Universal Health Care... what would this mean...

pickledpepperRN · Feb 13, 2008

It takes self control and self discipline to get up and go to work.

To put aside our concerns and attend to what is best for our patients.

Anyone who has finished nursing school knows about self discipline and making choices.

But a person can choose to eat a reasonable amount of healthy food 90% of the time and yet be fat because of the other 10%.

An injury or illness can make it difficult to exercise. So can fatigue from working, raising a family, and/or attending school.

Another person can be so disciplined and try so hard to be perfect the self imposed stress causes HTN and illness too.

Some people are normal weight yet suffer depression. Or tend to judge others. Or have trouble comntrolling theit temper.

It's always something.

We who have cared for others know our life has been useful.

Didn't we become nurses because we want to help?

BlueRidgeHomeRN · Feb 13, 2008

didn't we become nurses because we want to help?

help??--yes, with all my energy and soul!:redbeathe

enable??--not a chance. :madface:

the difference, just like with addicts, is personal responsibilty and willingness to change when given support and education.

"i refuse to care more about the health of a sane adult than they care themselves."

Simplepleasures · Feb 13, 2008

Thanks Spacenurse,and others, I'm glad you have embraced the core values we learned in nursing school,so many years ago, sadly we seem to be in the minority nowadays.

http://www.nln.org/aboutnln/corevalues.htm

Core Values

The National League for Nursing implements its mission guided by four dynamic and integrated core values that permeate the organization and are reflected in its work:

CARING: promoting health, healing, and hope in response to the human condition
INTEGRITY: respecting the dignity and moral wholeness of every person without conditions or limitation;
DIVERSITY: affirming the uniqueness of and differences among persons, ideas, values, and ethnicities
EXCELLENCE: creating and implementing transformative strategies with daring ingenuity

Mission and Goals

CARING: A culture of caring, as a fundamental part of the nursing profession, characterizes our concern and consideration for the whole person, our commitment to the common good, and our outreach to those who are vulnerable. All organizational activities are managed in a participative and person-centered way, demonstrating an ability to understand the needs of others and a commitment to act always in the best interests of all stakeholders.

INTEGRITY: A culture of integrity is evident when organizational principles of open communication, ethical decision-making, and humility are encouraged, expected, and demonstrated consistently. Not only is doing the right thing simply how we do business, but our actions reveal our commitment to truth telling and to how we always see ourselves from the perspective of others in a larger community.

DIVERSITY: A culture of diversity embraces acceptance and respect. We understand that each individual is unique and recognize individual differences, which can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. A culture of diversity is about understanding ourselves and each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the richness of each individual. While diversity can be about individual differences, it also encompasses institutional and system-wide behavior patterns.

EXCELLENCE: A culture of excellence reflects a commitment to continuous growth, improvement, and understanding. It is a culture where transformation is embraced, and the status quo and mediocrity are not tolerated.

Simplepleasures · Feb 13, 2008

help??--yes, with all my energy and soul!:redbeathe
enable??--not a chance.
the difference, just like with addicts, is personal responsibilty and willingness to change when given support and education.
"i refuse to care more about the health of a sane adult than they care themselves."

whats more important than you personally caring about the health of someone you don't know, as their nurse is to give them health care as directed , without allowing your personal bias regarding their lifestyle,to show. that is what we are called upon to do as health care professionals. we can teach, we do not have to be enablers, by treating them with a modicum of kindness, doesn't mean you have to agree with their lifestyle.

Noryn · Feb 13, 2008

It takes self control and self discipline to get up and go to work.
To put aside our concerns and attend to what is best for our patients.
Anyone who has finished nursing school knows about self discipline and making choices.
But a person can choose to eat a reasonable amount of healthy food 90% of the time and yet be fat because of the other 10%.
An injury or illness can make it difficult to exercise. So can fatigue from working, raising a family, and/or attending school.
Another person can be so disciplined and try so hard to be perfect the self imposed stress causes HTN and illness too.
Some people are normal weight yet suffer depression. Or tend to judge others. Or have trouble comntrolling theit temper.
It's always something.
We who have cared for others know our life has been useful.
Didn't we become nurses because we want to help?

I fully think that for universal healthcare to work there has to be a higher priority placed on daily health.

10 percent may not seem like much compared to 90 percent but it really adds up. Take away 10 percent of your paycheck if you dont believe me. So I am not sure 10 percent would be a reasonably unhealthy amount to consume every day.

I think your comments about fatigue and weight are flawed. Raising a family and working is very tiring but so is running a 20 mile marathon. Yet the marathon runner trains (exercises) and eats a healthy diet hence they are able to complete this. What if the athlete did not eat right or exercise? It is no different than everyday life. Being obese, not exercising or not consuming a healthy diet will only contribute to your fatigue.

Illnesses and injuries can make it difficult but most of the time there is still some type of activity that you can do--be it walking, water aerobics, pilates, etc.

pickledpepperRN · Feb 13, 2008

You are right.

All I am trying to say is that we can see the good in our patients. Respect that a hard worker, excellent parent, good friend, someone who does good for others may also be overweight.

I am very glad the NP who was only supposed to do a PAP for my 100 pound daughter spent time to frighten and teach her.

She now weighs about 120 after three years of evercising and eating a healthy vegetarian diet. No sugar, salt, or fat.

I am not pleased that I sometimes eat too much. My ideal weight is 110. I weigh almost 140.\

Should I give up?

Am I worthless because I eat 100% healthy and exercise regularly and then when tired or at a social event I may eat pizza or a donut?

If my aunt bakes a cake I eat a peice.

This happens to some extent about twice a month. Then I go back to healthy eating.

Sometimes I get bust with family, work, or volunteer activities and only make it to the gym once in a week.

I like your advice. It is good. I am just wanting to tell nurses to continue to respect our patients and encourage them not give up on them.

BlueRidgeHomeRN · Feb 13, 2008

whats more important than you personally caring about the health of someone you don't know, as their nurse is to give them health care as directed , without allowing your personal bias regarding their lifestyle,to show. .

i think you are confusing my thoughts and opinions on uhc with how i practice. this forum is looking at the pros and cons of uhc and what it will mean to us as health care providers.

the recent point being debated is whether or not uhc will change health outcomes, especially in response to kaymichelle's experiences with diabetics, which dovetails with my own experience. if a competent adult chooses not to address his/her chronic condition, it is their choice. however, choosing not to finance their dialysis, eye surgery, and new prosthetic leg is my choice as a taxpaper and citizen.

does that mean i won't treat this person if they present as my patient? of course not.

i sense that you are confusing compassion with sympathy, and go beyond believing that human life is of value to believing that all choices and subsequent consequences are of good and of equal value. i respect all human life as created by our shared father, i do not respect all human choices.

if an individual wants to wallow in the mire of bad choices, it is insanity to feel "sorry for them" for ignoring the lifeline they are offered.

mamabecky98 · Feb 13, 2008

First of all you are not being totally forthright about Canadian Insurance. There are plenty of things NOT covered by Canadian Insurance that are or can be covered by insurance plans here. Bariatric surgery for one. many health plans cover this option in the US or a portion of it where in Canada it is not part of the health plan. You make it sound like anything you and your doctor decide is covered. That is completely untrue.
Also the comments about being able to go to the doctor reducing waiting at the ER hasn't worked out so well has it? In Greater Toronto on an average night more than 50% (or according to statistics compiled by the Toronto Star last year 23 of 25) emergency rooms are closed or on divert due to overcrowding. Getting a doctor appointment is not so easy in Canada as practitioners commonly face huge wait lists.
One other thing: "You came to Nevada" as a guest or as a permanent resident? If you arrived as a permanent resident, you're saying you basically went against the rules of the Canadian System and ripped off their taxpayers by returning to Canada and using their system to fund your healthcare. You see thats one of the problems with so called "Universal healthcare" always the attitude that someone else should pay.
I would bet that it's a pretty sure thing you didn't inform the provincial government that you were terminating benefits before you moved to Nevada and then followed the three month waiting period to be covered once you were back in your home province.
In the USA many of us don't exercise the responsibility and the right we have of the options. Most people simply say, "I can't because insurance won't pay" but we always have the ability to buy better health plans or negotiate outside of what insurance offers.
Most Doc's accept VISA or cash and would be happy to. Consider Plastic Surgery where the actual cost adjusted for inflation has decreased even with new advanced techniques. That has a lot to do with the fact that those Surgeons have to negotiate directly with the payer.
No, many people don't have the ability to negotiate directly with physicians, which is why insurance exists. But you can still negotiate and choose different providers. In Canada, you CANNOT decide you don't like your local provider and use your insurance in another province. You simply are not covered. (Emergencies excepted of course) And yes someone will point out network rules etc for US coverage.
Your post only illustrates how people want both sides of the fence. You want great healthcare but you don't want to pay.

I am quoting from personal experience. I didn't say that UHC in Canada covered everything or that it was perfect and some people do opt to buy health insurance. But we all pay taxes( exemption those completely on SS) so we all pay into the system. So its not someone else paying for me or whom ever.

But I personal have never waited even a day to see my Dr. If I need him today I see him today and that also includes my children's Pediatrician. I have waited to see Specialist, the longest being only 4 weeks but usually I see them with in 2. That also being none of them emergency's. I also know first hand that the wait is even shorter in London, Ontario So it also depends on the available Specialist in your area, Which I assume would be a factor anywhere.

But once you are no longer paying taxes in Canada your health card is suspended. So if I hadn't been paying taxes I would have had a bill in Canada as well for going back to have my baby but I was still paying taxes so please don't assume you know my situation.

But seeing as how I have personal experience in both Country's I would choose UHC because I would rather pay a little in to my health care every time I shopped (sales tax) rather then worry about weather or not my insurance company I have been giving a large amount of money to every month is going to cover the Tx I need, or maybe about the large bill I going to have from Dr's who over charge, because they can, since nothing is regulated.

It is a possibility that since your government is being bought off by lobbyist and certain people are only concerned about they pockets that some off the information you are getting is false just to scare you away from a system that they may be better for the health of the people and not others pockets.

BlueRidgeHomeRN · Feb 13, 2008

people will continue to make mistakes, some will not be compliant with cares or meds, some did bring in their illnesses by poor choice, but again , are we as americans ready to deny these people health care?
wish i had come up with this, but will credits to trudebug from a post on 8-28-05:
the silver rule
i do not do for others that which they can do
for themselves.
sorta sums it up.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Feb 13, 2008

I think Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article that addresses moral hazard in a rather concise way.

Gina, Steve, and Loretta are ill, and need insurance to cover the costs of getting better. In their eyes, insurance is meant to help equalize financial risk between the healthy and the sick. In the insurance business, this model of coverage is known as "social insurance," and historically it was the way health coverage was conceived. If you were sixty and had heart disease and diabetes, you didn't pay substantially more for coverage than a perfectly healthy twenty-five-year-old. Under social insurance, the twenty-five-year-old agrees to pay thousands of dollars in premiums even though he didn't go to the doctor at all in the previous year, because he wants to make sure that someone else will subsidize his health care if he ever comes down with heart disease or diabetes. Canada and Germany and Japan and all the other industrialized nations with universal health care follow the social-insurance model. Medicare, too, is based on the social-insurance model, and, when Americans with Medicare report themselves to be happier with virtually every aspect of their insurance coverage than people with private insurance (as they do, repeatedly and overwhelmingly), they are referring to the social aspect of their insurance. They aren't getting better care. But they are getting something just as valuable: the security of being insulated against the financial shock of serious illness.
....
The issue about what to do with the health-care system is sometimes presented as a technical argument about the merits of one kind of coverage over another or as an ideological argument about socialized versus private medicine. It is, instead, about a few very simple questions. Do you think that this kind of redistribution of risk is a good idea? Do you think that people whose genes predispose them to depression or cancer, or whose poverty complicates asthma or diabetes, or who get hit by a drunk driver, or who have to keep their mouths closed because their teeth are rotting ought to bear a greater share of the costs of their health care than those of us who are lucky enough to escape such misfortunes? In the rest of the industrialized world, it is assumed that the more equally and widely the burdens of illness are shared, the better off the population as a whole is likely to be. The reason the United States has forty-five million people without coverage is that its health-care policy is in the hands of people who disagree, and who regard health insurance not as the solution but as the problem.

http://www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_08_29_a_hazard.html

One of the reasons that we need to find a better way is that regardless of lifestyle choices people are going to develop chronic illnesses. If we make care unaffordable or inaccessible than we set the stage for making health care even more expensive for all of us. We all pay for care of the un and underinsured through shifting cost of this care to the insured.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Feb 14, 2008

FWIW dialysis is covered through medicare

Noryn · Feb 14, 2008

It is a possibility that since your government is being bought off by lobbyist and certain people are only concerned about they pockets that some off the information you are getting is false just to scare you away from a system that they may be better for the health of the people and not others pockets.

Most accurate statement I have ever read.