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As an EMT who has spent quite a bit of time taking poor people to hospitals, I can tell you definitively that your statement is incorrect. Even poor people who go to a hospital for cancer get ongoing cancer care, including chemo/radio therapy, surgery, etc. Your statement is just false. I don't believe that you are trying to put forth a false statement, I just think you don't have your facts in order.
Bobby, you asked a great question. If the cost is coming out of our pockets anyway, what is the difference whether we are talking about universal/socialized healthcare or a privatized system?
The difference is in several areas.
1) Cost. The cost of socialized healthcare is ALWAYS higher than private healthcare. Even though you and I are covering the cost of millions of people without health insurance, it still costs less than if you and I were covering EVERYONE'S healthcare.
2) Quality of care. We are talking about a government-run program here. This is the same govenment that can't keep the roads paves, the bridges from collapsing, or the names of illegal aliens that they actually have caught straight. What do you think will be the effect of government run health care will be on the quality of care. If you really want to know, just look at cancer mortality rates in countries with universal healthcare vs. our mortality rates. In the USA, the mortality rate of prostate cancer patients is about 25%. In the Canada, it is over 40% and in the UK, it's a whopping 57%.
3) Accessibility. Currently, even if we have to wait a "long time" for health care, we can generally see the doctor of our choice within a few days or at the worst, a couple of weeks. In Canada, the minimum wait for a proceedure is several months. I once had a hair transplant, a voluntary procedure... I made the appointment and saw the doctor within a week. My Canadian friend can't get a hair transplant in Canada. When I was sick with a stomache virus, I saw the doctor the same day. My friend fom Canada waited two weeks.
4) Compensation. The almighty buck talks, bull$h!t walks, as they say. A govenment system in which the government is the sole arbiter of what doctors will receive as compensation (usually UNDERCOMPENSATION) is not conducive to good practitioners becoming doctors. In the USA, if a doctor doesn't like the compensation being paid by a particular insurance company, he can choose not to accept that insurance anymore. In a government-run system like Canada's, individuals are not allowed to pay doctors, only the government is, and only the government determines the payment structure. So instead of a guy working his a$$ off for 10 years or more to become a doctor (4 years of med school, 2 internship, 3 residency, and multiple years in a fellowship studying a specialty) and incurring debt that he won't be able to cover because of the poor compensation levels paid to him by the government, he'll instead become a lawyer... like we need more of those.
5) Efficiency. The government is a bureaucracy... which is to say that it is wastefull. The govenment doesn't care if their program is wasting money, because they can always raise taxes (or so they think) to cover the waste. But a private company's sole interest is in the bottom line. They eschew waste in order to maximize profits. They are efficient, and thus lower-cost. Which brings us back to #1. They also manage their coverage to cover as many people as possible, because they want as many customers as possible in order to maximize profits. Thus they are efficient in covering everyone they can. The government doesn't care whether you really get coverage or not... you're just a cog in the system and you really don't have a choice to go elsewhere, so why would they care whether you really get the efficient coverage you need or not.
There are other areas where the systems differ hugely. But this is enough to think about for now.
As an EMT who has spent quite a bit of time taking poor people to hospitals, I can tell you definitively that your statement is incorrect. Even poor people who go to a hospital for cancer get ongoing cancer care, including chemo/radio therapy, surgery, etc. Your statement is just false. I don't believe that you are trying to put forth a false statement, I just think you don't have your facts in order.
Elliot, I think Excon has made a valid point, although your correct in that it doesn't apply to all cases. Certainly there are hospitals (my father was president of a hospital board) that make good and don't discriminate based on an financial situation or ability to pay. But none-the-less it is a business.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ETWolverine
Bobby, you asked a great question. If the cost is coming out of our pockets anyway, what is the difference whether we are talking about universal/socialized healthcare or a privatized system?
2) Quality of care. We are talking about a government-run program here. This is the same govenment that can't keep the roads paves, the bridges from collapsing, or the names of illegal aliens that they actually have caught straight. What do you think will be the effect of government run health care will be on the quality of care. If you really want to know, just look at cancer mortality rates in countries with universal healthcare vs. our mortality rates. In the USA, the mortality rate of prostate cancer patients is about 25%. In the Canada, it is over 40% and in the UK, it's a whopping 57%.
3) Accessibility. Currently, even if we have to wait a "long time" for health care, we can generally see the doctor of our choice within a few days or at the worst, a couple of weeks. In Canada, the minimum wait for a proceedure is several months. I once had a hair transplant, a voluntary procedure... I made the appointment and saw the doctor within a week. My Canadian friend can't get a hair transplant in Canada. When I was sick with a stomache virus, I saw the doctor the same day. My friend fom Canada waited two weeks.
There are other areas where the systems differ hugely. But this is enough to think about for now.
Great question, Bobby, thanks for asking.
Elliot
I think the raw numbers would confirm, but since we don't actually use a socialized system it's difficult to have anything concrete. I suppose we could use Canada by comparison by scaling up from their population to get an idea. Then again we might improve on that system, by tweaking it. As you have noted it's numbers two and three that are exactly the reasons I'm skeptical of a universal healthcare system.
I’m not sure if I can be very helpful here, because I don’t know about the details or facts surrounding our healthcare system. I will research the facts though and get back to you.
But I can give my two cents in the form of theory: in order for a nation to improve itself, in, for example, the area of healthcare, it should compare its system to ones that are “better” , and not compare it to ones that are worse.
Elliot, it’s interesting that you have mentioned that “By law, hospitals MUST take any emergency patient who needs care, regardless of ability to pay. This includes citizens and non-citizens, rich or poor, black or white. There is nobody who does not qualify for emergency healthcare in the USA”.
I wonder then, what the commotion is about in regards to the American healthcare system? Excon (his comment) seems to have filled in a missing gap that answers this question.
This is not to question whether, as Elliot has shown us, that there is a law that requires any emergency patient who needs care, regardless of ability to pay, to be taken in. But I am questioning how this is all following through.
And I am questioning what the hell is going on if this “law” is actually following through properly as Elliot has ‘implied’. Have we been wasting time discussing this all these years if the system has been actually helping almost every American (as Elliot implies)? This only implies that there are fifty million idiots here.
Thanks to both of you (Excon and Elliot) for the information you’ve provided.
and I guess if I start introducing other foreign health care policies to americans, I will be attacked again?!
Nobody should ever attack you for sharing your views. You are a very pleasant person to have conversation with and I always like hearing from you. You often provide a very good international perspective.
As an EMT who has spent quite a bit of time taking poor people to hospitals, I can tell you definitively that your statement is incorrect. Even poor people who go to a hospital for cancer get ongoing cancer care, including chemo/radio therapy, surgery, etc. Your statement is just false. I don't believe that you are trying to put forth a false statement, I just think you don't have your facts in order.
Hello again, El:
Frankly, it's you who don't have your facts straight.
I don't disagree with you when you talk about the poor. They're not who I'm talking about. The poor are covered by Medicaid - a damn good plan, I might add. Nope, it's the WORKING poor, who are the subject of my post, and they don't have ANY plan.
IF they happen to have a savings account, or a house, or make more than it takes to support your dog, they aren't eligible for Medicaid. They have to divest themselves of ALL their property and become paupers in order to qualify for the healthcare YOU'RE talking about.
The working poor are estimated to be 40 to 50 million people. I'm one of them. I make a GOOD living and I HAVE assets, yet health insurance for me would cost more than my rent, and I live in a nice house in an expensive city. Fortunately, I'm healthy.
I maintain that if I come down with cancer, I'll have to go broke in order to be taken care of. Frankly, I'd rather leave an estate. Hell of a choice your wonderful system requires of me.
Excon, I work for a company that hires the "working poor." They are mostly college students in their early twenties. Anyone working more than 30 hours a week and is here more than 6 months is eligible for the insurance. The company pays 60 %. For young single people, it is cheap.
95% of them don't take advantage of the option (nor the retirement plan.) Their excuse is that they can't afford it. More than half of the group smokes. Most of them have either cable or Direct TV or internet service. Almost every one of them eats lunch out every day. They can afford all that, but not $10 a week to protect their health.
Also, many people with insurance plans have run into instances where congenital defects are considered "pre-existing" and therefore not covered.
It really comes down to your priorities. If my child needed surgery, but I didn't have the insurance, I would work 3 jobs, mortgage my house and beg from family and friends to see to it that he got the proper medical care.
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