Huh. Now that I think about it, I don’t know if you have to be a Canadian citizen to qualify for our healthcare, although I suspect legal residents must be able to get health cards as well. I’m guessing the card is not as necessary for Brits because you don’t have a giant mass of uninsured sick people literally at your doorstep. Lucky you.
Looks interesting, thanks, and I’ll review it in detail by and by.
As I recall, that was cited as the main reason for the cards in Ontario when they were introduced: To stem the flow of uninsured, health-care-seeking yanks across the border.
U.S. health providers suck so bad at their job we have rich people from all over the world come here for treatment, and we even get some of the best doctors from Canada to come here to work since they earn more money here.
Life expectancy numbers say nothing about quality of care. America has the highest obesity rate in the world, reduce it to the same as most countries we get compared to and our life expectancy would go up. Japan has one of the highest life expectancy numbers at birth and while no one has an absolute definitive answer as to why, it probably isn’t just by chance that they have a national cuisine that is generally far healthier than what we eat in America and far lower obesity rates.
I’m not saying “it’s all obesity, stupid” but obesity all by itself is a huge issue that can definitely affect national level statistics.
Rand Rover might be an idiot, I don’t know. I know you guys seem to have lover’s quarrels in all kinds of threads, but the fact is it is retarded to point to life expectancy numbers as proof of anything when it comes to national health care systems. The U.S. system has lots of problems, and I have no problem admitting that (I have great health coverage that provides me vastly better access and doctors than the Canadian system, but I’m well off–poor people in my city have no care at all, something that doesn’t happen in Canada); but people that drop life expectancy numbers and start crowing basically are being idiots.
There’s a lot of just as easy numbers that you could have used that would have made much more sense. For example look at our national spending on healthcare versus other countries, our access to care versus other countries, and various metrics like that which actually highlight some of the problems of the American system. The life expectancy numbers are basically “statistics for dumb people.”
Sorry was on the iPad earlier and it’s not wonderful for compiling multiple sources.
US numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and since they were presented by quarter I simplified by totalling and dividing by 4. Cdn numbers were fromhereand I took the highest number for the year and used that.
Year US Cdn
2007 4.6 6.2
2008 5.8 6.5
2009 9.3 8.7
2010 9.6 8.3
2011 9.0 7.8
Current 8.2 7.3
So your position is that the difference in the unemployment rate up til 2008 was due to our UHC and that from 2009 on the recession which has clearly impacted only the US has counteracted the cost of our healthcare?
The current Euro crisis has generated some excellent (although more comprehensive than UHC) comparsions of social spending vs the countries economic stability and the results are clear - there is no link.
Countries who spend a lot on social programs including UHC and public safety nets are not the ones failing. Please note that I am not arguing that spending on social programs will protect a countries economic status, I’m actually arguing that this link is almost non existant. Governments make great economic decisions or poor ones and the only connection with social spending is the impact on the citizens is greater when they go broke.
Social Expenditure Database report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Then you’re not nearly observant enough to be taken seriously in this matter.
Well, unlike you I don’t have little lover’s quarrels with him in tons of threads. To be honest about the only time I’ve even read his posts I notice you’re having spats with him. Unlike you I don’t get hard ons for other posters and then follow them from thread to thread.
But the fact remains your original usage of life expectancy statistics is dumb. Rand Rover may be an idiot, but the fact that you just shit all over a thread with bullshit statistics and then act like a fucktard when called on it means I know that you’re also not to be taken seriously in pretty much any matter.
Given what you spend on health care compared to the rest of the world, Americans should all be living to 136.
How much you spend is an example of what’s wrong with your system, not what’s right
The problem with this is the end result. Folks with the least money are faced with 2 choices. Pay 2.5x the “real” price of $75, or be a deadbeat. This isn’t a $10 convenience fee we’re talking about, it’s an enormous additional charge, applied to people who clearly have the least money to pay it.
Yes, somebody has to pay for the deadbeats, in this case, it’s the Proud Poor. People who have no money, but are willing to sacrifice what little they have to pay their outrageous bills. Good for them, hope they enjoy Ramen.
The dirty little secret is that virtually all medical providers have the “cash discount” like in the OP’s case, but you have to know to ask for it. If you say “I have cash and can pay now (or at time of service), can you give me a break on the price?” you will nearly always get the $75 price instead of the $200.
The $200 official price is what the medical types tell the insurance companies the price is, so the insurance companies can then bargain them down to $75 (or whatever). If you pay cash on the spot, not only do they not have to chase you, they don’t have to deal with health [del]pirate[/del] [del]thieves[/del] insurance companies and all the paperwork/employee time to handle that, and don’t’ have to argue after the fact to justify the treatment they just gave you.
It’s not the “proud poor” who pay the full fee - it’s the uninformed poor who pay it.
ETA: needless to say, no one in the medical industry actually advertises this fact - the insurance companies, because they don’t want folks to figure out they aren’t as necessary as they’d like you to believe, the docs because if they did the insurance companies would come after them for deception and try to cut their pay even more than they already do.
I’ll concede that, not that it makes the situation all that much better. It’s not like the poor got that way by making lots of well informed and well thought out financial decisions. This is just another way for poor folks to waste money that they don’t have, to cover the costs of other poor people who don’t pay their bills, as though they have some responsibility to pay for deadbeats. People with more means are likely to be better informed about their choices, or are paying medical professionals to negotiate prices for them.
While I accept that this is reality, people with more means will have an easier time with life overall, I don’t particularly like to celebrate the fact every time it comes up.
You’re still qualifying it? Jeez, you’re slow.
*Sometimes *they’re uninformed. Sometimes they have the unmitigated gall to get pinkeye on Tuesday when payday is Friday.
In fact, in every case I’ve heard of, the cash discount is given to anyone who wants to work out any sort of arrangement at all, even if it’s not all “cash on the nail”. The $200 is solely for people from whom they think it’s going to be a hassle to collect.
It’s not a *great *system, but I understand where it comes from.
Right, because no one is ever poor due to lay off, getting injured/ill, having their house burned down in a wildfire or smashed by a tornado… :rolleyes:
Sorry, but let’s get past this meme that the only people who are poor are those that make mistakes.
I have a theory that poor people who were formerly middle class are going to fare better in these situations than those poor all their life, but I’m not sure how to go about substantiating that.
Then you negotiate. Pinkeye isn’t not such an emergency that you can’t take the time to discuss options. You can probably wait a day or two if you really have to to seek treatment for that. Or you could agree to pay half on Tuesday and the balance on Friday - offering up front to pay anything at all is likely to get you a better deal.
Hey, I’ve been without insurance. It sucks. But you’re not helpless. It works best if YOU take the initiative, bringing up your self-pay status and willingness to pay cash at the time of initial contact instead of waiting. Also, being calm and polite is a plus, too. You start cussing and swearing and getting angry at the people trying to work out payment options with you it will not end well.
Pinkeye is not a medical emergency, no. Which is why I picked it as an example. It won’t get treated in a busy emergency room, so you have to go to a clinic. However it’s highly contagious, and if your employer isn’t an idiot, you will not be allowed to come to work with it - which means you’re going to lose income, the only question is how much. The longer you go without antibiotic drops, the more likely it is you’ll infect everyone in your household with it - which means it will cost more to get *them *in to the clinic and pay for *their *eyedrops. It’s also really, really uncomfortable, and if you happen to have a pre-existing eye condition like glaucoma, is a risk to your sight. It’s not an illness to be ignored, but it’s not an emergency, either. It’s exactly the kind of “do I go to the clinic or do I hope it gets better on its own” health condition that people without insurance struggle with.
Absolutely. And that’s where educating people about cash payment discounts (like I did in my first post in the thread) is helpful. But sometimes when you attempt to negotiate, even calmly and politely, the answer is still no, and they have you over a barrel. I don’t see where it’s helpful to make a blanket statement that anyone who gets stuck with one of these exorbitant payment plans is uninformed. It’s insulting, and it’s blaming the victims of our healthcare system.
Yes, that was precisely his point.
Yes, I’m familiar with all that. Actually, though “pinkeye” can be caused by viruses and even fungus, which is even more reason you should see a doctor for it, but “antibiotic drops” are always the best solution.
In which case I’d even say that going to a Payday loan place and getting just enough for the doc’s and no more might even be a viable solution IF by doing so you’re only paying $75+loan fee rather than, say, $200. Of course, that is a highly nuanced financial decision I’m not convinced even most college educated folks are capable of evaluating.
I didn’t say that. The uninformed are more likely to wind up in one.
There are probably instances where opting for the payment plan is the lesser evil.
One problem with discussing this is that each situation is so individual - this person can borrow from family/friends, this one has uber negotiation skills, this one can pawn jewelry, this one can reach into the stash under the mattress, etc. In my case, if I needed $100 to go to the doctor for pink eye at this point I could ask my boss for paycheck advance, she’s done it for others, because she wants healthy employees and NOT spreading illness to other employees or customers. Also, she’s pretty cool as a human being. Even when I worked for Evil Corporate America there was a mechanism to ask for an advance on a paycheck.
I didn’t mean to make a sweeping statement about all poor people. Generally, among the poor, especially the chronic poor, you’re going to have folks who have fewer skills in dealing with economic issues. Yes, there are plenty of folks with solid life skills who are poor today, but not as many as you’ll find in the more affluent brackets.
What sucks is that they have to negotiate to get the same price other people get right away. If they don’t have cash in hand, they REALLY have to work to get a price that is anything like the cash price.
It’s like they are given the chump price up front, and other people get the good price. Then, they have to work to get the good price, and many of them, the ones who likely are worst off of all, don’t have the skills or knowledge to get the good price. The last thing the poor and low skilled need is to pay more for the same service everyone else gets.
True. The ghetto tax sucks.
Unfortunately, most Americans haven’t woken up to the fact that in US medicine it’s not just the poor who pay it. More and more middle-class folks are having their employer-sponsored benefits whittled away. We’ve had threads on this board where folks with the high-deductible health accounts have slammed into the retail price of US medicine and it’s been a shock to them.