President Obama's health care--

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by Cool Beans

What do you propose? Complete government control? I'm curious on your response, if Capitalism (free market) can't fix it, do you honestly believe that Socialism (government control) can fix it?

While at the moment I don't know nearly enough about any proposed health care reform, I don't believe a capitalistic approach can resolve all situations.

Can a government controlled solution work? A quick look at Social Security and Welfare can answer that question.

A purely capitalistic approach is what has brought us to the insane costs of health care that currently exist. Capitalism is what brought the banks down - it is certainly not the supreme method of resolving financial issues. Some? yes... all? no.

I would be curious though at how effective the Canadian and UK health care systems are.

[fishbones]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

A purely capitalistic approach is what has brought us to the insane costs of health care that currently exist.

I would be curious though at how effective the Canadian and UK health care systems are.

Johhny,
A huge part of the crazy cost of healthcare is malpractice insurance for doctors. These costs have to be passed on to patients by doctors and hospitals. I know you work or worked in the medical field, so you must have some knowledge about this. Many of the best doctors coming out of medical schools now go into research because it's almost financially impossible to go into private practice and make a living while paying off student loans. That's why you see so many doctors trained outside of the US practicing medicine here.

I'm not sure about Europe, but many Canadians who need major surgeries come to the US because the Canadian healthcare system is not on par with what we have here. Also, the waits in emergency rooms in Canada make the emergency room waits in the US seem like they go by in the blink of an eye.

[scottw]

For anyone that doesn't understand how rationed healthcare works, here is a 1-minute demonstration.

The da Vinci system is a robotic system used for MIS, minimally invasive surgery. It is cutting-edge medicine for such surgeries as prostate surgery.

Use the Surgery Finder (linked at source URL) as follows:

1. Go to the URL. Click on the radio button that says "Hospitals".

2. From the "International" drop down list, select "Canada" and click the blue arrow.

You will notice that there are 9 hospitals that have the da Vinci system; with Canada's population of 33 million, that means that the ratio is 1 system per 3.67 million population.

Back up, and instead of choosing "Canada" choose your state - in my case, I live in PA. Get the results again.

In the state of PA, there are 30; but since one is a VA Hospital, let's say there are 29 hospitals with the da Vinci system.

That means that there is 1 system for every 420,000 people in the state.

Los Angeles County has more Da Vincis than all of Canada.




The best argument against canadacare would be the fact that a Canadian MP, Belinda Caroline Stronach, went to California for cancer treatment.



For Prostatectomies, there are 2 surgeons listed in Canada. There are 6 in UTAH.


There are more MRI machines in Philadelphia than in Canada.



All Americans need to know is that every British and Canadian politician who runs for office claims, "I will reduce hospital and medical wait times".
Having to wait 18 months for surgery (If it's allowed by the National Service) will be quite a shock for Americans.


Anyone who thinks Canada is a good model for healthcare needs to visit a hospital in a border state.
You don't even need to go in....just cruise the parking lot, counting Canadian license plates. 'Nuff said.

But Obama will figure it out...HE's AN EXPERT! or maybe he'll dish it to his wife who has the all hospital experience....diversity coordinator???...$300,000...no wonder medical care is so expensive with high paying no-show useless jobs like that!


I like this one..."Capitalism is what brought the banks down"

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by fishbones

Johhny,
A huge part of the crazy cost of healthcare is malpractice insurance for doctors. These costs have to be passed on to patients by doctors and hospitals. I know you work or worked in the medical field, so you must have some knowledge about this. Many of the best doctors coming out of medical schools now go into research because it's almost financially impossible to go into private practice and make a living while paying off student loans. That's why you see so many doctors trained outside of the US practicing medicine here.

On the other hand, an entire industry has been created helping American patient's travel to other countries for medical operations because the costs in the US are too high.

You are absolutely right that malpractice suits and the cost of insurance are a huge issue for doctors. Another part is the ridiculous price of pharmaceuticals.

Limitations need to be put into place with regards to malpractice suits and doctor liability. The slightest mistake and the doctors are found guilty and ordered to pay insane fines, where as only gross negligence should make them liable for amounts over $125k.

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

You are absolutely right that malpractice suits and the cost of insurance are a huge issue for doctors. Another part is the ridiculous price of pharmaceuticals.

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Cost of pharmaceuticals is a 2 edge sword that most don't want to see.

On one hand people look at the price and say "you have to be kidding me" not
realizing the cost effectiveness of keeping them out of the hospital and increasing their quality of life and reducing mortality.

They are expensive and people don't want to pay $5 or $10 a day but are willing to pay $7.50 a day for a pack of cigs or who knows how much for booze or illegal drugs that are killing them.

These drugs are very costly to discover, research, do clinical trials and get FDA approval. Pharm will not be willing to develop new life saving drugs if we go with a government controlled health care program.
Pfizer has already discontinued their cardiovascular research as they see the handwriting on the wall. So the new and best pharmaceuticals in the world will certainly become few and far between.

That leaves generics of existing drugs as a mainstay, which many will be manufactured by companies that do nothing to improve health care or provde the quality drugs made by the large Pharms.

The FDA used to issue The Green Sheet which showed drug recalls each month.
In almost every case the FDA inspections initiated the recalls for the generic companies where as the Pharmaceutical Companies would initiate recalls on their own before inspection. There aren't enough FDA Inspectors in the world to inspect every batch of generic drugs coming off the line.

Government controlled health care will take the best medicine in the world and at the very least make it mediocre.

[scottw]

it already has everywhere but here....so far...we'll get there...soon...

Back in the 1960s, Claude Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."-
"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice." these are extraordinary views, especially coming from Castonguay. It's as if John Maynard Keynes, resting on his British death bed in 1946, had declared that his faith in government interventionism was misplaced. IBD

In 2006, a Canadian court threatened to shut down one private clinic because it was planning to start accepting private payments from patients. According to The New York Times, although privately funded clinics are illegal in Canada, many clinics are opening anyway, because patients don’t like the long waiting lists in the government system.

In a 2007 interview on ABC News, Professor Regina Herzlinger of Harvard Business School said, “Many clinics all across Canada are illegal for-profit… They know they can’t get the health care they need from the legal system, so they’re complicit in creating an illegal system that’ll give them what they need.”


Americans have been conditioned to believe that someone else should provide a magic card that they can flash at any doctor, hospital, dentist, optometrist etc.. and recieve whatever they are in need of...for free...for life...this is insane...

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by justplugit

Cost of pharmaceuticals is a 2 edge sword that most don't want to see.

How about the doctors I know personally that have been fired from their jobs because they wouldn't sign off on new drugs because he (and the pharma companies) knew the drugs were unsafe for the public?

Big pharma has more skeletons in the closet than the public will ever know about. The corruption, lobbying and back-alley deals are more than can be discussed here.

Some cancer medications can cost up to $17,000/month.

[scottw]

if you get the chance check out the PBS Documentary "Sick Around the World"

they explore the various alternatives already in practice around the world..the top two they determined were Taiwan and Switzerland....Taiwan was engaged in huge deficit spending to keep theirs afloat because the politicians refused to tell the public they had to pony up more to support the system for fear of being booted from office, my favorite quote regarding Taiwan was when an administrator was asked how they handle people that "overuse " the system..it was explained that they "go to their house or call them in and have a little talk with them"...Switzerland was dealing with a population of only 7 million people...Germany and Japan were also near the top of the list..

[spence]

Most comparisons to other countries appear to be fear mongering for the most part. While you certainly hear the horror stories you rarely hear the positives, and speaking with many people in other countries over the years they're often very satisfied with their health care.

Besides, the US is a unique country and as such any health care reforms will probably not look exactly like a EU or Canadian model.

Most people have dramatically different views on this subject whether they have insurance or not. I know my father certainly had his eyes opened when his work sponsored retirement health care was cut and he they had to go on Medicare.

I agree that TORT reform is needed, and liked John Kerry's 2004 campaign idea to get malpractice cases into Federal courts. People complain about malpractice but remember the big corporations have used malpractice to snuff out the neighborhood doctor. Join my HMO or else

The simple fact is that living under a system where so many people have insurance (or taxpayer funded insurance) has allowed the system get incredibly expensive, without any incentive to streamline...and we have an aging population that's consuming a disproportionate amount of the services...and the AARP is a very big voting block.

I'm not for single payer systems, but I also recognize there's plenty of money in the system to improve it. The path we're currently on isn't sustainable even for those with good insurance.

-spence