[UKRNinUSA]

Hollyvk -You make a lot of really good points, thanks for your clarifications. I'm afraid I won't be joining you in buying healthcare stocks - I would hate to see my hard earned money going down the toilet when Universal Health Coverage is finally implemented! But I will have that beer..........

[UKRNinUSA]

Originally Posted by hope3456

I just quit a job in a LTC facility.......... Many of these 'residents' are being kept alive by very expensive drugs that probably werent around 10 yrs ago - thereby giving them a quality of life (in a unsafe, chronically understaffed and underfunded LTC) of about....nothing. Where do you draw the line when it comes to end of life care??

I have looked after countless SNF residents who have been transferred to the ER for urosepsis/pneumonia - natures way of helping you die, in my opinion. So I do my duty and pump them full of fluids, antibiotics, dopamine even levofed (my "real" priority tho is to keep them as comfortable as possible) and they live to see another "glorious" day back at the SNF/LTC.

The only people that seem to benefit from these drastic measures are the care facilities, the insurance companies, the drug companies and everyone who makes a living caring for them. I continue to wonder how the priorities in health care have become so skewed. Shouldn't we be focussing our efforts on helping people live well rather than preventing them from dying well?

[Fuzzy]

Heck I would be happy with affordable and available medical care. Right now I have neither. I don't have any health insurance. Why? I cannot afford it. I have pre-existing conditions where even the psuedowonderful state policy that is supposed to be available to all is over $600/month. I know that sounds like a pittance to some people but I only take home about $1800/month. I'm not a nurse but a CVT (I work with animals).

I can tell you how much "elective gall bladder surgery" costs because I'm paying the entire $16,000 out of pocket. I also pay for all my prescription medications ($150/mo) for my pre-existing conditions out of pocket so I can stay well enough to work and be a tax payer instead of a tax taker. I didn't get any help with this bill because:
I make too much money in a single person household (approx. $25,000/yr);
I'm too young to collect on social securty or medicare;
I'm too honest to deadbeat the fine hospital, doctors, nurses, and staff
who took care of the problem by not paying the bill;
I'm an American citizen instead of an illegal alien;
I don't have 10 kids so I'm not eligible for medicaid or welfare; and
I choose to work for a living.

Recently (Nov 9th), one of our state senators was diagnosed with acute myloid leukemia. Mr. Craig Thomas is at the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland. I know that part on my taxes are paying for his treatment because he has a wonderful insurance policy. He only needs to worry about getting better not how he is going to have to pay for the treatment. He also is receiving the best treatment that our tax dollars can buy. I have nothing against Mr. Thomas, in fact I like him. I even like him well enough to have voted for him every time he has run for the senate. I hope that he has a speedy recovery. Last year, Mike Enzi's (Wyoming's other senator) wife was diagnosed with cancer. She is also receiving the best treatment that our tax dollars can buy. I also wish Mike Enzi and his wife the best.

My point is if I were to happen to "catch" cancer, have a heart attack, get hit by a car, or have any other health crisis where I could not work, I would have to die. I certainly would have a hard time finding good treatment. I certainly wouldn't be able to just get better without worrying how I was going to pay for the medical care that I would receive.

Don't worry I can and do live without the cable TV, eating out, cell phone, computer games, high speed internet, home computer, going to the movies, driving and new or nearly new car, owning my own home, paying the premium user charges for allnurses or any other website, or really having any other "neccessities" like these. I try to live within my means and budget. Yes I'm only two months from being homeless like many Americans. One major medical problem away from not being able to work ----- homeless.

Fuzzy

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Heck I would be happy with affordable and available medical care. . .

I can tell you how much "elective gall bladder surgery" costs because I'm paying the entire $16,000 out of pocket.

The key terms there are 'elective' and 'available'. Under a national healthcare system, that would mean that you would still have your gall bladder.

And your appt to see someone about getting it out: 4 months from now.

Scheduling the surgery itself? 18 months.

It'll be cheaper, to be sure. That is, if you can get it. Because everbody knows that elective surgeries are mere luxuries. Buck up, those precious surgery spots are needed for someone else.

In fact, it's simply EVIL of you to presume that your gall bladder is more important than the open heart surgery Mr. Jones had to wait 9 months to get scheduled for . . .

~faith,
Timothy.

[dragonflyRN]

I can't complain. I have good insurance. The patient's might have some...but alot of times have none. I'm not sure the Canada plan is right for us. We have too many people that milk the system. I think that is you are given a diagnosis, if you decide to be complient, the system will pay. If you decide not to comply....then pay the bill...and quit coming to the hospital.

[RN4MERCY]

Money is doing to much of the talking and effectively silencing the voice of everyday people. I'm talking about the huge campaign contributions from HMOs and Insurers to politicians who vote against public interest legislation, out of fear of offending their large corporate donors. Huge healthcare corporations realize their ability to make a profit depends on controlling the political system. It works for them, not the rest of us! The corrupting and corrosive influence of big money in politics is the reason we don't have universal health care. Campaign finance reform is another subject and as Bill Moyers said...it's the reform that will make all the other reforms possible!

I just wanted to recommend a website, Physicians for a National Health Plan, PNHP. If you ever get a chance to attend one of their training seminars, go for it! There are some links that provide factual information that will clear up most of the common myths about Single Payer. As nurses we see the fallout from our broken healthcare system every day. It's imperative that we act responsibly as educated patient advocates...for social, political and economic justice in the exclusive interest of our patients.

Single-Payer National Health Insurance
PNHP Resources Webpage quote:

"Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($7,129 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates. Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 46 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered.

The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.

Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do.

Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, long-term care, mental health, dental vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

Physicians would be paid fee-for-service according to a negotiated formulary or receive salary from a hospital or nonprofit HMO / group practice. Hospitals would receive a global budget for operating expenses. Health facilities and expensive equipment purchases would be managed by regional health planning boards.

A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and recapturing their administrative waste. Modest new taxes would replace premiums and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business. Costs would be controlled though negotiated fees, global budgeting and bulk purchasing."

The links below will lead you to more specific information on the details of single-payer:

Physicians for a National Health Program | Single Payer Resources

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by RN4MERCY

Modest new taxes would replace premiums and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business.

That says it all.

Of course, that depends on your definition of 'modest'. As some have posted here, my money isn't really mine. I should be 'required' to pay for everybody else's cradle to grave 'Uncle Daddy'. If eveybody would just understand that those that work for the incentives they now have would just keep working at the same pace without such incentives, then those that don't work wouldn't ever have to work again. And the skies would be sunnier, bluer, and brighter.

The thing about 'new' taxes is that they are hardly 'modest' and rarely static. This non-incentive based system would implode under misuse, mismanagement, increased taxes and rationing of care.

When you design a communistic system, you get communistic results. Didn't we already win this war? No, wait. . . There's still Cuba that we can model our gov't after.

~faith,
Timothy.

[caroladybelle]

Originally Posted by TrudyRN

Believe it or not, doctors make less than lots of insurance company executives and other people who are not doctors. Doctors don't make that much. But I don't believe that anyone, including doctors, should be at the top of the income food chain. I think we all should be there. Why not? You and I and the work we do are just as important as any doctor or person in business.

Sorry but our educational/work requirements do not even come close to the pressures most (not all but most) MDs face. And they are not personally paid all that well.

Prior to the enactment (and enforcement) of the 80 hour rule, MDs worked routinely over 100 hours per week, for lower wages than ours for years and years before starting their own practice. 24 hour straight shifts were regular, 36 hours note unheard of. And those 100 hours (and the current 80 hours) do not include prep time.

My MD's practice contains 9 MDs, a registered dietitician, two NPs, several social workers and encompasses 4 separate locations. In the central location alone, they have LPNs/MAs/RNs of at 8-10, office manager, social worker, phelobotomists/lab techs, a few rad techs, several office workers/receptionists. There is an untold number of people to handle the complicated insurance mess and multiple medicare/medicaid forms. He is head of the local medical board and each MD does rounds in the local nursing homes, and most work in the more distant offices in rotations. They have to handle THOUSANDS of phone calls for advice, emergencies drug refills, info that all have life threatening complications.

His practice supports many more people than himself, all fulltimers getting benefits and professional wages. This despite the fact that the Bill for 100-150 dollars routinely gets prorated by insurance down to less than 50 for my yearly physical/gyn workup. Not to mention the repeated paperwork/aggravation to get even that pittance.

And yet when I have a problem on the road (as a traveler), I call him and get a personal phone call back. And I don't get billed for it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, nurses are underpaid in many places and yes, we do not get adequate credit. But do not think that we have put in NEARLY the time or the stress that MDs have, nor begrudge the good ones what they get paid. They have earned it.

[Daggummit!]

Timothy I can agree with quite a few of your arguments about the government creating a "prison" of welfare dependency, humankind's inherent "what's in it for me?" mentality, and intrusion of the government into our lives. I wish to god our gov't was smaller and more effective with managing our nation. Unfortunately, people like me are trapped in an entirely different "prison." My prison is created by the self-interests of more powerful people: my boss, who offers ZERO benefits to his workers, the fuel companies that charge $2 a gallon for gasoline, the healthcare conglomerates and insurance companies whose priorities lay with funding their management's insane salaries and investors' dividends. As long as these people hold such massive amounts of influence over the government, nothing will happen to improve the situations of the millions of people in this country who are being rationed out of traditional healthcare and have no choice but to abuse the ER, or file for bankruptcy due to huge medical bills. As long as they continue to receive huge corporate handouts, elected officials could give a damn about what the voters actualy need and want from their government, which means there will continue to be a huge number of uninsured. I'm getting long-winded here but what I'm tyring to get at is that at some point some force has to come along and kick the powerful peoples' self-interest in the teeth to restore some sense of balance to the equation. If it takes a national healthcare system that will put insurance companies out of business and chip away at the huge corporations' profit-margins, then so be it.

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by Daggummit!

Timothy I can agree with quite a few of your arguments about the government creating a "prison" of welfare dependency, humankind's inherent "what's in it for me?" mentality, and intrusion of the government into our lives. I wish to god our gov't was smaller and more effective with managing our nation. Unfortunately, people like me are trapped in an entirely different "prison." My prison is created by the self-interests of more powerful people: my boss, who offers ZERO benefits to his workers, the fuel companies that charge $2 a gallon for gasoline, the healthcare conglomerates and insurance companies whose priorities lay with funding their management's insane salaries and investors' dividends. As long as these people hold such massive amounts of influence over the government, nothing will happen to improve the situations of the millions of people in this country who are being rationed out of traditional healthcare and have no choice but to abuse the ER, or file for bankruptcy due to huge medical bills. As long as they continue to receive huge corporate handouts, elected officials could give a damn about what the voters actualy need and want from their government, which means there will continue to be a huge number of uninsured. I'm getting long-winded here but what I'm tyring to get at is that at some point some force has to come along and kick the powerful peoples' self-interest in the teeth to restore some sense of balance to the equation. If it takes a national healthcare system that will put insurance companies out of business and chip away at the huge corporations' profit-margins, then so be it.

I disagree.

1. You are not a prisoner to your boss. You can leave that job tomorrow, and find a new job with greater benefits, or create your own mark on the world and be your own boss, creating such benefits for yourself as your intellect and will can provide.

2. The fuel companies are not 'gouging' you. Oil is a fungible commodity that bears a worldwide market price. To the extent that those companies are making record profits, it is NOT because you are being singled out, or because the base profit at the pump is increased over and above the market price of the oil. Those companies also deal with the recovery of oil and their profits are based on the market price of that commodity. THAT is the law of supply and demand, tipped in favor of demand by both our own runaway appetites for that limited commodity and the burgeoning appetites of India and China. Those companies could care less if you buy their product. If YOU don't, someone in China will. The prison here is our own making, by our own runaway appetites, reflected in the price.

3. Big Business is big because it caters to your needs, wants, or desires. Any company that finds itself out of step with its ultimate customers finds itself like the Big 3 automakers, trying to sell SUVs and Trucks to people that want efficiency vehicles. As the consumer of the products of big business, you hold the very key to that cell.

4. Millions of people, just like you, have more choices than abusing EDs and filing for bankruptcy. If you take the oft quoted statistic that 46 million Americans are without adequate healthcare, then conversely, 254 million Americans DO have such healthcare. How did THEY manage when you cannot? And again, who holds the keys to that prison?

5. You want to kick the powerful in the teeth? When or how did YOU become powerless? Those are choices you make and not prisons instituted around you, at least not without your willing consent.

This is a great nation. ANYBODY can be successful. There is no caste system. There are no prisons but those you create for yourself, or let others create in your name.

The 'sense of balance' you seek comes from the inside, and cannot be given to you. Ultimately, such a balance absolutely REQUIRES the respect that comes from earning it.

While I might agree that the gov't can do much more to foster that, the way to do so isn't by being our 'Uncle Daddy'. It's by leaving us alone to individually pursue our very own 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. That wasn't a guarantee of result, but a guarantee of opportunity. Thank God, because if it was a guarantee of results, it would be the results defined by the very people you want to 'kick in the teeth'. I don't want to kick their teeth in, I just want them to leave me alone.

So, you tell me, what's the difference between a prison of power hungry corporate interests, and a prison of power hungry politicians? I'll tell you. I can choose to ignore the businesses I don't like. That is far easier to do than to ignore power hungry politicians that can put their hands in my wallet before I can.

I understand that you and many millions more inherently distrust 'big business'. I can understand, and even relate. I have no great love or trust of some corporate shill. But I'll tell you this: I inherently distrust the so-called 'beneficial' aims of gov't more. I don't want an 'Uncle Daddy'. Ill settle with an 'Uncle Sam' that only comes knocking sparingly and then, calls first. And even then, I want 'Uncle Sam' to come to me with his hat in his hand, sheepishly asking for limited favors, instead of telling me what favors he's going to do for me, whether I like it or not. If that were my real uncle telling me how he'd run my life better than I can: I'd tell him to "hit the road, Sam, and don'tcha come knocking no more."

~faith,
Timothy.