Sort of a serious question… Why do many Americans believe so strongly that we should have universal healthcare considering that in the US we do not guarantee housing, food or water? Is there a reason for this?
Probably because other western democracies have shown that they can have better health outcomes for much less money. Ours is the closest to truly free market and it is the most expensive.
What is the purpose of a healthcare industry?
To maximize a population’s health while minimizing cost?
To maximize a profit?
What if they are mutually exclusive?
Perhaps this doesn’t exactly answer the question that you’re asking, but it could be that the shortcomings of our current employer-provided (primarily) health insurance are becoming increasingly apparent. It’s a huge millstone around the necks of American businesses, making it disproportionately expensive to hire additional workers. Moreover, it doesn’t much resemble a true free-market model, either - it’s not as though most workers will change jobs at the drop of a hat just because they are dissatisfied with the performance of their health insurance.
As it stands, emergency rooms can’t really turn people away because of ethical and legal issues. It would be a tremendous improvement if there were actually some source of funding for all of this - whether it be government provided, or a functioning free-market system, or anything that actually works.
for most folks food and water are a daily need - while health care is the occasional big punch in the gut -sorta like why we don’t get food insurance.
Actually we do guarantee housing, food, and clean water, at a certain level. That's what welfare does. Of course many of the people who receive it scream it's not "good enough" housing, food, or water...I suspect we will all be doing the same in regards to healthcare in a few years. ;)
Probably because other western democracies have shown that they can have better health outcomes for much less money.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA…from someone who has NO IDEA how the system works. I would explain the MANY reasons you are dead wrong…but that would require days and days.
But if you could…can you please tell me how many other countries have patients who are looking to sue a doctor for anything and everything - even if the doctor is not at fault? How many of these other countries have a legal system designed and ran as a “for profit” system for lawywers to ream insurance companies for the most they can? Hmmmmm…
Never claimed to be an expert but these numbers seem to suggest that I’m on the right track…
Although nearly 46 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens.In 2008, the United States will spend 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care.Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France
Perhaps insurance companies that maximize profits while minimizing health payouts have something to do with our system’s record expense?
Or is it just the ambulance chasing lawyers and their greedy clients?
Start a thread on tort reform.
This has been discussed a zillion times on ST.
Here in Canada, universal health care is our number one apple pie issue. We Canuks feel that it is a basic citizen right and are quite willing to pay for it via the tax system. Any politician that rallied against government healthcare would be booted out ASAP. So does every other western democracy and it is on the front agenda of many emerging developing countries. There was an interesting PBS show about how Taiwan has been studying the health care delivery system in the developed world and hope to adopt the best of each into their own system. The only country they didn’t look at was the USA because they didn’t think it had anything to offer.
The USA is more or less the only developed country on the planet that has allowed for profit private interests to take over. Virtually every legitimate study has shown that universal healthcare is not perfect, but is far more cost effective and effecient than when delivered by the private sector. The fact is that in the USA you have a multi-tiered system where 15-20% of the population has absolutely excellent coverage and the rest varies a range from almost adequate to no coverage at all. This type of class distinction would not be tolerated in other western democracies.
So then why is there a poster on ST who is looking for a US solution to their compartment syndrome due to the length of time that it takes to get service in Canada?
In Illinois, mostly lawyers and greedy clients. Fact. You are welcome to search ISMIE and see their take on the litigation issue. Most patients are well over treated with tests, labs and things everyone knows they just dont need…but the doc’s do them just in case the 1/1,000,000,000 odd ball thing shows up.
Plus, we just need to let some folks die, as opposed to being on pumps and heart lung machines for months…maybe some of the <1% crack babies in NICU should just be let go as opposed to spending $100,000 a day on a child that will at best be a shell of a human - in the very rare chance they even make it out of NICU (directly to cardio surgury and on and on).
Crack babies & just plain old good white folks.
Take it up with the Terri Schiavo crowd.
As it stands, emergency rooms can’t really turn people away because of ethical and legal issues. It would be a tremendous improvement if there were actually some source of funding for all of this - whether it be government provided, or a functioning free-market system, or anything that actually works.
This is my primary reason for leaning towards universal health care. Those without coverage have figured out that they can go to the ER and not be turned away (or perhaps it’s their only option), and if they canot pay the hospital eats the costs or it is made up for by other paying customers.
I’m not so much in the “universal health care” for all camp as a means of welfare and coverage, but more from a cost effective standpoint. Having the ‘dependent on the ER’ patients be able to see a family doctor earlier and possibly in a preventative measure is, based on what I have seen, a better alternative for both the patients amd those that end up paying for it.
From what I gather, the impoverished can actually be covered to medicaid type programs and programs to cover all children, but many of the uninsured are working individuals that choose not to purchase insurance due to not wanting to make financial sacrifices in order to have it (or are denied coverage because of their conditions). I am generally not a fan of insurance companies because of the inherent conflict between profit and service. I also think that in some regards, the usage of insurance companies leads to inflated prices of health care services, perhaps due to insurance companies being a “faceless entity” that is a monetary source.
For example, last year, while trimming my grass along the fence with a gas trimmer, a piece of somethiing (turned out to be a small blade of grass) struck me in the eye (Yes, I should have been wearing safety glasses, and do now). After a few hours of trying to “find it” and remove it, I ended up going to the ER “just in case” (infection, damage, etc). It was a Sunday afternoon, and the ER was empty and I was in and out in 15 minutes. My eye was rinsed with saline solution (which removed the grass particle) and I received some dye in my eye for better viewing (for cuts/damage), and also got a tetnus shot “just in case”. My bill was almost $500. Thankfully insurance covered it all. But I couldn’t get over the cost for such limited treatment. Many years ago, I had tonsilitis and stayed overnight. Some antibiotics through an IV and some prescription meds got me over it quickly, but I was stunned by some of the things on the bill … $7 for salt-water to gargle, $11 for tylenol, etc.
Crack babies & just plain old good white folks.
Take it up with the Terri Schiavo crowd.
Bad things happen to good people…who do we sue for that?
A very salient point. I have no answer. In some ways, we all have to accept that life is fragile, and the practice of medicine is not a zero-defects enterprise.
One example -
Woman - 80+ years of age, widow and grandmother. Lives in a long term facility, but not a skilled nursing environment. Slips and breaks her hip on ice
ED staff calls ortho, who confirms the woman is not only elderly, has osteoporosis but also is a smoker. Ortho offers to mend the hip with internal fixators, and will have lifetime limited mobility Patient gets IME from another source (who has never met nor seen her) - IME guy claims she is a good candidate for a total hip. Vascular and Ortho both warn the patient that she is not a good candidate for the total hip and has a high risk of complications.
Medicare gives the go ahead for a total hip - this means LONG operation, weeks in a SNIF, weeks further with PT and OT Patient has total hip replacement
Patient dies of a combo PE and other issues post surical. Family files suit against all of the medical staff and facilities…
So, Medicare (you and I as tax payers) get a huge bill for a procedure that the woman should never have had. Doctors warn over and over about her not being a good candidate…best case scenario Medicare would have paid well into the $250,000 for the woman to get a total hip, have a mediocre outcome and pass on within the next 3-5 years as the national average for life span for healthy women (granted this woman was a life long smoker).
Should Medicare have said no, or the Doctors or facility? Deny her the hip that Medicare and an IME claims she can have? And now, for their troubles - the family who was warned time and again is sueing for well over a million dollars “pain and suffering”…
Who gets to be the one to tell the family that “your grandma was a good person, and something bad happend to her”…and then be willing to put a figure on the number of tax dollars we spend on that person. Then also limit the liability the providers have if anything other than the best possible outcome happens…
I hear you- every day we hear a anecdote or 2 that’s similar. Personally, I’d not take on the risk of the total hip. Not my choice to make- I 1st assist and go home. Part of the reason I didn’t pursue MD. That PhD I’ll go after in another few years won’t carry any liability.
My view WRT the old lady is just because she CAN get the total joint, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Sadly, she’s now part of the data set of why it’s not a good idea.
…The fact is that in the USA you have a multi-tiered system where 15-20% of the population has absolutely excellent coverage and the rest varies a range from almost adequate to no coverage at all. This type of class distinction would not be tolerated in other western democracies.
Or so you think until something happens and you’re supposedly part of that 15-20%. Then suddenly it’s exclusion this and exception that and adjustments blah blah blah. It’s kind of scary that they just did a study (article below) that just looked at people who HAVE insurance - people who are supposedly covered - and all of them had problems with their insurance companies, getting them to pay. Insurance companies are a total racket, IMO.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/06/MN9T15LLN4.DTL
So then why is there a poster on ST who is looking for a US solution to their compartment syndrome due to the length of time that it takes to get service in Canada?
I always love health care debates on ST where one person trots out the Canadian model and another will counter that with some anecdote about waiting times or lack of family doctors or some other problem.
Fact: people live longer in Canada
Fact: lower infant mortality in Canada
Fact: Canadian system consistently ranked way higher than the US system
Is it perfect. Hell no. I would say that if you were to take a sliding scale and pur the best health plan in the US at 100 and the worst at zero, we would be somewhere in the low 70’s. But we are ALL in the low 70’s. Far from as good as we hope it can be, but better than nothing. I also expect that in the next 20 years we will get a little better, I don’t have the same optimism for the US system.
Anecdote: No one in my family has ever had to wait a ridiculous amount of time for any procedure. We all have family doctors. We all get regular PREVENTATIVE checkups at NO cost beyond our taxes.
Anecdote: My wife (born American) and I chose to live in Canada over the US, the deciding factor being health care.
Anecdote: Doctors make less in Canada then the US, but they still make an excellent living - and pay way way less malpractice $$$$
I would put us in the low 80’s.
My wife had a baby 2 years ago so we read a ton of books. One of them had a section about what it was going to cost for prenatal care until taking the baby home. It went on and on but ended with the one sentence that applied to us, “If you live in Canada it’s all covered by medicare”.
I’m sorry but it’s barbaric to think the level of prenatal care a baby gets could ever be determined by your income or how well your employer insures you.