Thoughts on Universal healthcare

[wilds of pa]

Good if that is the case then maybe we can all move to other counties to get jobs.. so we can afford to keep are families in homes and have insurance..

Jobs are they key to it all, if you don't see that, there is something wrong with your eyes.

You cant have a thing including insurance with out good jobs..

remember the government is suppose to work for us, we are not here to work for them.. they are to manage are tax dollars, well they are far from doing that ..right

when somebody isn't doing or cant do there job they get fired..this included all party's.

 

[wilds of pa]

These institutions contract out the filing and paperwork to India. That's not employing Americans.

Ya and so does waLmart and kmart..except they import the goods here..that could be made here as well.

so there you have it..

it all comes down to keeping jobs here..you made me feel better about saying this..

Jobs equal opportunity plain and simple..NO JOBS NO NOTHING INCLUDING INSURANCE..​

 

[Rooster8402]

UH has alot of pros and cons that is a tough question but a good one

 

[klf73]

Quote:
I only read the first page but I completely agree with Jody

I spoke to many pregnant women on a message board when I was pregnant just over a year ago. I felt bad for many women in Canada that didn't get the same things we did, not to mention the frequency (or lack thereof) of appointments.......they didn't even get to see their babies on ultrasound or get U/S pics

eta-if universal healthcare is anything like the healthcare we received while dh was in the military(which I was told is similar) I am very afraid....

 

[Dar]

Quote:
I only read the first page but I completely agree with Jody

I spoke to many pregnant women on a message board when I was pregnant just over a year ago. I felt bad for many women in Canada that didn't get the same things we did, not to mention the frequency (or lack thereof) of appointments.......they didn't even get to see their babies on ultrasound or get U/S pics

k a few thing stand out to me here...
1) I am on Ontario and I did get to see my children on an ultrasound and get the pics...with my DD I even got a video

2) frequency of care...this is a little fuzzy....but from what I remember...(my youngest is 6)..from month 1 - 6 the appointments were once a month....from 6 - 8 they were every 2 weeks.....8 till delivery they were weekly... now with that said i could go to my doctor at anytime if i needed to or wanted to...no one stopped me from making an appointment

3) seeing your unborn baby on an ultrasound is not a must...its like saying I did not get to sit on santas lap therefor christmas will never be the same.... the actual scans are done..some offices choose not to bog down appointment times with all the perks of the ultrasound (pics and videos, sexing the baby,...ect..) thats when you tell your doc you want another referral you were not happy with the patient care at that facility ..and simply put you will go to another U/S office

 

[klf73]

Quote:
I only read the first page but I completely agree with Jody

I spoke to many pregnant women on a message board when I was pregnant just over a year ago. I felt bad for many women in Canada that didn't get the same things we did, not to mention the frequency (or lack thereof) of appointments.......they didn't even get to see their babies on ultrasound or get U/S pics

k a few thing stand out to me here...
1) I am on Ontario and I did get to see my children on an ultrasound and get the pics...with my DD I even got a video

2) frequency of care...this is a little fuzzy....but from what I remember...(my youngest is 6)..from month 1 - 6 the appointments were once a month....from 6 - 8 they were every 2 weeks.....8 till delivery they were weekly... now with that said i could go to my doctor at anytime if i needed to or wanted to...no one stopped me from making an appointment

3) seeing your unborn baby on an ultrasound is not a must...its like saying I did not get to sit on santas lap therefor christmas will never be the same.... the actual scans are done..some offices choose not to bog down appointment times with all the perks of the ultrasound (pics and videos, sexing the baby,...ect..) thats when you tell your doc you want another referral you were not happy with the patient care at that facility ..and simply put you will go to another U/S office

I was only going by what I was told, and not a single one of the girls I *talked* to were very happy about their options or care

 

[Dar]

Quote:
k a few thing stand out to me here...
1) I am on Ontario and I did get to see my children on an ultrasound and get the pics...with my DD I even got a video

2) frequency of care...this is a little fuzzy....but from what I remember...(my youngest is 6)..from month 1 - 6 the appointments were once a month....from 6 - 8 they were every 2 weeks.....8 till delivery they were weekly... now with that said i could go to my doctor at anytime if i needed to or wanted to...no one stopped me from making an appointment

3) seeing your unborn baby on an ultrasound is not a must...its like saying I did not get to sit on santas lap therefor christmas will never be the same.... the actual scans are done..some offices choose not to bog down appointment times with all the perks of the ultrasound (pics and videos, sexing the baby,...ect..) thats when you tell your doc you want another referral you were not happy with the patient care at that facility ..and simply put you will go to another U/S office

I was only going by what I was told, and not a single one of the girls I *talked* to were very happy about their options or care

it depends on what province you are in i guess

 

[Rosalind]

DH grew up in the UK and was perfectly happy with his health care. The in-laws have residences in both the UK and Cyprus, and they own an olive and fruit orchard in Cyprus, which is their main source of income. They also write books once in a while, mostly on history or on their travels. If they had had to pay for private health insurance, no way would they ever be able to run their farm and stay self-employed. They are able to grow all their own food and take on part-time renovation projects and work for their church, because they don't ever have to worry about paying for insurance.

It really is a blessing to small businesses, because small businesses aren't able to negotiate the lower rates that large companies can with insurance companies--with government health care, it's the same low rate across the board. Governments aren't concerned with how much profit they can skim. I realize that health insurers are not making double-digit margins, but they are not exactly eating Ramen either. Insurance companies are for-profit entities that report to their shareholders first, who must grow the business. If the cost of health care is 80% of the gross one year, 81% of the gross the next year, that means that you and I have to pay 2% more the next year in order to ensure that the business grows--not the 1% that costs actually increased. That's how a public company works, that is their obligation to stockholders.

We had actually considered that if my grad school insurance would not cover DH, we would move to the UK to get him coverage (DH is still a UK citizen). Both of us have pre-existing conditions that make us uninsurable in most states: I've had cancer, he has degenerative disk disease. I don't smoke, I exercise daily, I eat plenty of veggies, and DH was in his early 30s when he first had surgery--sometimes, you just lose the genetic lottery, and all the well-wishes in the world won't fix it. Many states allow insurers to refuse us coverage for ANY price. We used to live in Ohio, where insurers do not have to offer you anything, and despite continuous coverage after being laid off, when I found a new job the new insurance wouldn't cover DH, and COBRA won't cover after so many months. We paid $15,000 out of pocket to get back surgery so he could walk again. I worked two jobs to pay that off, 75 hours/week. I applied for several individual "family" policies that were supposedly better than the crummy one my employer offered, only to be repeatedly turned down. Individual people, and even individual HR departments, simply cannot purchase on the free market a policy as good as or better than the ones offered by large employers or even small countries. However, Massachusetts law requires that all insurers must offer applicants something, albeit something exorbitant and it may have a waiting period before benefits kick in. I got into a graduate school in Massachusetts, so we didn't have to move overseas after all.

After I had had insurance for a few years, I learned something rather horrible: We had paid $15,000 for a two-day stay in a teaching hospital and 30 minutes in the OR without insurance (no follow-up care was ever provided, other than to remove stitches). That was after the bill was supposedly negotiated down, by the way, on account of paying cash. I was attending a seminar given by a local orthopedic surgeon on the subject of my employer's off-label drug uses, and he went into great detail about how we could improve it, in particular by cutting the cost. According to this guy, a spine surgeon at Beth Israel, the actual standard of care for the particular surgery that DH had is a two-week stay in the hospital with daily physical therapy for two weeks, lots of drugs, followed by 3X weekly physical therapy for several months. And the insurance reimbursement rate for it is $12,000 for the two weeks inpatient, $2000 for the outpatient follow-up. You read that correctly, I paid $3,000 more for 1/7th as much care. And that was the "discount 'cause you're paying cash" rate. I tell you, if you think you are getting a good deal for paying cash, you are getting RIPPED OFF. You are better off going overseas to one of the Asian private medical tourism hospitals for planned surgeries if you can: Apollo Hospitals in India has a good system, and Bumrundgrad in Thailand even has a Starbucks in the lobby. Get a passport. Costs 1/3 of the US price, even including airfare.

With respect to cost through taxes: If my employer wanted to transfer me to the EU tomorrow, I would pay LESS TAXES in Europe, with universal health care, than I currently pay now--and that's NOT COUNTING my current health insurance premiums. I currently pay 40% income taxes. This is because DH is self-employed and our combined income puts us smack in the middle of the most heinous of USAian tax brackets. If we doubled our income, ironically, we would get a tax break. But between paying out double for his SS and self-employment tax and my income, we're just at an especially bad point in our career progression tax-wise. In the EU, we would pay 34% taxes (I looked it up, confirmed w/ accountant), and that would cover our health care. In the US, we pay 40% in taxes alone, plus an additional ~4.2% of our income that goes to premiums and deductibles. I would keep, effectively, 10% more of my income if we lived in the EU.

I'm not moving because it would be too hard to sell my house and I wouldn't qualify for a work visa for a few years. If I had the house all renovated and the market was decent enough to sell it, and I had enough $$ saved that I could afford to go back to grad school for a few year in the EU, believe me, we'd be packing our bags.

To re-cap:
-European family all very happy with their health care in various EU member countries
-Non-profit (as opposed to not-for-profit) entities can get some efficiencies out of not having to grow the business
-Many states screw you over big-time; these are, not surprisingly, the same states with horrible morbidity/mortality & transmissible disease issues
-People get utterly screwed over on the individual market and by paying cash, because insurance companies for sure are not paying the prices that Accounts Receivable is quoting you
-Europeans pay less taxes than many middle-class folks. The "ooh, the taxes are so bad" thing is a LIE.
-Should you happen to find yourself uninsured and in need of health care, the cheapest way by far is to get a passport and travel overseas.

 

[Chicken Lil]

Quote:
If you have government run healthcare they will decide what treatment you receive, how long you have to wait to receive it and what doctor can treat you.

Actually here in Ontario, no they don't. I choose what doctor I go see and he/she and I make the decision on what path of treatment to take and what doctor I want to see based on my family doctor's opinion. As for wait time, it's not that long. My mom was three weeks from being told she needed a knee replacement to getting it.

I think where people may be having a problem understanding our health care system is the understanding of the HMO system and such you have in the U.S. From what I've learned that is how your system(s) work. But here in Ontario, I go see my doctor, if I need to see a specialist, the office calls one and I get in to see them or like I did I told my doctor which specialist I wanted to see and he set up the appointment. A week later I was down in the city seeing that specialist - I could have gotten in earlier but I had to work around my job. Also our health care is not federal, it's provincial so each province has their own, I do believe there are provinces that don't have any but not 100% sure.

Here is what OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) covers (I may miss stuff as I'm not an expert on all aspects of it this is more what we've used it for):
- all doctor visits - either to my own family doctor, walk-in clinic, or specialists
- hospital visits - emergency visits are covered, the meds they send you home with, and basic stays (regular room, and care), if you want more than basic like semi-private or private room get your own insurance to cover that, all care for having babies pre and post pregnancy.
- tests that I need to have done are covered as long as a doctor has requested them. Some blood work is optional and that costs extra.
- Vaccinations are covered, as well as health check ups for all ages
- the one time we used an ambulance it was covered
- once a year eye exams are covered too

We have extra insurance through DH's work. It covers dental (not very well but it's better than nothing), hospital private room, any ambulance bill not covered by OHIP, 80% of our prescriptions (which I then take the other 20% and submit with my income taxes).

You will always have people that take advantage of any system no matter what cause some people are scum. Our health care system is far from perfect but after watching my inlaws fork out thousands last year (they had insurance,big fight there too) after my FIL got ill in FL (cost $900 alone for the ambulance!), I'm happy to pay the government to pay it for me instead of me having to figure out where the money will come from. And yes even here they are mandated to care for you if you are ill with no coverage (lapsed card, not from the province, etc.) and go into the hospital but they will hunt you down to pay the bill.

Boy when you said ambulance fees did that bring back memories of fighting with health insurance.

When DD was five she was not feeling well, so I took her to the Dr and he kept saying it was allegies. Than one Saturday morning she collapsed in agony, so I rushed her to the local hospital. She was in critical condition so she was medevaced by helicopter to a hospital with a pediatric intensive care unit.
They discovered she was in renal failure, and felt they could not care for her properly, so they medevaced her again! Long story short she lived, by the hair of her chinny chin chin, but we had two helicopter rides, and went from central Illinois to Madison Wisconsin.

Here is the kicker, I had private insurance through my employer. Each helicopter flight was about $6000, but they would only cover the second one. Why... Because the first one was not one of there preferred providers!! There was only one provider from the hospital in my town, so how could I know it would not be covered.

Yeah I paid it off, but next time I'll have to check before one of us tries to kick off...

 

[beak]

National health care is going to be an expanded version of Medicaire/Medicaid. I have 5 adopted children that are covered under that. We go to the same doctors as everyone else. The coverage is just as good as BCBS which is what the rest of our family is on. I wish they would get the plan moving so people can see what they're talking about instead of all the speculation. Of course even then people will go by the rumors they hear vs actually reading any supplied info.