Quote:
Originally Posted by Excaliber
Back to the topic at hand, HEALTH CARE REFORM:
Few, if any, around here, have actually read the 1,000 page bill. Your forming your opinions largely on what others are saying, what you percieve to be the final end product, we have little else to go on, in other words, your GUT! We don't know WHAT the end product will be yet, maybe a public option, for instance, maybe not. ---- I DO support some kind of public option!
It's clear we need some kind of Governement over sight into how health care is managed. The HMO's, drug companies, etc CANNOT be counted on to regulate themselves.
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You're willing to agree to a new health care system that nobody knows how it will turn out? Without knowing the details?
If the Government assigned spouses, would you agree to marry, for life, without ever meeting the person? If the Government institutes any plan, we are married to it for life.
The Government already significantly oversee's HMO's. It's called Medicare. Most, if not all, insurance companies use Medicare guidelines as a basis to develop their own benefit packages, because people for the most part expect that.
The FDA is a major thorn in all drug companies' side's. The US market is one of the hardest to get into because of the more extensive testing/studies required by drug companies. There are many drugs that are used in Europe for years before they are allowed to be used in the US. ? Thalidomide
Do you think we should allow the government (poilticians) to self regulate themselves? We do.
I see alot of studies/reports talking about healthcare here in the US, comparing it to other countrues. You can make any study show whatever you want it to show, and often I find it hard to find a study or essay by someone/somebody that may have real credibility, that I can really believe in.
To compare care, you must first determine a focus of attention, one that can provide credible facts that one can make a reasonable assessment and conclusion. After thinking about healthcare for a while, I thought it would be good to see how different countries treat/handle ESRD ( end stage renal disease ), people with kidney failure, who are a large population, who go on to require long term expensive medical treatment, dialysis and kidney transplants. Often, these people have other significant co-morbid conditions that often lead to their demise, and in general, they are a very sick population, often disabled, do not work, and I think would be a good test to evaluate any health care system on how effective it is in handling the very sick.
I thought this was a good essay comparing how the US and other countries treat ESRD, as well as an analysis of the associated statistics, the manipulation of them, and the relevence of them, interpreted by an expert in that field, as unbiased as I think you can get.
http://www.aakp.org/aakp-library/Com...ates-Overseas/
Basically, the conclusion is that US care of ESRD is basically superior to all other developed countries, leading in tranplantation and life expectancy in the very sick and elderly.
Do you really want another system?