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When it comes to annual physical examinations and other types of minor basic care, socialized medicine works just fine and probably even provides more "bang" for the "buck" then the current system the U.S. is using.
However, once you get past the general practice/internist medical needs, socialized medicine falls, FAR FAR SHORT.
RobZilla, clearly you seem to favor the socialized medical care system that Canada uses and the phrase you used "I havent had to go to the hospital in a while" speaks volumes.
It appears you are in better than average health and as long as that remains the case, Canada's socialized medical care system will serve your needs just fine and will do so at a far lower price than the U.S.
However, if the time ever comes where you get sick and need complex/specialized medical care, your feelings about socialized medicine will most definitely change.
In my country, between 85%-90% of us have medical insurance and have all sorts of options at our disposal if the time ever comes where we need highly specialized medical care.
If we need an MRI, we can have one scheduled in a matter of days and sometimes even sooner in cases of emergency. Even the lower working middle class has all sorts of options available to them if they ever get sick. There is no such thing in my country about having to wait weeks or months for even the most complex medical treatment.
Have you come into contact with any middle class Canadians that have gotten really sick and needed high-tech complex specialized medical care? I would be very interested in hearing their opinions about the pluses and minuses of Canada's socialized medical care system.
Don't take any offense but their opinion means far more than yours since you haven't had the unfortunate experience of getting real sick.Comment -
I dont get why Americans arent down with our Canadian healthcare system
And I don't get why Canadians are cheering for Americans living along the Gulf Coast to lose their livelihoods because of an oil spill.Comment -
Most recent experiences in Quebec (Canada):
Walk in clinic wait times (4-6 hours weekends, 0.10-1 hour weekdays early, 2-3 hours later in the day)
Ambulance wait time 20-40 minutes
Emergency room wait time (4-5 hours weekends, 1-2 hours weekdays early, 4-6 hours later in the day). The doctors are overworked so it is best to catch them in the morning.
Urologist/Specialist wait time to see doctor 1 month after making appointment (2 weeks trying to get an appointment before hand). More in demand specialists like cardiologists/oncologists take 1-2 months to get an appointment for and probably another 1-2 months to actually see the doctor. To get an appointment with a specialist you have to get a consultation from another doctor. In my case it took 3 visits to the emergency room and upwards of 20 hours before I could get one.
Echogram(sonogram) 1-2 months wait time (2+ weeks afterward for doctor to get results)
MRI 1-2 months wait time (3+ weeks afterward for doctor to get results)
The time it takes to gets tests done varies widely between hospitals. I contacted 3 hospitals to schedule echograms. 1 hospital never contacted me back, 1 made me an appointment within the month and the other phoned me back 5 months later.
As for cancer my father had it for 8 years and experienced a gamut of tests/surgeries and all were scheduled within appropriate time frames and the quality of service was good. These are sufficiently large sample sizes might I add (128 doses of radiation, 3 bouts of chemotherapy, 10+ surgeries, 4 bone marrow transplants, over 10 blood transfusions and many other tests I can't even remember.) This was 10 years ago and if my recent experience is indicative of the state of the health care system I would say that if he had been undergoing treatment today the level of service would probably declined but still be adequate.
Emergency room treatment for life threatening illnesses is very good.As are the various tests surrounding the treatment (all previously mentioned tests are done within hours). Where the system falls short is in regards to obtaining a family doctor (i still have not found one after 2 years of looking), preventative testing and specialists. You are still able to obtain everything it just takes a lot longer than if you had to go with a private insurer.
The flip side is of course is had my family been in the states my fathers treatment would have cost upwards of 6 million dollars (they used to include the equivalent cost on the medical papers as if he had been treated in the states. If i remember correctly 1 dose of radiation was $5000 and he had 128 of them). My family would have been medically bankrupt as the insurance would not have covered all treatments. He would have likely lived 1-2 years instead of 8.
So what is 6-7 extra years worth? It is hard to quantify (rationally it is easy but emotionally it is not). So choosing between the 2 medical systems boils down to a value judgment on human life. Of course I would choose socialized medicine because I would have wanted my father to live as long as possible. Could I rationally say to someone else in my shoes though "well 6-7 years is not worth the cost of your family members treatment, my apologies." My conscious says no.
The best system would probably be a hybrid of private/public. How it is implemented though is another story.
I would urge everyone whether they are public or private health care advocates to take a more tolerant and understanding approach to evaluating the issue. If you've ever been sick or had someone in your family sick you understand how complicated things become. Have some empathy please.Comment -
Interesting...Comment -
As someone who has lived in England, Canada and the US - I know not of one single person that would trade the "welfare" system healthcare for the American system.
If you ask someone if they would like to trade what they have right now .. for the chance to pay $8-15k per year in premiums which only covers you @ 80% should you ever need to use it - and which does not cover dr's visits and medications outright .. they would look at you like you were stupid.
Do people complain about healthcare in the UK and Canada ... you bet your arse they do .. would they trade it for what we have here in America ... ? Not a chance.
If I ever got seriously sick - i'd have to fly back to the UK for treatment ... no way I could afford to be here in the US and get sick. (and that's WITH insurance) Why should the local hospital/insurance company get all of my kids inheritance .. everything I've worked for all my life .... cos one way or the other - they do ... everyone gets sick eventually ... if they don't get you early in life - they will catch up with you and rape your kids inheritance.
To put things into perspective ... my last trip to the Dr's office included "blood work" ..... because of a recent change in coverage ... I had to pay $80 out of pocket to use the dr's preferred lab .... the total cost to my insurance for the blood work was normally around $350 ....
.... my best option right now - is to use my insurance companies "preferred" lab .. cost to me out of pocket = $0 ... cost to the insurance company $860 .. for the same blood work.
My guess .... the insurance company probably now gets a kickback of around 50% for the "referral" to the new lab. The new lab I use gets $430 .. my insurance company gets $430 and my old lab gets stiffed out of a customer because they were reasonably priced and didn't know the secret handshake.
My wife works in a hospital that charges patients $80-120 for a couple of ibuprofen. Its broken it needed to be fixed ... unfortunately because of all of the protests and shouting and screaming from the right ... we got a half-assed watered down useless piece of legislation. If the Democrats were going to go it alone - they should have just pushed through something worthwhile ... stuff the right win scaremongering .... but they too were bought by lobbyists .... so what we got instead of a great healthcare system here in the US - was shafted .... well and truly shafted.... and life goes on - the insurance companies are happy - the lobbyists are happy - the Democrats are happy - the Republicans shout and cry that the sky is falling and the world will come to and under Obama sooner or later ... but really - none of they give a crap about you or me - they have great insurance than you very much - but please ... don't forget to vote for them .. because they shouted real loud when the time came to do something worthwhile for YOU.Last edited by jw; 05-05-10, 11:00 AM.Comment -
I especially like when leftists say: "Healthcare is a fundamental human right". Really? What about food? Food is more important, so why doesn't the state take control of food production also? What kind of sick world do we live in where you have to PAY for food, GOOD GOD.
If leftists really followed their own logic, everything would be state owned/run, but they just abritrarily draw the line in the sand between what is and isn't.Comment -
Nobody is asking them to take control ... they should be providing an alternative. Those that want to keep paying $15k per year to be covered 80% can go on doing so .. those that want in on the 100% coverage can get in on it ....
I already pay to send other peoples kids to school .. why shouldn't they pay if I get sick you can't have it only your way when it suits you.
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I have my own insurance, which I receive as part of my retirement. I pay a modest fee for this insurance ($50.00/Month). My prescriptions normally run me $10.00 for a 100 day supply. Here is how my insurance matches up to mrmarket's insurance as far as quality of service is concerned:
Walk in clinic wait times (1-2 hours weekends, 0.10-1 hour weekdays.)
Ambulance wait time 05-10 minutes
Emergency room wait time (0-3 hours weekends, 0-2 hours weekdays early, 0-2 hours later in the day). This depends on the seriousness of your condition
Urologist/Specialist wait time to see doctor 2-3 weeks after making appointment. The appointment is made at the time of diagnosis. More in demand specialists like cardiologists/oncologists take the same amount of time. To get an appointment with a specialist you have to get a consultation from another doctor. My initial consultation with my GP is the only consultation I need, and all appointments are set up at that time.
MRI 2-3 week wait time. Results are immediate, and any other necessary proceedures are performed at that time.
The time it takes to gets tests done varies from while I am at my GP, (blood tests, urine tests, and x-rays) to 2 weeks. Preliminary results are immediate. Extensive results take 7-10 days.
So I would have to say that my healthcare is much better than mrmarket's insurance. I do not know how much he pays for his coverage in the form of taxes. My wife has coverage through Medicare and a suplimental insurance company that does not charge her an extra monthly premium. Her services mirror mine. There is very little difference.
So as far as I am concerned, I am quite satisfied with my coverage. My biggest fear is that Obama and his healthcare reform bill will screw this up, and I will have to go through what mrmarket goes through.Last edited by BigdaddyQH; 05-05-10, 04:00 PM.Comment -
would Mrmarket choose to keep what he has now - or would he prefer to pay $15k US per year to be covered just 80% on all future treatments .... ?
When i was in the UK recently - I went to an ER just before I had to fly home .... I arrived around 10am Saturday morning .. I was being seen to by a doc at 10.15 and was out of there with a prescription by 10.30 .... cost to me - nothing.
Can't beat it.
Had I been in the US - cost to me would have been around $200 + cost of script .. and that is after my monthly $1200 premium.Comment -
how about you do yourself a favor and lose the racial chip on your shoulder. you would be a much happier person in life. your post reminds me of a column i read the other day by Thomas Sowell (SURPRISE! He's a brotha). I'll post it here:
Amen, TS....
Slavery is a classic example. The history of slavery across the centuries and in many countries around the world is a painful history to read-- not only in terms of how slaves have been treated, but because of what that says about the whole human species-- because slaves and enslavers alike have been of every race, religion and nationality.
If the history of slavery ought to teach us anything, it is that human beings cannot be trusted with unbridled power over other human beings-- no matter what color or creed any of them are. The history of ancient despotism and modern totalitarianism practically shouts that same message from the blood-stained pages of history.
But that is not the message that is being taught in our schools and colleges, or dramatized on television and in the movies. The message that is pounded home again and again is that white people enslaved black people.
It is true, just as it is true that I don't go sky-diving with blacks. But it is also false in its implications for the same reason. Just as Europeans enslaved Africans, North Africans enslaved Europeans-- more Europeans than there were Africans enslaved in the United States and in the 13 colonies from which it was formed.
The treatment of white galley slaves was even worse than the treatment of black slaves picking cotton. But there are no movies or television dramas about it comparable to "Roots," and our schools and colleges don't pound it into the heads of students.
The inhumanity of human beings toward other human beings is not a new story, much less a local story. There is no need to hide it, because there are lessons we can learn from it. But there is also no need to distort it, so that sins of the whole human species around the world are presented as special defects of "our society" or the sins of a particular race.
If American society and Western civilization are different from other societies and civilization, it is that they eventually turned against slavery, and stamped it out, at a time when non-Western societies around the world were still maintaining slavery and resisting Western pressures to end slavery, including in some cases armed resistance.
Only the fact that the West had more firepower than others put an end to slavery in many non-Western societies during the age of Western imperialism. Yet today there are Americans who have gone to Africa to apologize for slavery-- on a continent where slavery has still not been completely ended, to this very moment.
It is not just the history of slavery that gets distorted beyond recognition by the selective filtering of facts. Those who go back to mine history, in order to find everything they can to undermine American society or Western civilization, have very little interest in the Bataan death march, the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire or similar atrocities in other times and places.
Those who mine history for sins are not searching for truth but for opportunities to denigrate their own society, or for grievances that can be cashed in today, at the expense of people who were not even born when the sins of the past were committed.
An ancient adage says: "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." But apparently that is not sufficient for many among our educators, the intelligentsia or the media. They are busy poisoning the present by the way they present the past.
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I have a problem with the free healthcare of my country. The last 20 years I've been to the doctor twice, and both were 30 minutes things. I would guess the average citizen has spent about 100 times more than what I have on healthcare cost, fair? I don't think so.Comment -
I'm not a moron. Your post which I'll quote again
So kids are responsible for their own healthcare, right?
My point is there are families that can't afford healthcare, should their kids go without or are you ok with subsidizing their healthcare?
Try to keep it civil, I don't go out of my way to insult anyone on here, try to do the same.Comment -
BigdaddyQH I have no doubt that your treatment is better than what I receive. I sincerely hope that you never suffer from an illness that puts your insurability into question however. Private insurance works fine until you start costing a company more than you are making them. I also hope that the insurance provided to you by the company you worked for never gets redacted because of financial problems facing the corporation benefit scheme.
In fact theoretically private insurance is the route to go. This is reality however and there are countless stories of companies finagling their way out of insurance contracts through loopholes brought about by the cleverly phrasing lawyers who write them. Not to mention the fact that private insurers can(did) effectively buy political clout to structure the system in their favor in the first place. You are deluding yourself if you think you live in a free market where business practices are honored for what they are. In fact most of these companies do not have sound business practices at all but practice legalized fraud when events happen to hurt their bottom line.
I do not think that socialized healthcare will ever happen in the states. Despite the common perception that Canadians and Americans are alike I think that our cultures are fundamentally different. It is mostly a generality but I believe that the concept of noblesse oblige is more ingrained in Canadian/UK/France culture whereas the USA has a fundamentally selfish culture. And no I am not knocking Americans, I am simply stating that we are different societies each with its own pros and cons. I am also always happy to read different perspectives on healthcare.Comment -
... sure they do .. I know plenty about healthcare .. the difference between me and you however is that I have lived in three different countries and experienced three types of healthcare .. therefore I feel qualified to comment on it - you on the other hand appear to like to try and belittle people who can actually bring something to the conversation. Republican by any chance?
"Average family health insurance policy: $13,375, up 5%"
I'm self employed here in the US ... when did you last shop for insurance ... ? What did you pay?Comment -
I'm gettin' fucin sick of America.Comment -
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
now what's funny to me about this whole argument is this sentence secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity
if your ancestors didn't sign it your not party to it
Last edited by gwiz; 05-05-10, 09:52 PM.Comment -
JW is distorting some facts and outright lying about others to try and make his case that socialized medicine is better than our current system.or would he prefer to pay $15k US per year to be covered just 80% on all future treatments .... ?
My wife and I are in our mid 40's and we have 2 children and the monthly premium totals slightly over $1,000/month for the 4 of us (this includes the many rate increases that have taken place in the last few years).
People with medical insurance will NOT be bankrupted in the event of illness no matter how complex the medical treatment required.
Our policy has a $500 annual deductible and a $2,000 annual copayment (policy pays 80% of the first $10,000 and 100% of the balance). Any member of my family could amass a $1,000,000 medical bill and our total out of pocket expense would be limited to $2,500 maximum.
We can see any Doctor we choose for any reason we see fit.
Contrary to what some liberals have said, a medical insurance company is NOT allowed to cancel your policy if you get very sick. If you have group insurance which is guaranteed issue, the medical insurance company can cancel the whole group if they wish but can't single anyone out.
As I said earlier, socialized medicine is just fine for annual physicals and minor health problems. However, for complex medical care, socialized medicine is a DISASTER.
I firmly believe that the reason why the majority of people who live in countries that have adopted socialized medicine systems favor the U.S. going to such a system is because they are JEALOUS over the quality of medical care that most Americans receive.
For the 85%-90% of U.S. citizens that are covered under some form of medical insurance, a switch to socialized medicine would represent a serious reduction in the quality of medical care they receive. For the remaining 10% (the majority of which REFUSE to produce for society), socialized medicine represents an improvement over the medical care they are currently receiving.
Taking away quality medical care from the 85%-90% of Americans that have earned it in order to improve the medical care for the remaining unproductive 10% borders on INSANITY.
Unfortunately, INSANITY is just another name for the democratic party which currently resides in the White House and controls both chambers of congress.Comment -
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WHAT.IS.HEALTHCARE???
IS.THAT.A.FRENCH.WORDblog '09-'10: 37-16: +$31,900
mlb 2010; 16-12: +$4,540
gellyhoops 2010: 10-6 +$3,150
overall: 63-34 +$40,290Comment -
Please feel free to point out where I have lied.
Good for you, not all policies are made equal ... and not all people would qualify for a policy that caps the annual or total out of pocket expense. Those that can get a policy like yours should be ok - I agree .. those that can't should just curl up and die .. ?
I have a great story .... my wife works in a cancer hospital ... a colleague of hers got cancer .... great right - they are covered 100% if they can be treated "in house" ... well it was great - until the company decided after a couple of months that they had to let him go as he had no more sick time left and had used all of his vacation time.
So now he has Cancer - he is without insurance, and while he lies there dying - he is racking up $80-100k of debt each day that his family will get the bill for after he dies .... God bless the current system ...
.. and as I said earlier - the government should be looking to provide an opt-in system for those that want it ... for those - like you - that are happy paying your $1000 per month premiums .... you can go on paying .... I will continue to pay for your childrens education from my tax dollars, if you agree to pay for my health insurance .. deal .... ? Or is the "using tax money for things that you don't believe in" thing only going to work one way with you?
Your belief is wrong. Get out in the world and ask people instead of trying to pass off your beliefs as fact
As has been proved many times .. even on this thread a couple of times - American Healthcare is not the best in the world .. it is not even close - it is not even in the top 10 - in fact it ranks well below an awful lot of countries that have socialized medicine .. I've experienced it ... I know it to be true ... is this another one of your beliefs that you just made up to support your argument.?Comment -
I agree - too much like hard work - but as is normally the case - if they have read something, seen it on TV, or heard it from Palin's mouth - then it must be true .... so they figure if they just shout louder than everyone else around them .. they win.
... anyways - I've rattled enough cages here with my Liberal craziness ... I'll respectfully bow out of this thread now.
Actually it went better than i thought - i was waiting for the "If you don't like it ... go back to where you're from" crowd to have been in here by now
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Good Lord!!!
Buzzy is alive afterall.Comment -
ok i'll try to make this as concise as i can. people that can't afford to have kids, shouldn't have kids. but i guess that's an unrealistic goal. i'm completely against government subsidies in any form. welfare is NOT the same thing as charity. welfare is the government stealing from one person to give to another. having the authority to steal from individuals is not some noble practice that we should champion and cheer for like these mindless socialists. it's immoral and unconstitutional. you can come up with all the what ifs you want to, it doesn't change that underlying fact.Comment
