Socialized Medicine

Specialties CRNA

Published

Hi, I have heard that Obama's "Universal Healthcare" or socialized medicine or whatever will cause Doctors to take paycuts because they make so much. Will this have the same effect on CRNAs and, if so, won't that cause a shortage of them in the future since the pay is reflective of what it took to get there and stay there?

When people say anything negative about war we are called unAmerican. When people say things in support of other Americans (let's not go to war for the profit of the military industiral complex) we are called unAmerican, even though the whole point behind saying the negative things is that we don't want our frinds, family and neighbors to be put in harms way for the profit of others. That is American! To say that you don't want to help ohter Americans with their healthcare is very selfish diosadelsol. Why can't we support other Americans? Our healthcare system is a joke. We rank 37th in quality in a study by the world health organization and spend the second most per capita. Let's be pro-America and help each other out when we can!

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Specializes in Anesthesia.
To say that you don't want to help ohter Americans with their healthcare is very selfish diosadelsol. Why can't we support other Americans?

Are you serious?! Since when is my neighbor having healthcare my responsibility, as an American? And as far as selfish goes, you don't know me. Just because I believe that each individual should work for what they have does not make me selfish. It is my responsibility to make sure that my children have health insurance. As an American is it also my responsibility to pay your mortgage or put gas in your car? How about your light bill - do you want me to pay that too? I have no problem supporting other Americans who genuinely need help. Not having health insurance does not fall into that category - it is a choice, not a right! Get off your high horse and keep your bleeding heart to yourself! :angryfire

PS - Not a single person who knows me would EVER use "unAmerican" to describe me. :spbox:

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Why are we the only industrialized nation to think that healthcare is a choice not a right? The only answer I can come up with is selfishness. People are so scared of loosing their healthcare coverage that the power elite can treat people unfairly and pay them less than they deserve in order to maximize their profits and buy their fifth or sixth vacation home. We are loosing our middle class in part because people don't feel that they have the power to ask for what they deserve. I am sorry I attacked you personally, I really mean that the social norm in America is selfish. People seem only to care for themselves and their own family rather than other Americans. That seems unAmerican to me.

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Specializes in SICU, CRNA.

The government is not the answer to anything! The government, no matter who is in charge, sucks at being effecient and providing anything...Medicare, medicaid, social security, the post office, etc. all sound wonderful, but in reality are unable to be sustained financially...none of them work in the sense of being able to be self sustaining without sucking the taxpayer dry. So what is the governments suggestions for the increasing cost of healthcare? another government option? it too, like any other government program will cost much, much, much more than anyone thinks...And it will be terrible at managing it, just like they are terrible at managing everything they run...If the government could cut out waste in any of its existing programs and run them even close to effeciently they might be able to have a conversation with the american people, but nothing they tell us can be taken seriously. They need to get out of every little aspect of our lives. If the goal is to help the less fortunate, then lets do that. Why does the government have to be the mediator between us? If you want to pay more taxes to help those in need, wouldnt it be more effecient and appropriate for you to keep more of your hard earned money instead, and then you give to those in need directly? We all need to be individually responsible for ourselves without being so dependent on some government who doesnt care about us. That is Democrats and Republicans...they just take turns letting us down....The smaller they are, the less damage they can both do to us as a whole.

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One thing's for sure: The plan is to raise taxes to pre-Regan levels, which will unfairly impact doctors and advanced-practice nurses. Congress and the president have already admitted that those levels will have to be adjusted in the future to make up for shortfalls. That translates to a pay cut for them.

The plan is to raise taxes not to preRegean levels, but to the levels that Regan established.

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Why are we the only industrialized nation to think that healthcare is a choice not a right? The only answer I can come up with is selfishness. People are so scared of loosing their healthcare coverage that the power elite can treat people unfairly and pay them less than they deserve in order to maximize their profits and buy their fifth or sixth vacation home. We are loosing our middle class in part because people don't feel that they have the power to ask for what they deserve. I am sorry I attacked you personally, I really mean that the social norm in America is selfish. People seem only to care for themselves and their own family rather than other Americans. That seems unAmerican to me.

It seems selfish and "unamerican" to you because you obviously don't understand the principles this country was founded upon. Healthcare is a commodity, and because it is, we are able to provide amazing healthcare in this country. It is how the advances that have saved untold lives have come to be. I've never seen anyone come into any hospital I've ever worked in and not get treated. That is because of the human and American spirit of the people that treat the patients. The patient's without insurance will, however, get billed for the services that are provided. You think that is wrong? Who should pay for it? Why should someone else pay for it? Do you really think that we can just give everyone that can not afford or who choose not to afford health insurance a plastic card and "voila" we all have equal, wonderful healthcare without quality of care and services falling? I actually had a conversation with a fellow student from the Netherlands who was going on and on about how socialized medicine worked so well in her country. When I countered with "your country probably doesn't have a huge illegal immigration population that is exploding daily sucking your tax dollars out of your system, into the local western union, and straight into another country," she admitted that they indeed had immigrants that came to their country just for the free healthcare and benefits. She then stated that their income taxes were up to 70% because of them! At that point, I just smiled and said OK! You can't argue with someone who thinks its great to have "free socialized medicine" and is OK with paying 70% income tax for it.

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And yet you choose to argue with someone who posted nearly 4 yrs ago?

Not sure why I bother, but the current income tax rate in The Netherlands is closer to 3% for the lowest bracket and 50% for the highest bracket. Small price to pay for living in a civilized society that cares about the health of all of it's citizen's. ... and has 0% bankruptcy and homelessness due to illness.

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This is insane, think about it. The moment we passed the EMTALA laws REQUIRING hospitals to accept patients in emergencies WITHOUT knowing they could pay for it we made health care a right, think people do you see us throwing people out cause they cannot pay? Do you? No you do not so we are already paying just in the least efficient way possible. The moment we are allowed to refuse treatment due to payment the moaning and whining about paying for your neighbors health care will make sense as it is right now YOU ALREADY ARE. Think fugossake.

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This is insane, think about it. The moment we passed the EMTALA laws REQUIRING hospitals to accept patients in emergencies WITHOUT knowing they could pay for it we made health care a right, think people do you see us throwing people out cause they cannot pay? Do you? No you do not so we are already paying just in the least efficient way possible. The moment we are allowed to refuse treatment due to payment the moaning and whining about paying for your neighbors health care will make sense as it is right now YOU ALREADY ARE. Think fugossake.

To the poster above this quote...4 years ago??? Treating pt's who come into the ER not knowing whether or not they can pay and then billing them for it to recoup what they can afford is a far cry from setting up a system that will drive private insurance companies out of business creating a government run, national insurance program. And as far as efficiency is concerned, I'll give you one scenario from among countless that demonstrates where the lack of efficiency originates.

It is said that ~5% of morbidly obese people have sleep apnea, and that up to 95% of OSA in this population is undiagnosed. These are recent numbers from this year's texts, and if anyone that works with sleeping obese people believes that any less than 70% of MO pts have OSA, then they aren't paying attention . OSA kills, and it kills slowly and expensively. Undiagnosed OSA...time...cor-pulmonale...time...multiple hospitilizations & meds...time...miserable death at a tremendous cost to the pts and the healthcare system. As an RT, I could walk into a pt's room quietly at night and definitively diagnose OSA. Heck, I can talk to the pt's wife/husband/significant other and definitively diagnose OSA. Now, being in the OR and putting people to sleep attached to an ECG, pulse ox, capnograph, etc. I can not only state what I see with the patient, but I can also show via printouts of monitored data that the pt has OSA. Now, the definitive treatment for OSA is CPAP, and while the addition of positive airway pressure definitely has its complications, they are minor when speaking of 5-15 cwp nasal cpap. BUT, in order for the insurance companies to pay for a CPAP, a patient must be referred by their primary care MD to a sleep specialist who will then set up at least one overnight stay at a sleep lab where at least two people will be paid to determine the same data a simple pulse ox will deliver + some really cool numbers about how often the patient wakes and kicks etc. Why? Because the CPAP is roughly $600. Six bills for a freaking blower that you can buy at a hobby store attached to computer that is less advanced than the technology you find in a $12 calculator at Walgreens all designed to blow air up the nostrils via a cheap corrugated tube and $30 mask. Why so expensive? Well it is a piece of medical equipment that if used improperly or if cheaply made (here comes the FDA) can cause the patient damage or worse...kill them. I doubt very seriously that any CPAP could possibly be more dangerous than your average ceiling fan you can buy at Lowes to install yourself despite the fact that you may have ZERO experience installing electrical equipment. But hey, if you electrocute yourself or if your ceiling fan falls, smacks you in the head and kills you, I doubt you are going to win a multimillion dollar lawsuit against Lowes. So...here come the lawyers! Seriously! How much money could we save the healthcare system if healthcare providers could educate people with OSA about OSA and point them in the direction of an affordable, OTC CPAP machine. The machine would be affordable and well constructed, because in a free market, the products that succeed are fairly priced and quality built. I'll go so far as to say that if CPAPS were to go OTC, they would be much better quality, self titrating, easier to clean, and come with much better masks. Why? Free market competition. But no. Fears of litigation and the all powerful FDA put MDs in a position to profit greatly from sleep labs, so they do. In the meantime, a great majority of people with OSA will continue to "sleep" their way to hypertrophied ventricles before ever even giving a serious thought to spending money to go and sleep in front of strangers in a facility hooked up to a bunch of wires. There is waste and inefficiency everywhere in the HC System, but the answer to the problem is not more government regulation, and the answer certainly isn't a government run system.

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While I appreciate your point of inieffciencies in the current system this in no way refutes my points, the current system provides huge profits for insurance companies, crushingly heavy payments for individuals and companies while depriving many of health insurance, higher costs and uncertain payment to providers, and I am sure that you have noticed higher costs to government in costs of health care.

It is not like we are trying to replace a system that is working.

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Oh, I fully agree that changes need to be made, but creation of a govt. run system isn't the change needed. SS and the Medi...s are broke/in the hole and are getting worse every day. The same thing will happen to Obama-care, and the results will be that everyone but the richest of the rich will get less and less care and we will all pay more and more for it in the way of taxes. We can argue till we are blue in the fingers as everyone else in the country is doing, but only time will tell.

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I am not sure of what you are saying, the system is broken but do not fix it? I mean what is the answer? As long as we have decided that healthcare is a right (we have) then the current system whic gives the benifits without responsability will no longer work (like it does now). Many who can pay for insurance do not those who need it the most get dropped or charged more (due to the small pool of insured) yadda, yadda yadda you know the rest.

Sooooo what is the answer? other then heckle I mean?

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