According to the Associated Press as cited in the Post article, "Cuba has made recent advancements in biotechnology and exports its treatments to 40 countries around the world, raking in an estimated $100 million a year. ... In 2004, the U.S. government granted an exception to its economic embargo against Cuba and allowed a California drug company to test three cancer vaccines developed in Havana."
I work with several nurses from Canada. They had a story about how Canada put caps on how much money doctors could make in a year. One town's surgeon met his cap by April, so he went on a 8 month long vacation while patients had to go to another city for surgery, or cope with a less specialized surgeon.
My neice is a physician in Canada, and denies the above.
Perhaps that surgeon felt he deserved a long vacation/sabbatical.
When I wanted to study Public Health Nursing in Toronto (where I was born), I asked for and received a bursary for books, living allowance, tuition and got my degree there. I didn't have to pay it back, as long as I worked for one year anywhere in Ontario, and I chose Windsor (across the river from Detroit).
I lived in Detroit, bought my car there, and enjoyed working in a less urban setting. You see, even though my American born mother arranged my American citizanship when I was born, I was required at the time I was 23, to spend 5 years in the USA (no study needed or other requirements), before I was 28 and after I was 14 years of age. That law has been repealed since.
I never lost my Canadian "birthright", and my children can be Canadian, as can their children. I think France sent the "statue of liberty" to the wrong country.
20/20 isn't that the same network using exploding gas tanks when going after GM. And isn't 60 minutes the program utilizing fraudulent military records that cost Dan Rather his job? Aren't these the same networks that are currently slobbering over a certain candidiate running for President as a democrat.
Excuse me!!!
Michael Moore's sources were thoroughly checked by several media networks and found to be absolutely accurate. Federal Law states that ED patients who are stableized may be discharged at will.
There was a 20/20 report about that, as well as 60 minutes program validating the film's information. Write them for a copy of those programs, and see the truth. The above post is conjecture!:argue:
I find these generalization of mine disturbingly accurate. All liberal programs have been budget busting disasters. The war on poverty has cost trillions of dollars and thousands of live since it's inception look at the state of the black family since the inception of the war on poverty. Out of wedlock births skyrocketing the drug and alcohol problems that are destroying these communites. Look at New Orleans and DC with the state of their economies, education, and crime. These cities have been run by liberals for decades and yet they border on thirld world country status. The list of liberal failures is extensive, but instead of doing away with the programs liberals decry they need more money and when someone is tired of coughing up money for their failures liberals resort to their typical playbook of calling people heartless and crues, or denying the necessary help for children, the frail, etc...
CRNA,
and
I find these generalizations disturbing and, more importantly, inaccurate. You act as if you are the only person whose tax dollars would be used to support the healthcare of the entire country and you know that's not true. Everybody who pays taxes pays into it and everybody benefits from it. Nobody here has ever said that they aren't willing to pay for it, and your characterization of liberals wanting to spend everyone else's money does little to help find a solution. The last I checked the current conservative government has spent a lot of MY tax money to fund an unnecessary war that has cost money, lives, and the mental health of many.
Instead of attacking everyone who doesn't agree with you, why not suggest a viable alternative?
The military is a function of government where as health care is not. As for the salaries of healtrh care executives that is called capitalism and that's what we have in the U.S. Anytime you want to pay for someone elses healthcare you can cut a check a check to the federal governement. As a matter of fact you could scan the duplicate and post a link right here to show us all how much compassion you have for your fellow neighbor.
Are our insurance premiums today higher, due to sex change surgery done on others? Do we pay higher premiums due to non disease related cosmetic surgery? Nonsense!!!!
What a stupid excuse to rant about Nancy Pelosi's constituents.
We've been paying for all health care given all needy aliens, here legally or illegally since they began coming here in a trickle, and then the dam broke, costs escalated, and angered by taxes imposed and threats to the status quo (in regard to health care), everyone without a bean of intelligence, or research into actual facts regarding a comparison of the cost now, and estimations based on fact, that future health care programs will cost.
Do you enjoy paying higher taxes for war efforts that kill young men and women in battle, cost unbelievable amounts of $$$$$$$$ for the treatment and rehabilitation of soldiers afterward, allow the rich to profit as independant contractors (think Vice President Chaney)for their war contracts (with no comparative bids)? Wouldn't you sleep better knowing your tax money went toward life enhancement rather than death and dismemberment and lifelong mental disabilities caused by violence?
Have you any idea what the salaries of big health insurance companies are? They're obscenely in the millions, yearly. Wouls you wait a few weeks longer (needing effective analgesics) for your impending non emergency surgery, so that a fellow human being who happens to exist in this country and work for illegal profiteers, might have health care benefits?
Please think about and research your viewpoints before you write such scurilous attacks (drivel) !
IMO, if MM wanted to show you how BAD socialized medicine was instead of how good it was, he could create just as much shock effect going that way too. I think its a grey area and of course the system is in need of reform. Personally I would be all for universal healthcare if resources would be utilized in a better fashion than now. For example, myself and a co-worker went through each patient on our 16 bed unit. Out of all patients, only one is what we would call 'viable.' ONE!! It sounds heartless, but quit spending billions of dollars on dead people! This is just my experience and I would love to hear how others see how healthcare dollars are wasted in other areas. Also, another documentary "the business of being born" shows how midwives are being pushed out and insurances wont cover them, but heck, how much cheaper is that?!?! Why should ALL women come to the hospital and get drugs they dont need when a midwife can give them adequate care at HOME? Spending money on this crap is rediculous.
"SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" is such an outdated term, it amazes me that it still affects people as it seems to. It was first used in my recall to criticize the movement in Saskachewan, Canada in the '60s, when their government passed favorable legislation regarding health care coverage for all.
Canadians, as have Americans still feel the effects of the "cold war" we had with Russia; and its socialized system in all modes of life. Certainly the violation of many of Hollywood's film producers, directors and stars' human rights so recently before that exhibited the aversion to socialism. It hideously enacted before the world's cringing believers that any system which enforces the sharing of wealth with the underprivileged, is wrong. Anyone who lived through that black mark of ours in history, knows the unfairness of supposed saviors of citizens' rights. We now have most of the "rest of the story" about the tortured mind of Edgar Hoover, who perpetrated that mess. History will not spare those who now selfishly assert "it's my money, you suffering clods can't have it!", to the ailing humans in this country, either.
So what will the end result be? Will we "love it or leave it?", suffer and take it? (perhaps dying sooner and more painfully than we might otherwise have done?)bor become activists as nurses, to remedy it?
Will we listen and believe retorict of one side, not researching or listening to the other? Michael Moore's film dragged our heads out of the sand and forced us to have a look at what is happening in health care here. It's our choice whether or nwe return our gaze under the sand, or look at our faults clearly without seeing the material things we could miss if the expense of Universal Care exceeds that now, with insurance company executives making billions of our hard earned dollars, kicking back some to our larger employers and pharmaceutical companies.
Yes, Michael Moore is a characature, especially as he carried his dirty laundry to the white house, parodying the lengths to which France goes for her citizens, for their comfort when incapacitated. However, France's citizens are healthier than we are, without resorting to "Biggest Losers" types of TV entertainment. They sure eat and drink better than most of us, without becoming severely, morbidly obese, or broke. So why is a glance at their system wrong, or Cuba's, or Canada's. Is it so embarrassing that our newborns have a lesser chance of survival than do theirs? Or that our med errors and horrendous surgical mistakes are so extensive that it's shocking - and lethal?
Let's take a good look at what's wrong, and then see how each of us can improve the delivery and coverage of health care!
20/20 isn't that the same network using exploding gas tanks when going after gm. and isn't 60 minutes the program utilizing fraudulent military records that cost dan rather his job? aren't these the same networks that are currently slobbering over a certain candidiate running for president as a democrat.
well, here is a bonafide, resource that doesn't offend anyone's sensibilities (unless you want to be the only one) for you:
health affairs
august 25, 2008
covering the uninsured in 2008: current costs, sources of payment, and
incremental costs
by jack hadley, john holahan, teresa coughlin, and dawn miller
people uninsured for any part of 2008 spend about $30 billion out of pocket
and receive approximately $56 billion in uncompensated care while uninsured.
government programs finance about 75 percent of uncompensated care. if all
uninsured people were fully covered, their medical spending would increase
by $122.6 billion. the increase represents 5 percent of current national
health spending and 0.8 percent of gross domestic product. however, it is
neither the cost of a specific plan nor necessarily the same as the
government's costs, which could be higher, depending on plans' financing
structures and the extent of crowd-out.
incremental resource cost versus transfer or crowd-out costs.
most important for the policy debate, however, it is essential to
differentiate the incremental resource cost of insurance expansion from
transfer or crowd-out costs, and from the more thorny issue of the financing
of insurance expansion. incremental resource cost is a key number for
assessing the cost-effectiveness of expanding insurance coverage--that is,
comparing the value of improved health associated with expanded coverage to
its resource cost.
however, the additional cost of care used by the uninsured is not the same
as the cost to the government of a coverage expansion, since out-of-pocket
spending and income-related premium payments by the newly insured are likely
to pay some of these extra costs. further, the cost attributed to any broad
health care financing reform could be much higher, depending on the extent
to which people drop their prior coverage in favor of coverage under the new
plan or retain their current coverage but receive new public subsidies to
help pay their premiums.
these costs are not new national resources being devoted to health care but,
rather, represent a transfer of spending from one type of coverage to
another: although government spends more, many individuals, families, and
businesses spend less. the savings to businesses and families in private
insurance premiums and out-of-pocket spending can be large and are often
overlooked in health reform cost calculations that focus on increased
government spending. how the cost of the subsidies is distributed among
different classes of people and geographic areas is at least as major a
Specializes in Trauma ICU, Surgical ICU, Medical ICU.
People don't want universal health care because we don't want a 20% increase in taxes to pay for it. We don't want to pay for Nancy Pelosis's constituents to have sex change operations. We don't want to pay for health care for illegal aliens. Perhaps if you liberals started to have to foot the bill for these things your attitudes would change. I guarantee all of you want universal heath care but none of you want to pay for it. When everyone pays the additional $1000/month per person in your family that this entitilement will cost then I want to hear how great you think universal health care is. Liberals are long on lip service but short on proividing the capital to fund these grand tax schemes.
Let's throw 20 million unskilled, uneducated, non-french speaking illegals into France's population and then tell me how great their health care system is. If Canada had a such a great system then the illegals would be making a bee line for it. Canada's tax rates are horrendous and if it is such a great deal up there how come you choose to live in the United States? Why aren't you emigrating to Cuba or going back to Canada? Let's also take a look at the French unemployment rate as well while we are at it.
[quote=lamazeteacher;3069417 However, France's citizens are healthier than we are, without resorting to "Biggest Losers" types of TV entertainment. They sure eat and drink better than most of us, without becoming severely, morbidly obese, or broke. So why is a glance at their system wrong, or Cuba's, or Canada's. Is it so embarrassing that our newborns have a lesser chance of survival than do theirs? Or that our med errors and horrendous surgical mistakes are so extensive that it's shocking - and lethal?
Specializes in Trauma ICU, Surgical ICU, Medical ICU.
Let's throw 20 million unskilled, uneducated, non-french speaking illegals into France's population and then tell me how great their health care system is. If Canada had a such a great system then the illegals would be making a bee line for it. Canada's tax rates are horrendous and if it is such a great deal up there how come you choose to live in the United States? Why aren't you emigrating to Cuba or going back to Canada? Let's also take a look at the French unemployment rate as well while we are at it.
Agree, just because UHS is great for another country doesnt mean it's great for us. There are many factors that make the US different from other countries and the idea that "Well it works for Cuba!" doesn't always mean it will work here. Also, has anyone looked in the technology that other countries have and how little they can do? How many of these countries offer cutting edge technology as the US does? How many hospitals have stats as good as US hospitals? How many cancer treatments and cutting edge research comes from these UHS contries? As much as the US? I would highly doubt it. I think we would be paying A LOT more than other countries in taxes than these UHS countries pay. Plus with UHS, whats the need to take care of yourself early on? Plus I can see a lot more wasteful spending and procedures occurring with UHS because "well its free!" Well its NOT free! I think the US should begin to create a new system of healthcare and not just copy things that work for other people.
Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
the united states is ranked #37 as a health system by the world health organization.
the u. s. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds." "world health organization assesses the world's health systems," press release, who/44, june 21, 2000. http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html
health industry companies were accused of wrongdoing in sicko -
aetna: "aetna inc. ... settled with the plaintiffs, which include the medical associations of california and texas. aetna agreed to pay the plaintiffs $120 million." milt freudenheim, "class-action status is upheld for doctors suing insurers," new york times, september 2, 2004. see also, susan beck, "hmo postmortem," american lawyer, october 10, 2003. settlement agreement, http://www.aetna.com/provider/agreement_with_physicians.html
"blue cross/blue shield companies settle medicare claims, pay united states $117 million, agree to share information," department of justice news release, october 25, 1995.
cigna agreed to pay $85 million." milt freudenheim, "class-action status is upheld for doctors suing insurers," new york times, september 2, 2004
"largest health care fraud case in u.s. history settled; hca investigation nets record total of $1.7 billion," department of justice news release, june 26, 2003.
there are four times as many health care lobbyists as there are members of congress.
according to the center for responsive politics (www.opensecrets.org), in 2005 there were 2,084 health care lobbyists registered with the federal government. with 535 members of congress, that's 3.895 lobbyists per member.
Show me a 64 slice CT scanner doen in Cuba? Everyone has healthcare in Cuba but how many get a heart bypass when needed.
Agree, just because UHS is great for another country doesnt mean it's great for us. There are many factors that make the US different from other countries and the idea that "Well it works for Cuba!" doesn't always mean it will work here. Also, has anyone looked in the technology that other countries have and how little they can do? How many of these countries offer cutting edge technology as the US does? How many hospitals have stats as good as US hospitals? How many cancer treatments and cutting edge research comes from these UHS contries? As much as the US? I would highly doubt it. I think we would be paying A LOT more than other countries in taxes than these UHS countries pay. Plus with UHS, whats the need to take care of yourself early on? Plus I can see a lot more wasteful spending and procedures occurring with UHS because "well its free!" Well its NOT free! I think the US should begin to create a new system of healthcare and not just copy things that work for other people.
please tell me how lobbyists will not have influence on socialized medicine? you think there are a lot of lobbyists now wait till the tax payers are funding the program.
the united states is ranked #37 as a health system by the world health organization.
the u. s. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds." "world health organization assesses the world's health systems," press release, who/44, june 21, 2000. http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html
health industry companies were accused of wrongdoing in sicko -
aetna: "aetna inc. … settled with the plaintiffs, which include the medical associations of california and texas. aetna agreed to pay the plaintiffs $120 million." milt freudenheim, "class-action status is upheld for doctors suing insurers," new york times, september 2, 2004. see also, susan beck, "hmo postmortem," american lawyer, october 10, 2003. settlement agreement, http://www.aetna.com/provider/agreement_with_physicians.html
"blue cross/blue shield companies settle medicare claims, pay united states $117 million, agree to share information," department of justice news release, october 25, 1995.
cigna agreed to pay $85 million." milt freudenheim, "class-action status is upheld for doctors suing insurers," new york times, september 2, 2004
"largest health care fraud case in u.s. history settled; hca investigation nets record total of $1.7 billion," department of justice news release, june 26, 2003.
there are four times as many health care lobbyists as there are members of congress.
according to the center for responsive politics (www.opensecrets.org), in 2005 there were 2,084 health care lobbyists registered with the federal government. with 535 members of congress, that's 3.895 lobbyists per member.
lamazeteacher
2,170 Posts
My neice is a physician in Canada, and denies the above.
Perhaps that surgeon felt he deserved a long vacation/sabbatical.
When I wanted to study Public Health Nursing in Toronto (where I was born), I asked for and received a bursary for books, living allowance, tuition and got my degree there. I didn't have to pay it back, as long as I worked for one year anywhere in Ontario, and I chose Windsor (across the river from Detroit).
I lived in Detroit, bought my car there, and enjoyed working in a less urban setting. You see, even though my American born mother arranged my American citizanship when I was born, I was required at the time I was 23, to spend 5 years in the USA (no study needed or other requirements), before I was 28 and after I was 14 years of age. That law has been repealed since.
I never lost my Canadian "birthright", and my children can be Canadian, as can their children. I think France sent the "statue of liberty" to the wrong country.