Is Health Care a Right?

donmurray · Feb 11, 2003

It isn't just on paper! those comparative figures are actual, not theoretical. Surely all governments are bureacratic, amost by definition, and the fact that other governments can provide universal healthcare with less cost to the taxpayer, however the details are worked out, must show that it is a better optoin than what you have now. Or will we get into a "my govt. wastes more than your govt." spat?

KP RN · Feb 12, 2003

Let's talk about Medicare for a moment, or our present government run health plan. Medicare has substantially restricted and limited utilization over the past 15-20 years, because the federal government realized Medicare was perceived as an open checkbook.

Since the inception of Medicare, the long term projections have not even come close to the actual cost of the services. Furthermore, the more people who utilize the health care system, the greater the cost inevitably will be.

As you know, Medicare has significantly reduced payments to hospitals and doctors (which, by the way, isn't good for us nurses either). Some doctors are refusing to see more Medicare and Medicaid patients because they actually lose money. You know the old saying, private insurance is retail, medicare is wholesale, and medicaid is loss in money.

One last thought I had, if people are financially unable to purchase a health care insurance policy, how is it that they would be able to pay the 20% out of pocket charges that medicare does not pay??

OzNurse69 · Feb 12, 2003

Originally posted by KP RN
One last thought I had, if people are financially unable to purchase a health care insurance policy, how is it that they would be able to pay the 20% out of pocket charges that medicare does not pay??

The way it works here is, if you are a low income earner & have a health care card, you can be bulk billed by the doctor, that is, she only receives the Medicare rebate. However that is going by the wayside at the moment & doctors who bulk bill are becoming fewer & farther between, because the medicare rebate has not been increased to allow for extra expenses like the recent blow-outs in indemnity insurance premiums.

That is why we are seeing more & more GP type pts presenting at ED's, because then they don't have to pay anything. Seems to be a fairly simple solution -- increase Medicare rebates, then more GP's will bulk bill, people will go back to their GP's because they won't have any out-of-pocket expenses, & ED's will go back to treating acutely ill people.....

.....but I forget, I'm only a nurse, I don't know anything about health policy..... :rolleyes:

fiestynurse · Feb 12, 2003

Everyone who wishes to debate or advocate for health care reform should read "The Economics of Health Reconsidered."

fiestynurse · Feb 12, 2003

The United States National Health Insurance Act being introduced to Congress as we speak:

http://www.pnhp.org/nhibill/nhi_execsumm.html

fiestynurse · Feb 13, 2003

The Hartford Courant

February 12, 2003

Who's Shaping The Debate On Health Care Reform?

By Theodore Marmor and Kip Sullivan

The 2003 debate about health care reform, unfortunately, is likely to be as muddled as it was a decade ago, when President Clinton promoted universal health insurance under the banner of managed care and the inflation rate in health insurance premiums was also in double digits.

Now, as then, those with interests in rising health expenditures will try to make sure the American public does not understand the real causes of the recent surge in medical inflation. Their loudest argument is that Americans overuse medical care and that such overuse would only worsen if all Americans were insured.

Overuse does exist, the evidence indicates. But so does worrisome underuse. And overuse cannot explain the latest burst in health insurance prices or the sharp rises in what drugstores and doctors charge. There is no credible evidence that Americans received a lot more medical care in the past few years. But the price of health care has skyrocketed nonetheless. That inflation is because of the market power of insurers, drug manufacturers,

hospitals and other suppliers of medical services.

Advocates of medical savings accounts and other high-deductible plans talk of overuse because they think they have an answer to it. With a few exceptions, these advocates avoid discussion of underuse. They know they have no solution for underuse and that their practices will almost surely aggravate it. But that does not dissuade them from disseminating the overuse thesis at the meetings of health insurers and the gatherings of groups like the National Association of Manufacturers.

In that context, a sensible discussion of medical inflation, let alone

universal health insurance, is very difficult. It is almost impossible

when the news media act like an echo chamber, amplifying the voices of the already heard. Well-financed interest groups have lobbyists who are paid and prodded to comment and who show up regularly in debates that journalists try to "balance." The trouble is that there are 50 industry spokespeople for every underfinanced representative of ordinary citizens. The news all too often then turns out to be what prominent figures in the

medical-commercial complex claim.

No wonder that Americans support the reform principles of universal coverage but express fear at most efforts to act on them.

Comment:

I emphatically recommend reading the article, "Soaring health

premiums creating more uninsured," by Nancy McVicar of the Sun-Sentinel in Florida.

She addresses the real problems and discusses realistic solutions.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/health/sfl-rxinsure09feb09,0,4782118.story?coll=sfla%2Dnews%2Dhealth

Sally_ICURN · Feb 13, 2003

Fiestynurse thank you. I'm not sure how anyone can ignore the valuable information that you post here.

I posted these links earlier and here they are again. Especially as nurses, we should be involved.

http://covertheuninsuredweek.org

http://coveringtheuninsured.org

Fiestynurse, you keep posting sources to backup exactly what I personally have been trying to say on this thread. It's so important that people get involved in efforts to try to overcome the strong lobbyists who are so good at spending millions and millions of dollars to put out information that is glowing for them but stifling to the voices of reason and fact.

~Sally

sanakruz, ADN · Feb 13, 2003

Ditto, thank you, fiesty

fiestynurse · Feb 14, 2003

This is in response to a comment made awhile back by fergus51 regarding mandatory health insurance.

Individual mandates will not work

The American Prospect

2/12/03

One Dimensional

The notion of individual mandates for health insurance is untenable and shortsighted. - By Jonathan Oberlander

Mandatory self-insurance -- which would compel all Americans to purchase health insurance (much like all drivers are required to purchase auto insurance) with public subsidies going to those who cannot afford the cost -- has emerged as the flavor of the month in health reform. Ted Halstead, president of the New America Foundation, argued in a Jan. 31 New York Times op-ed piece that mandatory insurance is "the most promising solution to America's health care crisis." Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), a congressional leader on health policy, has offered a similar plan,

praising mandatory self-insurance as a "bold and new idea."

Halstead's case for individual mandates is based on a misleading portrait of the uninsured. To Halstead, the uninsured are mostly "middle class" -- young, healthy Americans who can afford to purchase health insurance. If only they were compelled to buy insurance, Halstead argues, not only would we get universal coverage but these healthy newcomers to insurance pools would also drive down the cost of premiums.

In fact, the uninsured are not mostly middle class: Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the uninsured earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. As a result, if universal coverage is truly the goal, an individual mandate program would have to offer much higher subsidies to a much broader segment of the population than Halstead implies. And because the average premium for health insurance is $8,000 for families and $3,000 for individuals, Halstead seriously underestimates the federal price-tag for subsidizing individual mandates. That price would decline if the "basic" insurance that Halstead would require all to buy really means only catastrophic or bare-bones policies. But such plans would not provide adequate health security.

Moreover, individual mandate plans have no cost-control mechanisms. They instead rely on the vague hope that competition between private insurers will lower health-care costs. Yet the American experience with competition in medical care provides no basis for relying on a private insurance system -- the most expensive in the world, incidentally -- to slow health spending. Without government regulation and freed from the negotiating leverage that big companies now exert for premium discounts, there would be no constraints on private insurers who wanted to raise prices. Under an individual mandate program, health-care spending and insurance premiums would continue to escalate, necessitating sizable increases in public subsidies -- and likely generating political pressure to retreat from universal coverage.

The aspiration to universal coverage embodied by the new wave of individual mandate plans is a welcome improvement over the incrementalism that has dominated the health-care-reform debate for the last decade. Yet without generous subsidies, clear mechanisms to pool risk and effective cost control, an individual mandate that makes being uninsured illegal will no more solve the health-care crisis than a mandate that makes unemployment illegal would solve joblessness. If what we want is affordable and secure health insurance for all Americans, individual mandates simply won't get the job done.

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/02/oberlander-j-02-12.html

kmchugh · Feb 16, 2003

I want to go waaaay back on this thread, and direct a question at JMP.

Originally posted by JMP
Kevin

I think your post smacks of verbal bullying. You will have a difficult time indeed, taking me to task.

You have to understand Kevin that I live in a different country with VERY different values. We share somethings, but so many are different. ...

To me, in my opinion, to not want that right shared amongst all citizens is selfish and singleminded. I work full time and believe me, no one takes "everything" I have so everyone else can have something........this kind of thinking is silly and, again in my opinion selfish.

I truely hope your country can come to turns with universal health care, every person deserves health care......it is a basic human right. Again, a Canadian's view.

How interesting. You accuse me of verbal bullying, yet in this post you call me selfish and single minded. You initially came up on this thread, calling me and all who agree with me greedy and self indulgent. I called you on that, and I'M the one who is being a bully.

This is another issue for me. While I respect your right to disagree, I won't allow that right to extend to you calling me names (the last refuge of those without logical argument). Yet, I'm the verbal bully. Interesting planet you live on.

Kevin McHugh

JMP · Feb 16, 2003

Where is the question Kevin?

kmchugh · Feb 16, 2003

Originally posted by JMP
Where is the question Kevin?

Oops, sorry. Question is this. Would you care to go back to the points that Susy or I made and demonstrate where we are wrong? Would you like to actually refute anything I said? In other words, can you, without the name calling, without posting something that "smacks of verbal bullying" respond to my points? Shoot, I'd even like to see you answer the simplest question I asked: At what level of taxation of my salary do I have the right to say "hey, I want to keep some of what I make for my own and my family's welfare."?

Kevin McHugh