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??

[talaxandra]

Thank you for your explanation, lamazeteacher :) I have to admit that it still doesn't make sense to me on a rational level, but most of our decisions are made first and justified after so it's uderstandable that this should be no different. The distressing thing is that if that's true it's going to be very difficult to reach any kind of concensus or accord, which is a shame.

[Saúde]

And I'm still fascinated by the first point raised by MadWife - why the idea of universal health care rouses such fear and antagonism.

Here's the answer to your question... I'd estimate that very few people hate the idea of universal health care. Who doesn't want to take care of his/her neighbor? The problem, which rouses fear and antagonism, is that in the U.S. we have this little thing called the Constitution. When our politicians abuse, misuse, and intentionally overstep the laws of our land, then yes you will have many folks upset because an ignored crime is taking place by it's government. If folks want to help their neighbors with medical bills then start a fundraisers, which I have been involved in to try to help those less fortunate. Our Constitution is what has made and will continue to make the U.S. great! But as long as our Congress remains a prodigal institution, then our greatness will continue to slowly but with certainty fade away.

Here below in Article 1-Section 8 of our Constitution it states the powers that are given to Congress BY OUR CITIZENS. ANY OTHER POWERS EXERCISED BY CONGRESS IS A CRIME and should be reserved specifically for the STATES as can be seen in our 10th admendment

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10th admendment. - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Article 1, Section 8: The Congress shall have power To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States; To establish post offices and post roads; To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations; To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years; To provide and maintain a navy;To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, orificenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

[erwigg]

I appreciate the information Sharrie, I am not familiar with pounds vs dollars, maybe someone could convert it for me.

Shaka

it has hovered about $1.60 american to about 1pound

[getreal]

Re: Socialized Medicine the myths and the facts

Originally posted by Jstand

"Nice to hear that you are bowing out. Arguing vigorously over some trivial detail and trying to say that taking a short course on the subject makes you an expert doesn't add much. There truly aren't a lot of people who will be paying extra taxes under this bill. I do hope that physicians take a nice big pay cut though."

After trolling the posts, I've decided Jstand is pretty much clueless and really kind of a jerk. You definitely have some issues and have no clue about nursing or physicians. Furthermore I suspect by your overall tone you probably enjoy getting a rise out of people by stating blatant nonsense. Since you're a CPA Jstand, I'll start with you. As a CPA I know you work hard, or at least I'm giving you credit that you work as hard as my friends who are CPAs- especially long days around tax season. By your logic, since there's software that can essentially "do your job" for tax preparation you should ideally be paid less, regardless of the amount of time you spent training or the hours you put in currently. You also talk a lot about physicians/residents/medstudents "whining" about what they go through. Just like the process of becoming a CPA, there are hoops to jump through in medicine- only undoubtedly you don't have 150K-300K in loan debt, nor risk hepatitis, AIDS, TB, psychotic patients, ethical dilemmas, dealing with death or any of the other issues you think they whine about. I don't advocate a pay cut for you, even though you don't deal with these things, trained for many years, and work hard because its not the right thing to do. This is America, where ideally if you work hard, you should get compensated for it regardless of what you do. Ideally with increased complexity, risk, or duration the more one should make. Since this is a nurse website, I've got to plug nurses as the saints of medicine that are truly on the front lines. They work hard, have additionally been substantially trained, and face all the risks physicians/residents/medstudents face as stated above (i.e. hepatitis, AIDS, etc). They definitely make physicians and resident's lives easier. Finally, Jstand if you want to know whom I think should get paid just as much as physicians think about our teachers, soldiers/police/firemen, and the people that empty your trash and clean your toilets. They put up with more frustration and expose themselves to dangerous situations as much as anyone and should be compensated as much as physicians.

Now for some real facts about our healthcare system the general public doesn't know:

1. Insurance rates are high because insurance companies are making a killing- Wrong! While some insurance companies are also investment companies and may in roundabout ways try to offset losses with insurance income, these are not the majority, usually not well managed and may indeed be bending laws and exploiting loopholes. The TRUTH is there is a huge cost shifting in this country from those who are covered by the government. The government pays horribly for medical care. In order to keep the hospital doors open and lights on with the pittance the government pays, patients with private insurance get bigger bills because insurance will pay what's required to operate. This unfortunately gets translated into higher insurance costs for patients. Unfortunately many without insurance use the ER as a clinic and believe the government is taking care of them. They believe universal health care will work great because of this experience. In reality insurance costs are unaffordable because this behavior is driving insurance costs upwards!

2. Physician compensation per procedure, read, patient, etc has actually gone down. Physicians are actually getting paid less than they have in the past due to government compensation. They make up for this and maintain their salaries because they must see more patients and work longer hours. They work longer hours and see more patients because there are more patients to see- people are living longer and diseases that were once fatal are now being treated, prolonging life, if not curing the disease completely. Since patients are living longer there are more patients to see per physician, creating a relative shortage of physicians. There is a shortage of physicians because medical school admissions have not increased at the same rate as patient volume. Medical school admissions have not increased because there is a shortage of residency positions-, which leads me to my next point.

3. The government pays the overwhelming majority of resident salaries. That's right, Medicare pays for resident salaries. They allocate an amount of money to each teaching institution for resident salaries so there is a finite number of resident positions available each year, which is why medical school admission rates have not increased over the years- there would be no residency spots to continue their training. Now you could say we could pay residents less to open more money up for funding new positions but that would definitely turn away applicants, especially since loan repayment ideally begins once residency starts and the hours worked are substantial during residency.

[Jstand]

Re: Socialized Medicine the myths and the facts

Originally posted by Jstand

"Nice to hear that you are bowing out. Arguing vigorously over some trivial detail and trying to say that taking a short course on the subject makes you an expert doesn't add much. There truly aren't a lot of people who will be paying extra taxes under this bill. I do hope that physicians take a nice big pay cut though."

After trolling the posts, I've decided Jstand is pretty much clueless and really kind of a jerk. You definitely have some issues and have no clue about nursing or physicians. Furthermore I suspect by your overall tone you probably enjoy getting a rise out of people by stating blatant nonsense. Since you're a CPA Jstand, I'll start with you. As a CPA I know you work hard, or at least I'm giving you credit that you work as hard as my friends who are CPAs- especially long days around tax season. By your logic, since there's software that can essentially "do your job" for tax preparation you should ideally be paid less, regardless of the amount of time you spent training or the hours you put in currently. You also talk a lot about physicians/residents/medstudents "whining" about what they go through. Just like the process of becoming a CPA, there are hoops to jump through in medicine- only undoubtedly you don't have 150K-300K in loan debt, nor risk hepatitis, AIDS, TB, psychotic patients, ethical dilemmas, dealing with death or any of the other issues you think they whine about. I don't advocate a pay cut for you, even though you don't deal with these things, trained for many years, and work hard because its not the right thing to do. This is America, where ideally if you work hard, you should get compensated for it regardless of what you do. Ideally with increased complexity, risk, or duration the more one should make. Since this is a nurse website, I've got to plug nurses as the saints of medicine that are truly on the front lines. They work hard, have additionally been substantially trained, and face all the risks physicians/residents/medstudents face as stated above (i.e. hepatitis, AIDS, etc). They definitely make physicians and resident's lives easier. Finally, Jstand if you want to know whom I think should get paid just as much as physicians think about our teachers, soldiers/police/firemen, and the people that empty your trash and clean your toilets. They put up with more frustration and expose themselves to dangerous situations as much as anyone and should be compensated as much as physicians.

Talk about someone who is clueless, just look at yourself in the mirror. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You never heard me whine about any of the rigors of my profession, nor do I recall saying that I was a CPA. In fact, you don't ever hear other professions whining about the rigors of their training or work hours etc. and saying that the public just isn't in tune with paying what they should be willing to pay for healthcare. Lots of physicians say that.

I prove my value to my customers everday and they are happy to pay my fees because I provide VALUE and good customer service. Doctors are out of touch with this because they get paid by a third party. It makes no difference what rigorous training you go through, I don't think you deserve to get paid if you don't prove your value. Training hard in school has nothing to do with what you get paid. If you don't prove yourself once you start to work, the training didn't mean a thing. So now you are trying to tell me that teachers, soldiers, police, firemen and janitors all train as hard as physicians? Doesn't that contradict your little rant about CPA's? Furthermore, software doesn't do the job for anyone, but there are similar softwares for medicine too, doctors simply refuse to use them. I guess using your logic, once Obamacare forces medicine into the 21st century and physicians all have EMRs they can take a big pay cut too.

Now for some real facts about our healthcare system the general public doesn't know:

1. Insurance rates are high because insurance companies are making a killing- Wrong! While some insurance companies are also investment companies and may in roundabout ways try to offset losses with insurance income, these are not the majority, usually not well managed and may indeed be bending laws and exploiting loopholes. The TRUTH is there is a huge cost shifting in this country from those who are covered by the government. The government pays horribly for medical care. In order to keep the hospital doors open and lights on with the pittance the government pays, patients with private insurance get bigger bills because insurance will pay what's required to operate. This unfortunately gets translated into higher insurance costs for patients. Unfortunately many without insurance use the ER as a clinic and believe the government is taking care of them. They believe universal health care will work great because of this experience. In reality insurance costs are unaffordable because this behavior is driving insurance costs upwards!

WRONG! the TRUTH is not that hospitals lose money on patients that use government payors. The truth is that the hospital loses money on people who CAN'T pay. That is what causes higher bills for the insured. The other thing you overlook is that hospitals do nothing to lower costs. They are completely dysfunctional. They need to be forced to take lower payments in order to drive them to be efficient. People seem to think that because they work in a healthcare field and believe all of the myths that are perpetuated in the field that they know how to solve the economic problems with it. I will ask you this, where have you seen the cost data that prove that a hospital loses money on government payors? Also, where have you seen the data that show that the hospital that loses money on those payors is operating efficiently? Do you really think that a hospital with a multi million dollar advertising budget is operating efficiently? Do you really think that the building sprees that hospitals go on are warranted? Do you really think that a hospital couldn't function with a few less executives in useless clinical administrative positions? You really have no clue about hospital costs and what they make or lose money on.

2. Physician compensation per procedure, read, patient, etc has actually gone down. Physicians are actually getting paid less than they have in the past due to government compensation. They make up for this and maintain their salaries because they must see more patients and work longer hours. They work longer hours and see more patients because there are more patients to see- people are living longer and diseases that were once fatal are now being treated, prolonging life, if not curing the disease completely. Since patients are living longer there are more patients to see per physician, creating a relative shortage of physicians. There is a shortage of physicians because medical school admissions have not increased at the same rate as patient volume. Medical school admissions have not increased because there is a shortage of residency positions-, which leads me to my next point.

3. The government pays the overwhelming majority of resident salaries. That's right, Medicare pays for resident salaries. They allocate an amount of money to each teaching institution for resident salaries so there is a finite number of resident positions available each year, which is why medical school admission rates have not increased over the years- there would be no residency spots to continue their training. Now you could say we could pay residents less to open more money up for funding new positions but that would definitely turn away applicants, especially since loan repayment ideally begins once residency starts and the hours worked are substantial during residency.

Compensation per procedure may be stagnant, I wouldn't say it had gone down. You are correct that they simply decide to prescribe more and see more patients to keep their compensation up, which is also dysfunction. That is a part of the problem, they prescribe more and see more patients unnecessarily and that drives up costs. The physician shortage is artificially created by physicians. You are correct about that. This is why we need to open up independent practice for nurse practitioners. That solves the problem. The so-called shortage has nothing to do with people living longer.

You are also right about the government paying the majority of the costs of medical training. This is why it angers me to hear physicians whining about their student loans. Again, opening the market to competition from practitioners other than physicians can only help our situation.

[Jstand]

Here's the answer to your question... I'd estimate that very few people hate the idea of universal health care. Who doesn't want to take care of his/her neighbor? The problem, which rouses fear and antagonism, is that in the U.S. we have this little thing called the Constitution. When our politicians abuse, misuse, and intentionally overstep the laws of our land, then yes you will have many folks upset because an ignored crime is taking place by it's government. If folks want to help their neighbors with medical bills then start a fundraisers, which I have been involved in to try to help those less fortunate. Our Constitution is what has made and will continue to make the U.S. great! But as long as our Congress remains a prodigal institution, then our greatness will continue to slowly but with certainty fade away.

Here below in Article 1-Section 8 of our Constitution it states the powers that are given to Congress BY OUR CITIZENS. ANY OTHER POWERS EXERCISED BY CONGRESS IS A CRIME and should be reserved specifically for the STATES as can be seen in our 10th admendment

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10th admendment. - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Article 1, Section 8: The Congress shall have power To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States; To establish post offices and post roads; To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations; To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years; To provide and maintain a navy;To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, orificenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

You must have missed the part about providing for the general welfare of the United States?

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

Small aside, last time we flew to London a lady slipped in the exit lounge. She was taken to hospital splinted, given an Rx for pain and Canadian cane crutches, a follow up before she was to leave and charged ZERO. Is that common?

[Saúde]

You must have missed the part about providing for the general welfare of the United States?

I truly believe that education is the key to ignorance. And we all know that none of us learned this Constitution stuff like we should have when we were in High School because our public schools don't teach it to us anymore. So I don't necessarily blame you for being ignorant of the truth. I'll just try give you my "Constitution for Dummies" version of the original intent to make it easy for you to understand. (no pun or disrespect intended)

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1

The general welfare clause has been used to justify all sorts of powers for our government. But how many of those powers are legitimate and pursuant to the true meaning of this clause? Let's first start with breaking down what General Welfare actually means. Welfare refers to well-being. General means that it is universal to the people as a whole. All the people benefit from the Government action. When most people think of welfare today they think of a rich person being taxed and the money given to a poor person. This is welfare, but it is NOT general welfare. It's specific welfare - The poor person gains but the rich person loses. With general welfare everyone must benefit and NO ONE must be advantaged at the loss of another. To do so would be to establish an oligarchy, which we are NOT. UHC is NOT GENERAL WELFARE. It is a boondoggle.

[talaxandra]

Thanks, Saúde. Fundamental distrust of authority, even elected authority, is quite alien to me as an Australian (we tend to think of our government as benign for the most part), and I still have trouble getting my head around it, but I have to say that the guided walking tour I did in Boston last year helped me get a better sense of why Americans in general are so protective of your Constitution, and how your relationship with Britain in those formative years shaped American ideology. And itht hat on board, at least some of the reaction makes more sense. I'm interested in your (or others) take on Jstand's position that universal health care constitutes provision of general welfare and therefore within the Federal government's remit.

[Rebel Yell]

Jstand;

"You must have missed the part about providing for the general welfare of the United States?"

You need to really study the founding fathers, their documents, letters and the history of how and why the Constitution came about. This not limited government by any means, and what you suggest by the "general welfare" is a misinterpretation.

[Jstand]

I truly believe that education is the key to ignorance. And we all know that none of us learned this Constitution stuff like we should have when we were in High School because our public schools don't teach it to us anymore. So I don't necessarily blame you for being ignorant of the truth. I'll just try give you my "Constitution for Dummies" version of the original intent to make it easy for you to understand. (no pun or disrespect intended)

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1

The general welfare clause has been used to justify all sorts of powers for our government. But how many of those powers are legitimate and pursuant to the true meaning of this clause? Let's first start with breaking down what General Welfare actually means. Welfare refers to well-being. General means that it is universal to the people as a whole. All the people benefit from the Government action. When most people think of welfare today they think of a rich person being taxed and the money given to a poor person. This is welfare, but it is NOT general welfare. It's specific welfare - The poor person gains but the rich person loses. With general welfare everyone must benefit and NO ONE must be advantaged at the loss of another. To do so would be to establish an oligarchy, which we are NOT. UHC is NOT GENERAL WELFARE. It is a boondoggle.

The Constitution for Dummies? Sounds like you are the one who needs to read it. I made no comment on what I thought general welfare means, so no need for you to go explaining it to me. It is a matter of opinion though. I love it when people start to assume what the framers of the constitution mean and put their own spin on it. The truth is that YOU, nor Rebelyell, nor I know exactly what the framers meant when they said "general welfare". We can all make our own guesses or spin it the way that we would like. I myself don't think that it means welfare in terms of a rich person being taxed and the money given to a poor person. The issue of healthcare is, however, far more complicated than just being a traditional social welfare program. The problem that conservatives have with the issue is that they have pigeon-holed the entire debate into those terms. What they fail to realize is that the issue is far more complex. We have interests that compete with the "general welfare" of the public. These interests have monopoly power, they make huge amounts of abnormal profit from that power, and they are as a result able to lobby the government to retain their monopoly power.

I don't think that the framers had that in mind when they drafted a constitution. I don't think they could actually forsee the capitalist system and the fact that it tends to migrate toward monopoly. This is something that has morphed itself over time as the industrial and information ages have come to fruition. We have had the same problems over the last two centuries in a number of industries. You can take the railroad industry as a perfect example. As railroads were built and power consolidated into the hands of a very few monopolists, competition decreased to a very minimal level and as a result, the customer was at a decided disadvantage. What had to happen to grease the wheels of our economy was for the government to regulate this industry and break the monopoly power that had been created by unchecked capitalism. As a result, what emerged was the idea that we had to have regulated capitalism. I doubt that any of the people who are shouting about the "framer's" principles would disagree that certain monopolies that have been regulated over the past century didn't need regulation. I don't necessarily advocate "universal" healthcare, but what I do advocate is the regulation that gives monopoly powers to pharmaceutical companies, physicians, and hospitals. I guess my question is how can you advocate the monopoly powers that are given to these specific players in the industry and not advocate protection for the consumer through regulation? How do you reconcile to yourself that you want a competitive environment for the consumer and then maintain that physicians should have the sole right to provide healthcare services, that pharmaceutical companies should have patent protections for their drugs, that pharmacists should have the sole right to dispense medications, so forth and so on. You can't have a system that functions both ways. You can't give all of these exclusive rights out and expect the consumer not to want some protection from the price gouging that goes along with it.

We have already seen a number of anti-trust actions that have come about in the pharmaceutical industry. So don't try to tell me that price fixing doesn't occur in this industry. What the current system has created is a situation that is enormously unfair to the consumer. My argument is that the "providing for the general welfare" constitutes the power to say we have a situation that is unfair to the consumer and we have the power as well as a duty to do something about that. I myself would have done it in a different way from what the 111th Congress chose to do it, but I can't sit back and say that doing nothing would have been better than what they did.

The true boondoggle is how to break the monopoly power in the healthcare industry and let the customer get a fair deal. I don't necessarily argue that universal healthcare is the solution to the problem. What I do argue is that something other than the current system is needed. There are actually two ways to do it. You can either put control back into the hands of the customer or patient, or you can regulate the industry. You could also have some combination of the two. What you cannot do is retain the current system where costs rise unchecked and providers go back to commercial insurers and raise the rates every year to pay for the increases costs. This system is dysfunctional and will bankrupt the public far quicker than any federal deficit will. What I would like to ask you is, how would you like to see the system control costs in the absence of some federal legislation to help it along? What methods do you think would be effective that could be implemented under the current system that would cause costs to even level off? I know of a few that I think could be implemented, but I don't think that they would be effective in lowering costs in the absence of some federal legislation.

[mari55]

Hey madwife. i agree with you completely . i am not sure why people are so against it. i have heard a lot of nurses say, if we get socialized medicine nurses will not be paid as well as they do. so if its not broken ,don't fix it which is totally stupid.

Everyone is, to a certain extent, afraid of change. We just had a hugh, disaster happen within our economy. The jobs have not yet returned. Our institutions are changing, and people seem to be afraid of this health care change because it represents yet more change to our instituitions. Also, they don't yet know the consequences.