will universal healthcare ( in the usa) cut RN pay?

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I been hearing this debate off and on for a long time about how if Obama gets universal healthcare to go ( if he gets elected of course)though in the US that nursing pay will be cut dramatically. I would think this has to do with the fact that we would all be working for the government and that there will no longer be competition. There are many people in my nursing class that said they will leave nursing if thats the case. I also talked to several doctors that said the same thing about medicine in general. Im just curious if anyone has some good info about this. Thanks

And the haves are not just rich trust fund kids. They are people who have worked hard all their life many running small businesses that employ most of the people in this country. Liberals always claim to have empathy but never want to actually foot the bills for the programs they want to mandate on everyone else. How many tax cheats are in the Obama administration?

Wow...your empathy is really overwhelming me. Have you bothered to take a step outside of your bubble, lately? The have-nots in this country are not just the stereotypical welfare queens with 7 children in tow. They are people who have worked hard all of their lives to provide for their families and now find themselves without a home, without a job, and without health care.
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Yawn.

You just made me laugh:wink2:...and just proved a point that I was making to a friend earlier...Thank you! I can tell that you're very informed about the issues by your thought-provoking responses. It would be so much more productive if when discussing critical issues, we all attached a reputible source to our responses...I think that would cut down on some of the uninformed and ignorant comments that have been made.
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Well, assuming that everyone had access to a general practitioner for non-emergent care...then at that point why would an ER have to accept non-emergent cases? I like the idea of these intermediate centers where u can go and be seen immediately and the can handle minor acute needs like stiches or a wrist fracture until u can get into your general provider--if followup care is necessary.The care is far cheaper then in the ED and guess what? The local ED is not clogged up with non-emergent patients! :)

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If your healthcare is free there is no incentive not to use the ER or take an ambulance to the hospital. Libs never legislate accountability except to the taxpayers.

Well, assuming that everyone had access to a general practitioner for non-emergent care...then at that point why would an ER have to accept non-emergent cases? I like the idea of these intermediate centers where u can go and be seen immediately and the can handle minor acute needs like stiches or a wrist fracture until u can get into your general provider--if followup care is necessary.The care is far cheaper then in the ED and guess what? The local ED is not clogged up with non-emergent patients! :)
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Diana---sorry to hear about that but thanks for listing a great example of the failure of our current system..Everyone is talking about the "Rationing of healthcare" that would occur under the universal healthcare system....but isnt that exactly what happens now? If you cant pay you dont get care. If you have more then a tiny pre-existing condition you wont get private insurance that is affordable withing most middle class budgets (i cite the middle class because up to 85% of those uninsured are middle/working class people) and if you have a condition that becomes expensive then the insurance companies either deny the claim outright or try to find dirt on you like filling out the insurance application wrong. Im sure that while univerasl healthcare will not be perfect...most of these people would perfer waiting longer or dealing with the downside of UHC to the current alternative which is no care at all or having to go into bankrupsy and lose everything they have due to having to pay for care out of their pocket. It is interesting that those who throwing around terms like "socialism" and ect. either A. have never spent time in the health care setting to see what is really going on under our current system or B. Have some financial motivation to be against it! If you question this go on any of those "Grassroots" websites and see the corporate big wigs who are funding all these people to go to the townhall meetings around the country and denounce UHC. I just think it would be nice if this issue could be given the fair consideration it deserves in the media without the propaganda! Good luck and God bless!

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.
Where are you getting your information? What source are you relying on for your information? As I stated above, the fear mongering going on about this proposed health care plan is frightening and ridiculous. Are you able to quote a reputible source that clearly explains that the government plans on "pulling the plug" on older people.

Please, please refer to the site below to obtain valid and reputible information about the President's Health Care plan. He addresses this frightening notion of "Euthanasia" that you referred to as "pulling the plug" and that opponents have been spewing to the public. If you actually take time to inform yourself, you'll find that seniors in the community have the option of receiving conseling on end of life issues such as Hospice, if they're interested.

Again, please take some time to inform yourself about the issues and by "informing", I don't mean using your best friend or favorite aunt as a resource.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

It was just a figure of speech on her part to show that the government will be in charge of our health. If you think HMOs are bad, wait until the government is paying the bill

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You're welcome, Sehille. Indeed, you are right- if you can't pay, you don't get care. I volunteer at a clinic for the uninsured and under-insured; good, hard-working people who caught a bad break and/or whose illness make the cost of individual coverage prohibitive, as you said. And so, I consider our family extremely fortunate.

I had to laugh when you said the insurance companies try to pull tricks like saying you filled in the application wrong. We had been with this insurance company for 10 years. When hubby lost his job, we got individual coverage through the exact same company. They refused to pay any claims until "an investigation" was completed, citing that we had not disclosed our son's possible autism. How dumb would we have to be?!

Like I said earlier, I don't have enough unbiased, reliable information to comment intelligently on whether I think Obama's plan would be a good or bad thing for the USA. And I think people SHOULD question how it will affect them. I would like people to question the source of these apocalyptic predictions- who would reform be apocolyptic for? The insurance companies, for sure- they would no longer be able to keep only the healthy and 'cull' the sick through outrageous premiums.

You take good care, too. :wink2:

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OMG that rminds me of what happened to me! I changed jobs and did not have insurance so my husband put me on his. For months we paid the premiums out of his paycheck, then boom! I was having problems and the doc wanted to rule out a pituitary tumor. I had all these tests done including an MRI and the insurance company denied all my claims saying that the employer never submitted the correct paperwork for me. I had to pay it all myself and lost all my savings. We did not have the money to get a lawyer and fight it. Thousands of dollars, gone. Horrible experience. What about all those premiums we paid????

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If we were to mimic what Canada is doing, this is what Nurses in America would be making.

Those are Canadian dollars, not US. Plus you aren't taking the difference in cost of living into account.

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"If your healthcare is free there is no incentive not to use the ER or take an ambulance to the hospital."

If your health care is free, there is no incentive not to go to your primary doctor for minor health matters (before they become big health matters) or to have a yearly exam to catch problems in the early stages- when they are far less expensive to treat.

If you have no insurance, there is a disincentive to have a yearly check-up or go to your GP with a minor health problem because it will cost money. But you can wait until the problem gets worse and go the ER where you cannot be turned away.

At a free clinic where I did diabetic teaching, most of my patients had been in and out of the ER because they could not afford primary care including counseling on diet, consultation with docs to adjust insulins etc. As soon as they had access to primary care at our clinic, not one of my patients ended up in the ER.

Another example: A lady with no insurance forgoes her annual check-up and pap smear. She develops symptoms, then decides to go to a GP or to the ER. She has cervical cancer (which if caught in the early stages would have been very curable). Instead, she has mets and the cost to treat her will be astronomical in comparison to what it would have cost to treat early stage cervical ca.

"While medical interventions can clearly benefit individual clients, evidence suggests that they do not result in a corresponding improvement in population health" (Mustard and Frank, 1991). "Thus, resources should be allocated to those promotive and preventative services that address social and environmental health" (Munro et al., 2001, p. 45).

In other words, ensuring access to primary and preventative care is cost-effective.

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"I had all these tests done including an MRI and the insurance company denied all my claims saying that the employer never submitted the correct paperwork for me. I had to pay it all myself and lost all my savings. We did not have the money to get a lawyer and fight it. Thousands of dollars, gone. Horrible experience. What about all those premiums we paid????"

cxg, that is horrible...I am so sorry. To add that kind of stress when a person is at their most vulnerable is simply inhumane. Are you okay now?

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Specializes in LTC.
Those are Canadian dollars, not US. Plus you aren't taking the difference in cost of living into account.

The Canadian dollar is currently worth more than ours. Cost of living depends.

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