I want to know what nurses think about socialized medicine.

A common misconception of socialised medicine is that it's free. The healthcare would not be free. We will be paying for it through higher taxes.

Yes, I do understand that concept also....But if u deduct your insurance premiums, copays, medication copay, blah blah blah. It would even out for most. I have 4 boys and we are constantly at the Dr for one reason or another. It breaks my heart to see people moving to Canada to get cancer tx because they can't afford it here. Ive had 3 patients resort to this and we live in freakin MISSOURI

I understand your point, but I think we are looking at this wrong. We live in a sick-care society, not healthcare. I think the feds and states should be spending alot more on primary care, i.e. prevention.Think about it. Those high ins. premiums are in a large part, covering the health care costs of those with preventable chronic diseases. The results of this would bring health care costs down.

Really? What is your source of this information?

And how many pts do you see flying frequently through your hosp who just won't quit smoking yet have copd and a myriad of other problems with it, the diabetic in renal failure ,etc, the alcoholic with liver dz, the uncontrolled htn, the ca pt. whose eaten nothing but junk for the last 20 or so years, the morbidly obese, I could go on and on.......

Gosh and I thought it was the healthy ones who were messing up the system (at least according to my good bud Rush Limbaugh).

I'd like so much to hear from some nurses in the UK and Canada about this too! I keep hearing about "rationed" healthcare in these countries- about how if a person is over 65 and needs angioplasty they are not eligible or if a woman has stage III breast cancer they are no longer candidates for treatment. I'd like to know if these statements are in fact true or scare tactics.
I know for a fact that our system is completely broken, I wish I had the answer on how to fix it. I cannot say that I trust our government to run our healthcare system- seems everything else that is run by the government is just a bunch of inefficient bureaucracy wasting money left and right.
I wish we could have some kind of insurance reform- where premiums were the same no matter where you lived in the country- stop these companies from denying coverage because of "pre existing" conditions or charging HUGE premiums because customer was actually sick a few times! My husband is self employed and when I worked prn and did not receive coverage from my employer, we paid over $600.00 per month to cover our family of 4 with VERY BASIC coverage and a HIGH deductable. We could barely afford to be sick and barely afford the coverage in case we were! I would have to think that the insurance companies themselves would be the biggest opponents of socialized healthcare. I see that the AMA is against it too.

I agree that our country has it's issues with preventable disease. That is no joke! But I really thought what was driving up the costs of healthcare, inpart, was the CEO of Humana or any other Insurance company earning a higher six figure salary, driving a new lexus (company car, of course) and a private jet at his disposal?? Or the Drug Reps that earn $100,000/yr and wine and dine healthcare employees into buying/ prescribing there products. I've seen countless examples of waste in this country. If I sent my psych patient home with an rx to get Abilify to stabilize their mental illness and they go to the pharmacy and find out that it costs about $400/month....do you really think there going to buy that or are they going to continue to self medicate with ETOH and Meth. They might anyway, but who knows??

Or lets say, God forbid, that I was diagnosed with brain cancer. I started chemo and had seizures and could no longer work. Could I pay the 600/month to COBRA my insurance as a jobless person? Heck no. Should I have to sell everything I own, move to government housing and go on Medicaid.....I would, but should I have to?? And even on Medicaid there are restrictions to what they will cover.

It baffles me? There has to be an answer to this problem. If Obama would see to it that these wasteful corp. perks were cut. It would be a start

Of course some Dr's are against it.....They can't get rich either. None of us would be getting rich off healthcare anylonger. If government controlled healthcare Dr's would get a Nationwide cap on what they could charge. If an office visit cost $12 in New York it would cost $12 in LA and KS too....

There is a difference between socialized medicine systems and universal, single payer healthcare financing systems. The word "socialized" is being overused.