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.
She didn't need Medicaid so she never applied; she had her own health insurance. It was her disability benefits- aka SSDI, not SSI- that she was turned down for initially but eventually able to recover. And since she had been working continuously since she was 15 years old, there is no doubt that she has paid her dues and paid into the system.
And yes, it is odd that she had to go to those lengths when she was clearly disabled, had lots of proof but I have since learned that the SSA almost always automatically turn down those who apply for either SSDI or SSI so you can be safely assured that deadbeats and goldbricks are not easily collecting these benefits.
Anyone who doubts that it is EXTREMELY hard to get SSI which includes Medicaid or SSDI which sometimes includes Medicaid and sometimes doesnt depending on assets, go to http://groups.msn.com/SocialSecurityDisabilityCoalition/ .Read the accounts of people and what lengths they have had to go through to be approved for SSDI.Some people actually die waiting for approval.The founder of this group has testified in front of Congress about this issue.
From Goof1552 >>>> First of all - where do you get those stats? I have many Canadian friends and they describe a pretty messed up system to me. They have told me that people sometimes wait months for a surgery they would get here overnight. Can you imagine waiting for lap chole surgery? Cook County hospital (I work there occasionally) is a socialistic system and I can tell you - it is not a star studded system. Yes - it is free to the residents of Cook County, but they have to wait in line to be seen and I personally have seen an 8 month wait for an "elective" lap chole. If you were in almost constant pain would you want it to take that long?
Eight MONTHS!!! ONLY EIGHT MONTHS!!!!!? Heck I had to wait TEN YEARS and I still couldn't pay for it at the time of service. I would have rather waited 8 months. I was hoping and praying that I could find some affordable health insurance. Yep this is going to take me about 8 years to pay off if everything goes well. Eight months h*ll I would have waited eight short months.
From Goof1552 >>>> First of all - where do you get those stats? I have many Canadian friends and they describe a pretty messed up system to me. They have told me that people sometimes wait months for a surgery they would get here overnight. Can you imagine waiting for lap chole surgery? Cook County hospital (I work there occasionally) is a socialistic system and I can tell you - it is not a star studded system. Yes - it is free to the residents of Cook County, but they have to wait in line to be seen and I personally have seen an 8 month wait for an "elective" lap chole. If you were in almost constant pain would you want it to take that long?
Eight MONTHS!!! ONLY EIGHT MONTHS!!!!!? Heck I had to wait TEN YEARS and I still couldn't pay for it at the time of service. I would have rather waited 8 months. I was hoping and praying that I could find some affordable health insurance. Yep this is going to take me about 5 years to pay off if everything goes well. Eight months h*ll I would have waited eight short months.
Fuzzy
If Fuzzy lived in Chicago at least there would have been treatment.
It is a big fight to keep open facilities that care for those who have no insurance.
70% of Canadians say that their biggest fear is being forced to adopt a US Health Care type system. You think our "System" is superior? Much has indicated otherwise.
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Please follow the link to http://pnhp.org/facts/myths_memes.pdf for an academic debunking of the waiting list myth about Canada. No system will ever be perfect BUT waiting for an elective procedure hardly qualifies as "life threatening." Inconvenient yes but not life threatening. It is simply immoral for American society to allocate access to health care by bake sale which is the situation many under/uninsureds face when confronted with a need for a transplant or cancer treatments.
why people don't understand how letting the government control more and more of what we believe we have a right to, leads first to socialism and then to communism. please tell me you remember the wonderful societies they where/are.
it's all connected - please educate yourselves on how it all works together. how we all really are better off when we do it ourselves.
"the fact is, the free market...cannot work in the context of universal health care. while health care could be purchased like any other form of insurance...the risk and resource equation will always be such that, in some cases, demand will not be matched by supply. in other words, some people will always be left out." (a recent report by the world bank ranked welfare states like denmark, finland and sweden high in international competitiveness. an author of the study said, "social protection is good for business, it takes the burden off of businesses for health care costs.")
the reality of a single payer system is that patients cannot play health care roulette anymore. everyone is in the system and everyone is contributing. our current employer based system is in effect stealing 15% of our health care dollars to pay for obscene executive salaries and certified benefit denial specialists. (most of your claims about drug innovation are somewhate suspect. england is charging ahead with stem cell therapy research. most drug company "research" is actually targeted towards either marketing efforts or developing "me too" drugs. tax payers pay most of the cost of basic research in the us.)
This is a fallacious argument, based on the idea that we all have the right to healthcare, regardless of ability to pay. So far, no one has been able to successfully argue that this right even exists.
In recognition of a woman's right to vote, the constitution places no burden on any other citizen. It simply recognizes that women have equal standing in this nation as citizens to participate in our government. In abolishing slavery, the constitution goes even further, in that it relieved an unjust burden placed on one part of the population that benefited another part of the population, and this is central to my argument.
In owning a slave, one takes from that person the fundamental right to choose a path in life, to decide what how they will work towards self-sufficiency. It also takes away the fundamental right of self-determination of what one will do with the fruits of one's own labor. By abolishing slavery, the government recognized this fundamental wrong, and removed the burden from the black population in the south. In the end, the constitution denies that anyone has a right that to place a burden on one sector of our society to the benefit of another sector.
All of which supports a central theme of my argument, which so far you and others have steadfastly ignored. By granting universal health care as a "right," you place a burden on the majority of our society to the benefit of a small minority. Granting universal health care means that the majority will lose the freedom to choose health care plans. Worse, it means that in some measure, the majority will lose at least some of their freedom to decide how they will allocate the fruits of their own labor. By force of law, a form of involuntary servitude will be forced on a majority of the population. Hardly what the constitution intended.
So far, no one has even really challenged this fundamental point. Unless and until such time as someone can present a valid argument that supports healthcare as a right, regardless of ability to pay, or someone can demonstrate that we can grant such a right without placing a burden on others, no such right exists.
PLEASE! don't go stealing my thunder. You say the government should not
put a burden on the majority to benefit a minority. Therefore, if the government should not do it why should we tolerate coporations to do so? Is that not a minority (insurance companies) putting a "burden on the majority of insuranced workers financially and then making decisions for them that will prevent them from working toward self-sufficiency?" Does this not take away the" fundmental right of self determination ?" In the end should government not stop the burden that insurance comapnies have placed on one sector (insured workers) to benefit the another sector (insurance company). We are forced into involuntary servitude to the insurance companies. This is the central theme you chose to ignore.
A lack of force of law has allowed an involuntary force of servitude on the majority; for who can afford not to pay the health insurance premiums because that ensures eventual death without medical care at all. There is no choice. "Validate health care as a right" has been argued and presented but some refuse to accept the concept or open their eyes. As for the "fruits of your labor" there is a (sp) plague known as corporate greed on this land and until there is fundamental change in our thinking and our laws your "fruits of labor" are already at risk . We can not afford to go quietly into the night. We must fight now for the rights of the uninsured because it will not be long until we have to fight for our own rights and there will be no one left to help us then. The life that you save today may be your own.
They say by not exercising our rights we stand to loose them. Just because we haven't exercised our right to healthcare does not mean it does not exist...we need to start exercising it.
Health care should not be a "for profit" system. Take the insurance leeches out of it , and let us all pay into a single pot. Lets pay doctors a decent, not unlimited, salary, and move on. There is no way the present system is ever going to be tweeked enough to work. Insurance CEOs are among the highest paid individuals in the US, and it is not because they ever passed a pill, turned a patient or made a house call. Let the money go toward the care of the patient, not the third yacht for some corp. blood sucker.
Say, why don't we all get the same service as our duly elected officials do??? There is full coverage for all and any medical need, and it costs them ZERO $$$. Paid for out of general funds. I say if it good enough for them, it should be good enough for everybody.
"Top 10 Reasons For Enacting a Single Payer Healthcare System
1. Everybody in, nobody out. Universal means access to healthcare for everyone, period."
Granted. However, not paid for by everyone, just by those who are working. Again, a "right" granted to all, but paid for by only some.
"2. Portability. Even if you are unemployed, or lose or change your job, your health coverage goes with you."
Again, granted. Of course, there would have to be portability, because there would be no choices, no options.
"3. Uniform benefits. No Cadillac plans for the wealthy and Pinto plans for everyone else…"
Again, leaving no options. Instead of insurance companies making decisions about what is and is not covered, the government makes those decisions. Everybody gets Chevrolet healthcare, regardless of whether they want that or not. And if you think rationing won’t be hard on the heels of this, you are mistaken.
"4. Prevention."
But, as I mentioned before, the availability of preventative health care does not mean that people will take advantage of it. Remember, low cost, and even free birth control are available, yet those who would be most benefited by this.assistance don’t take advantage of it,
"5. Choice of physician."
No guarantee on this. There are no choices in the VA system, a government run system. Patients are simply assigned to a doctor.
"6. Ending insurance industry interference with care."
Well that stands to reason. Of course, now you will have government interference with care. Have you not been reading others experiences trying to get benefits they are owed from the government? Have you not read your own posts? And you want this government to run your health care? And, as an added bonus, the government has free, unfettered access to your health records.
"7. Reducing administrative waste."
You cannot be serious. Our government, running a bureaucracy as large as a national health care system without administrative waste? Have you seen the figures on welfare dollars?
"8. Cost savings. A single payer system would produce the savings needed to cover everyone, largely by using existing resources without the waste. Taiwan, shifting from a U.S. healthcare model, adopted a single-payer system in 1995, boosting health coverage from 57% to 97% with little if any increase in overall healthcare spending."
Wait a minute. 97%? What happened to number 1 up there? You know, "everybody in, nobody out?"
Yes, costs would be reduced, largely on the backs of the healthcare providers. Technology costs a fixed amount. Use of that technology also has a fixed cost. While the insurance companies would be out of the picture, the drug companies so roundly cursed in this thread would still exist, and would still charge what they charge for their products. So, the reduction in cost of health care delivery would have to come from somewhere. That somewhere is our paychecks.
"9. Common sense budgeting. The public system sets fair reimbursements applied equally to all providers while assuring all comprehensive and appropriate health care is delivered, and uses its clout to negotiate volume discounts for prescription drugs and medical equipment."
Really. Fair reimbursement? Are you aware that the government the California Nurses Association assumes would set fair reimbursement currently (through the Medicare program you all are so fond of) already practices unfair reimbursement? There are a number of procedures for which reimbursement by the government is lower than the cost of doing the procedure to the hospital and caregivers. Labor epidurals come immediately to mind. There are also several surgical procedures for which the material and time required by the hospital to do the procedure cost more than what Medicare reimburses for the procedure.
"10. Public oversight. The public sets the policies and administers the system, not high priced CEOs meeting in secret and making decisions based on what inflates their compensation packages or stock wealth or company profits."
No, instead it would be politicians, meeting in secret and making decisions based on what would get them the most votes. The public would get little or no voice, and owing to a lack of choice, would have no option to go elsewhere. In the end, the middle class and the wealthy, who carry the majority of the burden of this (and every other social) program, but for whom politicians have never had any regard, would once again be handed the short (and dirty) end of the stick.
You are missing a fundamental difference or two between the Federal Government and private industry. First of all, where the right of self-determination is concerned, under the status quo, you are free to make choices. Let’s compare two people, say passgasser and burn out. Our ages are different, our health problems are different, our lives are different. In looking at health care options, I may choose to pay X company X amount for X coverage. However, given your differing health concerns, you may choose to pay Y company Y amount for Y coverage. There is a choice. Followed to its logical conclusion, let us suppose that I am 25 with no health problems. I am free to take the risk to carry no health insurance, relying instead on my ability to pay out of pocket for any minor health concerns that may arise.
Under a system of universal health care, all the choices and freedom are lost. Neither of us is able to shop for a health care benefit plan that best suits our needs. We both pay the government Z amount, and both receive Z coverage. (Which, of course, ends up with a system of health care rationing, a point none of the supporters of universal health care want to discuss.) Neither of us is free to choose to carry no health insurance whatsoever. Health insurance is forced upon us, and the premium, set by the government, is taken from us by force of law.
Further, a single payer system sets up a monopoly. In fact, it sets up the biggest monopoly ever seen in this nation. That monopoly sets prices, both for the premiums we pay, and for the reimbursement it will pay to health care providers. In the history of monopolies, there has never been one that was benevolent. In every case, it set the bar for payment in very high, and set the bar for what it would pay very low. No one had any choices, they simply had to accept what was charged. Health care is no different.
And once again, we return to the issue of healthcare as a "right" regardless of ability to pay. There is a fundamental principle that underlies all the rights recognized by our constitution. That is that you have no rights that would infringe on my freedoms. I am free to worship as I please, but cannot force that religion on you (a concept that seems foreign to many on the religious right). I am free to speak my mind, but cannot force you to listen, nor can I force you (or the government) to pay for a forum to spread my message. In short, my rights end where yours begin.
Healthcare does not meet the requirements of this simple, fundamental constitutional test. In order to grant "free" health care to all, a burden is necessarily placed on one portion of our population in order to benefit another portion of the population, a proposition foreign to the very basic theory that underlies our constitution. You cannot have a right that infringes on the rights of others.
So, until you can demonstrate that such a program won’t perforce place a burden on one section of the population in order to benefit another section of the population, or until such time as you can show that the fundamental underpinnings of the constitution must be changed, one simple fact remains: Healthcare, regardless of ability to pay, is not a right.
Just because you say "we haven’t exercised our right to healthcare" does not mean any such right exists. In fact, a clear analysis of the principles that underlie the constitution seems to clearly say such a right does not exist.
Edited to add: I would also point out, using the very same logic and reasoning you are using, I could demonstrate why I have a right to a Hummer (not the cheaper H2 or H3), and since I can't afford it, the taxpayer must buy it for me. And since it is such an expensive vehicle to maintain and drive, why I have the right to have the taxpayer pay for all the maintenence and gas necessary to keep it on the road.
I wish I had the freedom to decide how to allocate the fruits of my labor.
By force of law a form of involuntary servitude is forcing me to support subsidies to oil companies, General Electric, IBM, General Motors, and other for profit international corporations that lay off American workers.
Does the government have the right to place a burden on taxpayers to the benefit of faceless corporations?.
I wish I had the freedom to decide how to allocate the fruits of my labor.
By force of law a form of involuntary servitude is forcing me to support subsidies to oil companies, General Electric, IBM, General Motors, and other for profit international corporations that lay off American workers.
Does the government have the right to place a burden on taxpayers to the benefit of faceless corporations?.
Two wrongs don't make a right. I'm all against corporate welfare, as you may know. I've said before that my greatest beef against AFDC (aid to families w/ dependent children) is that the biggest recipients are coca-cola and frito lay. I think AFDC should be modeled after WIC, but then, the corporations that sell junk and pre-packaged food couldn't root at the trough.
The bottom line with the idea of socialized medicine is that I like the idea. Everybody puts in equally, and everybody gets out equally. I would love to see a Star Trek world. I would love to live in this idealized utopia.
However much I might like the IDEA of socialized medicine, reality is different. Socialism has been historically and repeatedly shown to be a failure. I think there is a persistent attitude that it has only failed in the past because WE didn't do it, or it wasn't done right.
In reality, it doesn't work because it removes human motivation from the equation. Economics is the study of human motivation. By removing incentive from that motivation, what you have is a disaster.
I understand the motivations of those that support this idea. I'm not against - at all - the ideas you put forward. What I'm against is the reality that your ideas will not work.
Capitalism might not be perfect, however, capitalism holds the greatest boon for humanity in that it is hinged upon the individual motivation of the masses. As a result, the masses must move ahead if capitalism is to move ahead.
Exxon cannot make billions unless it has millions of customers that can afford to pay billions.
NO healthcare exec can get rich without having tens and thousands of paying customers.
Look, this is not an issue of which ideas are better. I concede that YOUR ideas of utopia are better. At issue here is reality. In reality, your ideas are simply not workable. They have never been workable.
In the meantime, the underlying issue here isn't a failed ideology, but current political realities. This is a proxy fight over politics, not healthcare. Universal healthcare might not improve health care, but it will be a huge jump in advancing the ideology of socialism. Once adopted, the gov't will be forced to spend ever more and take over ever more of the economy to make the system even approach acceptance.
Those of you that present this issue as the inhumanity of not adopting the idea society must understand that I do not dismiss your ideas because the ideas themselves are defective. It's the methodology that is defective. Socialism is a failure and you simply cannot deliver on the promise you offer. As a result, such promises are empty.
The problem w/ universal healthcare is that even if we don't have firsthand experience with the failures of an oppressive all-powerful gov't; our founding fathers DID. They conceived a gov't fully hamstrung from the power to enact such legislation. Thank God for our founding fathers. Only as a direct result of the benefits resulting from a hamstrung gov't can some of us now envision releasing those shackles on gov't.
Simplepleasures
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