I also find it supremely ironic that the same people who call themselves “the culture of life” are the ones who fight with all the strength they can muster against Universal Healthcare.
If Terri Schiavo were poor and didn’t win that medical malpractice lawsuit she would have had her plug pulled a hell of a lot sooner.
Culture of Life my ass. It’s only a culture of life as long as you have money. If you don’t, it’s a culture of “fuck you, I got mine!” Because of course, that’s what Jesus would have done.
not to be too “serious” in the Pit, but personally I think we have several issues weighing in.
First, blaming any one thing is not reasonable. Fixing health care will need to be a multi step process, which seems near impossible with the current power balance.
No one can conceive of giving anything up, least of all the businesses which make a “ton” of money. Insurance, pharmaceutical companies, doctors all of them. The flip side is that unlike some of you, I am a little hesitant to recieve the same level of medical care found in other countries.
Personally speaking I would like to see the “for profit” insurance companies face some serious regulations as to the amount they can charge. Espicially when we seem to prefer reactionary as opposed to preventative treatment. This does mean that all those nice people making money from their stock, will need to sacrafice their income, which again is a seperate conversation.
So in short, I am very sorry for the families who face these burdens. That just plain sucks. Follow the money (which BTW although I have no site, I think lawyers are not the bigger issue) There is something that can be done, but until congress / whitehouse is willing to say f-you to a group (be it old voters, insurance lobbyists, or the medical proffesion) I suspect we will just continue to watch this thing flush down the crapper.
I myself am just really hoping I don’t get sick. Again I am truly sorry for those that do.
Before you start demonizing trial lawyers, think for a second. Trial lawyers can’t sue for malpractice without clients, can they? Here’s a sample progression: patient gets hurt by procedure. Patient goes to lawyer. Lawyer says, your chances of winning are x%. Patient says, no problem, lets sue the bastard. And the trial lawyers gets blamed for doing her job, and well.
True, there are some lawyers out there who will take on even the most hopeless of cases in order to get money. But the point is they won’t sue without a client – even in class action lawsuits there is a class action representative.
Lawyers are easy to demonize; they have been the butt of jokes and such for millennia. I know must of those jokes by now What you really have to look at are the insurance companies. High insurance rates are driving lawyers out of certain states, or so they say. The insurers are raising rates on everyone, especially doctors, while dropping some of what they cover. They are in the business of making money, and they are usually the first ones to point the finger at lawyers and malpractice suits in order to justify their rising rates.
If I had the time I would try to look up just what kind of influence the insurance lobby has on Congress.
BTW, social security being a good starting point for Bush? Oh my god wonderwench, do you think critically and objectively about anything?
I’d like to hear from non-U.S. dopers about the medical care they receive. The U.S. stereotype is one of little old ladies being sent home to wait for 5 months to get their painful gall bladder stones taken out. One also hears that there is a universal dislike for whatever system is in place and a wish that they could be “like America.” I can’t help but thinking that this is a bogus image being fostered by those with an investment in the status quo.
From my vantage point - American health care does things backwards. They find a “Cure” and then go about convincing folks that there is a need for said cure.
A case in point is osteoporosis. A osteoporosis drug came on the market. **Then ** the company went about educating physicians about the condition and providing lots of free DXA machines so that it could be discovered.
At the end of the day, millions of people who had no idea they had a problem prior to being screened are now on life-long, expensive medication.
I’d go out on a limb here to say that maybe it’s not to do with the advanced/unadvanced healthcare so much as it is to do with the “lazy/noworkout/eat/drink/stuff face” mentality of the average American.
I have a hard time fathoming your reasoning. The general sense (in most of the developed world) is that health care is a right. It’s one of those rights that we are afforded that makes meeting our social obligations a good deal. Health care is one of those things that makes total sense to socialize. (Boo! Scary socialism! Run away!) Health care providers get the compensation that they deserve, and citizens get the health care that they need. Why do Americans have a lower standard of care than Canadians? It doesn’t make sense. Hell, a Third World country like Cuba has a better health care system than the U.S. (and Canada, truth be told.) We don’t have an unreasonable tax burden up here, and the amount it would take to provide decent health care for all Americans would hardly be noticed, if it were in the mix with all the other fun stuff you guys don’t seem to mind subsidizing.
Over half of the personal bankruptcy claims in the U.S. are directly due to health emergencies. This is hardly surprising since most people rely on their employer’s health insurance. Your insurance is paid for until you really need it, (ie; you’re too ill to work) and then you’re on your own. No insurance, no income, no treatment. Suck rocks, deadbeat. What the hell is that about? It makes as much sense as a crepe-paper umbrella.
It’s not our number 1 problem, but it’s a strong number 2, that’s for sure.
Yeah, and that sucks major ass.
IIRC, many of the nations with UHC are having problems because the costs are sucking up much of their budgets. That’s not to say I think some form of UHC in the States is a bad thing, but simply shifting costs over to the government isn’t the whole solution. Otherwise we’ll trade our higher insurance costs and premiums for higher taxes, and we all know who’s taxes will go up: the poor and middle class.
Sooner or later, it’s going to have to change. The “baby boomers” are all rolling into retirement age (which also means that the tax revenues are declining), and as they find themselves having to cough up more dough to pay for the increasing numbers of meds they have to take, they’re going to get really cranky. A lot of them wrote the book on protesting, so they’re not going to be quiet about it.
Anyone have cites on how much money could be saved at the lower level, consumers and employers? I’d be interested to know.
At the last place I worked, employees were encouraged to review their hospital bills, and the Explanation of Benefits forms they received from our carrier. If they found mistakes, got them corrected, and provided documentation, they were paid half the amount of the mistake. When the company ended that program (to save money), people stopped checking their bills. It wasn’t their money that was being misspent, and it was no longer worth their time to fix the errors.
Also at the last place I worked, the broker who negotiated our most recent medical coverage was paid X dollars per employee. This was only supposed to be paid during the initial changeover, while the bugs were being worked out. He was our “delegate” to the insurance company.
His cut amounted to 10K, a month. After the first three months or so, things were running smoothly and we should have stopped paying him. Two years later, the broker was still being paid. I have no idea why, because our obligation to him had ended. If you ever did need to talk to him, you couldn’t find him. He was out building his new house, on the lake.
Management spent a lot of money on consultants to help them save on benefit costs, but they never implemented anything that was suggested.
I suspect other employers might be wasting money in similar ways. It all adds up.
I have yet to work for an employer who didn’t waste insane amounts of cash. If that’s true for every company in every industry, then a good chunk of drug costs can be attributed to that.
That’s highly debatable. We pay a buttload of income tax, property taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes…the list goes on and on. We may be used to it but I cannot imagine most Americans would take kindly to this level of taxation.
For the record, I don’t mind paying higher taxes for social programs. At lot of people are not of the same mindset, however.
Long Time First Time, Health care varies somewhat from province to province in Canada. In my province (NB), lack of family doctors is a big issue. Most provinces have some issues with waiting lists. If something is acute, it will likely be taken care of immediately (my gallbladder was removed the day I had my first and only attack). If I’m having mysterious symptoms with no obvious cause and I’m not hospitalized, it will likely be many months before any sophisticated (read: expensive) tests are done or I will see a specialist.
Good points? I can see a doctor or seek medical attention regardless of my financial status. Prenatal care, surgery, doctors visits… all covered. The system isn’t perfect by any means, but by and large I’ve been satisfied with the level of care I’ve received.
Yes. About 10-12 years ago, the state of New Jersey decided to institute legal reforms designed to make individual health insurance (not coverage provided by an employer as a benefit) “available” to everyone in the state. (And this is one big, big problem with many of the government regulations which have been put in place to “fix” the health coverage issue. These programs tend to focus on access to health coverage which is all well and good, but they frequently ignore what is a much bigger problem: affordability. HIPPA, which was one aspect of Hillarycare that did make it on the books, has had some unintended consequences. COBRA laws make coverage available to a lot more people, but many can’t afford it. Most people have no idea how much money their employers are actually spending for their health coverage, and when that cost is transfered to them without the attendant tax and “cost of doing business” write offs that corporations take advantage of, many families find that they can’t afford the coverage. At the same time, the red tape requirements of HIPPA have increased the cost of doing business for all medical professionals, from family docs to major hospitals, costs that are passed along to the consumer. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that 10 million more Americans are without health insurance now than were without it when HIPPA took effect)
Digression aside, here’s what New Jersey did. First of all, they became a guaranteed issue state. Guaranteed issue means that insurance companies have to provide coverage for anyone, regardless of their medical situation. GI does cause policies to be more expensive, but it’s not necessarily a death blow to affordable coverage, usually insurance companies compensate for their increased catastrophic medical costs on their relatively few very ill clients by transferring much of the front end burden to the consumer-polices suddenly have high umbrella deductibles ensuring that most health folks are going to have to pay for all their care out of pocket rather than by having co-pays and the like-but part two of the “reform” was a killer. New Jersey passed a law requiring every company that sold individual health policies in their state to spend 75% of their premium dollars on claims, with the remaining 25% allocated for their expenses, cost of doing business and profits. Any company that exceeded this 25% figure would have all monies in excess of this 25% that were not used to pay claims taken and shared amongst all of the companies in the individual health market that were losing money.
The results were predictable. Suddenly, insurance companies not only had their profits cut to the bone or eliminated by law, they were told that if they did find a way to work efficiently within the system they would be penalized for it and their money would be distributed to less efficient companies. Insurance companies left NJ in droves. Prior to this law, there were about 25-30 different companies offering individual policies in the state, competing with each other on coverage and price, now there are only a couple. These are companies that make so much money from group plans that they can afford to offer individual plans that they barely break even on, or maybe even offer at a loss.
So, based upon the experience in NJ, no, I wouldn’t say that legislation limiting the profitability of health insurance companies is necessarily a panacea for the problems in the system.
Canada’s GDP - Cdn$1.3 Trillion (Statscan)
Total govt revenues, all levels - Cdn$460 Billion (Statscan)
Total tax rate - 35%
US figures for all govt levels are harder to come by, but through the 90’s it looks like federal revenues made up ~57% of the total. (US Census Bureau)
US GDP - US$11 Trillion (CIA World Factbook)
US Federal Revenues - US$1.8 Trillion (ibid)
Assuming that the 57% figure still holds, total revenues for all levels of government - US$3.2 Trillion
Total tax rate - 29%
Note that it’s almost certain that US Federal revenues have dropped relative to state and local revenues due to Bush’s tax cuts, so the total rate is likely a couple points higher. Note also that the US has a truly staggering current account deficit. If we run the calculations on expenditures rather than revenues (and face it, sooner or later the taxpayers are paying for the expenditures) the total rate would come to 34%. If anyone can find more accurate statistics for the US, I’d love to see them.
So really, the tax burden on Canadians is only marginally higher than on Americans. Throw in the fact that Americans spend far, far more than we do on private health insurance, and tax + medical expenses as a percentage of GDP is almost certainly substantially higher in the US.
That doesn’t explain why it cost me $4,500 out of pocket for 24 hours of treatment for a broken leg. That’s one 10-minute ambulance ride, a couple of X-rays, fracture reduction (basically, 2 people holding me down while the doctor yanked the 6 pieces of my leg back into alignment), a cast, some painkillers, and a night in the hospital for observation (no fancy machines, not even an IV).
All of that could have been accomplished just fine 60 years ago, no fancy machines or high-tech medical care necessary. So why did it cost so much? Yes, I paid it off, but it took me literally years, and if I’d had a minimum wage job or a couple of kids, it might have thrown me into bankruptcy. If you included the roughly $100k in subsequent surgery and rehab that was covered on insurance, which kicked in 2 days after the accident (I’d just started a new job), I definitely would have had to declare bankruptcy. Is that really necessary for a broken leg?
What you really have to look at are the insurance companies. High insurance rates are driving lawyers out of certain states, or so they say. The insurers are raising rates on everyone, especially doctors, while dropping some of what they cover. They are in the business of making money, and they are usually the first ones to point the finger at lawyers and malpractice suits in order to justify their rising rates.