I have felt for a while that we should have universal health care here in the US, but I didn't know things were this bad. We really should be ashamed that GTMO Bay prisoners get free (and very good quality, from the looks of it) health care and 9/11 rescue workers are suffering from 9/11 related health conditions and have no coverage.
And hospitals removing their names from the pt bracelets of ill, unisured pts, and having cabs drop them on Skid Row?
And insurance company physicians admitting that they know they caused the death of pts by denying claims in order to save the ins company money?
What is the matter with us that our health care system is ranked #37 among industrialized nations?
To me, this is not about politics, not about personal responsibility, it's not about cost- it's just about what is right and what is wrong.
I know the Canadian and other universal health care systems have their problems, but they are not run on a foundation of greed and denial of care as ours is.
I am very fortunate that I have good health insurance, but this could change at any time. I am willing to pay more taxes so that all US citizens can get free or low-cost health care that is not connected with a job, and can move with the citizen and cover them wherever they are and whatever their circumstances are.
i understand that it's your concern, but the point is that australia obviously is unable to insure everyone, and therefore it's disingenuous to promote their system as the model by which we should go... especially when they are turning to the private market to solve their problems.
i can't see how it makes sense to criticize private market alternatives, and then hold up a system that is turning to private market solutions as the uhc example by which we should model ourselves.
i don't have a problem with incorporating private market options in conjunction with publicly-funded services, provided the publicly-funded portion provides more than basic care to all it's residents. the introduction of the surcharge and rebates for health insurance were designed to increase uptake of a service already available, in leiu of increasing the levy across the board (an alternative i'm happy with). it hasn't eroded services within the public sector.
when i read about the amount of money private insurance costs some of you i'm stunned. i earn the most of any nurse on my ward (through a combination of seniority, education allowances, night duty and weekends), and pay around $1,300/year in medicare taxes(including the levy) - it'll be less this year because the goovernment have increased the threshold and i've reduced my taxable income through salary packaging more agressively. if i were paying top cover with super extras i'd be adding between $100 - $150/month on top of that, and reducing my taxable levy by a few hundred dollars.
the majority of people who refuse uhc and other public assistance programs are people who have never had to rely on the government for anything.
[color=gray]first, do you have any evidence to even remotely suggest this is true, and second, what does it have to do with the discussion?
i don't have any "proof" other than personal experiences. i would be more than happy to look for some statistics for you, but i'm not sure how i could narrow down the google search. it is very relevant to the discussion and if you can't see that, i don't know what to tell you. from a personal stand point, i used to be the person who thought health care was for people who work hard. i didn't think the "poor" deserved health care and i thought it was a privlege. until i got kicked off of my parents health insurance, had no job, and no skills to get a job. i found myself having to go on state aid to pay for my medications and doctor appointments because i was unable to do it for myself. i hate having to rely on someone else to support my health care, but i am very thankful that the option is there should i need it.
it's easy to sit up there on your high horse and pick apart people who abuse the system.
[color=gray]i don't know what constitutes being on a "high horse," but we would be ill advised and irresponsible to ignore the fact that people abuse the system. the only way i would agree with you is if we simultaneously received the same capacity with the irs...now that's a system i wouldn't mind abusing.
right, and i'm not telling anyone to ignore it. did i say i was? no? okay then. i don't think it's right for people to abuse any system and i think those people should be punished accordingly. however, i don't think denying a uhc system to everyone because of the possible abuse is right. that's all i meant.
news flash: people abuse all kinds of systems, health care related or not. should we punish the majority for the mistakes of the few?
[color=gray]nope, but advocates of uhc think we should.
this doesn't make any sense to me at all.
should we abolish welfare, wic, and government grants for school? why are the rich (for lack of a better word) the only people who "deserve" to succeed? and who the hell made up that rule? what kind of society finds that acceptable? it's disgusting.
[color=gray]this is part of the problem; we need to keep the discussion within context and stop skidding off to the edges of the spectrum. i didn't see where anyone said to "abolish welfare, wic, and government grants for school." but it doesn't mean people who are not eager to become enslaved to a uhc system can just be categorized as completely unwilling to support some social programs...especially money for school.
i am trying to keep the discussion on topic while simulataneously interjecting material that is similar to build my case. our taxes go to welfare and wic; we are already "enslaved" to those programs.
i'm astonished at the massive amount of nurses and other health care professionals - who are suppose to be compassionate - that do not support health care for all.
[color=gray]yes, it's preposterous...maybe we should follow the allegedly socialized fire department model and 70% of us can do it for free. heck, it has to be at least a little safer than running into burning buildings.
i'm not sure what you're getting at with this? what socialized fire department model? and how is that relevant to uhc?
because you don't want to pay more taxes? another news flash: no one does. but if the amount of money you put into private insurance equals the same amount that you would pay in taxes for a uhc system, why not go with the uhc? something to benefit all?
[color=gray]because the gov't will never guarantee that i will never pay more than what i am paying now while keeping the coverage i have. and as our uhc recipients can tell you, it never gets cheaper...it only gets more and more expensive until they are resorting back to private enterprise solutions.
evidence?
of course michal moore is going to be biased. many, many reporters and journalists are. that's why people need to examine both sides of the story and come to their own conclusions. it is difficult to find a non-biased opinion and non-biased facts.
[color=gray]journalists and reporters are not supposed to be biased. they definitely aren't supposed to lie. and here's what you aren't finding in this discussion; you aren't finding people who said "i saw sicko" and then i saw the movie "dead meat" and read [color=gray]this article by kurt loder [color=gray]and i find m. moore to be a credible documentarian.
i agree, they are not supposed to be biased. but many of them are, and so everyone should do their own fact checking. that's the only point i was trying to make with that statement.
many (not all, mind you) conservative christians are against uhc and other government aid programs because they feel that the poor are not worthy of it, or some other such nonsense. but didn't jesus help the poor? didn't he believe in everyone being treated the same, and just as deserving of love and respect? funny how this teaching is often ignored by the religious right. but i guess that's what happens with a religion that picks and chooses what bible verses to follow. (done with religion, too off topic.)
[color=gray]here's what i find funny, and i'm about as religious as a piece of wood; i find it funny when people compare jesus to the gov't. jesus helped everyone, but he didn't take anyone elses stuff by force to do it.
[color=gray]and it's not reasonable to suggest that uhc is about "love and respect," and that "love and respect" are lacking in a healthcare system that is not universalized.
i'm not touching this because it is too off topic, as stated above. for the record, i was not trying to compare jesus to the government (lol), but thanks for the laughs.
in short, there is no perfect solution and every system will have it's flaws. but we can definitely do better than what we've got now - and besides, don't we deserve it?
[color=gray][color=gray]i don't know what i did to deserve being thrown into a universalized system with 300,000,000 other people. i must've done something terrible.
Toxic - you are making generalizations and misrepresenting people's positions. (Borrowing from H&S).
Not intentionally. I'm basing my opinions on personal experiences. I've been hard pressed to find any statistics on "people who don't support UHC are people who ____." If you can help me out with a google search, I'd be happy to do the work.
I don't know any Christians who think the poor are not worthy of being helped.
And likewise I know plenty. That doesn't make either of our opinions any less valid, but it does kind of void the point
Aside from the tax thing, government in charge of your every day life turns into a big mess. In my opinion.
I do support access to health care for all - I just don't support the government running it.
I agree completely. I think we can do a UHC system without the government controlling it. All because I support a UHC system does not mean I support the government running it completely. I apologize if I said or implied otherwise.
Reporters and journalists are not supposed to be biased. The press is supposed to be unbiased and look at every story and research it to see if it is true. The problem right now is the press has lost credibility with the public. Their ratings are tanking.
Of course they are not suppose to be biased, but unfortunately many are. That's why I'm saying that people need to examine all sides, fact check, and come up with their own opinions.
I'm a conservative Christian and I an NOT against UHC because I don't think the poor are worthy. That is not fair for you to even say that. And I don't pick and choose which bible verse to follow - I believe the entire bible is the inspired word of God.
Unfortunately, I can list several people that I know personally who are conservative Christians who do not support UHC. They feel that only certain people are "worthy" of having health care and that it is not a fundamental right. They feel that since the poor do not work or cannot work, tough cookies for them. Is this exclusively a conservative Christian ideal? Absolutely not. Is this an ideal that I have personally witnessed within the group of conservative Christians that I know? Yes. I also said that "many, not all" conservative Christians have this view. Thanks for ignoring that though.
Anything regarding religion, once again, I will not address because I already gave it enough attention in one paragraph, and anything more would be too off topic. Care to debate? PM me.
Please explain your own beliefs and thoughts but don't mischaracterize others. That is just wrong.[/quote']
I hope I have done so a little bit better. Let me know if anything else is unclear :)
Specializes in Flight Nurse, Pedi CICU, IR, Adult CTICU.
"do you think that the ordinary people in the movie who shared their stories are liars as well?" (me)
you stated flatly "the movie is a lie."
these people and their stories are part of the movie.
[color=olive]simple. you can tell the truth.
[color=olive]
[color=olive]i can film it and edit to to present a false message.
[color=olive]
[color=olive]that's what m. moore did.
[color=olive]
[color=olive]the collective message of this film is nothing less than intellectual dishonesty.
perhaps it would not be such a complete generalization, and total disregard for everything in the film, if you had said something like "i feel that michael moore is biased in that he exagerates, edits, and embellishes to support his personal beliefs/agenda" or something similar.
[color=olive]i don't get it. saying he's dishonest seems to be much more specific than what you are suggesting i should say.
the fact that you flatly state "the movie is a lie" is part of what leads me to the belief that you completely write off as irrelevent and false anything that does correspond exactly with your personal beliefs.
[color=olive]it's this simple; if i have an agenda and a point to "prove," and i present data in a manner that is manipulated and improperly characterized, then the conclusive message of my presentation cannot be considered truthful at all. people believe his film to be an academic presentation of the status of healthcare; i can only imagine if anyone else conducted academic research and manipulated the data to come to their own subjective conclusion, there isn't a single ethical intellectual who would consider that person's research and finished product to be even partially valid. imagine if this approach was taken to medicine and people took the same approach to similarly-concocted medical research!?! people would be saying, "so what if some of the data was manipulated and presented inaccurately? it still shows that drinking a gallon of gasoline and crapping on a campfire is a great way to cure colitis!"...complete with gimmicky music playing in the background such as is found in sicko.
[color=olive]
[color=olive]summary of that paragraph; the fact that he manipulated and subjectively presented any of the info at all completely negates any conclusion he claims to have arrived at. this is not my opinion, it is the function of intellectual honesty.
i do believe that moore exagerates and embellishes- i do not take his statements as the gospel truth.
however, i do feel the majority of his statements are based in fact- and i certainly believe the stories of the regular people in the film, and the documentation/phone calls from insurance companies which were used in the film.
[color=olive]i actually think these are fair, reasonable, and irrefutable observations you just made.
[color=olive]
[color=olive]i don't, however, think that m. moore even came close to showing that their stories somehow supported any premise that a uhc system would make their lives better.
i personally feel that uhc would be benefit our country finacially in the long run, in addition to it being the ethical thing to do. my opinions are not based on love, flowers or rainbows.
[color=olive]they have to be; there is nothing else to go by. the uhc systems are losing the financial battle in pretending like they offer a good product for less money.
I haven't seen Sicko but have found other Michael Moore films interesting, shocking and enlightening; like other media members I think he choses which statistics to use to most effectively support his case (for example, in Bowling for Columbine I think a more accurate statistic would have been gun-related death per capita for each country rather than actual numbers, but that may have been less dramatic and would certainly have less of an impact).
His website has some interesting statistics (with source links) about Canadian vs American health care, as well as support for each claim (with source links) and further information about patients who appeared in the film.
this is a false number; there are not 47 million uninsured americans. millions of people improperly included in this number are not americans, millions more are people who can afford insurance, but choose to exercise the american tradition of choice and opt out, millions more are people who are eligible for public programs, but have never accessed them because they are too lazy or they simply haven't needed them, and millions more are people who are simply uninsured (again by choice), because they forego formal coverage while they change jobs.
i couldn't get the quote function to work right, so i copied and pasted.
i am so glad to to know i am now lazy for not having insurance. i don't qualify for government programs, believe me i checked. i also have not chosen to be unisurered, but its kind of hard to afford it when you have no money coming in. i wasn't on my last job long enough to qualify for unemployment, and even that would not have allowed me to afford any kind of healthcare coverage. now, in my state i would qualify for health care if i became pregnant....not a very good reason to do so imo don't you agree.
can anyone honestly come up with a plan that will actually work instead of beating up on the option that might actually work if given half a chance. no, the government itself shouldn't run the program. the idea i read about making it a state level decsion seems like a good idea, who better to know what is needed in a particular state than well, that state. people want change, but don't want to pay for it...ok some people don't want to pay for it.
the medicaide system needs to be completly overhauled, especially since doctors don't want to take it due mainly to reimbursement issues.
i have no clue what system will actually work to fix this mess. but, is anyone willing to compromise and meet in the middle?
Specializes in Flight Nurse, Pedi CICU, IR, Adult CTICU.
I couldn't get the quote function to work right, so I copied and pasted.
I am so glad to to know I am now lazy for not having insurance. I don't qualify for government programs, believe me I checked. I also have not chosen to be unisurered, but its kind of hard to afford it when you have no money coming in. I wasn't on my last job long enough to qualify for unemployment, and even that would not have allowed me to afford any kind of healthcare coverage. Now, in my state I would qualify for health care IF I became pregnant....not a very good reason to do so IMO don't you agree.
Can anyone honestly come up with a plan that will actually work instead of beating up on the option that might actually work if given half a chance. No, the government itself shouldn't run the program. The idea I read about making it a state level decsion seems like a good idea, who better to know what is needed in a particular state than well, that state. People want change, but don't want to pay for it...ok some people don't want to pay for it.
The medicaide system needs to be completly overhauled, especially since doctors don't want to take it due mainly to reimbursement issues.
I have no clue what system will actually work to fix this mess. But, is anyone willing to compromise and meet in the middle?
Exactly my point.
Until we can get one side to stop misrepresenting the data, the advocates cannot reasonably expect that their ideas won't be criticized.
And your note about Medicaid is important. I'm hardly inclined to entrust my health care to the same gov't that 'provides' us medicaid.
I also suspect we could debate where "the middle" is located for days.
Until we can get one side to stop misrepresenting the data, the advocates cannot reasonably expect that their ideas won't be criticized.
And your note about Medicaid is important. I'm hardly inclined to entrust my health care to the same gov't that 'provides' us medicaid.
I also suspect we could debate where "the middle" is located for days.
Both sides are manipulating data to serve their own ends IMO. Its like smoking, you have doctors who will say smoking is bad for you. You can also find doctors who will say and have evidence to back up their statements, that smoking causes no health problems. Who is right? I still think there is a way to have universal health care WITHOUT the government running it. I haven't heard anyone come up with a plan that isn't government run, which I think it most people's problem with a universal health care system. How to come up with a plan that people will trust....THATS the bggest problem.
Specializes in Flight Nurse, Pedi CICU, IR, Adult CTICU.
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Both sides are manipulating data to serve their own ends IMO.
I won't disagree or agree, but I wouldn't mind seeing a potential example of data manipulation by opponents of UHC.
I still think there is a way to have universal health care WITHOUT the government running it.
Interesting concept.
There is one model of UHC that I would support in some similar version...Singapore.
I haven't heard anyone come up with a plan that isn't government run, which I think it most people's problem with a universal health care system. How to come up with a plan that people will trust....THATS the bggest problem.
It's a good question, and I certainly don't think that the answer is by giving all our money to the gov't.
I still think there is a way to have universal health care WITHOUT the government running it. I haven't heard anyone come up with a plan that isn't government run.[/quot
It isn't government run in Canada, government funded but not governmrnt run.
this is a false number; there are not 47 million uninsured americans. millions of people improperly included in this number are not americans, millions more are people who can afford insurance, but choose to exercise the american tradition of choice and opt out, millions more are people who are eligible for public programs, but have never accessed them because they are too lazy or they simply haven't needed them, and millions more are people who are simply uninsured (again by choice), because they forego formal coverage while they change jobs.
last time i checked, in english, not having insurance meant uninsured. regardless of the reason...
so...
the stat is not all that inaccurate is it...
ps. i know that wasn't your quote wildcat but i'm to lazy to go back and find who originally put it...
talaxandra
3,037 Posts
i don't have a problem with incorporating private market options in conjunction with publicly-funded services, provided the publicly-funded portion provides more than basic care to all it's residents. the introduction of the surcharge and rebates for health insurance were designed to increase uptake of a service already available, in leiu of increasing the levy across the board (an alternative i'm happy with). it hasn't eroded services within the public sector.
when i read about the amount of money private insurance costs some of you i'm stunned. i earn the most of any nurse on my ward (through a combination of seniority, education allowances, night duty and weekends), and pay around $1,300/year in medicare taxes(including the levy) - it'll be less this year because the goovernment have increased the threshold and i've reduced my taxable income through salary packaging more agressively. if i were paying top cover with super extras i'd be adding between $100 - $150/month on top of that, and reducing my taxable levy by a few hundred dollars.