Ray From Cleveland
Diamond Member
- Aug 16, 2015
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When I'm paying for it, sure I'm pissed. When I lost my healthcare insurance so some french fry maker could have insurance instead, you bet I'm pissed.
More than that is Commie Care had nothing to do with everybody being insured, it had to do with making more government dependents which it successfully did. The more government dependents--the more likely Democrat voters.
Let's put it this with with your "Commie Care".
If you lived in the UK you'd be spending HALF what you spend in the US. You might not get a better service, but you'd get a very good service. A service that is good enough, and you'd get it if you were unemployed, you'd get it if you were employed, your kids would get it, you parents would get it no matter how old they are. You'd get it when you walked in the door, no questions asked, no worrying how much it would cost or if you're going to have problems.
Now, if the UK were to increase their spending by 50% they'd have an excellent service, less corruption, however they have a conservative govt which is intent on making friends by making a private system. To pay people through corruption and to make the poorer people have worse healthcare and pay more for the privilege. Things are already going downhill and they've been in for 5 years.
That's the difference between "Commie Care" and the private care or "Corrupt Care" as it should be known.
I know which I prefer, and I've lived under countries with private health, public health and not very much health care.
Well let me tell ya, our northern borders here are loaded with Canadian patients. Why? Because their healthcare system is too poorly run and doesn't provide the quality. As a lifelong patient at the world famous Cleveland Clinic, I can testify that when you walk into that place, you're the one that feels like the foreigner. Looking around at the medical staff, you'd think you were in the UN or something.
Medical professionals from around the world come here to work in our system because it pays the best money. If you're not good enough to come here, you stay in your country where they have socialized healthcare.
Cost: the cost of our healthcare starts with our failed government systems. Medicare and Medicaid typically pay 30% less than the charges for their patients. Providers are not going to take the loss. They increase fees on everybody which of course gets transferred to our private pay and private insurance companies. Then our medical insurance skyrockets and we end up with a problem. So what was our genius solution? Start yet another government program.
There is no perfect healthcare system. Every one around the globe has some kind of problems. If it's not cost, it's that everybody can't get it. If everybody can get it, it's quality of care.
If people want a socialized system, fine with me, but everybody should pay, not just political enemies of the creators of the system. We should have a national consumption tax. The poor pay, the middle-class pay, the wealthy pay. The more you buy, the more you contribute to the system.
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Yeah, it's so bad that a MASSIVE percentage of Canadians go use the US healthcare system.
Antisense Propaganda: Percentage of Canadians using the US health care system
"the study concluded that Canada spends slightly more than half of what America does per capita for health care, yet reaches similar if not better overall results in terms of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and overall citizen health."
That's not to say that the US doesn't have some very good hospitals, and some Canadians might choose to go to the US, especially if they have a lot of money and can afford some of the best care.
However, we're not talking about the 1%ers, we're talking about the average Joe having to go to hospital.
Canada vs. US Health Care Systems - Debunking Health Care Myths - AARP
"
5 Myths About Canada’s Health Care System"
"To separate fact from fiction, Aaron E. Carroll, M.D., the director of the Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research in Indianapolis, identified the top myths about the two health care systems."
"Myth #1: Canadians are flocking to the United States to get medical care."
"I don’t deny that some well-off people might come to the United States for medical care. If I needed a heart or lung transplant, there’s no place I’d rather have it done. But for the vast, vast majority of people, that’s not happening."
"They found that more than 80 percent of these hospital visits were for emergency or urgent care (that is, tourists who had to go to the emergency room). Only about 20 percent of the visits were for elective procedures or care."
"Next, the authors of the study surveyed America’s 20 “best” hospitals — as identified by U.S. News & World Report — on the assumption that if Canadians were going to travel for health care, they would be more likely to go to the best-known and highest-quality facilities. Only one of the 11 hospitals that responded saw more than 60 Canadians in a year. And, again, that included both emergencies and elective care."
"Finally, the study’s authors examined data from the 18,000 Canadians who participated in the National Population Health Survey. In the previous year, 90 of those 18,000 Canadians had received care in the United States; only 20 of them, however, reported going to the United States expressively for the purpose of obtaining care."
Wow, 20 out of 18,000. That's like, MASSIVE.
So, I've called you bluff on that one. I think you just listen to the wrong people, people with an agenda.
Corruption in Healthcare
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/msparrow/documents--in use/Corruption in Health Care--The US Experience--TI Global Report on Corruption--2006--pp16-22.pdf
"Despite the essentially invisible nature of the problem, health care fraud in the United States was deemed sufficiently serious by the Clinton administration (based on cases revealed) that in 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno declared it America’s ‘number two crime problem’, second only to violent crime."
"‘abuse of entrusted authority’, does cover dishonest actions of physicians, hospitals and other health care professionals, who are generally afforded high social and professional status and are expected to exercise professional medical judgement unbiased by private financial interests. The majority of fraud within the system, perpetrated by medical providers, can therefore be understood as corruption under this definition."
This article gives a number of ways that corruption is prevalent in the US system.
Corruption, fraud and bureaucracy cost US healthcare system up to $272 billion annually
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Corruption, fraud and bureaucracy cost US healthcare system up to $272 billion annually"
"According to data compiled as part of a larger research project into medical corruption, the U.S. loses as much as $272 billion annually due to things like medical embezzlement and insurance billing fraud, both of which are rampant."
Medicare accounts for a lot of this fraud
"a bulk of the nation's medical fraud occurs within public sector health services like Medicare and Medicaid, which account for more than one-third of all known fraud."
"As explained in a recent piece for The Economist, nearly $100 billion in fraud takes place within the confines of Medicare and Medicaid spending, while the remaining $172 billion occurs elsewhere. "
The problem in the US is that people are on the take, because they can.
All government money ends up, at some point, in the hands of private companies, who are able to get more of this money by providing services that are not required.
In a healthcare system that is public, where money isn't being thrown around, this isn't so much of an issue. If a nurse doesn't have to make money, but just does their job, then they can't hope to defraud anyway. Doctors still could, but then their chances of providing the most costly drugs are limited because they simply give them out, they don't take part in the financial part of the job.
The US has rampant corruption for many reasons, however the biggest reason is that it's all about money, unlike most healthcare systems in the world.
Wait times
As reported by the Health Council of Canada, a 2010 Commonwealth survey found that 42% of Canadians waited 2 hours or more in the emergency room, vs. 29% in the U.S.; 43% waited 4 weeks or more to see a specialist, vs. 10% in the U.S. The same survey states that 37% of Canadians say it is difficult to access care after hours (evenings, weekends or holidays) without going to the emergency department over 34% of Americans. Furthermore, 47% of Canadians, and 50% of Americans who visited emergency departments over the past two years feel that they could have been treated at their normal place of care if they were able to get an appointment.[49]
A report published by Health Canada in 2008 included statistics on self-reported wait times for diagnostic services.[50] The median wait time for diagnostic services such as MRI and CAT scans is two weeks with 89.5% waiting less than 3 months.[50][51] The median wait time to see a special physician is a little over four weeks with 86.4% waiting less than 3 months.[50][52] The median wait time for surgery is a little over four weeks with 82.2% waiting less than 3 months.[50][53] In the U.S., patients on Medicaid, the low-income government programs, can wait three months or more to see specialists. Because Medicaid payments are low, some have claimed that some doctors do not want to see Medicaid patients. For example, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, specialists agreed to spend one afternoon every week or two at a Medicaid clinic, which meant that Medicaid patients had to make appointments not at the doctor's office, but at the clinic, where appointments had to be booked months in advance.[54] A 2009 study found that on average the wait in the United States to see a medical specialist is 20.5 days.[55]
Medical professionals
Some of the extra money spent in the United States goes to physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals. According to health data collected by the OECD, average income for physicians in the United States in 1996 was nearly twice that for physicians in Canada.[86] In 2012, the gross average salary for doctors in Canada was CDN$328,000. Out of the gross amount, doctors pay for taxes, rent, staff salaries and equipment.[87] When comparing average incomes of doctors in Canada and U.S., it should be kept in mind that malpractice insurance premiums may differ significantly between Canada and the U.S., and the proportion of doctors who are specialists differs. In Canada, less than half of doctors are specialists whereas more than 70% of doctors are specialists in the U.S.[88]
Canada has fewer doctors per capita than the United States. In the U.S, there were 2.4 doctors per 1,000 people in 2005; in Canada, there were 2.2.[89] Some doctors leave Canada to pursue career goals or higher pay in the U.S., though significant numbers of physicians from countries such as India, Pakistan and South Africa immigrate to practice in Canada. Many Canadian physicians and new medical graduates also go to the U.S. for post-graduate training in medical residencies. As it is a much larger market, new and cutting-edge sub-specialties are more widely available in the U.S. as opposed to Canada. However, statistics published in 2005 by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), show that, for the first time since 1969 (the period for which data are available), more physicians returned to Canada than moved abroad.[90]
Health care outcomes
In the World Health Organization's rankings of health care system performance among 191 member nations published in 2000, Canada ranked 30th and the U.S. 37th, while the overall health of Canadians was ranked 35th and Americans 72nd.[8][116] However, the WHO's methodologies, which attempted to measure how efficiently health systems translate expenditure into health, generated broad debate and criticism.[117]
Researchers caution against inferring health care quality from some health statistics. June O'Neill and Dave O'Neill point out that "...life expectancy and infant mortality are both poor measures of the efficacy of a health care system because they are influenced by many factors that are unrelated to the quality and accessibility of medical care".[118]
Comparison of the health care systems in Canada and the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The difference is some Canadians have to wait. In the US some people don't have to wait, they know they're not getting anything. I'm not saying Canada's healthcare is amazing. I'm saying the US has some very good, and very expensive, hospitals paid for out of a massive healthcare budget (which includes what people spend on insurance, maybe i'm not using the right term) and also it leaves many people behind.
The problem in the US is the money that is spent, doesn't equal the success it has on the overall population. A sparkling hospital might be great for those with great health insurance, but it isn't great for those who don't.
I agree 100%. But the point I tried to make is that all healthcare systems around the world have some sort of problem. If there was a perfect or near perfect system, we would all adopt it.
While there are plenty of negatives in our system, there are negatives in other systems--just different types of negatives. I talk to Canadian truck drivers all the time while waiting to get loaded or unloaded. One of the first things I ask them about is their healthcare system.
The younger and middle-aged drivers tell me their system is fantastic. They need a doctor, they see one and don't have to worry too much about insurance or advanced care. The elderly drivers? They all told me the same thing: Keep what you have in America. You don't want what we have to put up with.
The Wiki article I posted also points out something that you probably haven't thought of, and that is WE DO have socialized healthcare. We have Medicare, we have Medicaid, we have the VA, all of which have had (and still have) some major problems--particularly when it comes to funding. Commie Care? Even though the program just started, they are already having major problems such as huge premium increases and insurance companies talking about dropping out of the system already.