****Re: guess what....

[keith smith]

I think some of your references might be less than accurate.

From what I am hearing you would like Health Care run like Social Security and Medicare.  Both are failing and bankrupt.  And guess who runs them?  The government.
 
------------------------
Keith Smith


--- On Sun, 8/2/09, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:

> From: Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com>
> Subject: Re: ****Re: guess what....
> To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Date: Sunday, August 2, 2009, 2:15 PM
> On Sun, 2009-08-02 at 19:16 -0700,
> Vaughn Treude wrote:
> > Lisa Kachold wrote:
> > > On 7/30/09, JD Austin <jd at twingeckos.com>
> wrote:
> > >   
> > >> The 'other' model isn't working any
> better.  My wife works in an Urgent
> > >> Care; tons of Canadians come here to get the
> health care they need.  I think
> > >> the whole industry needs to be more
> competitive; most things in health care
> > >> shouldn't cost what they do.
> > >>
> > >>     
> > > Inefficiency in preventative care, diagnostics,
> errors in surgery, the
> > > truth is incredibly expensive.
> > >
> > > But just because Canadians come here for care
> doesn't mean it's not working.
> > >   
> > <rant>
> > If by "working", you mean the majority of Canadians
> people accept it, 
> > and even think it's a good thing, I suppose it is.
> They're just very 
> > lucky they have a "safety valve", that is, a large
> semi-free country 
> > whose borders are within 100 miles of 90% of their
> population. 
> > Single-payer is, IMHO, the biggest piece of economic
> foolishness ever 
> > devised. Let's give an absolute monopoly to the most
> inefficient, 
> > corrupt organization ever invented by humans
> (government.) As for the 
> > notion that socialized medicine is cheaper, I don't
> believe it for a 
> > second. Governments can shift their costs to other
> agencies; the 
> > Pentagon does it all the time. I assume, for example,
> the cost of having 
> > "premiums" collected by the CRA doesn't get counted in
> the balance 
> > sheet. Not to mention the fact that a huge portion of
> the overhead costs 
> > of private insurers in the US is red tape imposed by
> government 
> > bureaucracies.
> > Not that I'm necessarily endorsing the current system.
> There were a lot 
> > of good not-for-profit medical insurers in this
> country until Richard 
> > Nixon changed the tax laws, causing a massive takeover
> by greedy HMO's. 
> > I'd like to see a system of decentralized medical
> cooperatives with 
> > for-profit companies as a supplement.
> > BTW, I don't blame the immigrants, but I do blame the
> lawyers. :-)
> > </rant>
> > 
> > No offense, just my two cents. :-)
> > There, I feel so much better.
> > Vaughn
> ----
> seeing as how the political discussions do not die off, I
> am going to
> sound off here.
> 
> The entire premise of the Canadian health care system was
> to provide a
> single tier of medical coverage for all and no amount of
> wealth would
> provide a better level of health care. You cannot devise a
> system that
> is more fundamentally fair to everyone.
> 
> The people who come here from Canada are doing elective
> surgeries either
> not covered by the health care system in Canada or
> prioritized in a
> manner that does not suit the person with money to pay
> elsewhere.
> 
> The language that you use Vaughn is loaded and
> inaccurate...
> - we are not a safety valve, we provide elective medical
> care to those
> who want to pay and go elsewhere.
> 
> - the issue of a monopolized health care run by the
> government happens
> to be that which is practiced in all other western nations.
> We spend
> more per capita on health care than any other
> industrialized nation and
> yet approximately 25% of our citizens do not have
> coverage.
> 
> - the insurance companies do worse managing the health care
> than
> government could ever do. They practice murder by
> spreadsheet. They
> invent rules for exclusions. Someone in this country WITH
> health
> insurance goes bankrupt in this country every 30 seconds
> because of
> exclusions, deductibles, etc.
> 
> - blaming the government red tape for the profits of
> insurers is absurd
> to its core.
> 
> An American citizen visiting Canada can get free health
> care if needed.
> 
> Any solution short of single-payer will fail and we will be
> back here
> again, with more people excluded from coverage by insurance
> companies,
> more people bankrupted by illness only because the
> companies with
> profits at stake...insurance companies and drug companies
> will spend
> unreasonable amounts of money to influence public opinion
> and elected
> candidates.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> -- 
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