After posting the piece about Nurses traveling to Germany and reading the feedback. I would like to open up a debate on this BB about "Universal Health Care" or "Single Payor Systems"
In doing this I hope to learn more about each side of the issue. I do not want to turn this into a heated horrific debate that ends in belittling one another as some other charged topics have ended, but a genuine debate about the Pros and Cons of proposed "Universal Health Care or Single Payor systems" I believe we can all agree to debate and we can all learn things we might not otherwise have the time to research.
I am going to begin by placing an article that discusses the cons of Universal Health Care with some statistics, and if anyone is willing please come in and try to debate some of the key points this brings up. With stats not hyped up words or hot air. I am truly interested in seeing the different sides of this issue. This effects us all, and in order to make an informed decision we need to see "all" sides of the issue. Thanks in advance for participating.
Michele
I am going to have to post the article in several pieces because the bulletin board only will allow 3000 characters.So see the next posts.
In rereading my last post, there are a couple of things I want to add.
It is not my intent to seem harsh or heartless. I am neither. At the same time, I am a realist. Social problems exist, ones for which we must search for solutions. I am not convinced this is a social problem of the magnitude we have be told. There is still the unanswered point that our current healthcare system, in spite of it's admitted faults, covers more than 80% of our population, which no other social system can claim. It is also true that a lack of health insurance does not translate to a lack of health care. Perhaps "Cadillac" health care is not available to all, but then I have seen no proposition that would ensure "Cadillac" healthcare availability to all. In fact, what I have seen are propositions that would actually reduce the number of people to whom "Cadillac" healthcare would be available.
What concerns me the most are the number of social problems for which the answer always seems to be some government program, for which I (the taxpayer) must foot the bill. And for each, it seems we ignore facts in evidence (availability of preventative health care in no way guarantees that more people will actually seek such care), we ignore the obvious greater social problems our "solutions" cause. We charge ahead, without regard for consequence. Time and time again, we have seen this occur. Consider the homeless problem. The vast majority of homeless are severely mentally ill. They became homeless out of an altruistic desire to fix a social problem. We saw huge problems with mental instititions. Rather than fix those problems, we simply passed laws that said people who were not an immediate threat to themselves or others could not be institutionalized. Without further ado, we turned a huge population loose without the ability to care for themselves, without the ability to adapt to life. And in "curing" the problem of the mental institutions, we vastly expanded the problems of homelessness.
The fact is that our government cannot, should not, and was never intended to be our big brother. The answer to social ills is not increasing government programs, increasing taxation, increasing regulation, increasing government meddling in our lives. It is a sad fact that there may be no answer for some social ills, unless you can convince everyone to become truly altruistic. And that simply is not in human nature. And even in the most altruistic person, there comes a point when they say enough. I have given enough, I have been taxed enough, I have helped enough. Now, I want to keep some of what I have for myself and my family. And for them to finally say this isn't self centered, it isn't greedy. Not even if the person saying it is wealthy. It is simple self care, a concept we as nurses should all be familiar with.
There is no statistical difference in the number of impoverished from 2004 to 2005. From that, we can infer that this is yet another indicator that our economy is not in as bad a shape as we have been told by some. That flies in the face of the arguments that underpin this very thread.
The poverty rate for those 18 and under remains higher than the rate for those 18 - 64. That fact tells us a couple of things. First, those who have the least resources to raise kids continue to have more children than those who have better financial resources. (A point I'll get to in a moment.) Second, unless this is a very new statistic, if the percentage of impoverished is lower (and remaining fairly stable) for those 18 - 64, then a significant number of children raised in poverty seem to be able to lift themselves out of it. A very telling statistic, indeed. So much for the fable of being "trapped" in poverty.
But let's get back to the point about the impoverished having more children that people with greater resources, because it is strong support for something I have long felt. Namely, making health care universally available at the expense of the taxpayer probably won't make much difference to the status quo. Not because health care won't be available (an erroneous argument anyway) but because people still will not avail themselves of it.
Consider this: There are, in nearly every state I have ever been to, various programs to assist the impoverished with family planning. These range from state run programs to private charitable organizations. They range from being very low cost to free. Even with the existance of these programs, according to the facts posted by others, the impoverished continue to have more children than those with greater resources.
Given these facts, what evidence do you have that ready availability of free preventative health care would actually be used by a greater percentage of people in the country? I've been a lot of places. There is an attitude towards health care that seems to cut across all racial, gender, and economic boundaries. I've heard it from those with health insurance and those without, and it boils down to this: "I don't go to the doctor unless and until I get too sick to stand it." Unless this attitude is changed, all the "universal health care" in the world won't change who is and who is not going for preventative health care.
One other point: One or two of you have come out and said that our constitution guarantees a right to access to health care, regardless of ability to pay. If that's true, then every argument against universal health care falls, and I'll shut up and join the fight on your side. To make that happen, you only have to do one thing: Show me. Show me where in the constitution we are guaranteed a right to health care. (Remember, in the late 1700's, when the constitution was being written, there was health care. Not as advanced as it is today, but it was available. And there were people too poor to afford going to the doctor.) So, show me.
I'll even make it easier. You don't have to show me a health care right specifically. Just show me one right, any right, guaranteed by the constitution, that requires one group of people to forfeit anything so another group can exercise that right. In other words, show me a right the constitution guarantees me that just by exercising that right, I force you to pay for that exercise. Do that, and I'll join in your fight. Otherwise, let me gently suggest that you go back and review the constitutional rights, what they are, what they are not, and what their limitations are.
Where do you get these facts that you rely so heavily on? If you ae going to quote facts please tell me where you get your information so maybe I'll agree with you until them they are just assumptions made by you.
Yes, the fact that healthcare did not exist at the point it is at today adds further to my point. If our forefathers knew that medicine and technology would advance to the point it is at today would they have limited it's availability to only those who had a job with insurance? Would they agree that it was equal and just for someone to die because they could not afford the insurance let alone any real care? I believe that no matter what any one of us think it will ultimately be a question that the Supreme Court will have to address then the argument will be over.
You ask why should the government take money from me to pay someone elses medical expenses. They take it anyway in the form of income tax, social security , medicare out of everyone of your paychecks. I believe the funds are there it is just a matter of allocation.
I would gladly show the things that you ask to see but you have to take the blinders off first. Blindness is not always lack of eye sight but more a lack of vision. Many inour society refuse to see what is right in front of their face and would rather hide behind facts and figures. Open your eyes and base your decisions on what you see. From what I have been told most of us are only a paycheck away from being homeless anyway, so will your opinion change if this happens to you, what will you see then?
In New York and other cities entire intact buildings were dynamited to avoid a fire from destroying the entire city.
Now we know much more about fighting fires.
Once fire departments were private companies. They fought fires with buckets.
In the United States of the 1700s, independent volunteer fire companies began receiving payment for their services from the insurance company or the property owner.
Property owners displayed fire markers outside the building to indicate that they were insured; in some cases, no marker meant no effort would be made to fight the fire. In other cases, only the first arriving companies got paid, which led to fierce competition. Volunteers sabotaged each other's equipment and fought off later-arriving companies, often using fire-fighting equipment as weapons. Often, the building burned down while the firemen brawled.
On 16 March 1853 the City Council of Cincinnati, Ohio authorized the creation of a Fire Department.
The modern department, with salaried personnel and standardized equipment, became an integral part of municipal administration only late in the nineteenth century.
(source Loeper, John J. By Hook and Ladder: The Story of Fire Fighting in America. New York: Atheneum, 1981).
I think it is time for the United States to have a healthcare system.
I think the era of "ME" is over. I deserve heathcare because I am a hard worker. I deserve healthcare because I am smart. I deserve healthcare because I can pay for it. I deserve healthcare because so far I have been lucky and life has not kicked me in the a**. I CANNOT fathom such shallow thinking,coming from caregivers.
I have worked hard all my life, I and others like me have paid into the system for many years. I worked HARD as a single divorced mother of four. I had my children when in a marriage, with both spouses working.I did not irresponsibly have children and expect the government to pay for them. I helped put my kids through college and they are hard working professionals. I never asked for a dime of assistance before I could no longer work. I choose to work, but my body betrayed me. I paid my medical bills until my savings were gone. I dont qualify for Medicaid in WI. Dont I deserve the dignity of decent healthcare? I have applied for Social Security Disability and am still waiting almost 1 1/2 years later. Any reforms on our healthcare system needs to include the Social Security Disability system, while waiting for approval many have lost ALL their savings, their homes, even their lives.I know I have told my story before, I am not trying to garner sympathy for myself, I am merely using myself as an example of what can happen to people who have a catasrophic thing happen to them.
Why are we "communists" if we care for each other? Dont the "have's" have enough to spare a bit for the "have nots"? Who in all reality benefits from private healthcare? The CEOs? Greed is threatening to ruin this society.Even right wing economists say we need free market reforms. Something BIG is amiss in this country when selfishness is seen as a virtue.But, I believe there are enough good , decent, intelligent people in our country that have seen the errors we have made and change IS starting to happen, despite all the irrational fear of change, it will happen.
Consider the homeless problem. The vast majority of homeless are severely mentally ill. They became homeless out of an altruistic desire to fix a social problem. We saw huge problems with mental instititions. Rather than fix those problems, we simply passed laws that said people who were not an immediate threat to themselves or others could not be institutionalized. Without further ado, we turned a huge population loose without the ability to care for themselves, without the ability to adapt to life. And in "curing" the problem of the mental institutions, we vastly expanded the problems of homelessness.
It is true that too often the solution for one problem creates yet another problem. That doesn't mean that the first problem wasn't bad enough to address in the first place.
We keep hearing that the health care system is "broken" and the number of uninsured people. I don't think the main problem is being insured or uninsured. The problem is that if you don't have health insurance, day to day medical costs are prohibitive, even for for folks with a good income.
A general practitioner visit where I am is usually around $150. Imagine having a UTI and needing to get a prescription. The antibiotics would cost at least $120. So I'd be looking at $270. What if the doctor ran a urinalysis? Another $80. Even folks with good incomes don't want to shell out that much for basic care.
I think the "crisis" is that people are scared that insurance premiums and out of pocket costs will continue to rise. A basic family health insurance policy can run at $800/mon. Who can afford that? And that doesn't include co-pays, deductibles, etc. Your kids will get sick, you need a pap and hubby needs a colonoscopy... how much will that cost with or without insurance? And if you don't have some kind of decent insurance and need to be hospitalized, there's a valid fear of losing everything.
And if you end up needing on-going medical services month after month, year after year, you're really stuck. Even great health insurance policies have their limits.
Do you still see that there's no problem? Now maybe, because people are pressuring for alternatives, new options will develop. Perhaps the government needn't create a whole new system. The government can create incentives for private enterprise to help meet the needs of its people. After all, without regulation or incentives, why would any health insurance company want to offer coverage to people with costly pre-existing conditions or at high risk for incurring high health care expenses?
Burn out you refer to the greed of Capitalism as being the downfall of us all. Then you quote the Bill of Rights! What you fail to realize is that self-interest is normal. The greed you speak of is me wanting my labor to benefit me and my family. Not to be taken from me by the govenment at the point of a gun or under duress to support your programs. There is nothing wrong with wanting the fruits of your labor. You think that makes me greedy. I disagree. What I choose to do with my income is my business. If I tithe, donate to charity, or burn it in the middle of the floor, it is mine to do with as I please. You equate greed with my desire not to allow the government to run the medical field. After all, the govenment does such a fantastic job with everything else they handle, don't they? The greed you like to refer to is the greed that led Carver to cotton automation, Jarvic, Eidison, Etc. Because you know they weren't just sitting around trying to figure out how the government was going to save them. Yes, they had selfish motives. Like money. We all benefitted from this. You believe you can steal my money to fix problems within society. After all, we throw tons of money at public education and look it's fixed. Right? So how much of your "paycheck" is enough? 80-90%. How about just living in a cardboard box. You fail to understand that human nature is human nature. Oh, and the deal with communist man, you might read a little history. I know most instructors today idealize Marx, and it's hard for many to overcome bad education and think for themselves. Try reading a little Ayn Rand. In particular 'Atlas Shrugged.' It still takes more pulling the wagon than riding on it. Oh, the analogy about communisn is that communism is a political system for undeveloped counrtries destined to stay poor, socialism is a poitical system for an industrialized nation aspiring to be poor. Remember the second S in USSR was for Socialist. Maybe a little reading of the Federalist Papers is in order to help you with framers intent, because I really don't think they meant for life to entail all the medicine they can use or abuse. The next time you get your "paycheck", those columns where your not getting your money. That's money already going toward social experiments.
Having some society-wide services does not totally squelch individual ingenuity or material reward for hard work or inventiveness. Having some society-wide services does not mean that all capitalistic endeavors and private ownership will soon be ended. You may disagree about what kinds of services work and are worth supporting with our taxes but you probably agree that some services are necessary such as those for some areas of regulation, public safety, and such. No system is perfectly fair and free from possible misuse. So let's discuss the pros and cons of different approaches.
Get Your Insurance Company Busy: Money and Insurance Companies
Let's face it: treatment for a brain tumor is expensive. For example, the cost of treating a glioblastoma with surgery, radiation and modern chemotherapy - along with hospitalizations and other costs, can exceed $450,000 in most parts of the country.
Many people diagnosed with a brain tumor are in the prime of their life. This may be the first time they've ever been seriously ill. On top of everything else, they must now deal with the health insurance in all its complicated bureaucracy. Fraught with red tape intended to discourage the payment of claims, health insurance agencies want to turn patients against doctors and hospitals. The sad reality: the insurance company is the enemy and should be forced to pay out every dime. Why else have you been paying premiums all these years?
The situation is clearly unfair. As the patient, you will be focused on fighting for your life, and your energy may be somewhat diminished after surgery and during radiation and chemotherapy. Few healthy people can decipher the modern claim forms of an insurance company. What can be expected of a distraught person with a brain tumor or their worried family? Neither patient nor grieving relatives will be in any mood to deal with the twisted mechanisms of an insurance company.
Some advice to avoid such unnecessary stress: While you're feeling good, get a lawyer on retainer and find out the telephone number of the state insurance board. You may need both. Don't wait to see what the insurance company will do. That may take months. It is tempting to assume that since they always paid the bill for your primary care physician, they'll do the same now. Think again! The primary care physician's bill was pocket change to them. You've hit medical insurance equivalent of "the big time". By the time you find out you've been given a shoddy deal, you may be in the middle of radiation and/or chemotherapy and not up to doing battle with the health insurance administrators.
Assume from the start that they are out to cheat you. Most often, you'll find this to be correct. If it turns out to be wrong, you can be pleasantly surprised while having lost nothing by preparing for the worst - and most likely - scenario."
Comforting to those of us who have health insurance, huh?
Manofcare, I never personally accused you of being greedy. I see nothing wrong with you benfitting from the fruits of your labor. If you earn your living as a nurse I doubt if you even make enough to be considered greedy. I am talking about the greed of the mulitmillionaire in this country who have made their bucks off of the poor people like us. The oil tycoons that contine to rake in millions a day with no control over the price of a gallon of gas, The CEO's that have robed the retirement of employees and left the company in shambles. The Donald Trumps and Oprah Winfrey's of the world that have more than enough money to live out their lives in the most lavish manors and still have millions left, to wake up in the morning and decide which poor impoverished people do they want to help today. They feed their god like egos by throwing a few pennies at the needy..maybe there would not be as many needy if they didn't take all the money. There are so many like them. If you fit in this category Manofcare then put the shoe on and wear the greed well.
By the way why not update your reading list. Ann Rand , please I read her in junior high school. Try reading Tripping the Prom Queen or The History of Salt.
I personally, don't want to see Universal Healthcare here. What I want, is for the drug companies to be more regulated and stop ripping off the public, and for it to be illegal to advertise ambulance chasing attorney's on TV. I don't think every mistake or error a doctor makes justifies a lawsuit, regardless of the outcome. Some of those people wouldn't get a dime if I was sitting on the jury and I would hold it out to the bitter end.
I worked at a pizza place in college and had a boss that had to bring his mother over from the UK and get a cholesteral plug removed from her jugler vein and paid CASH for it, b/c she was so far down the waiting list for a surgery that he feared she was going to die before she got the surgery.
I don't want the gov't controlling which doctor I see, or if I can get a second opinion or not.
I also don't want to pay the exhorbant taxes that comes with Universal Healthcare.
Citizens here in the USA complain about how much we pay in taxes, but for what we GET for our tax dollars flat out beats about any other industrialized country out there....and I love it.
I'm not bashing the UK, but I want to keep the healthcare the way it is...flaws and all.
We get very little in health care for the taxes that we pay. Citizens of Iceland pay only a few percent less in taxes than I do (OK - I'm in a higher bracket) but they get free education including college and everyone gets health care. Virtually EVERYONE is a college graduate. I don't understand enough about the economics of health care to propose how to change it for the better, but I do know that what he have is incredibly inefficient, barberic and irrational. There are layers of "equality" in socialized systems that don't appear to be much different than our system. You can still pick physician in Canada or England - you just have to pay extra. Pretty much like we have here with patients seen in clinics vs. patients who belong to HMO's vs. patients with better insurance policies that allows them to see MD's out of the system. What's bizarre is that our EMPLOYER pays for health care insurance. If John Q. Citizen had to pay the premium, he'd ask if this or that test was really necessary and what is the difference in success between treatment A and treatment B. Patients have no idea what things cost now and that adds to health care costs. No one should get anything free - if you're very poor you may very little, but you pay something.
Our money is going to the Middle East that's why. I for one don't want socialized medicine. Do some searching for stories about Canada's failing system. The six month waits for pain management, surgeries, buying in bulk the cheapest hip replacement prostheses, docs trying to get out of the system into private practice. It's not a pretty sight.
I think the era of "ME" is over. I deserve heathcare because I am a hard worker. I deserve healthcare because I am smart. I deserve healthcare because I can pay for it. I deserve healthcare because so far I have been lucky and life has not kicked me in the a**. I CANNOT fathom such shallow thinking,coming from caregivers.
Well said ingelein.
It seems that some here are having trouble separating universal healthcare from communism. ITS NOT THE SAME THING. Communism is a form of societal structuring and governance. Yes, a state run/provided health system would be part and parcel to a communist of socailist state, but it does not make one. A universal health system is only part of the picture in those societies. Would you call the UK, CA, or any of the many other industialized countries communist? I think not. If you don't like the idea, fine, but it's not something that defines communism.
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passgasser
88 Posts
In rereading my last post, there are a couple of things I want to add.
It is not my intent to seem harsh or heartless. I am neither. At the same time, I am a realist. Social problems exist, ones for which we must search for solutions. I am not convinced this is a social problem of the magnitude we have be told. There is still the unanswered point that our current healthcare system, in spite of it's admitted faults, covers more than 80% of our population, which no other social system can claim. It is also true that a lack of health insurance does not translate to a lack of health care. Perhaps "Cadillac" health care is not available to all, but then I have seen no proposition that would ensure "Cadillac" healthcare availability to all. In fact, what I have seen are propositions that would actually reduce the number of people to whom "Cadillac" healthcare would be available.
What concerns me the most are the number of social problems for which the answer always seems to be some government program, for which I (the taxpayer) must foot the bill. And for each, it seems we ignore facts in evidence (availability of preventative health care in no way guarantees that more people will actually seek such care), we ignore the obvious greater social problems our "solutions" cause. We charge ahead, without regard for consequence. Time and time again, we have seen this occur. Consider the homeless problem. The vast majority of homeless are severely mentally ill. They became homeless out of an altruistic desire to fix a social problem. We saw huge problems with mental instititions. Rather than fix those problems, we simply passed laws that said people who were not an immediate threat to themselves or others could not be institutionalized. Without further ado, we turned a huge population loose without the ability to care for themselves, without the ability to adapt to life. And in "curing" the problem of the mental institutions, we vastly expanded the problems of homelessness.
The fact is that our government cannot, should not, and was never intended to be our big brother. The answer to social ills is not increasing government programs, increasing taxation, increasing regulation, increasing government meddling in our lives. It is a sad fact that there may be no answer for some social ills, unless you can convince everyone to become truly altruistic. And that simply is not in human nature. And even in the most altruistic person, there comes a point when they say enough. I have given enough, I have been taxed enough, I have helped enough. Now, I want to keep some of what I have for myself and my family. And for them to finally say this isn't self centered, it isn't greedy. Not even if the person saying it is wealthy. It is simple self care, a concept we as nurses should all be familiar with.