[excon]

I reject the idea that the United States system needs a fundamental overhaul

Hello again, tom:

Healthcare expenditures in the U.S. in the late 1990s were about 14 percent of GDP. They have now grown to almost 18 percent. In 2007, over 60 percent of personal bankruptcies were triggered by medical expenses that people could not cover. Uninsured or underinsured families are ballooning. Americans spend far more per capita than any other "advanced" country and yet the World Health Organization ranks the U.S. 37th in terms of health performance. Whether it is infant mortality, life expectancy, and all other measurements, the U.S. is far behind the rest of the Western world.

Yet, you and your ilk think things are just fine. I got to wonder what you've been smoking...

That's also why this overhaul will be foisted upon you, because you're not willing to be part of the solution. How can you fix something you don't think is broken??

excon

[tomder55]

Foist... To impose (something or someone unwanted) upon another by coercion or trickery

Foisted is indeed the proper word for what is happening

Your concern is costs ? Increasing the size and scope of government's role in health care and further squeezing a private marketplace will drive up costs and drive down quality every single time. I have no problem with subsidizing those who generally need help . I object to subsidizing the majority of America who are more than able to choose their own level of care and insurance .

[cozyk]

[QUOTE]

The problem is that the Canadian system is touted as the model that the US should follow.

Well, all the Canadians on this thread rave about it. Why would you not want to model your system after one that is a success? My experience with our present system has been many years of nightmares. I don't even want to begin going into the hoops I've had to jump through or the distances I've had to drive to get a doctor that participated in "my plan".
Every time we've moved and every time my husband changed jobs it was especially horrible.
Give me one plan, for every body, and in every town, anywhere in the US . Stop with the "pre-existing" condition loop hole. When someone loses their job, they shouldn't also lose their insurance.

I'm not a person that is pro "hand out". I think that he who works hardest should get the most. But just like our gov protects our lives with our military, it should also protect EVERY life with a health plan.

[tomder55]

Well, all the Canadians on this thread rave about it.

Good for them .Let them keep it . There are huge differences between our countries.

[excon]

Foist .... To impose (something or someone unwanted) upon another by coercion or trickery

Hello again, tom:

What you call coercion or trickery, I call losing an election. To me, foist means having 60 votes - and they DO.

excon

[ETWolverine]

hi wolverine, do you actually know how BIG Saskatchewan is ? There aren't very many major centers in that whole province. And because of that, very few doctors scattered all over.

There isn't a problem with doctors and nurses and MRIs in a province that is SMALLER with a lot of MAJOR CENTERS. Do you understand that ?

Alberta is the same way. And Any province in between British Columbia and Ontario. We are not all that well populated.

Please note, Tickle, that I also looked at it on a numner of practitioners per 1000 residents basis as well. Regardless of population OR population density, Canada ranks below the WORLD average in terms of practitioners per population. That is a problem, regardless of how densely populated or how much of a population center we are talking about.

There isn't a waiting list for MRIs in COBOURG ONTARIO WHERE WE HAVE A NEW HOSPITAL AND NEW DOCTORS AND NEW NURSES. Who are making the BIG BUCKS.

Cobourg is 2 hours east of TORONTO, Wolverine and GOSH we have a HELI PAD TO TAKE CRITICAL CARE PATIENTS TO TORONTO SO THEY Don't HAVE TO GO BY AMBULANCE !

For heavens sake, dispute some of this, wolverine.

Canada has so much to offer, including good healthcare.

Tickle, I live in one of the most densely populated cities in the world. I have family that lives in some of the LEAST densely populated areas of the USA. ALL OF OUR CITIES HAVE HOSPITALS WITH HELIPADS for trauma transport and inter-city transport, and we all have doctors who are paid "the big bucks". What you are seeing as wonderful recent developments in your health system in the major cities of Canada are the NORM in the USA and have been the norm for decades.

What is new and wonderful for YOU is old hat for me. I'm happy that your system is seeing improvement. But you guys are at least 20 years behind us in these developments. Your system's inherent inability to react and change with times and needs has you two decades behind where you should be.

Do you actually know, or can you research the member of the Canadian parliament who started it ?

ms tickle who is quite happy with all

No idea. I looked up which hospital you are talking about. I assume you are speaking of Northumberland Hills Hospital. I know that NHH opened in 2003, but I don't really have any more information than that. Please feel free to educate me.

I did notice that the brochure that was sent out in 2003 for the opening of the hospital listed CT Scanner, Dialysis, and Digital X-Ray as "new services" being offered (as compared to old services being expanded). What this tells me is that there was no CT Scanner, Dialysis and Digital X-Ray available at NHH prior to the completion of the new construction in 2003.

Huh? I cannot think of a hospital in the USA today that doesn't have at least one CT scanner, dialysis machine and digital X-ray machine. And if they don't, they can send folks to the hospital next door or even to private providers for these services. My grandfather, who died of kidney disease 20 years ago, had his choice of dialysis locations. You just got your dialysis machine in 2003?

Again, why are you guys so far behind us in availability of services. I'm glad things are improving for you, but why is it taking so long?

And why would I want to change our system to one in which it takes 20 years longer to provide services that I should already have available to me?

Your new, wonderful hospital in Cobourg is terrific, and I'm happy for you. But what about the folks in Saskatchewan who don't have access? Do they not count because they live in rural areas?

Canadians point to the lack of medical insurance coverage in the US system... but even insured Canadians in rural areas of Saskatchewan can't get the services they need, by your own admission, because they are too remote and there isn't enough resources to provide the full coverage in remote areas. Whereas while some Americans may be uninsured, they still have access to medical resources. Which of us is better off?

You aren't helping your position Tickle, by pointing out the wonderful NEW breakthroughs in the Canadian system, when those breakthrough simply indicate how long it is taking you to catch up to our current state of medical service availability.

Elliot

[cozyk]

Good for them .Let them keep it . There are huge differences between our countries.

You have something against being happy with your system? They are happy and you say, "let them keep it". I swear I don't get you.

[tomder55]

Every time we've moved and every time my husband changed jobs it was especially horrible.

I agree portability and the preexisting condition issues need to be addressed ( so I am in favor of some change despite excon's allegation ) .
In fact I'll go further and say that the employers should not be responsible for providing coverage at all. That is an antiquated system that came about when Roosevelt foisted (I like that word )wage controls on the country . The employer invented the benefit to skirt the controls and it stuck.

It would be better that any individual were given whatever tax benefit given to the employer to own their own insurance plan . The increased competition among the insurance providers would drive down costs by that act alone.

[tomder55]

You have something against being happy with your system? They are happy and you say, "let them keep it". I swear I don't get you.

I can't change their minds about it . But ET's point which is valid and appears irrefutable by the evidence is that the care available there is subpar to what is available here. It is something I don't think we want to sacrifice because there are some gaps in coverage or cost problems . Those can be addressed without a major overhaul .

[excon]

I can't change their minds about it . But ET's point which is valid and appears irrefutable by the evidence is that the care available there is subpar to what is available here..

Hello tom:

I don't know what evidence you're looking at, other than the Wolverines schtick, but check this out:

Total government spending per capita in the U.S. on health care was 23% higher than Canadian government spending, and U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 83% of total Canadian spending (public and private).

One commonly cited comparison, the World Health Organization's ratings of "overall health service performance", published in 2000, which used a "composite measure of achievement in the level of health, the distribution of health, the level of responsiveness and fairness of financial contribution", ranked Canada 30th and the U.S. 37th among 191 member nations. This study rated the US "responsiveness", or quality of service, as 1st, compared with 7th for Canada. The average life expectancy for Canada was 80.34 years compared with U.S. at 78.6 years.

To ME, spending LESS per capita, and living longer and having a lower level of infant mortality means THEIR health care system is BETTER than ours...

Course, when you say it's better here, you mean it's better here for the rich. I'll bet THEY live longer and have a lower infant mortality rate... But, when you measure EVERYBODY, Canada kicks our butt...

These are facts. The look pretty irrefutable to me.

excon

[NeedKarma]

I have family that lives in some of the LEAST densely populated areas of the USA. ALL OF OUR CITIES HAVE HOSPITALS WITH HELIPADS for trauma transport and inter-city transport,

Rutland Regional Medical Center
"Vermont’s second-largest hospital" has no helipad. You fail - in caps to boot.

[ETWolverine]

Hello my fine northern brethren:

There is ONE thing the Wolverine should like about your system. You can't sue a doctor, can you?

He doesn't like lawsuits against doctors. He thinks THAT'S what's driving up costs. It doesn't matter that a doctor MAIMED a patient, the doctor should be protected... I wonder why?? Does he have doctors in his family?? Why does he want to protect the doctor and NOT the patient?? It don't make no sense to me.

I never said that doctors shouldn't be sued if they screw up. What I said was that we need to reign in the FRIVOLOUS lawsuits. By doing so we protect both the doctors AND the patients... the doctors, because they won't have to defend (and pay for the defense of) nonesensical suits designed for payday payouts and nothing more, and the patients because the cost of care will be lower.

And AS I HAVE SAID MANY TIMES IN THE PAST, I'm not against large dollar lawsuits either. But let them go through a grand jury system first to determine merit, same as with criminal cases. If a grand jury sees no merit, the case will be thrown out. There will be no need for hospitals and insurance companies to give payouts to frivolous plaintiffs to make a case go away because it is more cost effective than defending the case because a grand jury will toss the case out. BUT if the grand jury sees merit in the case, let the case go forward, or let there be a settlement... for as much as the plaintiff can get.

A civil grand jury would lower the instance of frivolous lawsuits going to trial WITHOUT capping awards for legitimate cases. EVERYONE WINS!! Except the slip-and-fall lawyers who make their nut on filing frivolous lawsuits.

But I guess that excon has a slip-and-fall lawyer in his family that he needs to protect.

He also pay's no attention to the 20 or so billion $$$$'s the health insurance industry makes each year. Hmmmm. Does he have health insurance agents in his family?

Excon

First of all, where do you get this $20 billion figure? Last time I checked, you had found a couple of companies that had made a million in profits or so and tried to extrapolate that to the entire industry (without knowing either the number of companies providing insurance OR the size of those companies). In other words, you are just making up that number. Can you back that number up?

Second, what percentage of sales is that $20 billion figure? If net profits are only 1 or 2%, that $20 billion isn't very much.

Let's do some math based on a few assumptions:

Assuming a typical insurance policy is $1500 per month (that's what I pay for COBRA for a family of 4),

Assuming that the 46 million uninsured figure is accurate,

Assuming that there are 300 million people in the united states (there are actually more, but that's a good round figure,

Assuming that 4 people is a "family" (not a very god assumption, but just for argument's sake)

That would mean that there are 254 million insured American, under 63.5 million policies, at a cost of $18,000 per year per policy, for a total insurance company revenue of $11.4 TRILLION.

WHICH MEANS THAT THE $20 BILLION OF PROFITS BY THE INSURANCE COMPANIES IS 0.175%.

Even if we assume that my assumptions are completely off, and revenues are only 1/4 of what I have estimated, your estimate of the profitability of the insurance industry is still only 0.6999%... LESS THAN 1% PROFITABILITY.

And you are making it out to be some sort of windfall for the medical insurance industry??

Get real, excon. 0.7% profitability is no great number, and you know it.

Which gets us back to my old question of what you have against companies making a modest profit? And you call yourself a capitalist? By what standard?

Don't argue economics with me, Excon. You ought to know that by now. We've been doing this stuff for over 10 years together. You ought to know that you're not going to win an economics/finance argument with me.

Elliot

[NeedKarma]

at a cost of $18,000 per year

That assumes that the family never pays the insurance company for anything "not covered" for the whole year. Is that really the case?

[excon]

We've been doing this stuff for over 10 years together.

Hello again, El:

Yup. And, you ain't learned nothing yet.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Rutland Regional Medical Center
"Vermont’s second-largest hospital" has no helipad. You fail - in caps to boot.

WRONG!!

FAA Information about Rutland Regional Medical Center Heliport (VT61)

This is the information from the FAA on Rutland Regional Medical Center's Heliport. The one they supposedly don't have.

YOU LOSE!!

Elliot

[NeedKarma]

Cool, I wonder why they don't mention it on their site. I do indeed lose. You win. You must be having quite the orgasm now. :D

[ETWolverine]

That assumes that the family never pays the insurance company for anything "not covered" for the whole year. Is that really the case?

NK, you are missing the point of the argument. The question in this case is not what families pay for medical care, but rather, what are the estimated combined revenues of medical insurance companies in the USA. What families pay outside of that is irrelevant to this argument.

Let me make this as simple as I can.

excon said that the insurance companies make (net income) $20 billion per year, and that this is too much.

My response was, is it really too much? In fact their combined net income is only about 0.175% of total revenue, which is actually very little. And I was showing how I arrived at my estimate of total revenues for the medical insurance industry. What families pay outside of that amount is irrelevant to the point I was making to excon.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

Cool, I wonder why they don't mention it on their site. I do indeed lose. You win. You must be having quite the orgasm now. :D

If you check the websites of MOST hospitals, you'll find that they try to gloss over the trauma medicine aspects of their services in favor of the "sexier" aspects of what they do. Trauma is bloody and turns people off. But a heart transplant is a romantic story. So they stress the more romantic stuff in their advertising.

It's pure PR.

Elliot

[NeedKarma]

I care less about the corporations and more about people.

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

Yup. And, you ain't learned nothing yet.

excon

Aren't you even going to TRY to address the substance of what I said in my post? I'm not done whuppin' yer butt yet.

Elliot