Socialised health care, Australia style

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

Yeah, homework is no fun.
And statistics are boring.

But as I mentioned above in post 52, statistics aren’t just boring;.they mislead, don’t tell the whole story, and aren’t enough to judge the quality of care.
To judge a health care system, there is a critical element which is just as important as the medical statistics–the emotional strain involved.
.
Life is better for all the citizens in a country when they all know that they have guaranteed access to a reasonably decent health care system, (even if there are, say, longer wait times.).

Only in America do people live in fear of making major life-decisions because they are afraid that they will lose health care coverage. No matter how good the coverage is, your life sucks if that coverage prevents you from improving your life in other ways. Choosing a new job , or deciding to get divorced, are deeply important events in life, and should not be dependent on your health insurance ..
And, after being injured in an accident, nobody should not have to beg bystanders not to call an ambulance .because you are afraid that the local emergency room is out of network for your coverage.

82

If profit-making corporations exist in a healthcare system then it is their interest to repress other avenues of obtaining healthcare. Generally by paying money to elected officials in order to make sure a public healthcare system is not set up and by paying the media to present a negative image of public health care.

83

I once pointed out to a libertarian friend that a public healthcare system would align well with his ideology. For many people, their health care is tied in to their employment. They choose a job and keep working a job because they need the medical coverage.

If health care was provided as a public service, like education or fire fighting or police protection, then people would not have to worry about losing their medical coverage if they left their job and started their own business. A public healthcare system would be a huge push to greater entrepreneurship.

84

If you’re talking about MRI machines, I’ve heard that some bigger veterinary practices get imaging equipment this way.

I also read about a very wealthy benefactor purchasing a CT machine for one of the hospitals in Monrovia, Liberia that had treated Ebola patients. The entire city’s electrical grid, what there was of it, had to be revised just for this, the only CT machine in the nation. We sure take a lot for granted, don’t we?

85

They do. The veterinary facility where my dog got his MRI done had a machine that they had purchased from a hospital when the hospital upgraded theirs. They are still damned expensive even on the used market, and so was the cost of the MRI! But the veterinary specialist had asked for an extraordinarily large number of images (I think they’re technically called “slices”, and are used to digitally reconstruct remarkable 3D views).

86

Health insurance can be gotten at jobs on your level of employment
Pretty much universally.

Employers would not get top applicants otherwise.

(Of course that doesn’t explain Walmart and their evil ways.
And keeping people under a regular 40 hour work week.
I digress.)

All those things; fire service, police service, education are not free.
Heck I would feel more at peace if my electric bill was paid. I think it should be a right for everyone in 2025 to have free untilities. :saluting_face:
That ain’t happening.

Any person that wants to work the system. Poor, elder, Moms and babies can get treated.
They can ride in that ambulance.
They’ll get treated. If they are uninsured/ unemployed, the social worker comes in and sets things up.

I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to turn some one away who is ill or injured.

If you have crappy insurance that takes too much out of your check, whether the employer covers half the cost(yes they do that, employers hate it I’m sure) or not.
You can still, as far as I know, get on the ACA. Which lowers or zeros your obligation.
It was really working.
I hope Trump falls off his toilet on this one.
I have very little hope, about that.

I’ve been reading the stats.

I’m very willing to totally change my mind about this.

I’ll still love my America.
Trump is not what America is to me.
The fascists are not.
The MAGA thugs are not.

I still have a kernel of hope that we can weather this awful storm.

Not willing to give up yet.
We need our brothers and sisters in other countries to be at our side.
Not against us.
Why are you all just set on hating us all? Because of that hateful piece of shit?
More than half of us are fine, willing to change and learn folks.
We all want healthcare. All of us.

What is it? 195 countries or so?
Is everyone in all those getting the best care available?
Do they just have preventative care or are we talking comprehensive coverage? Surgeries, long term treatment? Expensive cancer treatment? Oh, and don’t forget dental. Elder care? End of life care?

I gotta look stuff up. I see.

87

Health care is a fundamental human right. None of those other things are “free” but they’re a shared cost of living in a civilized society, and they’re free at the point of service, so that one’s financial means aren’t an obstacle to getting good health care any more than they should be to getting firefighters to put out your house fire (although the US being a capitalist plutocracy, there are some places where firefighting has been privatized, and other places that supplement inadequate police services with private security, all of which is great for the wealthy, not so great for anybody else. That does not make for a peaceful and stable society.)

In many of those other countries, “the best health care available” might be offered, but it might be substandard just because those countries are poor. I can only speak for Canada. Yes, health care is absolutely comprehensive, and also, unlike with private insurance, cost is not a factor. I’ve said this many times before – there just isn’t any mechanism for denials or pre-approval requirements except in very extraordinary special circumstances. So if a visit to a doctor costs $100 or major surgery costs $1 million, it all goes through the same unconditional process.

When I was in the hospital with heart problems, triple-bypass surgery was proposed with no one even thinking to ask about “insurance coverage” because it was never a factor. And there are zero co-pays. I got stenting instead at my own insistent demand – because it was almost as good but with much less risk and recovery issues – but was still in the hospital for a week and walked out of there owing absolutely nothing – $0. And even more important, there was no insurance bureaucrat insisting on one solution or the other – it was strictly a decision between me, the patient, and my doctors. No one else. This is a critically important aspect of UHC in Canada.

Elder care? End of life care? My mother, well into her 90s, got it all, again for $0. Somewhere in the back of my mind I half-expected that, when hospitalized, she might get less than ideal care (“our priorities are younger people”). Not so. Not at all. I was impressed by the care and compassion she received. In fact, as her patient advocate, I occasionally had to push back on some of the tests they wanted to do. When she needed a pacemaker, being a tech nerd I was interested in the technical details and got them, and researched them. What they gave her was the best that money could buy. For $0.

And when she needed home care in her waning days, she got nurses, a personal care worker, a nutritionist, hospital supplies including oxygen, and even a portable oxygen generator so she could still go out to her beloved Pusateri’s and pick up her favourite groceries. All at no cost. Zero. That’s called a “compassionate society”. That’s Canada. I admire your patriotic clinging to your country, Beck, but its health care system is the most inequitable in the world, as well as by far the most expensive and wasteful.

88

I agree. To a point.

I just don’t think, even if I was able that I could ever leave America.
If somehow I did and brought, not my particular issues, but regular healthcare needs. I’d feel guilty about recieving health care in a country I never paid taxes in.
If that’s even an option. I dont know.

All for naught even thinking about it, of course.

We just have to let this crazy political crap settle down. Work to change things. The best we can.

America has weathered some shit in our short history. You could say, maybe more than our share. And came out ahead.
I believe we can repeat that.

Gotta get the menace out of the Whitehouse and see where we are. With what’s left.

Fingers crossed. With alittle help from our friends.

89

No one is asking you to. That’s not the topic here. I’m just trying to correct your apparently misguided understanding of how health care systems work in other countries, Canada specifically.

I’ll also add, for your further edification, that there are a lot of variables in the quality of care one receives, depending on things like geographic location and who your particular practioners are. Those variables exist everywhere. For instance, when I got out of the hospital I was assigned to a particular cardiologist working in a hospital-affiliated clinic.

The clinic was always busy and crowded, and the cardiologist I got to see after a long wait I didn’t like. So I complained to my GP, and was referred to a different one. OMG, the difference! It was a peaceful, uncrowded luxurious office with soft lighting and oil paintings on the walls. There was virtually no time spent in the waiting room, and when the doctor wanted tests, he always called me back with the results, sometimes in the evenings or on weekends. It was the kind of personal attention one associates with top-tier high-cost private health care systems. But it was all part of the same system.

Keep that in mind when you hear that UHC in Canada sucks. No system is perfect, and each has their advocates, but what counts is how well it works for most people overall and how well it fulfills society’s moral obligation to their sick and elderly. UHC in Canada does that very well. The US system fails millions of its citizens.

90

:+1: post

91

What @MacDoc said about what @wolfpup said. :slight_smile:

92

And just an added bonus because I live alone, I’m eligible for home help for the next 28 days. Starting tomorrow, I have domestic assistance, free of charge, courtesy of my UHC.

:slight_smile:

93

Nice. I’m so happy you have that coming your way.

You’ll love it I’m sure. Most, not all, of the people who do that are very dedicated and good folks.

Looks like you’ll get better now..which is the best prognosis.

You’re on your way, girl!

94

@Beckdawrek, I’m not looking for accolades or shit like that. THIS thread is about how UHC works in Australia.

This is how it works. No dramas, no navigating different tiers of care, insurance, providers, no deductibles, out of pocket expenses AND I get home help.

Yes, thanks for your well-wishes, but with a choice between them and having access to health care in Australia 2025, I’ll go with the health care instead of the thoughts and prayers. :slight_smile:

95

As I said above, I think it’s important to recognize that the US system fails all of its citizens. It obviously fails the half of the population that must suffer substandard care, or no care at all. But it fails everyone because the economy is greatly burdened by parasitic insurers that extract billions of dollars worth of potential productivity while providing zero beneficial service.

96

Another anecdote, this time from Sweden.

A little more than a month ago I was starting to mildly worry about something probably minor, but you guys know how it is: there’s something that kinda nags you and the more you think about it, the more you notice and the more you notice the more you worry.

I had noticed what felt like a contusion on my left calf. I hadn’t bumped into anything nor were there any miscoloring. And I thought I could sorta feel little lentil sized lumps under the skin. There’s no cardio-vascular disease in my family. My BP at total rest is about 115-120, which is not too bad for a guy who’ll turn 64 later this year. It would’ve been different if I had high BP, family history ASF. Then I’d’ve been really worried. I was about to take a flight, and that nagging kept bothering me.

Wednesday
9:00, call the GP practise (first line in our UHC), get referred to a nurse who basically does triage over the phone. I am careful to mention that I feel a bit like a hypochondriac and that it doesn’t feel as if it something really bad. She asks me if I can swing by between 9:30 and 10:00 and she’ll take a look at me.

9:35. I arrive, check in a the reception desk, sit in the waiting room for about five minutes. Nurse I talked to on the phone shows up and get’s me into a small room with gurney, BP machine and so on. She takes my BP, which is slightly higher, as I’ve been moving about and am slightly worried. After some back and forth, she says they’re booked solid, but that she’ll stalk outside the offices of the GPs and grab the first that pops out. I wait for maybe 15 minutes and then she returns with a doc. He feels the leg, prod, hums and says that he’s gonna get me an emergency referral for ultra sound at our (quite big) local hospital. This is done online, so I just have to get there - about a mile away.

11:00. Arrive at hospital, navigate to the building with CT, MRI, x-ray and ultra sound. Check in (using my ID with QR code), no paperwork at all. Now there’s only waiting.

1:30. Ushered into the ultra sound by a nurse. I knew I was in for a bit of waiting. I’m clearly not dying and they have to prioritize. Still, from previous experiences, I’d brought my Ipad and was reading a book.

1:45. After some brief prepping a doc shows up, does the ultra sound thingy and shows me on the screen. Nothing with arteries or veins. He shows me the small lumps, but can’t offer an explanation. But that’s not his job. He’s there to see if there’s something dangerous. I ask him what it could be. “Side effects of living,” he jokes. It’ll go away, no need to worry.

2:00 I’m out of the hospital, five hours after starting, having paid nothing.

The saying here among medical people I know is that you’ll (almost alway•) get the care you need, but maybe not the care you want. I doubt I’d gotten that swift help for an ingrown toe nail.

•Fuckups happen.

97

The problem is that the American healthcare system isn’t failing everyone. If it was, there would be no incentive to maintain it and we would fix it.

But the American healthcare system is benefitting a few hundred people - the parasitic insurers you mentioned. Hundreds of millions of us are enduring a fucked up healthcare system because they are getting rich off it.

98

I had friends who moved to Australia post 2008 crash because they would have been shelling out multiple thousands a month in COBRA while unemployed in the States.

The pro-free market side just does not accept the immense efficiencies that happen with UHC. Every time you get care, there’s communication from your doctor to your insurance, your insurance back to the doctor, your insurance to you, your doctor to you, bills sent to multiple entities, none of which want to write a check. Every employer and medical service provider has to individually negotiate terms with every single insurance provider they want to support or get quotes from, every single year, and both sides pay people to do all of that work.

God forbid you want to know how much a test or treatment will cost. You talk to the doctor, then the doctor’s billing person, then your insurance then back to the doctor, and maybe more than one round if it’s a complex case. There’s like 4 people involved to get the cost, that is probably not even going to be correct when it’s actually done, just to help you decide if you want to do it.

99

Yeah, I included that caveat in the longer version I posted first (“as I said above”). Didn’t feel like belaboring the main point on a repeat.

100

I mentioned earlier that when my brother moved to the US for a new job, it came with excellent health care benefits (by US standards). He had no complaints about the quality of his health care, but lots of complaints about the massive bureaucracies and paperwork involved. Those bureaucracies cost big money, and they interfere in the doctor-patient relationship. Add to that the fact that there’s no effective means of cost control so providers charge what they can get – in part to make up for the high costs and stresses of dealing with health insurers – and there you have American health care in a nutshell.