Who alleges that? UHC improves the level of care by introducing preventive care for those that don’t have it, but the actual quality or acute care received by the uninsured is good; it’s not that the care sucks, it’s that they have to pay exorbitant rates to receive it, meaning they don’t get any until they’re damn near dead.
What Brock Lesnar and people like him don’t understand is that a little socialism goes a long way.
Well, the bill out of the Senate taxes Cadillac health plans, making it significantly harder to carry an all inclusive plan.
I don’t have a cite handy, but I was pretty sure the CBO found that Preventative care had a pretty negligible impact on care and cost.
Getting Wellness checkups and flu shots and physicals isn’t going to bankrupt anybody. It’s longer term illnesses like cancer that break the bank, and very few of those can be avoided by preventative care.
I have a HSA plan with a very large deductible, so I pay for preventative care out of pocket. My family (5) certainly doesn’t skimp on preventative care and we spend more per month on groceries (by a rather large margin) than on out of pocket expenses for health care.
Considering the fact that he’s not a resident and wouldn’t have a primary care doctor here, how does the fact that he needed to go to an ER for care prove anything about our system? It’s not like you cross the border and are assigned a doctor for your stay.
You do, when you say things like
That’s what I mean. Including preventative care (and care for routine illness and injury) is what allegedly makes UHC better than the current system.
Yes, even under UHC you can still have differing level of service (although this is discouraged, as Sinaijon mentions) but that is not what I am talking about.
Regards,
Shodan
Brock says his wife saved him. Saved him from what exactly? Is diverticulitis fatal? Did he end up actually having complications related to diverticulitis?
Sounds like the guy might be prone to a bit of exaggeration.
It definitely can be, if left untreated.
“supposedly” being the operative word in this case.
I strongly suspect that he was pissed because they would not give him an MRI just because he demanded it. It doesn’t work that way. Medical decisions in this hospital are driven by medical doctors, not the patients, and are given on the basis of medical protocols. - Thus no MRI to confirm a diagnosis of diverticulitis, when the attending physician knew he had diverticulitis.
This is part of the reason why the costs per capita for healthcare in Canada are lower; we try to eliminate unnecessary and expensive procedures and tests.
Of course, it’s possible that he was pissed due to the lack of respect and deference he was shown, as a “star”. That and the lack of fresh flowers and a chocolate on his pillow.
His conditioning is suspect as well, not that he’s needed it so far.
When you have a ‘for profit’ system, the ‘haves’ get to feeling entitled. It’s like pay to purchase, so if I, well insured ‘have,’ show up at your hospital and want/demand to ‘purchase’ an MRI, 'cause I’m used to that sort of top shelf treatment, you deliver = you profit.
In a ‘not for profit’ system, the Doctor decides what resources are used, you’re not getting an MRI because you want one or can afford one, sorry. It was a correct diagnosis, no MRI was required and this entitled ‘have’ dragged his sorry ass off to Amerika where he could ‘purchase’ the health care he wanted.
Here’s part of the savings that righties never want to acknowledge, more resources can be used on those who need them, when they are not being consumed by those who can afford to purchase them.
Access to resources is determined by the treating doctor not the patient’s sense of entitlement.
Which leads to the question pertinent to his claim of faulty equipment which put him at medical risk: What piece of equipment is used to treat diverticulitis?
Why? I’d understand if the MRI machine was broken, but if it is otherwise working and not in use, why can’t I pay for an MRI if I want one? What harm is that to others?
No equipment is needed to treat it. I assume he wanted some imaging done to confirm the diagnosis. That’s not an unreasonable request but is definitely not essential. So, with the CT scanner down, he left to go where he could get one.
In terms of treatment, it can be very basic in many cases. Antibiotics are given, usually, but not always, through the IV route. For example, someone with recurrent diverticulitis may simply take a course of ampicillin (by mouth as an outpatient) when they get their “usual” symptoms of an incipient flare.
ETA: This link seems to provide a very reasonable overview of the treatment (although I haven’t read it in detail).
Because it’s a hospital, not a Denny’s. You don’t get extra shit just because you throw cash around. Why not let the doctors, who know what you need, decide who gets the MRI’s.
This is a huge sticking point even among those who favour UHC (such as me). Some claim that by allowing someone to “jump the line” or purchase unnecessary tests, it would threaten the very foundation of UHC. Personally, I don’'t buy it - hey, if someone wants to go to a private place and pay their own cash for an MRI of their head because they’ve had headaches for twenty years and don’t want to wait six months in line, let them do it. It will shorten the line-up for those waiting behind as well as bring money into the system (as opposed to having them drive across the border for the scan and leaving their $500 there).
It’s not how things are done in this publicly funded hospital. The MRI time and technicians time is needed for those patients who actually require it based on medical need. It is not there for patients who want it because they can pay for it.
There are not many MRI"s sitting around idle waiting for a “customer”.
If he got his MRI, someone with a medical need would have been bumped down lower on the list. Patients with a medical need may have been harmed. This is unacceptable under the medical system in Manitoba. Medical treatment is based on medical need, not on ability to pay.
ETA; People here get mighty pissed off if there is any whiff of someone “important” jumping a medical queue. If the hospital had tried this, they would have been pilloried in the press.
Oh, the horrors of rationing health care based on need rather than willingness to pay. As a Canadian, I am shocked, shocked! I say, that a second-rate celebrity wasn’t given an unnecessary MRI on demand.
I suppose that’s the difference. If you want 100% utilization of the machines ( no down time) you can’t provide for maximum demand, only for average demand, which means longer wait times when demand spikes.
It’s a different storyin the US. We have more MRI machines than anywhere else, and it’s pretty easy to find openings, either at hospitals or at private machines. The ability to accomodate non-necessary MRI’s simply drops the costs (avg MRI cost in the US is comparable to Canada) and especially the wait times for everybody involved.
If waiting three weeks for an (non-urgent) MRI is the price for giving everyone access to MRIs and anything/everything else they need, without bankrupting a sole, I’ll wait.
And, BTW, the financial cost for all of the above is less (per capita or as %GDP) than it is in the US.
What’s there not to like?