Any time the government gets involved you can bet efficiency will go down while cost will go up.
I think his point is that you do not have to worry about going BK since you will die without treatment.
My father used to complain a lot about our American way of life. He especially complained about the amount of taxes he paid.
While I would like to pay less taxes, I sure did enjoy the 101, 202, I-10, etc while I lived in Phoenix.
Our government does some good stuff like solid waist removal, sewer, water.... ETC.
However I do not want my government to be involved in anything beyond roads, police, fire, sewer, and water.
I worked for an HMO 10 years ago and they need to be held accountable. Still not a bad system.
Craig White <craigwhite@azapple.com> wrote: On Wed,
2008-02-13 at 01:29 -0700, Jason Hayes wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 9:31:14 pm Craig White wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 21:12 -0700, Jason Hayes wrote:
> <>
> > In any of the countries you mention above, you are not subject to
> > exclusions for pre-existing conditions, large deductibles, medical
> > decisions made by health insurance companies and of course, of all the
> > countries mention, this is the only one where people routinely have to
> > declare bankruptcy because of the phenomenal costs of health care, and
> > this hits both insured and uninsured people.
>
> You're missing the point here. If you die on a waiting list, it doesn't matter
> how much you saved on your health care bills. I'd rather go and wash dishes
> or deliver newspapers on top of my other job than have to wait eight months
> before I could even set foot in an
oncologist's office to start discussing my
> cancer treatments.
----
well, now I'm unclear to what you are referring to. Your reference was
to a hernia. The other reference to prostrate cancer was to your wife's
step-grandfather and curiously enough, this article from today's Az
Republic suggests that might not been a problem...
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0213Prostate0213.html
I'm not sure I'm missing the point here, certainly not from your
arguments.
----
> > Then add to the equation the vast numbers of uninsured, the percentage
> > of the nations GDP that is given to the health care industry (and
> > rising) and the cost escalations for health care the last 5 years and
> > the projected increases in health care costs over the next 5 years and
> > it is clearly a system that is deeply broken.
>
> I did not say that the American system was
perfect; only that you should not
> think instituting socialized health care will fix all the problems. It won't.
> It will just create a ream of new problems, at the same time as it will
> raises taxes, create long waiting lines, and decreases the quality of
> service.
----
assumes facts not in evidence but prays upon the fears, uncertainty and
doubt.
If there were truly a socialized health care in the US, it's clear that
the administrative costs would drop from an estimated 15 - 25% of the
total cost to under 5% and that is entirely significant.
----
> > For every 'horror story' that you list above, there are surely 10 horror
> > stories in the American health care system...
>
> Totally unsupported rhetoric, but let's pretend that you're correct. Having 10
> US stories for every 1 Canadian story wouldn't be all that surprising since
> Canada has 30 million people and the
U.S. has over 300 million. There's 10x
> as many stories in the U.S. period.
>
> > http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kaiser4may04,0,335770.story?track=t
> >othtml
> >
> > Oh yeah, this is a great health care system we have here in the US...
> >
> > Craig
>
> Wait lists for basic treatments in Canada are long and getting worse by the
> day. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2753
>
> That's true despite the fact that Canada spends more per capita on its health
> care system than almost any other country on the planet.
> http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/newsrelease.aspx?nid=5036
>
> The cost of the Canadian system is simply unsustainable. Something is going to
> have to give. Right now it is access to doctors and quality of services.
> http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/newsrelease.aspx?nid=4561
>
> Again, I have lived with and paid for both systems. Once the taxes and other
> costs of the Canadian system are factored in, you're not saving a lot with
> socialized care.
>
> In the end, the American system is better. Period. Full stop. That doesn't
> mean it's perfect, just better.
----
actually, you are either misreading the Fraser Institute report or
simply choosing to misstate the comparison because they considered ONLY
those countries with universal health care and then used an 'age'
adjustment. Countries such as the US were not considered in the
comparison at all. There simply was no attempt to compare all countries
on the planet at all.
In fact, the actual conclusion of the Fraser Institute report was
simply...
"The overwhelming evidence is that, in comparative terms, Canada’s
system of health care delivery under-performs and needs to emulate the
more successful models
available elsewhere in those countries that offer
their citizens universal access to health care."
Whatever problems exist in the Canadian health care system (and
certainly there are problems), they neither prove nor disprove the
suitability of a universal health care system here. They only prove that
each country has issues to deal with.
Moreover, if you are an employer faced with substantially increased
yearly premiums and reduced coverage, increased deductibles, etc., you
know how completely broken the US model is. If you are lucky enough to
have coverage from your employer and yet are not cognizant of the sharp
rise in costs and sharp decline in insurance company coverages, it won't
last.
Craig
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