SURVEY: ONE-THIRD TO BUY CHEAPER CANADIAN DRUGS, 100 MILLION FIND INSURANCE COVERAGE CUT OR COSTLIER
Faced with a double-barreled crisis of shrinking health care coverage and fast-rising medical costs, two out of three American adults (67 percent) now think health care coverage should be a "guarantee" as in Canada, Britain and other nations, according to a new Results for America national opinion survey. Three out of four American adults (78 percent) agree that health care is a necessity like water, gas and electricity and should be "regulated by government"...
I met this fellow military wife in waiting room at military clinic and we were alll c/o the long waits etc,,,she piped in and said that she grew up in England and that the wait for any kind of medical procedure was unbelieveable....she said that the USA was better even in military situation...this 20+ years ago maybe they have improved but i think of her when something like this comes up....i don't know what the answer is I know a lot of working poor who have to go to local chairity hospital...
Gee, when my family came to the US, we did not have insurance. In fact, the ER was our clinic for some time. But you know what? My father paid every-single bill on time. We did not go on welfare or asked for any assistance. If he could only afford to pay 1 buck a month, he worked something out with the hospital and that bill got paid in full. At one point he had 3 jobs.
Of course we are paying for others healthcare!!!!!
At least no taxpayer paid for OUR medical bills: my dad did.
I know a single mother of two. She works as a waitress since her husband was killed in a car accident.
This young woman needed life saving procedures. She was coming in weekly to pay as little as $5.50 for a bill in the hundreds of dollars. Her kids are insured by the "Healthy Families Program".
I can't imagine this lady ever paying her bill unless she wins the lottery.
Now the hospital may close. What will happen, I don't know. I am glad those children have their mother.
I know my opinion is going to be an unpopular one....
I truly believe people need to learn to take responsibility for themselves. I grew up on welfare and food stamps, and medicaid ( or whatever the program was..)
Now many many people use these programs to better themselves. For our family it was a way to shift the responsibilty for their family on others. My brother is in the process of filing bankruptcy a second time, never has had insurance, and has had the state come in a few times to pay his hosiptal bills. He believed my parents theory that if you make less money than another and can't afford thing (ex: insurance) then that was unfair. and therefore you shouldn't have to work any harder because it was simply unfair, and there was nothing you can do about it.
I understand that taxpayers already have the burden of paying for others to go to the emergency room for a splinter, but to make it a national thing where the governmant makes it so you don't really HAVE to do anything. You have more kids than you can afford, heres another check, more food and this nice insurance that you won't be in the least bit responsible for paying for, at all. Why bother having any responsibility at all? Where will the line be drawn?
This is a sore subject for me since I live in an urban area and pay unholy amounts of income taxes just so no one goes without. I'm going without something like 30+% of my OWN income. No one cares about that...
ranting aside, I do believe in insurance for children.
Just before we get all out there.... Countries that have universal health care payed with tax money don't have the kind of lack of responsibility you are talking about. As far as I can tell, Canadians don't go to emerg for a splinter or have tons of babies they can't pay for or not work hard because they think the government will provide them with everything. Quite the opposite, they are required to contribute for their healthcare, so it isn't a matter of getting something for nothing.
I personally don't think a Canadian style system would ever work in the US, but I do think some people's fears about it are unfounded.
Just before we get all out there.... Countries that have universal health care payed with tax money don't have the kind of lack of responsibility you are talking about. As far as I can tell, Canadians don't go to emerg for a splinter or have tons of babies they can't pay for or not work hard because they think the government will provide them with everything. Quite the opposite, they are required to contribute for their healthcare, so it isn't a matter of getting something for nothing.
I personally don't think a Canadian style system would ever work in the US, but I do think some people's fears about it are unfounded.
I think a National Health Care system would work, without an increase in Taxes either if run correctly and also If they just kept all lawyers out of it.
Of course I still think Teddy Kennedy would have been a great president also
I think a National Health Care system would work, without an increase in Taxes either if run correctly and also If they just kept all lawyers out of it.
Of course I still think Teddy Kennedy would have been a great president also
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Canadians don't go to the emergency room to have splinters removed because they'd have to pay out of pocket for something so ridiculous.
And many countries, like Sweden, Switzerland, etc. emphasize preventative medicine far more than the US does. In Germany grannies ride their bikes to the store on a daily basis. Even in the country, people walk way more than Americans.
If we want to be truly honest with ourselves, Americans really don't adopt the best lifestyle choices.
Canadians wouldn't have to pay out of pocket to use the emergency room for splinter removal, but we just don't do that (it would be easier to use a walk in clinic or a doctor's office, btw). Having a nationally funded healthcare system doesn't turn people into irresponsible idiots.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
I have always favored some kind of universal coverage, but I wouldn't want the government itself to run it......there is no program on earth that government can't make more complex by adding another form to the required documentation! Instead, I would have national health care overseen by a nonpartisan commission made up of medical professionals and ordinary citizens from all walks of life; by leaving the lawyers and the bureaucrats and the insurance industry out of it, you not only simplify health care, but make it less expensive because you've gotten rid of a lot of the overhead involved in today's system. You're not paying insurance-company CEOs $20 million a year to sit on their butts and make life-or-death decisions for people they've never met based on medical knowledge they don't have. You're not paying bureaucrats to sit around thinking up new forms to harass doctors and nurses with (when will they EVER figure out that documenting something in five places is NOT better than documenting it once?!). And by leaving the ambulance-chasers out of things, you just make the world a better place for the rest of us. :)
Sure it's simple.....that's the beauty of it. Government makes things far more complicated than they have to be, and while I know my ideas for a national health system would need a lot of work (and will likely NEVER become reality because the CEOs and the lawyers and the bureaucrats need to eat, too), it's fun to think about. Something has GOT to be done.....what we have here in this country isn't a health care system, it's a patchwork of different insurances and private/public programs, and it doesn't work for far too many of us. It's not right that people have to choose between food and medicine, or between having their teeth fixed and paying their electric bill. I only hope that this nation's leaders will someday realize that leaving 40+ million Americans without access to health services is not acceptable under any circumstances........but I'm not holding my breath.
In Germany grannies ride their bikes to the store on a daily basis. Even in the country, people walk way more than Americans.
If we want to be truly honest with ourselves, Americans really don't adopt the best lifestyle choices.
In my city, we don't have sidewalks or bike lanes. If you attempt to ride your bike on a major thoroughfare (and there's only so much you can do on neighborhood streets as they are winding and often deadend) you are taking your life in your hands. A friend moved here from Denver, determined to ride his bike here as he had there, and after an incident of road rage with a hit and run driver, refuses to ride now at all. Once my kid graduates from high school, I am outta here.
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I met this fellow military wife in waiting room at military clinic and we were alll c/o the long waits etc,,,she piped in and said that she grew up in England and that the wait for any kind of medical procedure was unbelieveable....she said that the USA was better even in military situation...this 20+ years ago maybe they have improved but i think of her when something like this comes up....i don't know what the answer is I know a lot of working poor who have to go to local chairity hospital...