Who will read the Health Care Bill ??

[KevinW]

Originally Posted by cobra de capell

And where has this system worked out so far, Russia, England, or Germany? People who can afford the best still come to the US for the best health care.

You quoted England, so i'll reply.

You've missed the point:

Yes, the US has a world-leading track record for innovation and technological development in healthcare. This is inarguable.

However, if you dont have the resources to fund the care, then this care is denied. (As a foreigner, if i got this wrong, please correct me)

This is the central issue of tax-based vs insurance/privately funded schemes.

In the UK, the policy of successive governments regardless of political doctrine, is that its better to deliver the best that a tax-based system can offer an individual, without regard to his/her ability to pay, rather than to deny care.

One further point: until a few years ago until local laws were tightened, europe (spain in particular) entertained a small band of US health tourists, because tax-based healthcare offered 'free' potentially lifesaving treatment, that these individuals had no means to fund in their home country.

While its easy to scoff and ridicule when you are healthy and earning good $$$$, you will have a totally different perspective when your policy fails to pay out on treating the complications and long term chronic needs that inevitably occurr when you are in the 65+ group.

It is this group, no longer earning, that actually represents the greatest burden of any western healthcare system (~85% of total resources in the uk), however so funded. How to treat, with dignity, those in their twilight years is the central issue that any policy-maker has to wrestle with.

[427sharpe]

Originally Posted by KevinW

Yes, the US has a world-leading track record for innovation and technological development in healthcare. This is inarguable.

...is that its better to deliver the best that a tax-based system can offer an individual, without regard to his/her ability to pay, rather than to deny care.

Kevin; welcome to the debate. As I am sure you might have noticed, sometimes tempers flare a bit, but I am sure intentions are pure. I quoted 2 bits of text above that are central to the debate here, I think. We have the best track record for innovation and technological advancement. Agreed.
The second bit is telling...I emboldened the part of interest.
I don't want the 'best a tax based system can offer'..I want the best I can afford, period. The problem from here is that 'the best tax based system' requires the intrusion of the government into healthcare. From our perspective the government is absolutely unequipped to administer trash collection, much less life or death decisions. While it can be argued that both sides have some merit, after living with our governments intrusions for a lifetime I believe unequivocally that the negatives outweigh any and all positives for this type of system by a vast margin. This belief is confirmed by even a casual examination of our one government run healthcare system; the Veterans Administration Hospitals. I am sure there are plenty of horror stories at google-tip for you.
Thank you for participating!

[4RE KLR]

Originally Posted by 427sharpe

From our perspective the government is absolutely unequipped to administer trash collection, much less life or death decisions. !

Amen to that!

[KevinW]

Originally Posted by 427sharpe

Kevin; welcome to the debate. As I am sure you might have noticed, sometimes tempers flare a bit, but I am sure intentions are pure. I quoted 2 bits of text above that are central to the debate here, I think. We have the best track record for innovation and technological advancement. Agreed.
The second bit is telling...I emboldened the part of interest.
I don't want the 'best a tax based system can offer'..I want the best I can afford, period. The problem from here is that 'the best tax based system' requires the intrusion of the government into healthcare. From our perspective the government is absolutely unequipped to administer trash collection, much less life or death decisions. While it can be argued that both sides have some merit, after living with our governments intrusions for a lifetime I believe unequivocally that the negatives outweigh any and all positives for this type of system by a vast margin. This belief is confirmed by even a casual examination of our one government run healthcare system; the Veterans Administration Hospitals. I am sure there are plenty of horror stories at google-tip for you.
Thank you for participating!

Thanks for the post, and as i said earlier, happy to stand corrected wherever i am factually wrong. I completely agree with the problems associated with state-centralisation of resources (or centralisation of anything else for that matter). As i said before, our system aint perfect by a long way. And i completely understand the desire to purchase the best care you can afford - the same is available in the uk - we have a variety of different private hospitals and private wings within nhs hospitals for those wishing to pay privately, and a variety of insurance/privately funded/ employer-funded schemes that fund these - so in parts, maybe not that different.

Three parts i'm still unclear about from the posts:

- care is never denied, but this seems to mainly refer to trauma, RTAs etc. (quite possible i missed something). The stories we here on this side is when insurance schemes run out of funding for the complicated follow-ups - long terms meds/dressings, repeat chemo drugs, need for home-based oxygen long term, the kind of thing needed for chronic conditions. This is the part that really costs, regardless of funding mechanism, and something which is really hard to set up a realistic cost estimate for a particular individual in advance.

- i beleive you need FDA approval for any procedure/treatment before reimbursement can be authorised? again, correct me if im wrong. but i beleive there are a lot of times that fda is very slow to authorise this (eg cardiac PET scans). This represents, i think, a similar impediment to access to state of the art care as our own 'NICE' institution, which has taken a huge wrap for the apparant random way it decides on authorized treatments, and is one of the sources of the problems in some of the cases posted above.

- how is provision made for those without the ability to pay for the best? do they still get the best the us has to offer?

Id be interested to read any comments on this aspect. and let me add im not here to wave the 'state control' flag or suggest the us should adopt a sate-funded system - its none of my business, im a foreginer. but england was mentioned in the rhetoric, so i decided to pitch in and try and add a little balance.

Kevin

- and, just to respond to the man with the 'socialist' issues, here is a link to my gallery on the UK cobraclub website. I am a well known UK member, same user name as here.

http://www.cobraclub.com/gallery/sho...php/photo/5329 (car riding a little high at the time)
lots of other pics there. (in fact car sold on Fri to make way for a more authentic project with FE + Toploader box)

[cobra de capell]

Interesting questions, but let's face it - our health care system is not perfect, but it appears to be a lot better than the British system, especially in the areas that are covered by your questions - so why question our system?

While Congress and the Administration are scrambling to draft a catastrophic overhaul of our healthcare system, now more than ever is the time to step back and take a look at how citizens have fared in other countries under the guise of "free" healthcare.

Government-run healthcare systems in other countries are a painful example of how good intentions can produce dire results. Canadian, British, and European government-run health systems delay and ration care for citizens, limit access to cutting-edge diagnostic services and medications, and result in poor quality medical care, all while costs skyrocket.

It is no secret that there are tragically long waiting periods for patients to receive treatment in Canada and Great Britain. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, 827,429 Canadians are awaiting some type of procedure, while 1.8 million people in England await hospital admission or outpatient treatment. At one point, waiting periods were so bad in Canada, that in 2005 Canadian citizens, fed up with being prohibited by law from seeking private care, took the matter to the highest court in Canada.

The high court found in favor of the plaintiffs, stating: "The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public healthcare system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public healthcare. The evidence also demonstrates that the prohibition against private health insurance and its consequence of denying people vital healthcare result in physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness."

In an attempt to avoid long waiting periods in Great Britain, the National Health Service (NHS) instituted "targets" using a carrot and stick approach with hospitals that have further exacerbated the decline of quality healthcare for all Britons.

This month the Daily Telegraph reported that emergency room patients suspected of having cancer are forced to the back of the line. These sometimes critical emergency patients do not "count" towards the targets as do other cancer patients referred by GPs and are therefore subjected to longer and often painful waiting periods.

This past spring the Daily Telegraph cited a report by Britain's Healthcare Commission regarding the conditions at Staffordshire hospitals where between 400 and 1200 more patients died than expected during a three year period. According to the Daily Telegraph the investigation found "overstretched and poorly trained nurses who turned off equipment because they did not know how to work it, newly qualified doctors left to care for patients recovering from surgery at night, patients left for hours in soiled bedclothes, reception staff expected to judge how seriousness of patients arriving at A&E (emergency rooms), patients left without food or drink, others who received the wrong medication or none at all, blood and faeces left on lavatories and floors, and doctors diverted away from seriously ill patients in order to treat minor ones who were in danger of breaching the four hour waiting time target."

Snip....

The elderly, obese and those with unhealthy lifestyles also have the propensity to be denied treatment in Great Britain, according to a survey by Doctor magazine cited by the Daily Telegraph. According to the survey, British doctors are "calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives." According to the Daily Telegraph

Snip.....

If you are old and have cancer, you are even worse off under the British healthcare system. According to a report cited by the Daily Mail, 15,000 elderly die each year unnecessarily from cancer because focus is directed mainly to patients under 75 years of age.

Those under the age of 75 diagnosed with cancer, don't fare much better. According to The Times, in 2005 bureaucratic red tape denied over 20 licensed cancer treatments to British cancer patients, with another 23 treatments awaiting appraisal. These included treatments for breast, colon, bone marrow and lung cancer as well as non-Hodgkins lymphoma and brain tumors. Such delays can last as long as three years.

Snip.....

Because of increasing costs, British cancer patients are also denied more effective cancer-fighting drugs. In 2008 The Times highlighted the story of a 68 year old man with kidney cancer seeking to purchase a more effective drug out of pocket. He was told that if he privately purchased the drug, which promised two times the survival rate than the one administered by the government, the government would drop his healthcare coverage. The man purchased the drug anyway and is now no longer able to receive follow-up tests, treatment, etc. Another 71 year old cancer patient opted for the same thing, and was subsequently billed by the NHS £11,500 for his medical care after he was dropped by the government system. Only after the media publicized the incident did the NHS rescind the bill.

Snip....


Posted July 20,2009
http://newsblaze.com/story/200907201.../topstory.html

Yes, you were a Cobra owner and about to be one again, but the the public health system in England just want old people to die and sick people to go away - we don't want that system here.

[Dan40]

Update, RE: denied care. If a person presents at an ER with a minor problem, say a sprained ankle. The hospital is allowed to refer them to a local doc or clinic. The "poor" that use ER's as their family doctor, KNOW VERY well how the system works. If at ANY point a hospital person would say, "This is not an emergency, you should go to a local Doctor." The person knowing the system, simply says, "I have chest pains too.~" Then the ER MUST do a complete cardiac workup. BY law. So they just treat the ankle, or headache, or cut finger, or bloody nose. Much cheaper than doing the expensive and time and resource consuming cardiac exam.

[cobra de capell]

and in addition to that, lots of poor people are on Medicaid - I'm thinking that we have it covered, no reform is necessary - only some tweaking.....