Why do you believe what you believe, concerning your position on health care?

nicurn001 · May 21, 2009

To the OP's question .

My opinions upon healthcare are formulated by what I have read and viewed upon the subject , they are also based upon my personal experience of both the privatized US system and the single payer system of the UK .

The constant , spurious argument that particularly bothers me by opponents of a single payer system is " Why should I be forced pay for the bad healthcare decisions of others , as I would if every one was covered by a single payer ", They forget they are already doing so , because they have no influence over the healthcare decisions of others covered by their insurance company , so if a policy holder chooses to do drugs and have heart problems , as long as they maintain their policy , the other policy holders will be paying for their care .

StNeotser, ASN, RN · May 21, 2009

I was born in the UK in 1972, had little to do with health care beyond general examinations and childhood shots right up until I was pregnant at age 23.

We had the NHS, so along with a police force and fire dept, I believed the ambulance service followed up with health care was part of a right, not a privilege. After all, if you call 911 then two of the life saving services come from tax payers in the United States of America and the third does not. This does not correspond with any other modern industrialized nation - any other nation in the "first world" has all three covered by taxes.

I left the UK in 1999 two years after Tony Blairs disasterous New Labour government had taken over.

When I first came to the USA after two months due to my husbands job I had no health insurance but it didn't matter because nothing happened. He was still covered by military benefits but nothing happened to him either. I was the first to get a job in the USA and I had free family coverage, it cost the company about $550 then in 1999 for coverage and we were paying nothing. Great.

Fast forward to now and I am paying $500 out of pocket every month for a healthy 37 year old and a healthy 14 year old without any pre existing conditions. My employers are paying $440 as well. So, $940 for two healthy people who no doubt, if they ever "chose" to become unhealthy they would drop in a heartbeat. I've seen people at my place of work be fired because of cancer or other long term illnesses. Of course, the official reason isn't their cancer but their being five minutes late to work or "unreliability". Coupling health care insurance with their work place is absolutely a hideous act of humanity because once a person is no longer able to work, guess what - they find any excuse whatsoever to get rid of that person from their payroll.

I thought the measure of a society was how they treated their weakest members - this is how GW Bush talked when he was talking about embryonic research. It isn't happening in the United States of America as their weakest members can go stuff them selves and die.

I've yet to see a Canadian beat their chests and say "We're the best nation in the World! Never forget what it MEANS to be A CANADIAN" in cyberspace. But they do have it far better than the USA as a society, and if they're not beating up on third world nations to prove it - good for them. What they do have is a sense of humanity in that they believe the guy that serves them those Mickey D sandwiches also deserves to go the hospital if they get struck down by swine flu too without having to go into bankrupcy.

Agrippa · May 22, 2009

My position was based upon my research of how our current healthcare system works and more importantly, how it doesn't work for too many. Theres a plethora of data indicating how inefficient, inflated, and poor our healthcare system is for too many. I've seen first hand how it's torn families apart in so many ways, too many times.

Honnête et Sérieux · May 23, 2009

Just because it doesn't explicity state in the Constitution that "health care is an unalienable right", up there with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", one can extrapolate that one cannot have, "life, liberty and pursue happiness", if one has a health condition that costs thousands of dollars to treat, or one loses their life savings, home, etc, to pay for the right to just live.

And such extrapolation indicates an incomplete evaluation of the definition of a right, and what that provides to us.

What one absolutely CANNOT extrapolate from the Constitution is that the gov't has the privilege to take money from one person to pay for the healthcare of another. There isn't ANYTHING that even looks remotely like that.

The Constitution does not guarantee that people will HAVE "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (which are actually natural (inalienable) and RELIGIOUS rights as outlined in the Declaration of Independence, 1776, not the US Constitution, 1787), it only guarantees that the gov't will not interfere with our ability to pursue those rights. It doesn't mean they will provide them.

I don't think that our Founding Fathers would have wanted the American people to suffer the way we are, due to the strains that health care, or lack thereof, is causing this country. If it could have been foreseen by them, I truly believe that it would have been included in the Constitution. I also truly believe that if they were alive today they would be appalled at the excuses that some "Americans" think is their God Given right to deprive their fellow citizens of health care in the name of the American culture and what is best for the American people. JMHO and my $0.02.

Such speculation takes great liberty in assuming that people weren't sick at that time, and it conspires to believe that we are suffering more because of our healthcare system than at the time the Constitution and DOI was written. Of course, that's simply not the case. The poorest among us get better care than the richest of that time.

Given these basic tenets, I don't understand why they would take a different approach now compared to then.

Honnête et Sérieux · May 23, 2009

I was born in the UK in 1972, had little to do with health care beyond general examinations and childhood shots right up until I was pregnant at age 23.
We had the NHS, so along with a police force and fire dept, I believed the ambulance service followed up with health care was part of a right, not a privilege. After all, if you call 911 then two of the life saving services come from tax payers in the United States of America and the third does not. This does not correspond with any other modern industrialized nation - any other nation in the "first world" has all three covered by taxes.

This is not the case in the US...most firefighters are volunteers and many are not tax-supported. Many ambulance services are private, even if non-profit, and do not rely on tax-dollars. And for every police officer on the tax dole, there are 2-5 more people on private security payrolls.

I left the UK in 1999 two years after Tony Blairs disasterous New Labour government had taken over.
When I first came to the USA after two months due to my husbands job I had no health insurance but it didn't matter because nothing happened. He was still covered by military benefits but nothing happened to him either. I was the first to get a job in the USA and I had free family coverage, it cost the company about $550 then in 1999 for coverage and we were paying nothing. Great.
Fast forward to now and I am paying $500 out of pocket every month for a healthy 37 year old and a healthy 14 year old without any pre existing conditions. My employers are paying $440 as well. So, $940 for two healthy people who no doubt, if they ever "chose" to become unhealthy they would drop in a heartbeat. I've seen people at my place of work be fired because of cancer or other long term illnesses. Of course, the official reason isn't their cancer but their being five minutes late to work or "unreliability". Coupling health care insurance with their work place is absolutely a hideous act of humanity because once a person is no longer able to work, guess what - they find any excuse whatsoever to get rid of that person from their payroll.

Yes...it's expensive. Time to reign in costs...eliminate the lawyer factor.

I thought the measure of a society was how they treated their weakest members - this is how GW Bush talked when he was talking about embryonic research. It isn't happening in the United States of America as their weakest members can go stuff them selves and die.

Hyperbole aside, there isn't a nation in the world that has conquered discrepancies in health care across social classes.

I've yet to see a Canadian beat their chests and say "We're the best nation in the World! Never forget what it MEANS to be A CANADIAN" in cyberspace. But they do have it far better than the USA as a society, and if they're not beating up on third world nations to prove it - good for them. What they do have is a sense of humanity in that they believe the guy that serves them those Mickey D sandwiches also deserves to go the hospital if they get struck down by swine flu too without having to go into bankrupcy.

Makes me wonder why you picked the US if Canada is so great. And there is no shortage of Canadians who are HIGHLY CRITICAL of the US system, yet they access it on a routine basis! And the advantages they enjoy are because of geography; kind of convenient be right on the border of one of the most economically successful nations in the world. Put Canada on the west side of the Indian Ocean, bordering Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and see how great their lives will be. Add a more comparative number of minorities that suffer from ethnically-related health issues, and let's see how far that 'humanity' extends.

I grow weary of unrealistic comparisons.

greenbeanio · May 27, 2009

1)Media attention. Did (or does) the media play a role in your positions?
2)Personal Experience. Maybe you had a family member that was treated unfairly by the insurance companies, or, another poster might have had a loved one that they felt was treated unfairly by the VA or Medicare.
3)Scholarly research. What criteria do you used to ensure that it is indeed a credible source, and how heavy does it way on your decision making regarding your position?

I guess for me it would be #3, if I had to choose from those 3 criteria, because the first 2 aren't relevant for me. But really, what it comes down to is the feeling of doing what seems the right thing to do - the humane thing to do. The golden rule and all that.

Katie82, RN · May 30, 2009

i think a persons health should be a right, not a privelege...

As do I. But I also believe that adhering to preventive medicine and following treatment plans : in other words, keeping yourself healthy should be a responsibility. People who don't are just as responsible for the high cost of health care as anything else. Can't remember the exact percentage, but a very large number , 60 - 70% of the costs of health care are generated by 35% of the population with chronic disease who don't manage themselves well.

markuskristian · Jun 10, 2009

I follow scholarly materials.

"We could eliminate these access problems in the ER tomorrow if a national health care plan were implemented and everyone had equal access to private practice physicians.

But if it is hard to access busy physicians today, imagine how difficult it would be to access physicians if everyone was covered by the same national health insurance plan. Giving everyone an equal shot at seeing a physician is only a good idea if there are enough physicians to go around.

We aren't there yet --- not even close."

Merritt, J., Hawkins, J., Miller, P. Will the Last Physician in America Please Turn Off the Lights: A Look at America's Looming Doctor Shortage. The MHA Group. Irving, Texas. 2004. pp47.

Merritt and Hawkins are the co-founders (Miller the vice-president) of the MHA Group, one of the largest healthcare staffing and consulting firms in America.

danke schon!

markus

greenbeanio · Jun 10, 2009

But if it is hard to access busy physicians today, imagine how difficult it would be to access physicians if everyone was covered by the same national health insurance plan. Giving everyone an equal shot at seeing a physician is only a good idea if there are enough physicians to go around.

So if there aren't enough physicians to go around only certain people should get to see physicians every time and others never at all?

markuskristian · Jun 10, 2009

So if there aren't enough physicians to go around only certain people should get to see physicians every time and others never at all?

I understand that in debate one will always assume the other individual is simply an awful person. Aside from a hardcore, emotionally detached economist, I don't think anyone would agree with your statement.

I won't make comments on what we should do about healthcare in the short run. I simply don't know. However, in the long term, perhaps the focus needs to be on improving the medical and nursing careers in order to attract more people to the professions. No matter what new regulation decides on the billing side of healthcare, we will still have problems from lack of care if we have a lack of providers. What do I think should be done to help the long-term?

Maybe a national tort reform for malpractice litigation.. particularly for ER situations where the physician is working with little to no medical history.

It's obvious healthcare is in trouble, but I (along with many others) don't think a universal healthcare system is the answer.

greenbeanio · Jun 11, 2009

I understand that in debate one will always assume the other individual is simply an awful person. Aside from a hardcore, emotionally detached economist, I don't think anyone would agree with your statement.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you are an awful person at all. (If we were talking in person you would have understood that from my tone of voice but I guess I wasn't able to communicate that in writing!) I was just following your statement to what I thought was its logical conclusion. I really am interested in understanding points of view other than my own and am willing to change my position when presented with some really good reasons that make sense from both the rational and the ethical point of view.

You said:

But if it is hard to access busy physicians today, imagine how difficult it would be to access physicians if everyone was covered by the same national health insurance plan. Giving everyone an equal shot at seeing a physician is only a good idea if there are enough physicians to go around

Can you explain your statement a little more, to help me understand why you think universal coverage through a national health care plan would be less equitable and preferable? (Of course I am coming from a fundamental premise that equitable is necessarily preferable - I recognize that's an assumption to think everyone shares that priority.)

In terms of addressing the physician shortage, what do you think of the National Health Service Corps?

http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/index.htm

Personally I think it would need to provide more than $50K in scholarship/loan repayment in exchange for 2 years of service to make it attractive enough, but it would be better to put more funding into this existing program than continue to deal with the shortage by importing labor.