US is only Capitalist, PROFIT-based Healthcare in World! NYC Doctors, Nurses Join OCCUPY Revolution

lucky you!

here in USA 1st thing they ask even if you go to emergency room of heart attack, is SHOW ME PROOF OF INSURANCE. if you do not show proof of insurance (happened to me while i was a student) they will require some form of deposit authorization, ie debit or credit card as if you were checking in a hotel or making a purchase at macy's on layaway!

if you don't have insurance, or proof of means of paying, they will always find a way to discharge you as soon as possible without overnight stay. which means if you have a concussion that would ordinarily require weeks of hospital stay and bedrest, they will stabilize you and push you out the door, if you are non-payment risk. yes its illegal to refuse treatment but they find a way by 'treating' one of your complaints and discharging you asap.

in USA, healthcare is allll about maximum profit. ditto pharmaceuticals, like i said its not about really getting you better

its about making most money as possible off sick people. and then some.

Being in Germany for my teenage years I got to see a major difference between U,S, and Germany. Not only did you hardly ever see any poor people, everyone had health care. I had to get a surgery done on my mouth, and went to U.S. doctors first. They told me that there was nothing they could do and that they would have to wait to try anything until I was older. I went to the Germans and they did a great job, I was really impressed. The price was A LOT cheaper too.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


You must already have a desire to be altruistic in the first place in order to be guided by it. Big Pharma is not in the business of being altruistic by any stretch of the imagination. It is purely profit-driven and nothing more.

reply to post by ignant


Americans prescribed drugs are usually on non-abusable forms. Drugs that can't and won't get you high like Oxycontin. Drugs like paxil, SSIRS, MOAIS, etc.

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon


True, and altruism is part of a doctors hippocratic oath, so let it shine.

reply to post by dbarnhart

There are more MRI machines in just Phoenix AZ than all of Canada. I've watched people wait months for their turn to have a hernia operation in Canada.

You know, as a Canadian I hear this a lot. From Americans who have never lived in Canada or experienced our medicare system. No, it's always from their "friend". Just like how everyone has a "black friend" I call shenanigans.

Canada's socialized medicare is on a first come first serve basis with exceptions for NEED. My shoulder problem isn't exactly life threatening while joe over there might have brain cancer, so he goes first.

And because our system actually works, if you need a service in a short period of time, often the government will PAY for you to go abroad and get it done.

So, exactly how many HMO's in the US will pay for you to go out of country to get medical treatment? Oh, i know, none. Actually, you'll have a hard time getting them to pay for treatment inside the us.

Because of the title of this thread. Healthcare in the US is a business, and as such, has to operate looking towards what's best for the investors, and this means reducing care, reducing treatment, and reducing costs.

the only sustainable system would be a tiered system for which everyone, through taxes, is covered for free* (some things you pay for but are subsidized) with the option to spend enormous amounts of money to cut in line.

the doctors who are in it to make millions still will, and will have their practices sued for malpractice as they are now because of workload and shoddy practices, while the government run system will still find plenty of people who honestly want to help.

It took my sister in law a few months to get an MRI done, yes. It took her mother less than a week because of the severity of the issue. And, I guess, that's the difference. Maybe we're not so self centered as to say screw that guy I have cash.

I think it's great to see more professionals waking up to the problems and standing with these guys, the smear campaign isn't working at all.

Originally posted by seabag
reply to post by ignant

 

WOW! A few New York City doctors and nurses support OWS? What a shock! Who would have thought there were liberal doctors and nurses in New York?

Everything I’ve read indicates that the majority of healthcare providers do not want socialized medicine. OWS is anti-free-market. If there is no free market you are left with socialized medicine. Instead of those who can afford having access to “good” healthcare, no one will have “good” healthcare as the level of quality of the over-exploited system drops. Eventually the entire system will crash as countless petty-problem healthcare-seekers flood in.

www.forbes.com...
The Jackson & Coker survey joins a large stack of research with similar findings. In February, the National Physicians Survey discovered that more than three times as many doctors believed that the quality of American health care would “deteriorate” rather than “improve” under ObamaCare. Nine of ten physicians think ObamaCare will have a negative impact on their profession. On average, physicians treating Medicare beneficiaries receive 81% of the rate private insurers pay. For Medicaid patients, reimbursements are even lower — just 56% of the private rate. In 2009, underpayments to hospitals amounted to $36.5 billion.

bighealthreport.com...
Quote: What we have seen so far from this disastrous monstrosity of legislation is that we and our physicians will be so tied up in bureaucracy; from mountains of paperwork, to bureaucrats getting in between our doctors and ourselves, to employers providing insurance that contains “minimum essential coverage” which has yet to be fully disclosed for their employees, to the policing of our coverage by the IRS to make sure we have purchased what the government deems to be acceptable health insurance coverage. Physicians will also be subject to fines for not providing care to their patients as dictated by a panel of bureaucrats. The individual mandate in this bill is unprecedented in our history. The Cato Institute’s Michael D. Tanner has published a comprehensive analysis of this heath care reform bill in his much more readable 61 page Bad Medicine: A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Care Law. He states that “what we are finding increasingly looks like it will leave Americans less healthy, less prosperous and less free.”

Why wouldn't there be still be private practices and hospitals? If we had a free healthcare system why wouldn't we still have these private sectors of medicine? Would they dry up? Why can't we have a society where you have the choice to choose free healthcare from state run hospital/clinic or a private hospital/practice? Would health insurance cease to exist? I'm assuming there are Americans who have health coverage with a price they're happy with. Sure, they could drop it and rely on the free system but you always get what you pay for. Free healthcare would benefit the poor and lower-ish middle income classes the most. In fact, having free healthcare may lower health insurance rates because they're in competition with a free system, so I suspect it would be foolish to continue to have insanely high rates, which many have presently. Insurance companies today are pretty disgusting. Dropping people because they got sick or not adding people to a plan because they are sick! Capitalism is great an all but it's painfully obvious Big Phamra and health insurance companies make money first and consider the people second, a very distant second at best. People suffer everyday in America because of this system.

reply to post by Swills


Wow. That's a very compelling argument. Hadn't thought of it that way.

But then someone might argue that about the internet pricing that way. Or maybe cellular plans. The problem is, socialism creeps and is merely a transitional phase to communism. The children of my generation are very entitled, so I don't think it's absurd to argue it's a slippery slope.

On the other hand, I really like your argument.

I am also Canadian.
I have no qualms about my Health Care system, The E.R. Uses a triage based system. If buddy has a headache, he is pushed back while the guy with the lacerated leg that is bleeding out on a gurney is rushed in. The wait times can be crazy depending on what you have, i spent 6 hours in the hospital waiting for a doctor, we actually have some pretty bad wait times, that is because the government has downsized our healthcare system over the past few years. As a matter of fact. 60 workers at a hospital down here just lost their jobs due to cuts.

We never get asked for insurance if we are there. I like that. But there are still flaws in it, like the wait times. It is being worked on, but takes time. Some people do have to go to america for treatment, if they need certain specialists, and dont wanna wait forever.

Free healthcare is not really an issue, americas government seems to think it's an issue. Instead of spending billions on war, how about taking 10% of that in putting it in healthcare, and there wouldn't be an issue. Money is put before human lives so it seems.

Note: If we do not have a plan of some sort, pills and the like still cost a fortune. With certain plans it brings it down to extremely cheap *blue cross*

Originally posted by seabag

Originally posted by NoHierarchy

Originally posted by dbarnhart
Having gotten up close and personal with the healthcare systems in a couple European counties, I will take our system hands-down. Some people point to the British system. Well, when I lived there children wear going deaf because the waiting period for minor ear operations was so long.

There are more MRI machines in just Phoenix AZ than all of Canada. I've watched people wait months for their turn to have a hernia operation in Canada.

Sure, you can have free health care but it will be crappy and you'll wait a long time for it.

Is deafness amongst children due to long waits for ear-infections an epidemic or just anecdotal and rare?

Does the number of MRI machines in Canada in comparison to Phoenix AZ matter? Is there a dangerous shortage of MRI machines in Canada that actually affects the population to a large extent? Have you considered that Phoenix might have too MANY MRI machines?

Free health care, no matter the wait times, is BETTER THAN NO HEALTH CARE. There are tens of millions of Americans (including children) who don't have any health care provided, that's plain unacceptable. As for the fear-mongering over universal health-care in other countries... many people actually enjoy their health care in those countries and they have higher quality of life, health, and life-expectancy than we do in the states... so what gives, man?

No American is turned away from heath care services. That's part of the reason that health care cost are so high...because doctors don't get paid for their services in many cases!

While every American is able to go to an EMERGENCY room for emergency health-care... that is NOT a sustainable or acceptable form of health-care security. When someone is provided emergency room care (without health insurance) they STILL have to pay (out the ass) for the services. Not only that... but having to wait until you have an emergency to seek medical care is RIDICULOUS in a country as rich, and supposedly progressive, as ours. If we were to provide regular/ongoing medical care to the poor, MINUS the cost of the former cost of emergency care due to a lack of proper PREVENTATIVE care, then I'm sure we'd have a MORE than acceptable economic outcome.

I agree that the prices are high, which is why TORT reform, big pharma, government regulations on insurance and other things need to be addressed (all things that liberals won't touch because they WANT socialized medicine).

Yes prices are ridiculously high, however, TORT reform is NOT a major cost in our medical/insurance system as a whole.
Please read:

prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com...
and
www.press.uchicago.edu...
and
www.law.northwestern.edu...

Big pharma and insurance companies are not regulated ENOUGH. Did you know that, via big pharma's influence over our government, patients in America weren't allowed to get cheap drugs from Canada because of non-existent "safety issues"? Did you know that their ownership of various genetic codes, chemical compounds/medicines, and so on, contribute to monopolies/higher-costs and a for-profit/privatization of life-saving technologies that should be shared? Universal health care would NOT destroy private health care, in fact, the government could prove a worthy COMPETITOR that could drive prices down for everyone if the government demands better deals from insurance companies for us. We do NOT have the collective power to demand a better deal from the profiteers in the insurance industry, our best shot against them is universal health-care and letting the government negotiate for us. We cannot simply vote with our dollars when/if all insurance companies are gouging us with the same profit-maximizing tactics, it's economics 101.

Addressing those problems would drive prices down and allow more people to buy insurance on the free market. The situation in the marketplace dictates the price. When you have the government throwing up obstacles and driving up the price of doing business those costs are passed on to the customer.

Government regulations are not what has driven up health-care costs. We already have a private market of choices and it's NOT ENOUGH for the poor/uninsured who simply cannot afford it, period. The price of insurance is dictated by many factors, whose foundation is profit-maximization. When we allow an industry that is out primarily for PROFIT to dictate to US our levels of health-care and the costs involved, then we get what we pay for- a shoddy PRODUCT and a rip-off. This is UNACCEPTABLE when we're talking about peoples' health/lives. Humans and health care should not be treated the same as cars and lawn-mowers, market ideology should not be universal.

Originally posted by Ferris.Bueller.II
Oh, what a utopian system it is!

Hospital overcrowding affecting Ont. patient care
Long-term care shortages strain Windsor hospitals
N.B. nursing care bed shortage acute

Maybe Canada ought to do what the UK has resorted to, having doctors fill out Do Not Resuscitate forms for elderly patients without the patient's or family's knowledge or consent (Source.)

Hmm... seems like it's a problem with the contractor... not the universal health-care system.

Talk about a red herring...

Originally posted by Ferris.Bueller.II

Originally posted by ignant
Co-pay means paid, private premium insurance is paying the rest of it, probably hundreds,

no??

I don't know. I pay $48 / month from my monthly military retirement check for my TriWest health insurance. I pay $12 co-pay if I see a doctor.

And as an aside, do all the healthcare workers, administrators, managers, etc. in socialized healthcare systems work for free; and what about the facilities, supplies, and all other ancillary expenses? Are they all free? No, because there is no such thing as free. It all comes out of a pool of money graciously 'donated' by all the taxpayers in the country. So how much are the taxpayers in your country's socialized healthcare system paying for a full panel blood test? Probably hundreds, or maybe even thousands seeing as money to the government is readily replaced by more taxes.

edit on 10/23/11 by Ferris.Bueller.II because: Added.

HAHAHA!!

YOU'RE USING GOVERNMENT-PROVIDED SOCIALIZED MEDICAL INSURANCE PROVIDED TO YOU FOR SIGNING YOUR LIFE TO THE CENTRALIZED GOVERNMENT'S MILITARY... USING YOUR GOVERNMENT SOCIAL BENEFIT (military retirement check) TO PAY FOR THE VERY LOW PREMIUMS AND YOU'RE SERIOUSLY COMING IN HERE RAILING AGAINST UNIVERSAL HEALTH-CARE FOR POOR AMERICANS????



Get your crap straight, man... Jeeeeezus......

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
So here in the UK where we have terrible health care,it has treated me for Brain tumours for the last 10 years, 2 courses of chemotherapy, Radiotherapy, 2 brain surgeries, more than 10 MRI scans, support groups, counselling, medications, see a GP within two days, MRI scans whenever I want. Yeah it's a really terrible system. How much has all this cost me? The only costs I have had is paying to get too and from treatments and for the parking at the hospital. Terrible I tell you.

Now the US also spends twice as much of their GDP on health care than the UK. Spending all that money and still not providing a decent service for the whole country, where are you guys going wrong?

edit on 24-10-2011 by woodwardjnr because: (no reason given)

Jesus Christ, man... sometimes I wonder why the hell I still live in the states. It's actually pretty scary how corporatist things are here when I hear about countries like yours (and especially modern Germany/Scandinavia). We just plain don't take care of our people here like they do there. The poor are spat on and blamed for being spat on.

Originally posted by dbarnhart
Having gotten up close and personal with the healthcare systems in a couple European counties, I will take our system hands-down. Some people point to the British system. Well, when I lived there children wear going deaf because the waiting period for minor ear operations was so long.

There are more MRI machines in just Phoenix AZ than all of Canada. I've watched people wait months for their turn to have a hernia operation in Canada.

Sure, you can have free health care but it will be crappy and you'll wait a long time for it.

There are medical centers all over the Valley of the Sun. You cannot throw a rock without hitting a medical center of one sort or another. Somebody is making money. Lots and lots of money.

Originally posted by 547000
reply to post by Swills

 

Wow. That's a very compelling argument. Hadn't thought of it that way.

But then someone might argue that about the internet pricing that way. Or maybe cellular plans. The problem is, socialism creeps and is merely a transitional phase to communism. The children of my generation are very entitled, so I don't think it's absurd to argue it's a slippery slope.

On the other hand, I really like your argument.

You should actually research Socialism... it's a very BROAD term and is by no means a slippery slope towards Communism. Communism is a perverted/totalitarian extreme of Socialism, just as Fascism is a perverted/totalitarian extreme of Conservatism/Capitalism.

LMAO, youre all missing the punchline in all this...
Doctors, who are driving cars that cost more then MOST families make in a year or two, joining OWS....
They are the ones charging outrageous dr bills....400.00 for an office visit....1200 for reading a bloody x ray

reply to post by HomerinNC


You know Americans pay twice as much for prescription drugs than any other western nation. So someones definitely making a killing.