If socialized medicine is so great then name....

[jointpleasures]

Canada in a nutshell.

Soo much potential - but uncoachable.

I've come to the conclusion that many of the canadian people have 'just given up'. These people have been programmed to be more than satisfied with a small house built on a hay field, a old 14 foot aluminum fishing boat with a '66 evinrude 8 h.p. motor.

America could help nurse that crippled country back to where at least you could feel a heartbeat but, they what to die. We help every country in the world. Don't be ashamed Canada to ask us compassionate conservative Americans for help.

Canada's drug exportation to America is big business - for them.

 

[John_Kerry]

My wife gets to go to the emergency room just because she had an upset stomach and she doesnt even have a job. She gets to visit the emergency room over an upset stomach because she was lucky enough to inherit several hundred million dollars.

Meanwhile, there are single mothers working 3 jobs who cant go to the emergency room when they are very sick because they dont have the money and cant afford to miss work.

Surely anyone can see that this system is injust.

 

[UncleMoneybags]

www.simplecare.com

A good alternative for someone with little or no insurance. They don't have doctors everywhere but are constantly adding as word spreads. There are also doctors not involved in any of these types of systems that will discount their services for cash up front. A little elbow grease beforehand is all that is needed.

 

[xpanda]

I am flabbergasted to read that your health insurance premiums do not come with a risk assessment process that includes physicals. What's the point, then? If the cost of insurance is going to based largely on age and history, then the risk is not being managed at all. Could this be why carriers drop people with semi-regularity?

 

[GAMEFACE]

No one is turned away from the emergency room in America by law they have to be seen.

 

[xpanda]

I know that, and it has nothing to do with my post about risk assessment and the lack of HMO loyalty. It is true, isn't it, that if your employer pays your insurance and you have, say, diabetes, that you would be hard-pressed to find a new insurance company, if you change jobs, to cover your diabetes??

Some things make better monopolies ... and the more I read of the US system (especially it's astoundingly higher cost to the taxpayer than any other socialised system) the more I'm convinced it's actually more efficient when centrally planned.

Canada pays 9.1% of its GDP to health care, and everyone is covered. (Doctor shortage notwithstanding -- I dont consider this to be a funding issue, but a bureaucratic protectionist issue of the Doctor's unions. A stroke of the pen could fix it.) The US pays 13% (2000 data) and it only covers 30% of the population. The rest of the $ comes out of your pocket. At the end of the day, our life expectancies and recovery rates from illness are the same. There's something really wrong there -- you're not getting what you pay for.

 

[Oceans11]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by xpanda:

Some things make better monopolies ... and the more I read of the US system (especially it's astoundingly higher cost to the taxpayer than any other socialised system) the more I'm convinced it's actually more efficient when centrally planned.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You're learning Honeypie.

The real world. The world we live in.
Not some pile of horseshit booktheory.

Other areas worth noting are cash rich restricted monopolies like gas/electric and water.
Even the phone system and postal system are another couple of little earners that the burgers and fries brigade should be kept well away from.

Private companies 'cherrypick' to derive the best return, they don't 'provide essential services'.

Huge numbers of people had decent jobs and good pensions in the UK in these industries before they were privatised.
They are self supporting, and the money that people earned in them goes straight back into the system, lubricating the economy.
Any 'profit' can be reinvested or shunted into the non profit bits, like health.

Once industries like that get privatised, cash gets hoovered out of society into the private bank accounts of the already wealthy, and from industries that have no genuine risk in the first place.

 

[xpanda]

Don't get too excited, there, eek. I'm not necessarily against the free-market version, either. I just recognise, unlike a few of these posters, that the US does not employ the free-market version.

Of course, in the FM version, one has to concede that the un-insured MUST be forced to pay out-of-pocket for services or the system runs the risk of creating artificial demand. While I think I understand all of P's arguments for the pro-capitalist model, it's really hard to reconcile the idea that our society may well end up letting people die needlessly, unless charitable hospitals pop up. I would also state that this employer-pays-for-it system is horrible and unacceptable in a society where people change careers 7 times in their lives, but illnesses like diabetes or arthritis don't go away.

But ... I do think I favour our systems, warts and all. It's reasonably efficient and definitely humane at the same time. Seems to be the only one that is.

 

[UncleMoneybags]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The US pays 13% (2000 data) and it only covers 30% of the population. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That # will be 50% real soon.

Medicare and Medicaid should be scrapped. They take $84 out of my check every month when I pay about that much for 4-5 months of premiums for better coverage.

Prevention is the best medicine not unfettered access to medical care. I don't know what my plan would do if people like me take the cash disbursement and procure other means of insurance. Those that are chronically visiting the ER will get

. Maybe that help change their habits (knock on wood)

 

[PimpinAintEasyBros]

That's all well and good but which sportsbook has the best Teaser odds? That's what I need to knows right here.