Do You Want Universal Healthcare?

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I know this topic has been discussed before on this site..but, I was curious for an updated response. How many of you would be willing to pay more taxes for universal healthcare? I find it egregious that the US has put a cost on maintaining/saving ones life! I traveled to Europe and the thought of them having to bring their checkbook to the hospital aroused literal laughs. It's the same notion that we'd have to whip out our debit card to firefighters before they turned the hoses on our burning homes. It's sad. I think the overall costs of UH would be beneficial...in fact, the raised taxes would still probably be lower than our rising premiums every 2 weeks! Thoughts?

People seem not to realize that universal healthcare would be cheaper than the existing system. Our healthcare ranks below both Britain and Canada and we pay more per capita than they do. People who oppose universal healthcare always point to Britain and Canada as examples but I know people who live in both places and they ALL tell me they wouldn't give it up for anything.

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Without a doubt it would result in better overall care..

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the va has become a model of care.

over the last decade or two, the vha system has become a worldwide leader in both the adoption and the invention of health-information technology, and it has leveraged its innovations into quantifiable gains in quality of care. as harvard's kennedy school noted when awarding the vha its prestigious innovations in american government prize:

[the] vha's complete adoption of electronic health records and performance measures have resulted in high-quality, low-cost health care with high patient satisfaction. a recent rand study found that vha outperforms all other sectors of american health care across the spectrum of 294 measures of quality in disease prevention and treatment. for six straight years, vha has led private-sector health care in the independent american customer satisfaction index.

indeed, the vha's lead in care quality isn't disputed. a new england journal of medicine study from 2003 compared the vha with fee-for-service medicare on 11 measures of quality. the vha came out "significantly better" on every single one. the annals of internal medicine pitted the vha against an array of managed-care systems to see which offered the best treatment for diabetics. the vha triumphed in all seven of the tested metrics. the national committee for quality assurance, meanwhile, ranks health plans on 17 different care metrics, from hypertension treatment to adherence to evidence-based treatments. as phillip longman, the author of best care anywhere, a book chronicling the vha's remarkable transformation, explains: "winning ncqa's seal of approval is the gold standard in the health-care industry. and who do you suppose is the highest ranking health care system? johns hopkins? mayo clinic? massachusetts general? nope. in every single category, the veterans health care system outperforms the highest-rated non-vha hospitals."

what makes this such an explosive story is that the vha is a truly socialized medical system. the unquestioned leader in american health care is a government agency that employs 198,000 federal workers from five different unions, and nonetheless maintains short wait times and high consumer satisfaction. eighty-three percent of vha hospital patients say they are satisfied with their care, 69 percent report being seen within 20 minutes of scheduled appointments, and 93 percent see a specialist within 30 days.

at http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_health_of_nations .
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Yes, but with modifications. We NEED preventative medicine more than anything else. We also need to spend less money on end of life issues. Non-compliance is a very big problem as well. It is multifactoral. And that's not even addressing the payment part of it.

Our collective mindset has to change, unfortunately, that won't be easy, we all think we're entitled to one thing or another. The good of the many should outweigh the good of the few, or the one.

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Yes to Universal Health Care!

I pay $765 a mth for Kaiser to cover my self and my 13 yo and 14 yo--35% of our income. How much longer can I afford this? Soon it will be a place to live or health insurance! But I'm terrified not to have health insurance!

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"After resigning and becoming a SAHM mom (and subsequently a student, again) my family purchased individual health insurance."

That's great, glad you qualified for individual health plan insurance. I am unable qualify for an individual health insurance policy because of a pre existing health condition that I had no control over--it was not a lifestyle choice or a preventable disease. Yet it has left me ineligible for health insurance. So how does someone like me get health insurance? By paying $805 a mth under a group health plan and hope I can pay for food and housing for the kids and I.

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Specializes in Med Surg, LTC, Home Health.
i'm sorry but "i don't want to pay taxes so someone else can have health care" doesn't cut it for me. tell me that after your 18-year-old nephew has a heart attack.

health care should be free for all citizens! every industrialized country in the world provides health care for it's citizens except for this greed-driven nation! 50,000,000 americans are uninsured. the ones that are insured get denied procedures that end up costing their lives. it is a profit-driven system that has no regard for human life. we should all support the bill hr676.

under hr 676, a family of three making $40,000 per year would spend approximately $1600 per year for health care coverage. :yeah:

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But healthcare is not free. Healthcare is very expensive.

Could American families afford the higher taxes required to fund this?

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

UHC is nothing like what you desribed.None of it. In Canada you have a health card that is supplied to all citizens. You present your card at the hospital ER or the doctors office and then you get treated. GPs may refer you to a specialist and my experience with that has been good generally. I htink I waited 10 days once to get in to see the one i went to. Mt doctoer is 10 mins away and we can go to whom ever we want to. There is no such thing as a copay and you get no bill at the end of your hospital stay.

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But healthcare is not free. Healthcare is very expensive.

Could American families afford the higher taxes required to fund this?

Actually universal healthcare would cost less than what we have now, for everyone. The system we have right now is entirely inefficient. People who don't have insurance wait to go to the hospital until they are almost dying, and then they end up in the ER with a huge bill they can't pay. They go into debt, wreck their credit, and then become less employable because more and more employers are holding bad credit against potential employees.

Also, a healthier workforce is a more productive workforce.

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Actually we could SAVE some money with Universal Health Care because employers would no longer need to pay Worker's Comp, nor would you need a medical coverage rider on your car insurance. No matter how you get sick or injured, you're covered with Universal Health.

Just my :twocents:

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I am with the "NO" voters.

And we don't know "without a doubt" Viking . . as can be seen in all these threads on UHC, not to mention in the public discussion of this issue . . . . there are many legitimate doubts.

steph

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