Dave wrote:
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:26:28 -0800 (PST), said:

The U.S. delivers billions of dollars of free health care to low-
income people... the problem is that much of it is "delivered" via
emergency rooms & tertiary care centers, very very inefficient. And
since it also unreimbursed, the provider has to charge everybody else
more, or go out of business (it's happening... about a dozen big-city
emergency rooms have closed their doors in the past year).

In a way that's what happens up here, we pay pretty high taxes on
everything we consume, particularly high on gasoline, tobacco and booze.
Those with any sort of decent income also get to pay a particularly
regressive form of tax called a "Health Care Surcharge", introduced by
our LIBERAL provincial government a few years ago. For a single mother
of two, earning 30k it's about 600 bucks extra on her provincial income
tax, an increase of around 30%, for someone reporting 500k, it maxs out
at 1200, a very small increase: Sound fair to you? Further to the point,
since everybody is going to get health care, it behooves the Provinces
to deliver it to the indigent in a pro-active, preventative manner.

The Feds pay for the biggest chunk of the health care bill, they
transfer billion to the provinces specifically earmarked for health care.

Another issue is that a large percent of U.S. health-care dollars go
to pay lawsuits and insurance against lawsuits. Our legal system makes
more money off "health care" than doctors do; and we've substituted a
winner-take-all lottery for sensible standard-of-care risk management.

Interestingly, the average malpractice settlement/judgment in Canada is
higher than in the US, but we have a lot less of them.


And you will never, never, never, hear either of these issues (among
many other root problems) addressed by politicians (who are lawyers
themselves, remember) who want to "fix health care" for you.

All good points all, Doug. (What's the world coming to that I'm agreeing
with you on something.)

Add to the above the fact that for the last 65 years we've been steadily
throwing more money at doctors in the form of tax benefits and employer
subsidies that remove any incentive whatever to treat a sniffle with chicken
soup rather than a visit to the doctor's office, and you've got a recipe for
financial disaster.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here Dave, very little of your
health care dollar finds it's way into the hands of doctors, about 6%.

Cheers
Marty

"Marty" wrote in message
...
Dave wrote:
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:26:28 -0800 (PST), said:

The U.S. delivers billions of dollars of free health care to low-
income people... the problem is that much of it is "delivered" via
emergency rooms & tertiary care centers, very very inefficient. And
since it also unreimbursed, the provider has to charge everybody else
more, or go out of business (it's happening... about a dozen big-city
emergency rooms have closed their doors in the past year).

In a way that's what happens up here, we pay pretty high taxes on
everything we consume, particularly high on gasoline, tobacco and booze.
Those with any sort of decent income also get to pay a particularly
regressive form of tax called a "Health Care Surcharge", introduced by our
LIBERAL provincial government a few years ago. For a single mother of two,
earning 30k it's about 600 bucks extra on her provincial income tax, an
increase of around 30%, for someone reporting 500k, it maxs out at 1200,
a very small increase: Sound fair to you? Further to the point, since
everybody is going to get health care, it behooves the Provinces to
deliver it to the indigent in a pro-active, preventative manner.

The Feds pay for the biggest chunk of the health care bill, they transfer
billion to the provinces specifically earmarked for health care.

Another issue is that a large percent of U.S. health-care dollars go
to pay lawsuits and insurance against lawsuits. Our legal system makes
more money off "health care" than doctors do; and we've substituted a
winner-take-all lottery for sensible standard-of-care risk management.

Interestingly, the average malpractice settlement/judgment in Canada is
higher than in the US, but we have a lot less of them.


And you will never, never, never, hear either of these issues (among
many other root problems) addressed by politicians (who are lawyers
themselves, remember) who want to "fix health care" for you.

All good points all, Doug. (What's the world coming to that I'm agreeing
with you on something.)

Add to the above the fact that for the last 65 years we've been steadily
throwing more money at doctors in the form of tax benefits and employer
subsidies that remove any incentive whatever to treat a sniffle with
chicken
soup rather than a visit to the doctor's office, and you've got a recipe
for
financial disaster.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here Dave, very little of your
health care dollar finds it's way into the hands of doctors, about 6%.

Cheers
Marty


Dave is blaming the doctors of course!

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 23:08:55 -0800, "Capt. JG"
said:

Add to the above the fact that for the last 65 years we've been
steadily
throwing more money at doctors in the form of tax benefits and employer
subsidies that remove any incentive whatever to treat a sniffle with
chicken
soup rather than a visit to the doctor's office, and you've got a
recipe
for
financial disaster.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here Dave, very little of your
health care dollar finds it's way into the hands of doctors, about 6%.

Cheers
Marty


Dave is blaming the doctors of course!

Not at all. If the politicians want to throw money at the doctors I don't
fault the doctors for saying "thank you very much" and sticking the cash
in
their pockets.

Without going into a lengthy history lesson, the point is that we have for
a
long period of time treated medical services differently from other
services
by removing all incentives for the person making the purchasing decision
to
weigh cost against benefit. When the cost to the decision maker of
acquiring
any goods or services goes to near zero, the quantity demanded is going to
go up, and the price increase. It's a classic example of unintended
consequences of the politician's mantra "I'm gonna give you something and
somebody else is gonna pay for it."


I don't think this is applicable. For one thing, you don't have much choice
if you're sick and poor. Secondly, we (as a society) pay much more if
someone doesn't have regular heathcare and has to "opt" for emergency care
only.


--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

Capt. JG wrote:
services
by removing all incentives for the person making the purchasing decision
to
weigh cost against benefit. When the cost to the decision maker of
acquiring
any goods or services goes to near zero, the quantity demanded is going to
go up, and the price increase. It's a classic example of unintended
consequences of the politician's mantra "I'm gonna give you something and
somebody else is gonna pay for it."


I don't think this is applicable. For one thing, you don't have much choice
if you're sick and poor. Secondly, we (as a society) pay much more if
someone doesn't have regular heathcare and has to "opt" for emergency care
only.



Exactly my point, as I said a few posts ago " Further to the point,
since everybody is going to get health care, it behooves the Provinces
to deliver it to the indigent in a pro-active, preventative manner."


Cheers
Marty

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 12:59:48 -0800, "Capt. JG"
said:

When the cost to the decision maker of
acquiring
any goods or services goes to near zero, the quantity demanded is going
to
go up, and the price increase. It's a classic example of unintended
consequences of the politician's mantra "I'm gonna give you something
and
somebody else is gonna pay for it."


I don't think this is applicable.

I know, Jon. You seem to be among those who insist that whatever their
favorite hobby horse is, the laws of supply and demand don't apply to a
horse of that color.


Apparently, you don't, since you chopped out the rest of the response...
here it is again:

For one thing, you don't have much choice if you're sick and poor.
Secondly, we (as a society) pay much more if someone doesn't have
regular heathcare and has to "opt" for emergency care only.

Nothing to do with supply and demand here.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 11:19:40 -0800, "Capt. JG"
said:

For one thing, you don't have much choice if you're sick and poor.
Secondly, we (as a society) pay much more if someone doesn't have
regular heathcare and has to "opt" for emergency care only.

Nothing to do with supply and demand here.

I'm sure that if you thought about that for a minute even you would
recognize the absurdity of that statement.


Just like you recognize the absurdity of what you typed...

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

Dave wrote:

Dave is blaming the doctors of course!

Not at all. If the politicians want to throw money at the doctors I don't
fault the doctors for saying "thank you very much" and sticking the cash in
their pockets.

I don't think the Government is throwing money at doctors at all, you're
missing the point; doctors are only getting 6% of the health care
dollar. There's huge chunks going to a bloated administrative system,
probably even vaster amounts going to the legal system and all the
people employed therein busy suing the **** out each other, this is
perhaps somewhat euphemistically called "Malpractice Insurance".

Without going into a lengthy history lesson, the point is that we have for a
long period of time treated medical services differently from other services
by removing all incentives for the person making the purchasing decision to
weigh cost against benefit. When the cost to the decision maker of acquiring
any goods or services goes to near zero, the quantity demanded is going to
go up, and the price increase. It's a classic example of unintended
consequences of the politician's mantra "I'm gonna give you something and
somebody else is gonna pay for it."

Funny, it doesn't seem to work that way in the rest of the
industrialized world; we (they} know that health care is not free and is
being paid for by our taxes. As I pointed out in a previous post, the
US already spends more per capita than the rest of the G8, you've just
got to figure out a way to spend the *SAME* amount of money and deliver
health care to everyone. It's been done by lots of other countries, so
it's possible.

Cheers
Marty

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:08:07 -0500, Marty said:

Not at all. If the politicians want to throw money at the doctors I
don't
fault the doctors for saying "thank you very much" and sticking the cash
in
their pockets.

I don't think the Government is throwing money at doctors at all, you're
missing the point; doctors are only getting 6% of the health care
dollar. There's huge chunks going to a bloated administrative system,
probably even vaster amounts going to the legal system and all the
people employed therein busy suing the **** out each other, this is
perhaps somewhat euphemistically called "Malpractice Insurance".

You miss the point. The question is not whether the money we're throwing
at
medicine is going to the doctors, the nurses, the hospital administrators,
or any of the other cast of characters in your play. The issue rather is
that the decision to spend the money for a particular doctor's visit,
X-ray,
"procedure" or other item is being made in most instances by someone with
no
financial stake in that decision. If you stand on the corner and hand out
free candy bars, people are going to eat a lot of candy, but either you're
gonna run out of candy very quickly or you'll have to stop handing the
candy
out for free.


Potentially being dead isn't a financial stake??

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 11:20:21 -0800, "Capt. JG"
said:

You miss the point. The question is not whether the money we're throwing
at
medicine is going to the doctors, the nurses, the hospital
administrators,
or any of the other cast of characters in your play. The issue rather is
that the decision to spend the money for a particular doctor's visit,
X-ray,
"procedure" or other item is being made in most instances by someone
with
no
financial stake in that decision. If you stand on the corner and hand
out
free candy bars, people are going to eat a lot of candy, but either
you're
gonna run out of candy very quickly or you'll have to stop handing the
candy
out for free.


Potentially being dead isn't a financial stake??

If I have a runny nose when I come in from the cold I should immediately
make a doctor's appointment because it might be a deadly form of
pneumonia?


Do you have health insurace?

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 13:43:36 -0800, "Capt. JG"
said:

If I have a runny nose when I come in from the cold I should immediately
make a doctor's appointment because it might be a deadly form of
pneumonia?


Do you have health insurace?

No. Nor do most Americans. Like most, I have a plan for prepayment of
medical expenses, in my case through my employer. If I want to go see a
doctor about that sniffle, the cost to me individually of that particular
visit is extremely small. That's the problem with the system. A system of
insurance, as opposed to tax subsidized prepayment, would, I suggest, do a
great deal toward reducing overall costs of the system.


Ah, so you have a plan, an employer, and a living wage. Unlike people who
are poor and children, you have choices. Not much of humanitarian I take it.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com