All I want for Christmas is a single payer plan!

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It's pretty hard to rebut anything this congressman says. He makes an argument for the right as well as for the left. I only wish we didn't have such a need to preserve the health insurance industry at our own health expense:

Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.
Seems to me like we went the wrong way. I just don't

understand why we do things to limit competition, remove all concept of shopping for cost and magically attach health care to employers to

further reduce consumer choice and

then wonder why it's screwed up. Why does the price of most things fo down but not healthcare?

Exactly.

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Specializes in LTC.

I think it'd be nice to let the citizens vote on what they want . I will be paying 600/month starting in January for insurance through my job. It went up again and I was told by hr that I had no choice but to keep my current plan because I wasn't allowed to "buy down" per our carrier (cigna). Yet a cheaper plan was offered in our open enrollment pack. Now as for free healthcare , alot of folks can't get help or Medicaid while others thrive from sucking the system dry. For example, I work with a PRN cna who is my age (27) & has 6 , yes 6, kids all by different men. We talked her into a tubal with this last one who is not even a year old yet and she has jabbered nonstop about how she is going to get some "lawsuit" money and get it reversed. She claims her periods hurt. I'd like to meet a natural born Female who hasn't had a painful period at some point in life. She says it's 8200.00 to get her tubes reversed. She and all6 kids get Medicaid, her daycare is FREE, her rent is free, she gets 1000.00/month food stamps . She wants more kids. The dads to her kids are long gone yet she gets checks for these kids q month and can't put gas in her gently used Lincoln Navigator! Now this type stuff is what ****** me off! I make to much money to get any help for my 1 son who will be 3 next month and I can't afford $100/ wk for daycare . I drive a used car and I'm thrifty. The only new thing I have is a home that I work hard to pay for. I don't mind helping out those in need but I don't like for my hard earned money to have to go to people who abuse our system because they can like this aide does. Did I mention she sells her food stamps? If I got that kind of help I'd use the money to buy 2 deep freezers to store my 1 grand worth of food in and share meals with my neighbors family and friends in need. Pure insanity! She has even told us at work that if 1 kid gets sick she takes all of them to the er and it doesn't cost a dime My son was sick last month and it cost around $200.00 for his md visit and meds . If I had the power to teach her a lesson and people like her who multiply like rabbits I'd make her have to pay a deductible and copays like I have to with my insurance including pregnancy related things. Have that 7th baby but not at my expense or anyone elses .

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In my town if you make an appointment to see a doctor for a check up, most of the time you will wait 2-3 months to get in. I've heard of ER's with 12 hour wait times. I read on this forum of an ER that has people stuck there sometimes two days before beds are open on floors and they can officially be admitted.

Why do we think only socialized medicine has wait times?

My brother-in-law has no insurance and very low income, so he hasn't been able to pay a doctor for regular care. He has a congenital eye problem, so when he did have money, it went for the eye doctor to care for that problem. He had diabetes and didn't know it. By the time he was sick enough to go to the ER and get help, the diabetes had ravaged his body to the point where now he has permanent problems. He gets free insulin through a program, but he can only rarely afford medical care. He's in his 40's.

Our neighbor took early retirement and now pays $1500/month for his insurance. Luckily he can afford it. Most people couldn't. A lot of people don't even earn that much per month.

My 19 YO daughter has no insurance. She makes $8.50/hour. She went to establish herself with a new doctor, as our previous one moved away. They charged her $230 for one visit. We got it reduced to $80 by talking to the doctor about it. Thank God she has no health problems.

I could go on an on. We have a major problem in America. I'm not sure the best answer, but we need to do something.

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Interesting article about Canadian MD VS USA MD's salaries. Worth a read if you are concerned about your wages dropping or reimbursement to MD's dropping due to a single payer system like Canada.

"I am also a Canadian Specialist. Recently I've been called my many US recruiting firms about joining practices - usually be the lure of more money. But that difference is changing.

My friend in Radiation Oncology makes a salary just over 400K. He was offered a job in Indiana of 350K - and the Americans were shocked about the higher Canadian salary. Of course in the US, taxes are lower, and the opportunity to make top dollar has little real limit (some specialists make well over 1 million - which is not possible in Canada except for the rare physiatrist or something that works with insurance companies). But the differences aren't huge anymore, especially with the Canadian dollar being the same.

Of course in Canada, we can't pay mexicans pesos to build homes or pick potatoes, so some of our general living expenses are higher. The US seems to love illegal immigrants, while Canada has better border security." http://mdsalaries.blogspot.com/2007/10/canadian-versus-american-physician.html

A single payer system would stop the million dollar bonuses American Hospital CEO's are getting. Check out this link: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/sickening_bonuses_8pL0AI56MMF7wcPa3ibFDM

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Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.
I think it'd be nice to let the citizens vote on what they want . I will be paying 600/month starting in January for insurance through my job. It went up again and I was told by hr that I had no choice but to keep my current plan because I wasn't allowed to "buy down" per our carrier (cigna). Yet a cheaper plan was offered in our open enrollment pack. Now as for free healthcare , alot of folks can't get help or Medicaid while others thrive from sucking the system dry. For example, I work with a PRN cna who is my age (27) & has 6 , yes 6, kids all by different men. We talked her into a tubal with this last one who is not even a year old yet and she has jabbered nonstop about how she is going to get some "lawsuit" money and get it reversed. She claims her periods hurt. I'd like to meet a natural born Female who hasn't had a painful period at some point in life. She says it's 8200.00 to get her tubes reversed. She and all6 kids get Medicaid, her daycare is FREE, her rent is free, she gets 1000.00/month food stamps . She wants more kids. The dads to her kids are long gone yet she gets checks for these kids q month and can't put gas in her gently used Lincoln Navigator! Now this type stuff is what ****** me off! I make to much money to get any help for my 1 son who will be 3 next month and I can't afford $100/ wk for daycare . I drive a used car and I'm thrifty. The only new thing I have is a home that I work hard to pay for. I don't mind helping out those in need but I don't like for my hard earned money to have to go to people who abuse our system because they can like this aide does. Did I mention she sells her food stamps? If I got that kind of help I'd use the money to buy 2 deep freezers to store my 1 grand worth of food in and share meals with my neighbors family and friends in need. Pure insanity! She has even told us at work that if 1 kid gets sick she takes all of them to the er and it doesn't cost a dime My son was sick last month and it cost around $200.00 for his md visit and meds . If I had the power to teach her a lesson and people like her who multiply like rabbits I'd make her have to pay a deductible and copays like I have to with my insurance including pregnancy related things. Have that 7th baby but not at my expense or anyone elses .

Disgusting. I am sorry that you have to be surrounded by filth like that.

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Specializes in LTC Family Practice.

I think the USA has a golden opportunity to design the very best health care system in the world. We would be the last of the Western Countries to get on board with a "universal type health care program". We have the opportunity to evaluate everyone else's systems and determine what's good and what's bad and from that create one that works for people in the USA. It's not something that would happen over night, and I would think it would be done with changes in steps over a period of years and decades even.

No one other than JOPACURN has mentioned it would be free, one poster from Germany mentioned in their country payment is on a sliding scale based on salary. In some countries, they tax a little more. I've never thought it would be free to anyone, it would be according to the ability to pay. In today's system, there are some who are already getting their care for free now, the example used was the young woman working as a CNA with 6 children. In a system that would be designed this person would pay through tax deductions or based on their salary. Yes, there are people who don't work and they would need to be covered as some are today. I'm not working and can't get affordable insurance under any set of facts, I worked very hard all my life and now because of the collapse of the economy I'm left without any form of health insurance and I don't consider myself "filth". I do hope to get a job again, like the millions in the USA that are now without a job and health insurance.

The health insurance companies are making huge profits off of sick people, they deny coverage of procedures, medicines, visits to specialists every day. They are in it for the money NOT to help the sick get care or stay healthy.

As a nurse, I'm shocked by the lack of compassion the people of the USA have for their fellow humans. When did we as individuals and a nation become so greedy? So lacking in compassion for the least among us? I would also wish that everyone see the documentary Sicko by Michael Moore, you might not agree with his politics but he does make some very good points about our broken health care system.

I also hope, that no one working today with some form of health insurance, ever has a catastrophic event that drives them into debt and bankruptcy because of our current health care system. I hope they all stay healthy and don't have to go through what I, and many others have had to face.

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I have a friend who is 41 and a CA survivor. Even with health insurance, she still owes over $30,000 that she has been paying off at $300 a month in addition to her $760 health care insurance premium. The problem is that she needs a PET, and a CA blood work up, but the hospitals will not do it until she pays off the $30,000. So even though she survived, she may die from lack of aftercare. Try and explain this to her 14 and 15 yo.

Fifty percent of people who declare bankruptcy do so because of medical bills, and 75% of these people have health insurance. Shameful...and to think that people who work in the health care business feel it's ok to ration care based on payment.

We need a single payer system...

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Specializes in LTC.

I have a lot of respect for Weiner. He is one of few that speak up for single-payer in Congress and he's common sense type of person, I like that.

All the horror stories we hear about how single-payer will result in rationing and waiting lists and low salaries yadayada blah blah.. is just nonsensical fearmongering. These stories were started and perpeuated by powerful individuals and groups who stand to lose a great deal of money if the plan were ever implented. So, to put things bluntly, they latched on to anecdotal examples and then made sh!t up, and the ignorant masses are feasting on it like vultures on roadkill.

It would almost be funny if 45K people a year weren't dying because of our non-system.

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Specializes in Cardiology, Oncology, Medsurge.

I like how Micheal Moore put it in the movie "Sicko" how healthcare aught to be provided to us as our socialized institutions, ie. the police, fire departments and the libraries. You cannot have healthcare as a commodity, for the insurance companies to dole out at their whim, without prices going sky high and fewer people receiving proper care.

Hurrah for the poster above me who put it in elegant terms, better than I could ever do!

I am a sinner, and I will never get to heaven. But, I AM NOT an insurance executive!

:lol2::bowingpur:lol2::bowingpur

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While in Los Angeles a few days ago, I saw a homeless man talking to a stop sign. When he turned and looked at us driving by, he had a full white beard dripping blood from an abcess/laceration or who knows what under his beard. Sure, he could go to the ER, but are they going to provide him with antibiotics the next several days and ensure he takes his meds? We can thank Ronald Regan for letting people like this man to go untreated.

A country is measured by the care it provides its most vulnerable people, and in America, the richest nation in the world, we fail miserably in providing health care to everyone. Healthcare is not a privilege, it's a right that everyone should have, not just the ones that can afford it. Right now, at age 51, I am terrified to find myself without health insurance as I couldn't afford the $800 a month premium, pay for my very modest 1200 sq ft house and feed my 2 teenagers. Health insurance was never an issue til my husband died 5 yrs ago, and now it has become a crisis. My kids are insured at the cost of $200 a mth for a $5000 deductible, but I guess I'm the expendable one. Having to pick between my kids or me having health isurance should never be an issue.

I too, want a single payer plan for Christmas.

So should we FORCE medical care on someone. There are many out there who don't want care, don't have the mental capacity to obtain it, or are too lazy to fill out the paper work. Our government used to take care of the mentally handicapped and guess what they found out that it was too expensive and discharged most of those patients. Many homeless in this country too. Should we force them to live in a shelter? Or should we just subsidize a home for them?

As I've said many times. If you feel someone needs medical care by all means pay for it for them. Why didn't you stop and offer to take that man to a clinic and buy some antibiotics for him. When the tree huggers actually have to put out money they seem to back off quickly. Funny how that works.

You of course know that even under single payer healthcare, insurance is gonna be just as/ if not more expensive than it is now. Correct?

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I would, but due to health insurance being a FOR PROFIT business here in the US, I can't even afford health insurance for myself! Take the profit out of healthcare, and we could afford it.

Nursing and the healthcare field has certainly changed since I graduated in 1982. Seem that the compassion, so necessary for working in healthcare, is gone.

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I would, but due to health insurance being a FOR PROFIT business here in the US, I can't even afford health insurance for myself! Take the profit out of healthcare, and we could afford it.

Nursing and the healthcare field has certainly changed since I graduated in 1982. Seem that the compassion, so necessary for working in healthcare, is gone.

And single payer will probably be more expensive for you. Have you thought about that? Are you making a profit in healthcare? Do you think people are gonna work for free? Do you think medical suppliers are gonna give away their supplies? Do think big pharma can afford to give away drugs?

We have a patient who came here to NH from Cali because he researched the Medical (free) availablity here. He's been in the hospital for about 3 weeks. ESRD but he's not being discharged because he didn't "bother" to fill out the forms to get free HD treatments in the outpatient unit. He got the paper work about a month ago. So he's in the hospital for no good reason. We have another patient who doesn't like to go to OP HD because he's worried that when a gf finds out he has kidney failure she won't like him. He didn't go to his treatments regualarly. When a pt doesn't show up we sent out the police to see if they are alright. And the police did go to his apartment and he had vomited every where. Uremia tends to cause that. He was hospitalized that time for a few weeks. His treatments are covered by Medicare and Medicaid. He went back home continued to miss treatments K+ in the 6's had a seizure at his apartment and now has been evicted. Land lord doesn't feel he's safe in the apartment. Too bad the landlord is trying to make a profit. eh? So now the patient stays in the hospital until they can find a rehab for him. For every case you can cite of no or poor healthcare I can cite just the opposite.......

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