Controversial Michael Moore Flick 'Sicko' Will Compare U.S. Health Care with Cuba's

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Sep 19, 2007

We already have that so why change the best democratic health system in the world to socialized medicine for all?

We are talking about Universal Health Care

Democratic and socialized really is old world terminology, overused, misused, badly worn out.

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Sep 19, 2007

I think we can do better.
I think our democracy can improve healthcare for most of us.
Statistically other democracies have better health and a longer life expectancy.

But why not for all of us. Do we all not count in the greater scheme of things

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Sep 19, 2007

I think that since most able bodies people bewtween 18 & 64 are paying taxes they should be added to the pool of those Medicare insures. We already include the most expensive people.
With one risk pool we will pay for the sick and injured when we are healthy.
We will also receive the care we need when we are sick or injured.
Isn't that the idea of insurance?

I like that indeed

pickledpepperRN · Sep 19, 2007

But why not for all of us. Do we all not count in the greater scheme of things

Sorry.

I meant we need a plan that improves health care for most of us who cannot count on the finest necessary care for life.

Those who already have the best don't need improvements.

Still I think many of them want others to have needed healthcare too.

lamazeteacher · Sep 19, 2007

Another thing, Aussie RN:
Americans also subsidize illegal aliens' healthcare at ANY public healthclinic and at many private hospitals.
An illegal Mexican woman crosses the border pregnant. She has her baby in a San Diego hospital and AMERICAN taxpayers pay for it....and then any remaining bill is dumped back on Americans via the tax system.
WHY are so many foreigners coming to America for healthcare?
Because it is the best in the world. It is pretty much FREE for anyone who is disabled, old, poor, very young. They don't get the GOLDEN Plan but they get adequate healthcare coverage.
I wish I had FREE healthcare - but I own a house, a car, and have a job. So mine is not free and I do NOT mind, because if I PAY for it, I get to CHOOSE who, how, when and where I get my healthcare. You get what you pay for in America.
NEXT we will be hearing: Well, I want a four bedroom house! Everyone has a RIGHT to a four bedroom house.....:angryfire

Dear Jericho:

You are the typical American! Your pride in our country is laudable, bit I wonder if you have actually seen healthcare delivery systems in other countries? MM showed it to you in a monumental work designed to show the attributes of other systems, and left it to viewers to compare that with ours. It wasn't in the scope of his production to show us what we have, it was left up to us to look around and see that.

The payment for care, through private insurance companies is definitely not cost effective, as are national/state/provincial programs. Have you the statistics about the number of staff they employ, and how many refusals of treatment they mete out? Have you seen the annual fiscal reports of healthcare insurance companies, that demonstrate huge profits? We pay much more now for healthcare, than we otherwise would, with more regulated systems. Haven't you read accounts by those who have gone bankrupt paying medical bills?

The medicaid programs we have now for poor people, are only for those who have little to nothing - not for anyone who owns property, or has an annual income over $28,000. The process is exhausting, and the lines at the offices one must go to personally (however ill) are long.

As a younger person with thin medical records, I too was unaware of the situation for those less fortunate than I was. Now I'm on Medicare without supplemental coverage, as I prefer to choose my own doctors, hospitals, and take medications that work. I've developed GERD, inherited Depression, and HTN, and let me tell you, my situation is desperate, since I don't want to cheat the system by selling my house or putting it in my childrens' names, or giving my car away. If I went back to Canada I could have their free healthcare without having worked there for the past 45 years, contributing my share of funds for that healthcare.

To make matters worse, for the past 10 years, despite great skills and experience, I've lost benefited jobs, just before healthcare benefits would have kicked in. Those "wonderful" insurance companies reported back to my employers that they would have to pay a much higher premium for me, as I was over 55. My friends who own their own business told me that 12 years ago when they attained 55 years of age, Blue Cross charged them $900. each, monthly, more than their younger employees. When they got Medicare, Blue Cross told them it couldn't be their primary insurer, and they posted even higher premiums. My friends retired, rather than pay that! Is it no wonder that "grey heads" are rarely seen employed by companies other than their own? Age discrimination is alive and well, with the government turning its attention elsewhere.

John Grisham wrote a book which was made into a movie, some years ago. I forget the title of it, but the website for him would provide that. That expose of our insurance practises was eye opening. See if you can get it through your library or "Netflix". It was about a poor African American family with a desperately ill son. The motto of their insurance company was to refuse all first and second claims!

When you are older, and if (I hope not) you have any illness for which you must be hospitalized, you will appreciate more, how sharing medical costs is a sound way to deliver healthcare. Also, you may notice the "window dressing" given our hospitals which wastes healthcare dollars. Other countries don't have designer waiting rooms, plush chairs, etc., but they do have well trained staff and state of the art equipment (unlike the HMOs I've been in, where radiology has antiquated, high rad excreting machines). That's what turned me away from them.:trout:

Jerico, BSN, RN · Sep 19, 2007

Lamazeteacher:

You post is most excellent. You put a lot of thought into it and I can see from where you come.

I do not disagree that INSURANCE is out of line in this country. Medical insurance has become extremely expensive and perhaps a question we should all ponder is WHY?

I have worked in health care administration (policy and planning) since the early 80s. I have worked in long term care policy and planning just about as long.

On ONE hand you have hard working, INDEPENDENT minded Americans who are essentially HEALTHY. They may see a doctor or dentist ONCE a year. They wonder "why do I have to pay $265.00 a paycheck for insurance?". The reason they pay it is to CROSS-SUBSIDIZE the uninsured high cost persons: those over 50, the very young, the mentally ill, and the young OB patients.

The WAY the healthy cross subsidize the others is by a special cost accounting that hospitals do. Example: A tylenol tablet is $5.67 on the insured person's bill. This is the ONLY way a hospital can bill an insurance company at a level which will help cover the "charity" or "self-pay/no pay" patients. Either that or the hospital is a 401C3 and they must serve a poor population in order to have tax breaks, financing benefits.

This form of cost cross subsizing must stop. The insurance MIDDLE man must stop.

Insurance companies hire nurses to review medical records and cases to approve or disapprove services according to physician/manager guidelines. When a patient falls out of those guidelines the case/issues is declined, unless the patient/physician of the pt asks for a review; in many cases the decision is reversed to keep liability at a minimum - but the process for reversal is designed to frustrate the consumer into just "giving" up. The typical American does not know how to navigate the system, it isn't complex, but it is built to be a frustration.

My proposal is that military medicine become the "universal medicine" in America. There are several reasons I feel this:

A) Wars/conflicts/disasters will never cease. We need a strong health care system that is ready for immediate use anywhere in any manner.

B) The US needs a mandatory military/public community assistance/obligation time and a military/public health system based health care system would provide a MULTITUDE of jumping off points for young people who need age 17-24 guidance. Young people could work in the system for either 1,2,3,4,5,6 year committments in exchange for educational dollars or they could stay in the system as a permanent worker. Those that took the longer committments could move on to be the RNs, CRNAs, physician assistants, physicians, tech based professions within the system they "grew up" in since high school.

C) A universal system could EMPHASIZE healthy lifestyle. Preventative medicine being the mainstaple.

D) There need to be restrictions in reasonable health care expectations.

E) People need to be able to choose and buy in to the system that is proposed because buy-in means greater acceptance and compliance.

Sorry this is rather jointed..but am on a time crunch at this moment and have to sign off.

Am writing a proposal but I don't think either candidate is listening.

Cheers.

J

Oh, and THANKS for saying I am a "Typical American"...I think typical Americans are GREAT. Regardless of what others say...

pickledpepperRN · Sep 19, 2007

Jerico:

Your idea has a lot of merit.

I once worked for 2 weeks of 8 hour shifts at a Navy hospital through the registry.

The system is very different with the corpsmen providing so much care but on that one unit I think the nursing and medical care was excellent.

I don't know enough nor have I thought about it enough to express a strong opinion yet. I hope the young uninsured who do get in an accident or have a horrible illness can be cared for in military hospitals.

Maybe the county, state, district, VA and other public hospitals will merge with military hospitals.

Thank you for your idea. It is a lot to think about.

I hope you eventually post the proposal.

PS: I have long thought that patriotic public service should be available (maybe mandatory) for those who don't want to be soldiers.

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Sep 19, 2007

Jerico:
Your idea has a lot of merit.
I once worked for 2 weeks of 8 hour shifts at a Navy hospital through the registry.
The system is very different with the corpsmen providing so much care but on that one unit I think the nursing and medical care was excellent.
I don't know enough nor have I thought about it enough to express a strong opinion yet. I hope the young uninsured who do get in an accident or have a horrible illness can be cared for in military hospitals.
Maybe the county, state, district, VA and other public hospitals will merge with military hospitals.
Thank you for your idea. It is a lot to think about.
I hope you eventually post the proposal.
PS: I have long thought that patriotic public service should be available (maybe mandatory) for those who don't want to be soldiers.

Im a firm believer that all and I mean all, young adults at 18 sould be placed into government public assistance services all the way from the army to whatever starts with a Z, Zookeeping, why not. with a term of anywhere from 4 to 12 years. Then they can start with raising a family and private career afterwards.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Sep 20, 2007

Social Spending in OECD Countries

as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product, 2001

Denmark 29.2

Sweden 28.9

France 28.5

Germany 27.4

Belgium 27.2

Switzerland 26.4

Austria 26.0

Finland 24.8

Italy 24.4

Greece 24.3

Norway 23.9

These high-spending countries are

also better at providing health care to

their families. In the United States,

“we have more bureaucracy than an

all-public system, we have higher

administrative costs, and we save

fewer lives,” Lindert said. Part of the

problem with the U.S. healthcare

system, which is not a problem in the

other nations included in his study, is

that access to affordable health

insurance is usually dependent upon

having a job.

http://www.nasi.org/usr_doc/Health_and_Income_Security_Brief_No_10pdf.pdf

lamazeteacher · Sep 20, 2007

We already have that so why change the best democratic health system in the world to socialized medicine for all?

If you think we have the best "democratic health system in the world", your head is so securely stuck into sand, that you'll believe anything, so long as you don't have to think about it/form your own opinion based on facts!!!! Look at comparisons of infant mortality and morbidity here, for heaven's sake! What an embaressment! Look around you! The patients your facility treats leave their health needs until its impossible to ignore them any longer ! (Insured and uninsured folks view lack of health as lack of strength, hopping from one myth to the other, which enriches the insurance industry by their example of the need for catastrophic insurance, provided at extortionist prices through employers who keep them in business!! What if all employers with more than 500 employees became "self insured"? I'll bet their health and safety programs would make a change in thinking and morbidity so fast, the insurance companies would run for cover. We all need to begin by the catch phrase, IF IT'S TO BE, IT'S UP TO ME!!! :angryfire

lamazeteacher · Sep 20, 2007

EO JERICO:

Wow! You did it! good job! Your attitude is beginning to change. As a teacher, that thrills me! The question "why?" is one of the first, as toddlers, that we pose. It opens the door to information.

I'll try to be brief. Insurance companies exist as they are, because we and our employers (and unions) let them charge "what the traffic will bear" - a very democratic belief, that fuels inflation. Doctors charge as the high prices they do, to remain in the upper echelons of consumerism, despite the cost of malpractise insurance. Notice the size and poshness of insurance company and doctors' offices! Look at their executives, and, yes, doctors' expensive cars and homes, extensive and costly vacations! Percentage wise, do they pay as much income tax as you do?

As a Nurse for over 47 years, I've seen the transitions personally, in both the USA and Canada (I still have aging family in Canada who require - and get extensive superior health care).

I have to say the Canadian system has its head on straighter than ours. When I came, in my 20s to California, I was shocked to learn in 1963 at my orientation at Stanford, that their first objective is - not patient care - but RESEARCH! Why? I finally have that answer, which is the same as the one drug companies have. You get all that lovely grant money, and still deduct costs, and pass them along through charges to consumers! The 2nd objectice is EDUCATION! Why? You get paid for students who come to such a prestigious facility, and pay very little for their services, all of which is a public service, and tax deductible!

The 3rd objective is finally PATIENT CARE.

There is no hospital in Canada that places anything above patient care, and they all teach and have ongoing research done there. But it's not tax deductible. Maybe if they started doing that, healthcare providers would be paid better - but then there would be less money for patient care. Believe it or not, Canadians care about that, whether it's their own or someone elses, whether it comes from the communal pocket or not. I've not heard any grumbling about "we have to pay for others from the taxes we pay", there. It's all attitude.

In the '60s, '70s, and well into the '80s, it was unheard of to charge employees for their healthcare insurance, and while deductibles, while low occurred, they weren't hurtful. That's a benefit!

What is happening now, keeps employees' heads to the "grindstone", doing anything, and I do mean anything, to avoid termination, which is more far reaching, in that your life as you know it is terminated! God

forbid that you complain above a whisper, in a secure place!

Doctors need constant reminding to "first do no harm", as they play into the insurance game for preservation of their lifestyle, moaning all the way to the bank. I have never thought it was ethical to work for a drug company or an insurance company, as it would feel the same as selling my body! Yet the American public is raped by the hands that feed them, literally and figuratively. Strong words, I know, but true!

BBQvegan · Sep 21, 2007

For anyone who believes there are not many Americans traveling overseas for healthcare; I keep seeing articles to the contrary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090701193.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter