Still think we have the best Health care in the world?

[HM2VikingRN]

i heard this woman's story on npr http://thestory.org/archive the other night. read the diaries and make your own decision about whether our system needs reform. this patient had an 8 day wait to get in to see a us gynecologist on an urgent basis.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/15/132936/405

in april 2005, when i was still ignorant of endometriosis and living in the us, i was lucky enough to have health insurance (bad as it was) and decided to find a us doctor who could prescribe something for my nasal allergies. in singapore, my doctor had prescribed me "flixonase" (the foreign name for flonase) and i could buy it there for us$17 a bottle. without insurance. i would find out later that a bottle of flonase in the us would set me back us$70 a bottle with insurance.

.....

me: "how soon would you be able to operate on my cysts if i decided to have it done immediately?"

he: "anytime also can.* you want tonight, or if you want tomorrow, it can be done."

(* some singaporean style english for you. it just means "anytime.")

me: "what? really?"

he: "yah." at no point did he exhibit any expression on his face except concern, and he looked me in the eye.

me: "you'd be able to do it anytime i ask for?"

he: "ya, anytime. the sooner the better of course. just tell me, we can arrange it."

when i told my husband about the conversation, he was amazed, even with the other personal singapore healthcare experiences he's heard from me. among other things, my gynae's practice in singapore:

- is "private", as opposed to a government clinic in singapore, but still affordable. i can also get appointment with the doctor really quickly, within the same week whenever i call, if not the next day.

- never made me feel rushed. my first appointment with dr o lasted an hour. all my appointments with dr m in raleigh had never gone over 10 minutes.

- was the one who gave me a pelvic ultrasound on my first visit to him, and showed me my sonogram images, on screen during the ultrasound, and on paper after. this never happened with dr m.

comment: no waiting time for care or needed surgery.

cost for laprascopic ovarian cyst removal us: 16000

singapore: 2000-5000.

lupron us: 682 dollars

lupron singapore: 250 dollars

- quality of medical attention? as a female, and as someone who has had to get check-ups regularly for visa requirements, i haven't had the quality of healthcare in us that matches what i get in singapore yet.

if you explore the singapore ministry of health's website, read their mission statements. one thing i've always liked about their approach to health: when government is partly footing the bill, that government has a lot of incentive to keep its people healthy, and to educate the population on how to do so. singapore costs are kept affordable in two ways - the moh put it in their mission to keep healthcare affordable in singapore (and then they do it), and singapore has both public hospitals and private hospitals. both types offer competitive quality and price. competition can work - done right.

...

but the biggest tragedy i see here in the us is failure of education, philosophy and vision - many people still think, despite all worldwide numbers to the contrary, that american healthcare is the best the world can do. what perpetuates the failed system is the spoonfed bs is that no one can afford a system that tries to take care of everyone, not just the rich. and of course, the neocon myth that free market will make good healthcare system. as long as sheeple believe these falsities, bad legislation follows.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

preamble to the constitution

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I read something in our local paper (Random Lengths) today about Blue Cross. It was fined $1million for "routinely" violating state law by cancelling individual health insurance coverage after policyholders got pregnant or sick, back in March of this year. Incidentally, the parent company of Blue Cross, Wellpoint Inc. made $3.1billion profit last year! Apparently further investigations into Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield, Healthnet and Pacificare are planned by California's Department of Managed Health Care.

The best health care system in the world - you are joking, aren't you? Unless best is a synonym for corrupt!

I understand what the Preamble says. And the Constitution itself, makes it perfectly clear that it has enumerated specific powers in order to establish the general welfare, and that Congress may NOT operate outside those limits, in any means, to accomplish any goal not specifically listed.

The specifically listed powers of Congress are the Constitution's definition of actions that promote the general welfare - AND ONLY THOSE ACTIONS.

As the 9th and 10th Amendments make crystal clear.

AS does the next line in the Preamble: Secure the blessing of Liberty. Of what? To whom? Hint: not the government.

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." - President Thomas Jefferson

U.S. Supreme Cabal: McCulloch v. Maryland, regarding the 'necessary and proper' clause: The Cabal defined this as Congress may enact legislation within the powers (1) specifically enumerated by Article I, Section 8 and (2) that which reasonably "necessary and proper" in "carrying into execution" these powers and those elsewhere listed to Congress in the constitution (ie. certain amendments). In other words, Congress is strictly defined to very specifically enumerated powers and that which draws a reasonable relationship to these specific powers as a "means" of carrying into play their execution.

"[Congressional jurisdiction of power] is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." - James Madison, Federalist 14

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce." - James Madison, Federalist 45

"shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms [i.e. the terms “general welfare” and “necessary and proper”] be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions [i.e. the specific Art.1, Section 8 delineations of power] be denied any significance whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity." - James Madison, Federalist #41.

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one." - James Madison, 1792

"The Constitution allows only the means which are ‘necessary,’ not those which are merely ‘convenient,’ for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to every one, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience in some instance or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one power, as before observed" - Thomas Jefferson, 1791

"Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money." - Thomas Jefferson, 1798

"To consider the [general welfare clause]...as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they [Congress] please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up strictly within the enumerated powers." - Thomas Jefferson.

"This specification of particulars [the 18 enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8] evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 83

"No legislative act … contrary to the Constitution can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 78

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." - James Madison criticizing an attempt to grant public monies for charitable means, 1794

"I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money. . . We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity." - Congressman Davy Crockett, 1830

"[i must question] the constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those … who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." - President Franklin Pierce, 1854

OK, maybe THIS guy was a tad hypocritical to this statement, later on: "As a matter of fact and law, the governing rights of the States are all of those which have not been surrendered to the National Government by the Constitution or its amendments. Wisely or unwisely, people know that under the Eighteenth Amendment Congress has been given the right to legislate on this particular subject, but this is not the case in the matter of a great number of other vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, of insurance, of business, of agriculture, of education, of social welfare and of a dozen other portant features. In these, Washington must not be encouraged to interfere." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1930

~faith,

Timothy.

[rngreenhorn]

Zashagalka:

6 WEEKS FOR ICECREAM.... oh man! You can bet I won't be working for your election campain.... oh, wait a minute, do "supreme dictators" get elected?

Seriously, thanks for the voice of reason in these threads.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

"To consider the [general welfare clause]...as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they [Congress] please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up strictly within the enumerated powers." - Thomas Jefferson.

~faith,

Timothy.

[Gromit]

preamble to the constitution

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I read something in our local paper (Random Lengths) today about Blue Cross. It was fined $1million for "routinely" violating state law by cancelling individual health insurance coverage after policyholders got pregnant or sick, back in March of this year. Incidentally, the parent company of Blue Cross, Wellpoint Inc. made $3.1billion profit last year! Apparently further investigations into Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield, Healthnet and Pacificare are planned by California's Department of Managed Health Care.

The best health care system in the world - you are joking, aren't you? Unless best is a synonym for corrupt!

Gee, lets see, what would be an even better example of a body that is even MORE corrupt than your example? Something that is CONSISTENTLY fraught with corruption? Oh yeah, that would be GOVERNMENT. At least you CAN go after the insurance companies and catch 'em. Its much harder to hold the government accountable for ITS actions.

Oh, and I sincerely doubt that when they wrote 'general welfare' they meant "support those who dont feel the need to support themselves". Seriously, if all you wish to do is take the document out of context, whats the point?

And yes, I'd say we STILL have the best in the world.

[GeekyRN]

I have lived in both Canada and the USA. I noticed no difference in quality of service, contrary to the screechings of various radio hosts.

I think if you're really loaded in the USA you can get as good a care as anywhere in the world and better than most, but if you're not, the AVERAGE person (not Joe billionare) is better off in a country with subsidized healthcare where you can get good care AND not go broke if you get sick.

I think it's better for business too. Companies don't have to pay for employee healthcare so they aren't always looking to layoff and relocate, but people still get good healthcare. Can't beat it.

[rngreenhorn]

preamble to the constitution

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I read something in our local paper (Random Lengths) today about Blue Cross. It was fined $1million for "routinely" violating state law by cancelling individual health insurance coverage after policyholders got pregnant or sick, back in March of this year. Incidentally, the parent company of Blue Cross, Wellpoint Inc. made $3.1billion profit last year! Apparently further investigations into Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield, Healthnet and Pacificare are planned by California's Department of Managed Health Care.

The best health care system in the world - you are joking, aren't you? Unless best is a synonym for corrupt!

Don't overlook "and secure the Blessings of Liberty", more gov't means less liberty. And "more perfect union... establish justice... domestic tranquilty... general welfare" are subjective statements. But "establish this constitution for The United States of America" is a concrete statement. And as Timothy has pointed out, the powers of the gov't are clearly outlined in the constitution.

Also, because there is some some fraud in the health insurance industry, it does not follow that universal health care will provide better health for our citizens.

And, the reason why America is the most powerful nation in the world is because of profit. Without profit, we have no money to invest in better equipment, newer technology etc.

And, never start a sentence with a conjunction.

[Gromit]

well, I'm not a business man, and I'm certainly not 'well off', but I do beg to differ. MY care has been second to none. I'm certainly (obviously) happy with it, and have no desire to mess with socialized care.

I've met far too many Canadian nurses who (for whatever reason) don't seem to concur with your post. In fact, too many of them have been pretty blunt with "if you guys go with socialized healthcare, you deserve what you get".

I have had family in England who didn't have quite the rosy experience with their version either, to the point that one of them (after losing sight in one eye because he had to wait too long to have a cataract removed -but by the time he was 'next' in line, the OTHER eye had a cataract, but they wouldn't work on the first one because it was too late -they wouldn't work on the eye that could still be saved because it was 'the wrong eye'. ) he decided instead to visit his family in the US, and while here, went and had the eye worked on.

I know every system has its sad story -thats going to happen no matter where you go or who you are. But I'll take ours. You keep yours and be happy with it.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

And, never start a sentence with a conjunction.

Hey now. I start sentences with conjunctions ALL THE TIME. Even though I know better (I aced the TSWE on my SAT, many moons ago).

~faith,

Timothy.

[rngreenhorn]

I have lived in both Canada and the USA. I noticed no difference in quality of service, contrary to the screechings of various radio hosts.

I think if you're really loaded in the USA you can get as good a care as anywhere in the world and better than most, but if you're not, the AVERAGE person (not Joe billionare) is better off in a country with subsidized healthcare where you can get good care AND not go broke if you get sick.

I think it's better for business too. Companies don't have to pay for employee healthcare so they aren't always looking to layoff and relocate, but people still get good healthcare. Can't beat it.

Well, I'm "Joe Blow" not Joe billionare... actually that would be "Joelene Blow" and I can't help wonder how much "better off" I will be when my wages go down, and I no longer have any choice in my health care should our citizen vote in single payer health care. Last I checked, the US has the highest paid nurses. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that we have private health care. So, I'll be making less and paying more in taxes.... doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

But, I agree with you, employers should not be providing health care.

[rngreenhorn]

Hey now. I start sentences with conjunctions ALL THE TIME. Even though I know better (I aced the TSWE on my SAT, many moons ago).

~faith,

Timothy.

Oops, forgive me. I actually don't remember the SAT, but I'm fairly certain I didn't ace it. Oh well.

Me grammar is great, also. And I never ever use repetitive redundancies.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Oops, forgive me. I actually don't remember the SAT, but I'm fairly certain I didn't ace it. Oh well.

Me grammar is great, also. And I never ever use repetitive redundancies.

Oh, I didn't ace the math or verbal parts, by any means. I DID ace the test of standard written English, though.

Of course, now I'm older and wiser and sometimes less of a rule-follower: on purpose. It's the maverick in me, don't ya know.

~faith,

Timothy.

[Gromit]

Hehehe. I can't recall my SAT numbers (hell, that was over twenty years ago) but I do recall I did rather well on it -especially the math part -I also recall being worried (before receiving my results) because I took the test on a day when I wasn't feeling very well, and I dozed off during the math portion (grin). Just glad I don't have to worry about such things these days.