"BAR" wrote in message
...
Chuck Gould wrote:
On Feb 1, 9:24 am, BAR wrote:
Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
Chuck Gould wrote:
On Feb 1, 6:43?am, John H. wrote:
Scary ****.
http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php
--
John H
Almost begins to rival this:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...lth-care_N.htm
Chuck,
We need to find a way that everyone has access to healthcare insurance,
but Canada is not a system we want to emulate.
People need to figure out how they are going to pay for their own health
care. I have to pay for mine. In fact I usually end up spending more
that $12,000 per year out of pocket for mine and my family's health
care.
Socialized or single payer systems are just a fast track to rationing of
health care.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Rationing?
The current US system is also highly rationed. The rich have access to
the best available care. The poor have no to very-limited access.
The rich has access to the best available food, cars, houses, clothes, ...
I actually have a plan. We stop trying to deliver public health care
through private practice. We would set up a "pretty good" system of
public health clinics and hospitals across the country. No, there
wouldn't be private rooms, and nobody would take up a bed for
cosmetic plastic surgery or vacuuming away body fat. Some of the most
advanced heart transplant or other surgeries might not be available. A
few people might die for lack of the most exotic or heroic treatments,
but we would provide a basic level of care and repair to all comers.
Think of it as a public school, not actually intended to be the very
finest education available to anybody anywhere with any amount of
money to spend, but better than adequate for most and much better than
nothing for all.
It will devolve to rationing. The problem you have is you can't control
all of the costs. What are you going to do about salaries for the doctors,
nurses, administration staff? You will have a hard time controlling the
cost of living for one. What are fuel costs going to do to your ability to
get supplies at an acceptable cost?
If restricting access to the most ridiculously expensive medical
procedures sounds heartless, it might be. But at what point do we draw
the line? Let's assume that somebody develops a bang-on, foolproof,
absolutely 100% effective sure cure for any type of cancer. Only
problem, it relies on some ridiculously expensive rare metals and
treatment can't be administered for less than $10-12mm per patient.
Does society step up and spend $12mm in public funds to cure the
cancer of a 90-year old diabetic also suffering from kidney failure
and heart disease? Most medical ethicists would probably agree, "no".
Restricting equals rationing.
To preserve freedom of choice in the marketplace, "boutique" level
health care would also be available for those who chose to pay for it.
Insurance companies could sell policies to provide more personalized
service and fund the $500,000 heart/lung transplants and other
exceptional cases. Those willing to pay could have luxury suites,
gourmet menus, etc etc etc. The sky would be the limit.
You are proposing a two tier system. The haves and the have nots.
I have no problem allowing those with the means and desire to buy a
premium level of health care over and above what is available through
the proposed public system. That's what the patient in John's video
did, except then he decided to sue the Province to try to get the
taxpayers to reimburse him for the expense associated with his
prioritized treatment. That's not so different from deciding that
Harvard offered a better education than Local State U, going there to
get a degree, and then suing your home state for a refund representing
the difference in tution.
You want to bring the Canadian model to the USofA.
There's something wrong with the perspective that poor kids should be
denied access to decent health care (as in Texas, where a full 30% of
workers have no health insurance and the state doesn't put up the 28-
cents required to get 78-cents in Federal money for kids health).
There's something wrong with a system that causes middle class men
approaching and/or entering retirement to view the kids and the truly
indigent as "competitors" for health care.
You confuse access and insurance. Everyone has access to health care,
however, some lack the ability to pay for that access. You propose to pay
for that access with my money.
Split the system. Basic, decent, public care adequate to sustain the
general health of the poor or those who choose not to pay for anything
more exotic, and traditional private practice for folks who want the
best health care money (a lot of it) can buy.
Won't work. The basic system will fall apart as soon as you allow the
"boutiques" to exist.
The free market is the best solution, you pay as you go.
What needs to be fixed is the Worker's Comp system. Limited pool of money
to treat those entitled with the result being that those needing care are
denied.
There needs to be rational rationing. 80% of a persons medical costs are
incurred in the last couple of years of life. Our neighbors mom is 89 years
old, some Alzheimer, bad heart, etc. She has probably cost the system a
million dollars in the last year. In and out of the hospital, lots of
heroic measures to keep her going. She is not going to improve. Many years
ago the then Governor of Colorado made a statement about the old should
leave the living to the young. Great stink raised about it, but my mother,
who was and still is an RN, supported the Governor 100%. At the time she
was a nurse in old folks home. Lots of those who were eating with their
fingers and completely senile. A little like Harry. We mostly do not let
our animals digress to that stage. There is a point to just give comfort
and not use everything available to keep them alive. My mom is 93, and
luckily very healthy and still functioning brain, but she would come back
and haunt me if I went to huge expense and trouble to prolong her life 6
months or so if she fell ill. He friend Betty who died a couple of years
ago. For an extra 3 weeks of life, the hospital bill is about $250k. Her
insurance and Medicare paid bills, but was a rather senseless expenditure.