Nationalised health care

I believe NHS is probably like most things of that nature. Some good, some bad. In the US we have a rather large cost issue. If we do not address it, it's doomed to fail. What total healthcare spending last year? 3.5 trillion???? Or something close?

We cannot absorb anything close to that, we must address cost or something will get bad real quick. Where do doctor payments fall in line? Clamp down? Cause doctor shortage temporarily, don't know. Address costs or it will fail, no questions asked. Does private options stay? If so at what point does equal quality become some rally point if private stays. Probably have less patients with many options vs many patients, fewer options if private stays. Do you ban private options? Just so many questions and serious financial work to be done.

On top of that there are what 11 million people employeed In healthcare. I would assume thinning the herd will happen at some level. How many?

originally posted by: Reallyfolks
I believe NHS is probably like most things of that nature. Some good, some bad. In the US we have a rather large cost issue. If we do not address it, it's doomed to fail. What total healthcare spending last year? 3.5 trillion???? Or something close?

We cannot absorb anything close to that, we must address cost or something will get bad real quick. Where do doctor payments fall in line? Clamp down? Cause doctor shortage temporarily, don't know. Address costs or it will fail, no questions asked. Does private options stay? If so at what point does equal quality become some rally point if private stays. Probably have less patients with many options vs many patients, fewer options if private stays. Do you ban private options? Just so many questions and serious financial work to be done.

On top of that there are what 11 million people employeed In healthcare. I would assume thinning the herd will happen at some level. How many?

You keep saying this "cut costs", and I'm sure it's one of Fox's standard talking points on this issue. But you know what cuts costs real quick? Making the entire medical and pharmeceutical industry not-for-profit and heavily regulated by the state.

a reply to: Reallyfolks

Ask yourself this: If we had car insurance that covered everything to do with our cars, how long would it be before oil changes would cost $200 instead of the $20 they cost now?

The reason that some medical procedures like Lasik are getting better while the price goes down is precisely because they aren't covered by insurance.

When you put in a middle man, no one can shop around and there is no point of sale consumer control in the market. And then you have three "public" options between Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare. Anytime the government "creates" competition, it has the deepest pockets the prices in that market tend to be distorted upward.

a reply to: ketsuko

And that is why it has to be a single payer system or it will never work.

As long as healthcare is a commodity it will never work.

We are bought and sold like, cows, pigs, corn and wheat.

We are corralled, tied and chained, but are so brainwashed and plugged into the system that we can't separate ourselves for love, money, children or even our future.

Ever see how a mighty elephant is kept in captivity?

We are worse.

originally posted by: AshOnMyTomatoes

originally posted by: Reallyfolks
On top of that there are what 11 million people employeed In healthcare. I would assume thinning the herd will happen at some level. How many?

You keep saying this "cut costs", and I'm sure it's one of Fox's standard talking points on this issue. But you know what cuts costs real quick? Making the entire medical and pharmeceutical industry not-for-profit and heavily regulated by the state.

As to the numbers it depends on how many are employed part time, just doing a few hours helping out at no charge may mean you get listed even as a volunteer

originally posted by: AshOnMyTomatoes

originally posted by: Reallyfolks
I believe NHS is probably like most things of that nature. Some good, some bad. In the US we have a rather large cost issue. If we do not address it, it's doomed to fail. What total healthcare spending last year? 3.5 trillion???? Or something close?

We cannot absorb anything close to that, we must address cost or something will get bad real quick. Where do doctor payments fall in line? Clamp down? Cause doctor shortage temporarily, don't know. Address costs or it will fail, no questions asked. Does private options stay? If so at what point does equal quality become some rally point if private stays. Probably have less patients with many options vs many patients, fewer options if private stays. Do you ban private options? Just so many questions and serious financial work to be done.

On top of that there are what 11 million people employeed In healthcare. I would assume thinning the herd will happen at some level. How many?

You keep saying this "cut costs", and I'm sure it's one of Fox's standard talking points on this issue. But you know what cuts costs real quick? Making the entire medical and pharmeceutical industry not-for-profit and heavily regulated by the state.

Wouldn't know , rarely read Fox. So your take is that in our current economy we can bring on any real amount of total healthcare spending. Then you are talking seriously changing the budget. Didn't know you had to read from a certain source to understand that if total healthcare spending last year was just 3 trillion , our entire budget this year is what 3.4 trillion. What percent of total spending can and will we absorb? Houston, we have a problem. Seeing as how we currently have plenty in the bank and zero debt and zero unfunded liabilities coming due.

People crack me up. No, the problem isn't what I read, the problem is we have people screaming for this and very little understanding we simply have to cut cost. We can't double the budget, when we can't even not borrow on the current ones. We should tie a noose around our long term neck and ignore a very real financial problem it poses as is,.

Why do anything if it's not for profit, why would anyone invest in a company that can't make a profit? You want the government to take over both those industries? Don't see too many running with no profit at a private level.

We cannot absorb anything close to that, we must address cost or something will get bad real quick. Where do doctor payments fall in line? Clamp down? Cause doctor shortage temporarily, don't know.

a reply to: Reallyfolks

You are looking in the wrong place. If you want to get a good view of the landscape, go to the top.

Start with big pharma and work your way down.

Want to know why there is a shortage or doctors, and why the nursing shortage is going to become critical?

Try spending all those years in training, coming out with years of debt, before you are even drawing a pay check. Then you find yourself working long shifts, seven days a week for peanuts, because all the hospitals have sold out to the insurance companies. You don't play by their rules, you don't get paid.

I tried to warn the doctors years ago when they started pitting the doctors against the nurses. They made them Gods and wealthy.

I warned them, when anyone is promising to make you a God, before you go selling your soul, you might want to find out what kind of being they are. Many didn't listen. Now they have to dance for that paycheck they sold their soul for, and it doesn't even come close to paying for just their basics anymore.

But before you go pointing fingers at the doctors, you have to stop and look at us. Don't blame the doctors, they only did the same damn thing the rest of us did. We sold our souls, our families, friends, communities, our rights and our future for a few gold coins and they they aren't even made of real gold.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn

We cannot absorb anything close to that, we must address cost or something will get bad real quick. Where do doctor payments fall in line? Clamp down? Cause doctor shortage temporarily, don't know.

a reply to: Reallyfolks

You are looking in the wrong place. If you want to get a good view of the landscape, go to the top.

Start with big pharma and work your way down.

Want to know why there is a shortage or doctors, and why the nursing shortage is going to become critical?

Try spending all those years in training, coming out with years of debt, before you are even drawing a pay check. Then you find yourself working long shifts, seven days a week for peanuts, because all the hospitals have sold out to the insurance companies. You don't play by their rules, you don't get paid.

I tried to warn the doctors years ago when they started pitting the doctors against the nurses. They made them Gods and wealthy.

I warned them, when anyone is promising to make you a God, before you go selling your soul, you might want to find out what kind of being they are. Many didn't listen. Now they have to dance for that paycheck they sold their soul for, and it doesn't even come close to paying for just their basics anymore.

But before you go pointing fingers at the doctors, you have to stop and look at us. Don't blame the doctors, they only did the same damn thing the rest of us did. We sold our souls, our families, friends, communities, our rights and our future for a few gold coins and they they aren't even made of real gold.

I wasn't pointing fingers at Dr's I was pointing to them as a group that may get screwed. See a lot staying private. What's issue?

Heck you warned them? Why didn't you just say so. Was that like a post card or call to all of them?

And again. Are you suggesting that the government take over big pharmaceutical , without profit I doubt many private companies will operate.

a reply to: Reallyfolks

It was a long time ago, but even back then we had better ways of communicating then by postcard. Though we didn't have the WWW, we were a little more advanced than smoke signals. We had things like meetings, conferences, and written communications.

I am not against any business making a profit, but when the profit they are demanding is obscene, and when they prevent sick and dying people from having access to their medicines, the same ones that a lot of their tax dollars paid for in research, I think it is criminal and I think it should be stopped. The issue is that the people who do the work that we need done, are not the ones that are ripping us off.

I would like to see big pharma take just 1% less and pay it to the people that deserve it. They won't have to give one of their 13 cars or even one of their 7 houses to do it either.

Yes, I expect the the healthcare tyrants to take less profit. The cost they demand for some of their medicines is beyond obscene, it is inhuman. Clamp down we should, and big pharma is exactly where I would start.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: Reallyfolks

It was a long time ago, but even back then we had better ways of communicating then by postcard. Though we didn't have the WWW, we were a little more advanced than smoke signals. We had things like meetings, conferences, and written communications.

I am not against any business making a profit, but when the profit they are demanding is obscene, and when they prevent sick and dying people from having access to their medicines, the same ones that a lot of their tax dollars paid for in research, I think it is criminal and I think it should be stopped. The issue is that the people who do the work that we need done, are not the ones that are ripping us off.

I would like to see big pharma take just 1% less and pay it to the people that deserve it. They won't have to give one of their 13 cars or even one of their 7 houses to do it either.

Yes, I expect the the healthcare tyrants to take less profit. The cost they demand for some of their medicines is beyond obscene, it is inhuman. Clamp down we should, and big pharma is exactly where I would start.

And you are going to enforce that how? How will you enforce they take less, if they don't as you pointed out big cost to add to the budget? If we force them through law what others industries do we do that too?

a reply to: Reallyfolks

No. You force that with your dollars. Why do we continue to feed the beast that is sucking the life blood right out of you. You still at this brief moment in time have a choice in what you spend you money on.

We are not as powerless as we have convinced we are. Does it take conviction? Does it take sacrifice? I know it is outright scary to think that you have to take on the huge, greedy and heartless beast alone, but what does it matter if he is going to eat you anyway. At least give it indigestion.

a reply to: AshOnMyTomatoes

Make them (medical industry) suceptable to existing law regarding price fixing, collusion, monopoly and consumer fairness laws,

And watch costs drop like a rock!

Make it a government racket and costs will rise.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: SprocketUK

Most of your health care dealings have been relatively routine. Do you live in a rural area or in an urban one? Parts of Canada have so few doctors that they have to hold lotteries when there is a space at their local GPs because there are so few doctors serving in their area.

Also, do you live in a wealthier post code or a poorer one? I've heard that sometimes with the NHS, your postcode can make all the difference for some treatments and how quickly you can receive or even how available they might be.

Also, have you ever talked to someone who has a condition that is not easily treatable with a relatively standard procedure or whose version of the condition happened to not respond either at all or well to the currently allowed NHS treatment regimen?

I've lived in different counties, in rural, semi rural and urban areas.
As I said before, I've been treated for everything from minor maladies to bike crashes.
Among my friends I don't know of anyone who feels they have been let down with treatment.

Sure, we sometimes have to wait (Between the various tests, consultations and things it took a year from initial diagnosis of my heart condition to treatment, which, considering it wasn't life threatening and heart ops are complex things, wasn't half bad).

I also forgot to mention Cluster headaches, I had them for years, but they just went away in the end, my GP tried all manner of different things over the years, not much worked, but he did try.

originally posted by: SprocketUK

I've worked and paid tax all my life, yet received health care of top notch quality, whenever I have needed it.
I can't understand why anyone would not want to have the same availabilty.

Because we're not British? We had a war about that a couple of centuries ago. You might have heard about it. I guess British education isn't quite as good as British tax collecting.

Surely having health insurance at all is a socialist thing via the back door as you your self are not paying for all the treatment but relying on the pool of people in your insurance group not to be ill when you are?

So insurance = socialist commie anti American and therefore 99% of the Americans rely on commie ideals

originally posted by: BrianFlanders

originally posted by: SprocketUK

I've worked and paid tax all my life, yet received health care of top notch quality, whenever I have needed it.
I can't understand why anyone would not want to have the same availabilty.

Because we're not British? We had a war about that a couple of centuries ago. You might have heard about it. I guess British education isn't quite as good as British tax collecting.

Clearly our manners are better.

originally posted by: Maxatoria
Surely having health insurance at all is a socialist thing via the back door as you your self are not paying for all the treatment but relying on the pool of people in your insurance group not to be ill when you are?

So insurance = socialist commie anti American and therefore 99% of the Americans rely on commie ideals

Pretty much. I wouldn't object to health insurance being outlawed. Especially now that the government has made it mandatory. It's a violation of the 13th Amendment.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Or ... it could be a market system where the health care system has to price itself and sell directly to you and me and because of that the market forces prices down for most every procedure.

Insurance is confined to catastrophic/chronic care - things like cancer, severe trauma, not every single health procedure you will ever have.

Because there is no realistic way the government can raise enough to provide stellar, prime care to a nation of 350 million people without rationing and cutting corners.

a reply to: ketsuko

We have a nation that uses tax money to pay for police forces, fire fighter services, EMT services, ect..

I think you are being a little delusional and apologetic to the health insurance industry to suggest the US cannot afford universal health care.

The way the health industry stands today, a hand full of people are making a fortune at the expense of the rest of the nation.

originally posted by: SprocketUK

Hi, over the years I've seen a lot of threads regarding health care in (mostly) the US and UK.
Pretty much every thread about Obama care devolves into a frenzy of posts about percieved failings of one system or the other.
I hope that some of you feel like relating your own experiences of using healthcare wherever you live.

Hay Sprocket, nice thread with an honest question.
Yes, sadly, we don't get much perspective from the rest of the world and the general American view of healthcare is terribly antiquated and so has your nice thread turned in to yet another rant from the misinformed public who assume to own the space.
I will dare relate my story and perspective as subjective and meager as it may be.

After Thirty plus years in a civilized Scandinavian country I decided to return "home".( USA) I had maintained my citizenship and figured as the adventuress person I am that it should be done while I could still get around with out a walker or a cane.
In good health with a fair education and not listening to my friends persistent advice to reconsider, I came "home" ten years ago.
My education is worthless here, a five year masters degree in a country that doesn't value manual labor is almost detrimental to advancement.
Any way. Health Care.
Scandinavia Excellent health care. Always the same physician, no co-pay, no pay period.
Always sick as a child. Asthma.
Later. Three pneumonias, five shoulder dislocations, repeated infections, poor immune system, three miscarriages and so forth.
My general health has improved greatly over the last twenty-five years.
I had my shoulder repaired before I came back to the US. I had the option of finding the physician of my choice any where in the country, I did and recovered wonderfully. All paid for. transport, operation, every thing.
Before I returned I had a wellness check, mammogram, lung x-ray, everything examined. Free.
I could visit my Doctor at any time for any reason, when ever it pleased me.
This kept me healthy, any ailment was detected before it evolved to something lethal.
People were encouraged to remain healthy and use their doctors.

USA I am in debt beyond reason. I refuse to see a physician any more. I have a DNR notice (Do Not Resuscitate)

I have seen a doctor, or what ever they are here, six times in ten years, and I most certainly could have used it more, all they do is use a huge amount of time, before one talks to a doctor, to record information in their tidy little lap tops.
I takes more time to talk to the silly little assistant and get weighed, again, then the actual consultation.

Three times where annual check ups when I had insurance, two other times, with insurance, where not covered completely, I had the flue or something and hoped for a note to say I could stay in bed till I felt human again. (Oh, No, we will give you two days, then you can come in again, drive sixty miles, with a 103 temp, so we can weigh you again, and then you can get a new "note", maybe.
One time I had a tooth abscess.

Idiots. Pure and simple.

I have well to do friends who tell me horror stories about how some or another "aide" runs out and they can't get pain medication during cancer treatment.
Or they are paying off triple decade old depth.

For a fraction of what we pay towards our so called "foreign defense" we could promote a much healthier and more prosperous public.
Ups I am off topic. Sorry

Should I attract a fatal slowly progressive illness, I will go out, one twenty below night, and die.
Perhaps the Coyotes or a Bear will benefit.

I can't go back. I would have to resume immigrant status.

BTW The reason I ended up in that Scandinavian country was my Mother had cancer and they couldn't afford the treatment in the US so they moved back to her country of origin. A shame isn't it.
She loved her life in the US. She always said after she recovered, " When Dad dies" ( he was far older than her) "we are going " Home" to visit. Mom passed first. Perhaps I felt like I should fulfill her wish.

Damn system.