Socialized Medicine the myths and the facts

[madwife2002]

The first and the most obvious concern is the cost to the patient and their family, we all know how devastating an illness can be for patients and their family many times I have witnessed the despair when a diagnoses meant further treatment which insurances question and in some cases wont cover. I have seen patients needing costly drugs to keep them alive and being unable to afford them, causing repeated admissions to repair the damage so called none compliance has caused. The first question in none compliance is were the pts actually refusing to take their medication or was it simply they could not afford to buy their medication because they don't have enough money and other bills need to be paid first? If the real reason is the cost then surely it would be more simple of we provided these medications at a more effective price or that all medications cost $5 no matter what they had? Outrageous I hear you shout but the cost of the repeated admission is far more costly than by helping prevent a repeat admission, by providing medicine they can afford.

How about blood tests could these not be done in the doctors office before the pt leaves for home and forgets to go and have a blood draw, or simply cannot get to the lab to have them drawn. I have personally waited in doctors office hours (and paid for the privilege) then been sent to the lab, miles away to sit and wait for blood work to be done. Why could the doctors not employ somebody to be at the office to draw blood on patients?

We should be looking at improving preventative medicine rather than patch it up and see.

Many times I have seen patients discharged with a new diagnoses of diabetes, no follow up at home can be organised because in my city nothing exists to assist these people. There should be a diabetic home nurse who monitors these patients in their own home-rationale, this would again help prevent admissions for diabetic complications, and none compliance.

So you wonder what has this got to do with socialized medicine. Well, in the UK if you have...

• Children
• Over 60 for women and over 65 for men
• Diabetes
• Asthma
• Thyroid problems, etc...

...then you get all your medicines for free.

There are in place specialized RN's who focus is on preventative care in the community. There are telephone help lines which anybody can utilize for free.

Maternity care is free a midwife will be assigned to you for the duration of your pregnancy and up to 6 weeks later. The cost of the birth-nothing no matter how you deliver.

I have been asked what kind of care do you receive in a socialized medicine country and I ask them, I am a product of socialized medicine you tell me how my care differs from nurses who have paid outrageous amounts of money to train as a nurse?

Of course even in the UK you can have private care if you chose to pay, this is an advantage if you need hip replacements, knee replacements, eye surgeries-other wise you may have to wait. There are initiatives in place to reduce waiting times for surgeries in the NHS and I hear that dr's can now book surgeries from their office at hospitals all over the UK which helps reduce waiting times, plus hospitals get fined if they don't meet their quota.

I agree MRI's and CT's are not as freely available, but again initiatives are in place to improve the waiting times. Emergency care no different all patients will receive emergency care.

Poor conditions yes there are poor hospitals and there are excellent hospitals, no different to Phoenix AZ.

Questions??

[madwife2002, BSN, RN]

Thanks for that Vicky

[Saúde]

:anbd:The American Constitution has NOT changed nor was it intended to, except through Constitutional Amendments. What HAS changed is our Constitutional checks and balances through our Executive and Legal Branches, resulting in what we see today; A numbness and a total disregarding of the enumerated powers the Constitution gives to our Congressional Branch. Look back in history. READ. Most all of the founding fathers believed that Article 1, Section 8 of the Enumerated Powers to Congress were to be taken LITERALLY. If additional enumerated powers were needed to effectively run our country it was to be granted through amending our Constitution. These Congressional Enumerated Powers were again reiterated in the 10th Amendment.

And for those who are overtly or inadvertently ignorant about the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the North did not fight this war as a means to free slaves that were currently residing in the South, as can be read in Lincoln's 1858 House Divided Speech. Abraham Lincoln had NO intent to interfere with States rights. He was ONLY trying to stop the spread of slavery to the new western states. By stopping this spread both the North and South clearly understood it would only be a matter of time before there was a 3/4 majority and a Constitutional Amendment would be easily passed to ban slavery. In response to the inevitable collapse of the slavery, South Carolina seceded. Four months after seceding the North's Army still occupied and refused to leave Fort Sumter, South Carolina and the South fired on them. The REASON and start of the Civil War.

To say Lincoln was a proponent of the Federal Government usurping Constitutionally protected States rights is just flat out historical ignorance and a stretch of the truth, if not in fact a lie. But proponent of BIG Government have use these two paragraphs above and twisted the truth of both of them to justify a Constitutional right for more and more Federal Government interference with States rights and sovereignty.

So my question again, which it appears NO proponents of Universal Health care can answer... Where in our Constitution does it give the Federal Government the authority or power to usurp State sovereignty and legislate Universal Health care and mandate that States comply??? I'm waiting........ :anbd:

[Saúde]

:anbd:The American Constitution has NOT changed nor was it intended to, except through Constitutional Amendments. What HAS changed is our Constitutional checks and balances through our Executive and Legal Branches, resulting in what we see today; A numbness and a total disregarding of the enumerated powers the Constitution gives to our Congressional Branch. Look back in history. READ. Most all of the founding fathers believed that Article 1, Section 8 of the Enumerated Powers to Congress were to be taken LITERALLY. If additional enumerated powers were needed to effectively run our country it was to be granted through amending our Constitution. These Congressional Enumerated Powers were again reiterated in the 10th Amendment.

And for those who are overtly or inadvertently ignorant about the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the North did not fight this war as a means to free slaves that were currently residing in the South, as can be read in Lincoln's 1858 House Divided Speech. Abraham Lincoln had NO intent to interfere with States rights. He was ONLY trying to stop the spread of slavery to the new western states. By stopping this spread both the North and South clearly understood it would only be a matter of time before there was a 3/4 majority and a Constitutional Amendment would be easily passed to ban slavery. In response to the inevitable collapse of the slavery, South Carolina seceded. Four months after seceding the North's Army still occupied and refused to leave Fort Sumter, South Carolina and the South fired on them. The REASON and start of the Civil War.

To say Lincoln was a proponent of the Federal Government usurping Constitutionally protected States rights is just flat out historical ignorance and a stretch of the truth, if not in fact a lie. But proponent of BIG Government have use these two paragraphs above and twisted the truth of both of them to justify a Constitutional right for more and more Federal Government interference with States rights and sovereignty.

So my question again, which it appears NO proponents of Universal Health care can answer... Where in our Constitution does it give the Federal Government the authority or power to usurp State sovereignty and legislate Universal Health care and mandate that States comply??? I'm waiting........ :anbd:

[MaritesaRN]

:anbd:The American Constitution has NOT changed nor was it intended to, except through Constitutional Amendments. What HAS changed is our Constitutional checks and balances through our Executive and Legal Branches, resulting in what we see today; A numbness and a total disregarding of the enumerated powers the Constitution gives to our Congressional Branch. Look back in history. READ. Most all of the founding fathers believed that Article 1, Section 8 of the Enumerated Powers to Congress were to be taken LITERALLY. If additional enumerated powers were needed to effectively run our country it was to be granted through amending our Constitution. These Congressional Enumerated Powers were again reiterated in the 10th Amendment.

And for those who are overtly or inadvertently ignorant about the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the North did not fight this war as a means to free slaves that were currently residing in the South, as can be read in Lincoln's 1858 House Divided Speech. Abraham Lincoln had NO intent to interfere with States rights. He was ONLY trying to stop the spread of slavery to the new western states. By stopping this spread both the North and South clearly understood it would only be a matter of time before there was a 3/4 majority and a Constitutional Amendment would be easily passed to ban slavery. In response to the inevitable collapse of the slavery, South Carolina seceded. Four months after seceding the North's Army still occupied and refused to leave Fort Sumter, South Carolina and the South fired on them. The REASON and start of the Civil War.

To say Lincoln was a proponent of the Federal Government usurping Constitutionally protected States rights is just flat out historical ignorance and a stretch of the truth, if not in fact a lie. But proponent of BIG Government have use these two paragraphs above and twisted the truth of both of them to justify a Constitutional right for more and more Federal Government interference with States rights and sovereignty.

So my question again, which it appears NO proponents of Universal Health care can answer... Where in our Constitution does it give the Federal Government the authority or power to usurp State sovereignty and legislate Universal Health care and mandate that States comply??? I'm waiting........ :anbd:

To save our bankrupt a.. ? Saude , apparently you are well read , and that is good , but you are getting distracted as to what needs to be done now, and or to debate..... this is not a matter of intellectual wrestling....................we need to act and support what needs to be done. You are entitled to your opinion, but try not to force it on others, okay? Use the critical thinking nurses are trained for. Picture this....a patient is gagging and eventually will choke and maybe die, while you are busy lecturing the patient how not to choke ! :chuckle

[lamazeteacher]

"You just PAY for the extras"

"............... gallstones.................. the surgery to remove the gallbladder.............people who have significant and frequent episodes of pain...........will be given a subscription for pain meds, as THE standard treatment for Surgery is too expensive for this many people" .

Once laser instruments are purchased, the expense of using them is small. So perhaps blasting those painfull thinks is the real answer. A "subscription" may be weekly, monthly, quarterly which could possibly handle pain while addicting the patient to those substances, thus requiring more expensive residential addiction treatment......

No, I think if laser isn't an option, then less invasive surgical procedures are the answer. If that fails, older surgical techniques should be allowed, rather than bring addicts to the health care scene with their other nasty habit of stealing to support their addiction. Then again, older and chronically ill/disabled patients might experience resp. failure through necessarily higher doses of narcotic analgesics, and die - not an acceptable outcome at all.

Countries that have universal health care plans (DON'T YOU DARE CALL IT SOCIALIZED, WHICH IT IS NOT, OR YOU WILL BE SENTENCED TO 5 YEARS OF RUSSIAN HEALTH CARE) don't agree with your "standard treatment" plan for mundane illnesses. Now if spinal degeneration was the problem........

[Saúde]

"we need to act and support what needs to be done."

But you're asking me to act and support a vision for Health care that doesn't support our American Constitution or the ideals of a free market. Your asking me to act and support a socialist vision for America which we have experimented with for the last 70-80 years and it's turned out to be a miserable failure. Please do not misunderstand what is taking place in our society today. America is not going bankrupt because we've followed our Constitution and free market principles.

I've offered several solutions to our health care problem in my other threads which are consistent with America's free market values and also our Constitution. Here is a condensed summary.

1) Breakup the Insurance Monopolies. (more competition resulting in lower premiums)

2) Allow individuals to cross State lines to purchase insurance policies just as our Congress and other Federal employees can. (more competition resulting in lower premiums)

3) Encourage States to deregulate their laws on how insurance companies can sell their policies.

4) Allow a tax rebates of $5000 per family/citizen or whatever figure is appropriate so family's can use this money to pay for their insurance premiums. (It is legal for Businesses and Corporations to write off insurance premium costs. WHY NOT THE INDIVIDUAL?)

5) Tax deductible Health care savings accounts. (For everyone, but especially for those who want the freedom to choose a high deductible policy)

6) These solutions would make insurance premiums affordable to nearly all family's. No working family would have an excuse not to be insured. With nearly everyone having insurance, the Hospitals, Physicians, and everyone involved in the Health care system would get PAID. Because all involved are getting paid this would result in a Hospitals increased ability to provide more charity services to those who are truly unable to acquire insurance, similar to how it used to be before the HMO's, Medicare, and Medicaid got involved.

I'm still waiting...... It appears NO proponents of Universal Health care can answer my simple, simple, simple question. Where in our Constitution does it give the Federal Government the authority or power to usurp State sovereignty and legislate Universal Health care and mandate that States comply??? :anbd:

[lamazeteacher]

To save our bankrupt a.. ? Saude , apparently you are well read , and that is good , but you are getting distracted as to what needs to be done now, and or to debate..... this is not a matter of intellectual wrestling....................we need to act and support what needs to be done. You are entitled to your opinion, but try not to force it on others, okay? Use the critical thinking nurses are trained for. Picture this....a patient is gagging and eventually will choke and maybe die, while you are busy lecturing the patient how not to choke ! :chuckle

You hit the nail on the head, in a very nice, palatable way,

Maritesa!

[dlatimer]

Saude, I appreciate your passion, but I would like to support someone who is recognized as an authority in the field of healthcare and has a plan with input from several other experts. Economics being foremost as healthcare as it is now - is not sustainable. I know only that I know very little, and as such, try to learn as often as possible.

I appreciate a good argument, but not one-sided and preferably with someone who is open to innovation, ideas and not afraid of change.

The only thing I know about life (and that includes government, constitutions, employment, children, etc.) is that it changes. It is the only real constant - change will always happen because we live in a dynamic world.

Some articles I found somewhat insightful:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17dooling.html?th&emc=th

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?th&emc=th

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17douthat.html?th&emc=th

I like to think I can listen to an argument that has some logical basis (of course based on my own logic, as everyone does) - and I don't know that universal care is the answer - but it is an answer and some form will be realized eventually. Healthcare is too important a factor in everyone's life to leave it to market forces. Because if left to market forces, only the wealthy will have quality care. The wealthy need a workforce that is not wealthy, but healthy and not working in fear of bankruptcy, overwhelming health bills and therefore an unstable future.

[MaritesaRN]

"we need to act and support what needs to be done."

But you're asking me to act and support a vision for Health care that doesn't support our American Constitution or the ideals of a free market. Your asking me to act and support a socialist vision for America which we have experimented with for the last 70-80 years and it's turned out to be a miserable failure. Please do not misunderstand what is taking place in our society today. America is not going bankrupt because we've followed our Constitution and free market principles.

I've offered several solutions to our health care problem in my other threads which are consistent with America's free market values and also our Constitution. Here is a condensed summary.

1) Breakup the Insurance Monopolies. (more competition resulting in lower premiums)

2) Allow individuals to cross State lines to purchase insurance policies just as our Congress and other Federal employees can. (more competition resulting in lower premiums)

3) Encourage States to deregulate their laws on how insurance companies can sell their policies.

4) Allow a tax rebates of $5000 per family/citizen or whatever figure is appropriate so family's can use this money to pay for their insurance premiums. (It is legal for Businesses and Corporations to write off insurance premium costs. WHY NOT THE INDIVIDUAL?)

5) Tax deductible Health care savings accounts. (For everyone, but especially for those who want the freedom to choose a high deductible policy)

6) These solutions would make insurance premiums affordable to nearly all family's. No working family would have an excuse not to be insured. With nearly everyone having insurance, the Hospitals, Physicians, and everyone involved in the Health care system would get PAID. Because all involved are getting paid this would result in a Hospitals increased ability to provide more charity services to those who are truly unable to acquire insurance, similar to how it used to be before the HMO's, Medicare, and Medicaid got involved.

I'm still waiting...... It appears NO proponents of Universal Health care can answer my simple, simple, simple question. Where in our Constitution does it give the Federal Government the authority or power to usurp State sovereignty and legislate Universal Health care and mandate that States comply??? :anbd:

Now, your proposals look good.......... and you do have some points. In answer to your question, in my opinion , is that no universal health or your misguided term of "socialized" medicine, are forced on the people. There are plans and attempts to resolve the health care problems ,( we better have a plan or we are done) because ther are a lot of people who do not have insurance and when very sick , they go to ER for treatmetn since they have nowhere else to go . This is bad because these poor people have no doctors to go to and when they do go to a county hospital , they wait for such a very unreasonable time , that they prefer not to go until too late and they will go to the nearest ER. How much they are reimbursed ....(medical or medicaid) is not much ---- so eventually the faciilty or hospital goes bankrupt. These are some of the factors as to why hospitals ER or a needed trauma center closed .

Another problem is that the health care seemed to be the "capitalist" heaven of excessive profits and unethical and greedy policies, such as excluding pre existing and raisnin elderly insurance to an escalating premiums ? This is for profit purely!! We are dealing w/ people's health here! this should be regualted to make sure that private businesses is not gouging the public. This will cause a domino effect , and eventually will bankrupt anything and anybody involved in this cancerous path. You can only take so much until there is no more! Look at wallstreet......w/ all their money and glory and greed .......... look where most of us are in now ?

We seemed to take care of things only , after the fact ........

Now thery are talking about coop instead of public run...............it will be interesting if this coop will help put the price down .........or a wolf under a sheeps skin? We will see.

My main reason for supporting a universal health plan is I need to see that EVERYBODY can go to a doctor when they are sick , poor or rich , old and young !!!!! EVERYBODY !!!!!!!!

[madwife2002, BSN, RN]

I have submitted a second blog entry which may be of interest to you all who are following this part of my blog and I look forward to your comments and considerations on this.

Thank you everybody who has contributed to my blog and thank you for keeping it a pleasant discussion forum for a potentially heated topic

https://allnurses.com/nursing-blogs/socialised-medicine-part-416413.html

[Saúde]

Canada's Health Care system is "imploding????" What??? How can this be??? Just throw more money at it, right? Sadly, that IS the only answer if Canada is to continue it's Socialist Health Care System. (As I have pointed out correctly and tirelessly many many times) Is there anyone who can LOGICALLY continue to defend Canada's System now? Please read the link below.

I have also pointed out correctly and tirelessly many many times, NO Business is sustainable long-term without competition, an incentive to profit, and price control that is FREELY and PURELY driven by customer demand. By it's very nature, Federal Government stifles and restricts all 3 of these. Unfortunately, America has forgotten this too. But I have confidence and I truly believe in my heart that America WILL wake up soon.

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/newsfeatures/article/681882

[Saúde]

A few have mentioned about long-term viability. The alternative doesn't seem to fix the problem either.