Health Care is not as bad as some may think

[Carlene 12]

I do not care, about any of those 13 million people.

Spoken like a true Republican. GW Bush must be so proud of you, Derick.

[ELENATION 0]

What can I say, while GW Bush is not perfect, hey who is anyway? and I may not agree with 100% with the things he has done, or they way he has done them, again, I would say that is normal, we don't have to agree on absolutely every thing, we are not robots, we are human, but overall, I do agree with him and I am a true republican and don't really care that others may not like him....I really don't...

[green 6]

Lapband surgery is not covered by our universal health care system. This is a sad business indeed and there are truly horribly long waits for the much more invasive surgeries which are covered. Indeed there was a recent case of a relatively young morbidly obese man who died while waiting for surgery. This was covered by our newspapers and was rightly called a tragedy and a wake-up call for our health system.

As for regular medical care, we are generally not required to wait for days in doctors' offices. We do, however, need to make appointments. I have always been very well served by our medical system as had my parents up to their deaths. My father had died in his mid-80s of cancer and was treated well. My mother died when she was in her late 80s but when she was in her early 80s had received a knee transplant and had been receiving hands-on care for her vulnerability to strokes/heart attack during her final decades.

Where our system is now falling down is in the arena of certain elective surgeries which ironically the overweight boomer population are demanding. It seems that knee replacement surgery is a key area where people may be required to wait and there are problems in government-funded treatments of obesity, as I have already mentioned.

And our health care system can be slow to pick up on some of the latest ground breaking techniques, another reason why you see some Canadians opting to go south of the border. But then I wonder how quickly the HMOs are ready to accept and cover the cost of those same new advances....

The other problem is one which a private care system would be unwilling to correct. Much of Canada, unlike the States, is very thinly populated. Some of our provinces number fewer residents than live in my city. It is increasingly difficult finding doctors as the old ones retire who are willing to practice in these rural areas and it certainly is not cost effective to set up major medical centres in these areas, areas which may be the size of some of your states, by the way. These people do have problems receiving the same degree of medical service as we city folk do and it may be that it is some of them who are complaining about our medical system. It is unlikely that a dollar-driven private health care system would change this problem.

Here are a few additional things which I can say about our health care system. Research was done into who are the primary and regular users of the health care system in my province (the health care systems up here, though federally mandated, are provincially run) and it was discovered that the primary users are the middle class and the elderly. The poor tend to only use the system on an emergency only basis. I found these results interesting but not all that surprising once I thought about it. I myself am a fairly heavy user of our system for a number of reasons which are too boring to go into and whenever I am in my doctor's waiting room, one which she shares with a group of other doctors, I see mothers with their children, entire families, highschool and university students, elderly people, and nicely groomed middle-aged individuals. I don't see any broke-down poor types or street psychotics. And I live in the heart of the city, not the suburbs.

The other thing which I will mention is that my brother is a doctor who used to practice medicine up here but who now works south of the border. He can't stand our climate! :heh: He has told me that his treatment of his patients is now constrained at times by the demands of the financial bottom line, something which doesn't happen up here.

And up here we read that HMOs will drop patients who have serious and expensive diseases such as heart disease, cancer, MS.... This leaves the middle class families on the hook and now they are not permitted to get out from under the financial burden by declaring bankruptcy. This never happens in those countries which have universal health care.

And of course our taxes are graduated here, just as they likely are south of the border. The rich pay more than the middle class who in turn pay more than the poor whereas the financial burden of private health insurance is not something that is on a sliding scale of cost per income.

A couple of years ago I saw figures which gave a breakdown of the cost per capita of your health care system vs the public health care systems of a number of industrialised nations. The annual cost per capita of your present health care system was approximately $2000 more than the cost of the most expensive universal health care system. It strikes me that $2000 per American per year is an enormous sum. This is the price of big business it would seem.

[green 6]

Sorry for the lengthy post but I have tried to give you an honest assessment of the good, the bad, and ugly of our health care system as I understand it.

[green 6]

While I agree with you that 13million is significant and I do care for these people, I truly do, but what I can tell you based in my own experience having been born and grown up in a country with socialized medicine is that it's much easier said than done, socialized medicine in my opinion was horrible, like I mentioned before, if you need surgery, you need to wait in line, people do die waiting.....my own grandmother was being transfered from one bed to another and the bed sheets were in bad condition and they broke and my grandmother fell on the floor and due to that, she almost died, the hospitals don't have the air conditioner running most of the times to save evergy and it's so extremely hot, patients are sweating, family members as well, they would allow family to bring their own little fans and then they stopped that too, in order to conserve energy....the lack of medications, the quality of the health care and physicians is just not good, this I guarantee you.

It sounds like you came from a third world country. Up here in Canada we do have air conditioning, central heating, and clean sheets. The same holds true of such countries as Germany, France, Sweden....

[Lucy 0]

I do not care, about any of those 13 million people. My heart does not bleed for everyone else like yours. I will stick to worrying about my family first and foremost, thank you very much.

Good luck with that. Let me know how things work out for you when you're holed up in a cabin in the woods with your stash of canned food, bottled Water, and ammunition.

[DerickM 1]

Why would I be doing that? I dare say Lucy, you are a bigot. You need help

[lindaa 1]

There are flaws in every system, and as technology creates advances in how diseases and disorders are treated and as the "entitlement" mentality grows, there is going to be more and more demand for more expensive procedures. I don't see how governments can continue to offer the level of universal health care that will be expected in the next decade.

Why should I pay for a new liver for the person who destroyed theirs by drinking? Why should I pay for a lung transplant for a smoker who refuses to quit? Why should someone else pay for my Lab Band? People have to understand what it means to be accountable for their choices. Then, and only then can I support the concept of universal health care. From my perspective, we are a long ways away from that!

[harlito 0]

<p>Insurance is a business and we have left it up to them to determine what doctors do in regards to health care. A business is only as good as the profits and that is what motivates insurance companies - the money. So complaining about bad insurance is going to go nowhere. You need to complain about the healthcare professionals for allowing it to happen. </p> <p> </p> <p>Can you honestly say that every overnight hospital stay is worth $30K or more? Should drugs that people need to live cost hundreds of dollars? Why? Should drug companies be allowed to visit doctors like a vendor selling any other product? Don't doctors know what is best for their patients or do they only go by what a patients insurance is willing to pay them? </p> <p> </p> <p>All I am saying is that it is not all up to having insurance. We need to get the costs of healthcare down and then maybe that "not-so-good" insurance will look alot better. </p> <p> </p> <p>A doctor use to be in the profession because they wanted help people - they lived to do this. Now it appears that doctors are switiching their focus or practice to whatever makes the most money. it is no longer about treating the sick it is about making the most money. </p> <p> </p> <p>Making money is all good and well but I think we have put too much focus on the insurance companies and not enough on those administering the care.</p>

I go to get a fill and get charged $150. but when I used my insurance when it was still covered they were charged $600 for the exact same procedure. Does this sound right? If they can do it for 150.00 then why charge the insurance $600? They told me they only charge a non-insured patient $150 because that is about all they would be able to get. Well... shouldn't that tell them something?

[harlito 0]

No man is an island....we all pay into the system, and we all take from it, sooner or later - us or our parents or kids, etc.

People seem to forget this.

[marnie723 0]

I am Canadian & have been living in Texas for some time now. Given the choice I will take the universal health care system anyday in Canada over the American system. We have great insurance but it still costs us money everytime we make an appointment & I always check with the insurance to see whats covered. When we were transferred here I thought the tax savings would more than make up for the health care costs but it hasn't even come close. I find it hard to believe a country as powerful as America(which I am loving living here) can have such an unfair health system. To leave your lives in the hands of insurance companies is crazy. Yes in Canada there are waits for some surgery but at least after that 6mth wait you are going to go bankrupt trying to pay your 100K$ surgury. My husbands company in the US just told the employees they will not have health care upon retirement to save $$. At least with my husband we can go back to Canada. I would be afraid to retire here in case your company goes banko or cuts off your health care at a time when you most need it. Healthcare shouldn't just be for the wealthy. And by the way....75000$ annual income isn't going to take you far if you have cancer or heart surgery.

[Lucy 0]

Why would I be doing that? I dare say Lucy, you are a bigot. You need help

I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.

[DerickM 1]

Good, I would hate to see you lying to yourself.

[DerickM 1]

Spoken like a true Republican. GW Bush must be so proud of you, Derick.

Carlene, then I suppose you would put the welfare of others over your own family? If so, explain your reasoning please.

[green 6]

There are flaws in every system, and as technology creates advances in how diseases and disorders are treated and as the "entitlement" mentality grows, there is going to be more and more demand for more expensive procedures. I don't see how governments can continue to offer the level of universal health care that will be expected in the next decade.

Why should I pay for a new liver for the person who destroyed theirs by drinking? Why should I pay for a lung transplant for a smoker who refuses to quit? Why should someone else pay for my Lab Band? People have to understand what it means to be accountable for their choices. Then, and only then can I support the concept of universal health care. From my perspective, we are a long ways away from that!

Most of health care is not about handing out replacement parts. It sounds to me like you are a very judgemental and mean-spirited individual. Anyone can get cancer or heart disease, have a stroke or be badly damaged due to a car accident or because of some other kind of bad luck. Not every seriously ill individual is a hard-drinking, morbidly obese alcoholic on welfare with a drug problem. There are a huge array of genetic and environmental factors at play, as well as blind bad luck, when it comes to who will fall seriously ill and who will not.

My ex-husband fell ill with non Hodgson's lymphoma when he was 13 years old. He was hospitalised for a year and was expected to die. He was not a smoker. He did receive radiation and chemotherapy. Chemotherapy was a brand new treatment at the time and it was this which saved his bacon. He was still undergoing preventive chemo when we were married in our early 20s. He died when he was in his mid-50s from cancer caused by the radiation which he received as a 13 year old. He was never a drinker or a smoker. His medical costs during his year long fight as a kid with cancer were covered under our system; had they not been they would have bankrupted his lower middle class parents.