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.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

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".]

1. Well, first of all if you think the Canadian system is "socialized" you either don't know the definition of socialism or you don't know what you're talking about. Or both.

It's not. While i's a single payer system (normally by the province, not the federal government) the healthcare system is entirely run by private Doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, etc. The government owns/manages none of it. The government just writes the check (well part of it) for people who use it from their taxes. With that single-payer system comes efficiencies, a greatly reduced burden in filing claims, such that there's actually far more healthcare professionals than bureacrats in the Canadian hospitals than in the USA, which makes me somewhat suspicious of your claims.

2. As for all the allegedy nurses you know trash-talking the system, where are they? Where all all the zillions of Canadians unhappy with the system folks who sound just like you would have us believe? Nobody can ever find them.

Considering not even Canada's current rightwing govenrment would DARE try to change the healthcare system and model it after this shipwreck in the US, obviously nobody's grossly unhappy with it. (exception for billionaires that don't want to pay taxes and can afford to pay for their own bypass with loose cash). Canadians know our system stinks. (note I said our system, NOT our healthcare, big difference).

3. As I noted, I , much of my family has lived and used the Canadian system (and ours in the USA) for years and noted no large difference in quality. The real difference is for regular people that you won't go bankrupt in CA getting a bypass or if (God forbid) someone develops a terminal illness.

But somehow I am sure none of these things matter to the idealogues. Somebody on am radio told them it was "socialistic" and "bad", so that's that. Just like they don't bother to note that Americans actually pay MORE per capita for healthcare than Canadians do (yet somehow almost appro 70 million still don't have insurance). Nor have they bothered to compare annual medical error rates between the various sytems, nor anything else that would make sense if one were trying to actually scientifically compare the systems in an intelligent matter.

Sorry, if I'm on a roll by the way. It's just with approx 70 million uninsured Americans and rising, and the costs of the system banrkupting the country, it just pisses me off that people STILL want to play the same old knee-jerk politics.

Whereas the SANE thing to do is abandon all commitment to ideology, take a look arond the world at what works well where, who does what well, and so forth, and incorporate the best of ideas, no matter where they lay on the political spectrum.

THANK YOU :welcome: :welcome:

[GeekyRN]

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.

My wages didn't go down when I worked in Canada, and my US dollars went further (back then, not true today). And how do you figure that Canadians don't have choice in their healthcare? As I said Canada is NOT socialized healthcare despite the delusions of many a knee-jerk (or person with an agenda) Also - I would argue that someone on an HMO is more limited and a PPO as limited in choices.

What is your cite that US nurses are paid in real dollars? Why do you believe the same market system that is driving nursing salaries here doesn't do the same everywhere else?

Also what you really have to look at is the cost of living compared to wages. I don't even know many nurses that have companies that give pensions and health care plans in retirement - do they think we don' need them? Well, in Canada you have both.

Plus last I looked the hospitals and varous business interests are doing all they can to bring our wages down for nurses in the USA in the form of trying to break the limited unions that exist, destroy the indepence of the state board of nursing (aka who can do what tasks on the floor of a hospital, patient-to-nurse ratios) and bringing in zillions of foreign nurses on visas on what is largely a manufactured nursing shortage.

[GeekyRN]

Lolita;

Made me jealous too this January when I got a crash course in patient perspective for the first time in my life ( stomach ache to ER to admit, to 15000 dollar bill for a 5 day journey).

If a conservative is a liberal who got mugged, a Democrat is a Republican whose job got offshored.

Regardless though, our healthcare problems are NOT going to exempt anyone by party affiliation when their number is called, but some boys and girls are just going to have to learn that the hard way.

[GeekyRN]

HM2-Are you married? LOVE your threads and posts.

Don't blame you.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

On November 19, 1945, only 7 months into his presidency, Harry S. Truman gave a speech to the United States Congress proposing a new national health care program. In his speech, Truman argued that the federal government should play a role in health care, saying "The health of American children, like their education, should be recognized as a definite public responsibility." One of the chief aims of President Truman's plan was to insure that all communities, regardless of their size or income level, had access to doctors and hospitals. The statistics in Harry S. Truman's speech demonstrated the urgent need for such measures: "About 1,200 counties, 40 percent of the total in the country, with some 15,000,000 people, have either no local hospital, or none that meets even the minimum standards of national professional associations. " President Truman's plan was to improve the state of health care in the United States by addressing five seperate issues. The first issue was the lack of doctors, dentists, nurses, and other health professionals in many rural or otherwise lower-income areas of the United States. Harry S. Truman saw that "the earning capacity of the people in some communities makes it difficult if not impossible for doctors who practice there to make a living." He proposed to attract doctors to the areas that needed them with federal funding. The second problem that Truman aimed to correct was the lack of quality hospitals in rural and lower-income counties. President Truman proposed to provide government funds for the construction of new hospitals accross the country. To insure only quality hospitals were built, the plan also called for the creation of national standards for hospitals and other health centers. Harry S. Truman's third iniative was closely tied to the first two. It called for a board of doctors and public officials to be created. This board would create standards for hospitals and ensure that new hospitals met these standards. The board would also be responsible for directing federal funds into medical research.

The most controversial aspect of the plan was the proposed national health insurance plan. In the November 19th address, President Truman called for the creation of a national health insurance fund, to be run by the federal government. This fund would be open to all Americans, but would remain optional. Participants would pay monthly fees into the plan, which would cover the cost of any and all medical expenses that arose in a time of need. The government would pay for the cost of services rendered by any doctor who chose to join the program. In addition, the insurance plan would give a cash balance to the policy holder to replace wages lost due to illness or injury.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/healthprogram.htm

President Truman was in favor of National Health Care.......

[Gromit]

Plus last I looked the hospitals and varous business interests are doing all they can to bring our wages down for nurses in the USA in the form of trying to break the limited unions that exist, destroy the indepence of the state board of nursing (aka who can do what tasks on the floor of a hospital, patient-to-nurse ratios) and bringing in zillions of foreign nurses on visas on what is largely a manufactured nursing shortage.

Hmm. Guess I'm not the only one guilty of blindly making a generalization. What you're saying is certainly NOT true of all facilities. Sorry.

[GeekyRN]

I don't doubt that, at all.

You just won't GET what you want by the means of gov't. I don't doubt your veracity, simply your means.

Free markets have given the most people the most opportunity to move up in the world. Period.

I'm not against your proposed safety nets nearly so much as I'm opposed to the cost you intend to impose on ME to achieve it. I'm not talking about increased taxes, which are bad enough, but decreased care and decreased access to care.

If this were merely a discussion about 'safety nets', it would be a different discussion. Instead, this is about creating a socialist utopia. Such a beast doesn't exist. It never has. It never will.

I'm not opposed to your goals, per se. I'm staunchly opposed to your means because they WILL NOT WORK. And I don't intend to have that proven on the backs of yet another failed socialist system, a system that gov't stormtroopers require me to take part in.

If your utopia is so grand, then why do you need the full and coercive force of government to make it so? Why is because, in order to bring it about, you intend to take away from the many in order to give to the few. And you don't intend to take away a little. You intend to take everything away but what Uncle Daddy will allow us to keep.

Uncle Daddy doesn't have the RIGHT to make such determinations. And, neither does anybody else. I am a free man, with God given natural rights that not incidentally, are protected by the Constitution.

.

this is the kind of emotional rhetoric that has gotten us in the quagmires we are in, in my opinion.

1. Once again, the guvment does not "run" Canada's healthcare and the markets are in fact perfectly private.

2. Taxes in the USA are as high or higher than they are in Canada on working people. (go on ,tally up your fed income tax, state income tax, fica, local, property, fuel taxes, sales taxes, etc ad nauseum) and try to argue otherwise.

The diff is as I see it in Canada you r getting something BACK for your tax dollars. In the USA nurses and truckdrivers pay higher taxe rates than billionaires and way too many of us still won't be able to afford to retire.

Why so many of them feel more inclined to fight for the likes of Steve Forbes, the Walmart heirs and Paris Hilton's "right" to a tax-free life of loafing than they do for their own survival is a mystery that I will just never figure out.

[Gromit]

Wow, I don't know what koolaid you've been drinking, but if you honestly think nurses and truckers pay more in taxes than billionairs, then you really should considder an economics class or at least some classes in basic math. Either that, or give up trying to reference move-onDOTorgs' talking points, because reality doesn't jive with it. No, not even slightly.

In fact, that kind of 'lack of reality' thinking is kind of tarnishing your talking points. You claim that Canadas' healthcare is actually run by private entities, yet in the same paragraph you gush about how their government is paying the tab. If government (and lets be a little more clear here, your taxes are paying it) is paying it, then government is dictating it. No two ways about it.

[Gromit]

(AP) A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."

The patient wasn't dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care.

Wow, three months for a five minute procedure. Impressive. Of course, the Fraser institute has a list called 'waiting your turn' that has plenty of these examples.

Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament.

"It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government.

"Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton.

This doesn't really jive with the rosy picture our Canadian friend is painting. I would guess that some in their own healthcare system really DON'T think its such a great plan.

The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care.

It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario director of the federation. "We have to examine private alternatives as well."

GEEKYRN, Taxes on the working class in the USA are NOT in the 48 percentile. Allow me to repeat that for you again -the AVERAGE AMERICAN WORKING STIFF DOES NOT PAY 48%.

You can claim your system isn't government run if you like, but it sure isn't run by private enterprise. The employees may not be government employees, but when government pays the tab, government calls the shots. That duck quacks like a duck.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:lGhXSn_KfAAJ:www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/20/health/main681801.shtml%3Fcmp%3DEM8705+canadian+healthcare&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

CBS NEWS Canadian Health Care In Crisis.

[GeekyRN]

Gromit;

Regarding your tripe in italic:

think nurses and truckers pay more in taxes than billionairs, then you really should>>

I didn't say they paid more dollars in taxes than a billionaire- I said they pay higher tax RATES than. (although considering estate income is actually untaxed at this time, in fact it's perfectly conceivable to conclude that in fact some poor RN has paid more tax dollars than the heir of a large fortune this year)

>

Considering my FIRST B.S. was in accounting information systems with a minor in economics, does that qualify as enough math and economics to play ball in what sadly passes for five-star "economic" discussions in your circle.

How about a masters of science from Northwestern?

Either that,

or give up trying to reference move-onDOTorgs' talking points, because reality

doesn't jive with it. In fact, that kind of 'lack of reality' thinking is kind of tarnishing your

talking points. >>

Whereas YOU might actually just want to look up IRONY in the dictionary...

(along with a few other things, such as ad hominen, argument ignoranti, etc).

entities, yet in the same paragraph you gush about how their government is paying>>

And don't tell me, you , despite all your superior economic education, can't figure out the difference between a service the government pools funds to pay for versus one it actually owns and runs Soviet style. (hint: try to stretch your intellectual curiosity and consider how medicare pays for healthcare services for seniors in a privae healthcare market).

the tab. [/i]

>

paying

it) is paying it, then government is dictating it. No two ways about it.>>

Enlightening. Really. I think I'll have my Congressman call NASA and tell them to paint the space station a different shade of titanium then. After all, I'm paying for it so I'm dictating it sayeth the expert economist.

PS - the next time you want to pass off that sort of personal vitriolic bile as intelligent discussion, you might want to stick to whatever crackpot websites you normally engage in it on.

[GeekyRN]

Wow, three months for a five minute procedure. Impressive. Of course, the Fraser institute has a list called 'waiting your turn' that has plenty of these examples.

This doesn't really jive with the rosy picture our Canadian friend is painting. I would guess that some in their own healthcare system really DON'T think its such a great plan.

GEEKYRN, Taxes on the working class in the USA are NOT in the 48 percentile. Allow me to repeat that for you again -the AVERAGE AMERICAN WORKING STIFF DOES NOT PAY 48%.

You can claim your system isn't government run if you like, but it sure isn't run by private enterprise. The employees may not be government employees, but when government pays the tab, government calls the shots. That duck quacks like a duck.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:lGhXSn_KfAAJ:www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/20/health/main681801.shtml%3Fcmp%3DEM8705+canadian+healthcare&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

CBS NEWS Canadian Health Care In Crisis.

Thanks for sharing Gromit, but the next time you want to spam your emotional tantrums in a website, you really should cite the crackpot rightwing website you took the material from, rather than just the citation from a newstory it references somewhere.

Whatever Canada's healthcare problems that are legit, our own healthcare systems problems are bankrupting the country and leaving 70milion ununsired and the taxpayers are paying higher dollars per capita for it.

And while one can always find ancecdotal incidents to claim some horror or the other and no system is perfect, I still will maintain the Canadian system works better for the average Canadian than the USA system works for the average American having used both, compared per capita costs, etc.

I'd also be idly curious as to what reliable citations you could provide comparing the TOTAL tax burdens of an American family and a Canadian family making the same earnings in real dollars.

I'll anxiously await.

[GeekyRN]

GEEKYRN, Taxes on the working class in the USA are NOT in the 48 percentile. Allow me to repeat that for you again -the AVERAGE AMERICAN WORKING STIFF DOES NOT PAY 48%.

You can claim your system isn't government run if you like, but it sure isn't run by private enterprise. The employees may not be government employees, but when government pays the tab, government calls the shots. That duck quacks like a duck.

Pardon me, but your rude vulgarity is only surpassed by your ignorance.

1. My system IS the USA system.

2. Please provide your citation for the tax burden of the "average American working stiff" and how the taxburden of (presumably the average Canadian working stiff, whatever that is) is 48%. As a working American stiff, I can assure you my total tax burden is well over 40%, probably about 44-45%. (property, federal, fica, state, medicare, sales, gas, etc etc).

Thanks to jerks on the fringe right, the government has had no accountability for eight years and has been free to ring up 350-500 billion dollar deficits every year. Unfortunately we are ALL going to pay a lifetime of hightaxes servicing debt with few if any of the government services the current generation of retirees enjoys.

3. As for the government "running" Canada's healthcare system per your continued infantile insistance, ONCE AGAIN, everything from the pharmaceuticals to the major healthcare providers to the employees in Canada are PRIVATE. The government is no more "running" healthcare than they are in the USA because the government happens to pool funds for medicare.

If you want to persist with your perpetual rant that it's somehow different than get off your carcass and provide for us the major pharmacies and healthcare providers in CA and list for us the percent of government ownership. (Try ZERO). Not anecdotal spammings.

Since you obviously won't do any of this, than perhaps you should stick to the free republic, rush limbaugh or whatever other crackpot site, your sort of personal vitriol and uninformed drivel will actually serve to impress somebody..

At a minimum I don't want this forum to be polluted with unsubstantiated ideological rants, and if I'm somehow encouraging you to behave that way than perhaps it's time to end this "discussion". you jus declare victory and convince yourself you're the man.