I have health insurance through my job, which is partly paid for by deductions from my salary. (My annual salary is adjusted by the amount of my contribution, so my share of Regence/Blue Shield isn’t listed on my pay stub. I think it’s $186/month.) I have better things to do with my time than to go to a doctor. Cold or flu? I’m intelligent enough to manage those without one. I sprained my toe in a crash last month. A doctor would tell me to take ibuprofen and be gentle with it. Why go to a doctor for it, then? Unless I need to see a doctor, I’m not going to. I think most people are not going to see one needlessly.
This is one issue that perplexes me about conservatives. They often trot out the ‘Well if I’m paying for it, I’m going to use it!’ argument. If you’re employed, you’re probably paying a portion of the premium for your health insurance. Do most people who have jobs go to the doctor whether they need to or not, to ‘get their money’s worth’? Of course not. Most people go to the doctor when they have to.
The other thing they like to say is ‘Why should I have to pay for someone else’s medical care?’ In other words, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ In Christian and Judaic tradition, yes; you are. (See the story of the good Samaritan, and the admonition to ‘love thy neighbour as you love thyself’.) But you have to remember that TANSTAAFL. That uninsured person in the ER isn’t going to pay for service, but someone it. That ‘someone’ is everyone who has insurance. You’re paying for someone else’s medical care by paying higher premiums. In effect, we all have the uninsured on our policies. Here’s the thing: Have you noticed that it’s more expensive for an individual to buy insurance than a it is for a group? By expanding the group, the cost of coverage will go down. By paying expensive ER fees instead of covering everyone, we’re being penny wise and pound foolish. We’re paying more than we have to because we don’t follow the Biblical teachings to take care of our fellow man.
On income of almost $80K I paid just over $20K in taxes. Ditto, my wife on income of about $70K paid just over $15K in taxes. Of course, most provinces have sales taxes around 8% added to the federal sales tax of 5% (down from 7% a few years ago). So if you consider what Americans pay for health insurance as basically a “tax”, I bet us Canadians are paying a lot less in taxes for a simpler, more comprehensive coverage.
If I go to a doctor, or see a specialist (referred by my doctor) or go into the hospital, it costs me about $0.
yeah, there are lineups for some procedures, but generally - on this regimen, until Harper messed it up, the government was actually in the black and paying down the debt.
I have some relatives who got divorced, and the ex-husband had to pay the kids’ medical bills. Most of the time, this is a perfectly legitimate way to support the children, but in this case, she took the kids to doctors all the time just to soak him. She would even take them to the ER if there was nothing else going on during the weekend. :eek: Thing is, the kids are not only estranged from him, but his entire side of the family too, and this is quite likely permanent and nobody will tell me why. And I probably don’t want to know, either.
There are a very large number of people who have insurance and time to visit the doctor. They are called the retired over 65. So, if the OP is right, we should be up to our asses in healthy old people every time we visit the doctor. I don’t see many.
I think there are a few people who are so lonely that they go to the doctor just for social contact. But they are rare. My clinic is very high scale, with a big waiting area, good seating, and classical music. And I still try to avoid it. So, the OPs hypothesis has been falsified.
What “threshold”? Until I got a job in July, I was unemployed for more than 3 years, and uninsured after 18 months of COBRA payments. Wisconsin, in its infinite wisdom, decided only children and their parents were eligible for Medicaid (locally called BadgerCare). As a single adult I was out of luck.
The gripe I have is that when you’re unemployed, you can’t afford ObamaCare either. On an income of $0/month, having run through all my savings and cleaned out my retirement fund, there was no premium in the world that was affordable. I’m very fortunate that I have health insurance now, but there are still tens of millions who don’t, and won’t, under ObamaCare.
I am constantly surprised by Americans and health care. Americans seem to think that they are the first and only people to deal with the problem. Ted Kennedy used to occasionally speak of what Canada has done. But otherwise, the external world seems unknown - as usual - by most of the population - and that includes the media.
I am an American citizen who has lived in Canada for 41 years (a USAF vet to be clear). The various interested parties in the health care debate here were constantly evaluating the systems of many other countries - and continue to do so today.
Despite the North Korean-type propaganda about the Canadian health care system, I think it has been a great success. I only had routine dr. visits most of my life, but luckily I did have the finest physician I ever met for 35 years. Lately I have leukemia problems, the usual dermatology sunburn skin problems to be dealt with and old person problems. I was in a pilot programme for a test drug to bring leukemia under control which was wonderful. Every aspect of my health care has been indisputably excellent.
It has been my habit when I meet people who have had a serious health problem themselves or in their family to always ask how satisfied they were with the care and hospitals. I would say that 85% or more are always so happy with how matters were handled.
Admittedly, I live in Toronto, which has the most of everything and I do not know much about rural or other areas, although I do see a lot of people who have been flown in here from all over for treatment.
The bitching. Canadians love to complain. Some times I think they are way off base. One example, there is an Eastern province v. lightly populated, which has a waiting list of 2,500 people seeking surgery to cut off their excess fat or tie off stomachs. Similar with knee replacements. I wonder how in Hell any place except maybe Saudi, could afford to find enough surgeons, nurses, hospital space, anesthesists and money to do more than a couple hundred a year in a poor and somewhat isolated province.
Budgets are a constant problem, as with every pubic service. But the country has not gone broke and has great health care despite the U.S. propaganda.
That’s only true in the dumbass states that are refusing to expand Medicaid. In the reasonable states, anyone with an income below poverty level (actually I think it’s a little higher than poverty level) will qualify for Medicaid.
If you can indeed barely afford to go to the Doc, you will probably qualify for assistance in your coverage.
You claim that by paying for insurance, you will then not be able to afford to actually go to the Doc; that all you spare money will be used up paying for insurance and not office visits. One of the benefits of the new plan is no cost visits, such as you annual exam. The point here is to get you to go for you check up and develop a relationship with a Doc before your asthma or diabetes or whatever is out of control; that it is better to manage your health regularly than in crisis. It will be cheaper for you and everyone to manage your heath than wait for a crisis to spiral into an ER visit.
Next you claim the opposite of your first point- you say that now that everyone has insurance, they will be junking up the Docs office unnecessarily. Well, which is it? Will folks go or not go? I personally have never gone to the Doc for no reason.
If you are uninsured and have health problems (and even if you don’t have any chronic problems today), please do yourself a favor and get some health insurance. It will help you in the long run. It will help me, too, in that I won’t be paying extra to cover you when you get ill and show up uninsured at the ER. That is the least sensible and most expensive way to manage your health.
I really don’t think you have to worry. Checkthis list out and see how much you use in the USA. In Denmark, where I live, we pay close to half and they pay even less in UK, and most medical aid is free both places (free in the sense that the basic insurance is part of our taxes).
I think that after a transition period your costs will fall too.
As a cancer survivor and someone in a low income bracket (I’m a cabdriver) I’m very happy to live in a country where healthcare is free for all citizens.
Your idea of “free” and my idea of “free” must be two completely unrelated things.
Yes, my insurance does things like free annual checkups/physicals, free flu shots/immunizations, free pregnancy/child checkups and the like, and pays something like 90% post-deductible on in-network charges.
But… it comes with a fairly high family deductible($2000 for next year I think) and it costs me something like $125 per pay period.
That’s hardly “free”. More like $3250 + $2000 + 10% of everything beyond that $2000 deductible.
It’s great if you end up blowing past the $2000 deductible, in that $2000 + 10% is better if you have major surgery or have a child or something like that, but it’s hardly free by any means.
I had a cancer scare in 1995, at age 46. I had no insurance through work (I did independent consulting), so I went out and bought insurance.
A quick biopsy and consultation and I was clear.
That was the first time since 1970 I had seen a doctor - I was disgustingly healthy up until then.
3 months later, I hemorrhaged to the point that I was not expected to live. A nice way for an ulcer to announce it’s arrival.
Approx 12 hours of ER and ICU, and I walked home.
As I gave the EMT my wallet for ID, she commented “thank goodness you have insurance”.
The bill for those 12 hours was $54,000.
If you really can’t afford even a bronze (or “get covered”, a sub-standard version of bronze, dirt cheap, aimed at the young and healthy), look into Medicaid (and hope you live in a blue state, of all things to be asses about, the GOP has chosen to deny their residents improved healthcare).
My take is a simple and naive one. As a country the USA spends a large amount on health care today, the argument is not about spending more on health care but on the equity of payment and access to quality outcomes for all people. A country that allows a person to go bankrupt due to medical bills is in my view criminal.
It may appear, with some merit, that currently our American cousins are being dragged kicking and screaming along to the path of competent healthcare, but once you start that route it won’t be as scary as you imagine.
And it could well have spinoff benefits with programmes and health promotion campaigns that currently the insurance companies do not deem cost effective. The insurance companies will need to consider and wake up to implementing cost effective preventative medicine and screening offers.
At the moment there appears to be litttle commercial benefit to them to consider the impact on their profit margins of health promotion campaigns. But if they can’t decline pre-existing conditions then they will realise that it makes sense to start being pro active.
You arguably have the best resourced military machine in the world to defend and further your county’s interests. Why is protecting your citizen’s health such an anathema?
They already do things like let subscribers get free flu shots and wellness screenings on their own time, but it’s usually something that the insurance companies have to pitch and sell to employers if it’s a mass effort at the employer’s workplace.
It’s not always clear with a lot of companies- either younger workforce or high turnover companies, that preventative screenings and medicine are actually cost-effective. In other words, why pay for some dude’s preventative screening if statistically he’s likely to only work for your company for 2 years when he’s in his 20s or 30s? Whatever problems he may be setting himself up for probably won’t come back to roost while he’s covered under your insurance.
But the insurance companies are well aware of that kind of thing and are pushing it to beat the band; incentive programs and the like are very big nowadays. Go look up “Humana Vitality” and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about.
We pay $5 per drug, up to a max of $100 per year. That should be the max you pay per year. If you have a Community Services Card or High Usage Health Card, no payment is required.
However, that is only for Pharmac covered drugs. Some drugs have limited subsidies and some new ones have no subsidy. If you have a condition that has only just had a drug developed to treat it, you may not be able to get the subsidised price. That is where you could be paying tens of thousands per dose.
Sure, it’s health care rationing, just like the conservatives warn you about with Obamacare. It’s a matter of not paying those tens of thousands for a new (and possibly ineffective) drug for 3 or 4 people who have the condition and instead supplying subsidised avorstatin and accupril for me and tens of thousands others to keep our blood pressure down and cholesterol in the right range, and so keeping us out of hospitals and in healthy enjoyment of our lives.