it would be great if we were even having the same conversation as the Canadians. It's not that they want to give up universal care, they just want to perfect it. We don't even have universal care! Our "system" if you can even call it that, would give Canadians nightmares. If their's is flawed, our's has already collapsed and people are dying. Meanwhile, the Republicans are complaining about paying for consulting about end of life issues. Sometimes, more health care is not better health care. It used to be that a 90 year old with pneumonia would die naturally in about 3 days. Now, doctors intubate them so they can feel like choking for about 3 months while bedsores develop and they die anyway. Having a living will would avoid tragic cases like this, and Democrats want that to be covered.
