On 3/19/10 7:58 AM, Eisboch wrote:
wrote in message
m...
On 3/19/10 7:14 AM, Eisboch wrote:
wrote in message
m...

If you are indigent, and turn up at a for-profit hospital with a serious
condition, the best you can hope for is short-term stabilization, the
cheapest course of treatment, and a short supply of the cheapest drugs.
You are not going to see the high-dollar docs, either.

Conservatives have been perpetuating this myth of "they have to take
you"
for decades, as if that means the indigent will get good care. Well,
they
don't...they get the band-aid level of care for their chronic
conditions.



I think the concern is that with a government regulated and mandated
health
care system, the quality of *all* care will trend to that which you have
described.

Before you jump, understand this: Universal health care is something I
support.
It's one of the few liberal leanings that I have. But, here's one
problem
as I see it:

Regardless of how fair and standardized health care becomes, there will
always be
more expensive doctors and optional treatments/services for those who can
afford to pay for them.

When it comes to life or death, how can anyone rationalize that those who
can afford
non-standardized treatments deserve to benefit from them while others can
not?

The debate will start all over again.

Eisboch




If we cannot extend full Medicare to everyone, then I favor the Swiss
system...a number of insurance companies offering a basic plan. All Swiss
must have a basic plan. If you can't afford it, it is subsidized. All the
basic plans provide the same coverage at the same price. Each basic plan
also offers a number of options for those who want them and can afford
them. Thus, and this is a made up example, if you need cancer surgery, you
get it under the basic plan. If you want bigger teats, and the "want" is
only for cosmetic reasons, you have to have one of the supplemental plans
if you want insurance coverage for it.

Frankly, I think the "free market system" is dead. These days, it only
works for the wealthiest. It used to work for everyone willing to work.
Those days are gone.


Cosmetic surgery should *always* be extra .... although the case can be
made
by some (and probably will) that every woman has the right to big boobs.

I am not talking about this. I am talking about life threatening
conditions.
If better doctors and expensive, non-standardized treatments are available
only to the rich who can afford them, how do you rationalize that those who
can't
pay for them cannot have the same opportunity to live?

Eisboch





There are cases where cosmetic surgery should *not* be extra.

I think you missed the point of how the Swiss handle it. There's no
differentiation...there's just some options you can pay for that provide
things like...fully private rooms, purely cosmetic surgery, et cetera.

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