Socialized Medicine

[kujito]

Yep, I do that just about every day. Mom has been an RN forever. She's now a Director of Nursing for an entire retirement community.

She agrees with me. :conceited

Hell, where do you think I get this info from, my ass?

I was agreeing with you. I guess I could have worded it differently, but I was telling others to talk to some people in the Med. field and they'd see how bad malpractice insurance is really screwing us and the whole system.

 

[fscrig75]

Thanks for a laugh. You married a German, serve our country, and of course, drive a jeep; you can't be all bad.


and,

hyperbole [hahy-pur-buh-lee] -noun Rhetoric
1.obvious and intentional exaggeration.
2.an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”

Thanks brother, don't know much about you, but a fellow service member and Jeeper, gives you a thumbs up.

Man now I know what it means, you couldn't just left me be ignorant, haha.

 

[JNickel101]

I was agreeing with you. I guess I could have worded it differently, but I was telling others to talk to some people in the Med. field and they'd see how bad malpractice insurance is really screwing us and the whole system.

OOPS! My bad

:thumbup:

 

[fscrig75]

Regarding our current health care system and socialized medicine, I know we badly need to fix our system. I think Ecomike hit a bullseye regarding the insurance companies being largely to blame for the out-of-control costs and the stupid rules on not covering pre-existing conditions. Again, it comes down to greed. This is what ought to be addressed.

Yes the insurance companies are to blame with the frivolous lawsuits, but if we shut them down, what happens to those jobs? I don't remember how it goes but I watched a show talking about how when the insurance companies go, then the medical research isn't far behind. That’s why the system in Switzerland has worked well. The insurance companies stay in business and the medical research doesn't take a hit.

 

[RichP]

So, make healthcare affordable for the average American. Thats all I want. My wife had to get an ultrasound done on her neck. The hospital billed TriCare $900 and TriCare payed $90. If we didn't have insurance we would have had to cough up $900 for a 10 minute procedure. That's outrageous. So either we have a government run health insurance that people buy into, or hospitals have to come down on what they charge and do away with insurance altogether. Either way you cut it, insurance is the problem, not the solution.

Consider this, if you have health insurance you have indirectly a lawyer, the company that insures you, if you don't you pay cash. Now hospitals have to treat anybody that walks in the door including uninsured, most of who cannot pay their bills. The hospital has to make up that shortfall somewhere and it's not thru the insurance companies, they can't squeeze blood from a poor person so that leaves only those who have some money but can't afford a full health care package. That leaves a rather growing group of americans who work, own homes but don't have insurance but probably have equity in their home.
Price an MRI in PA and one in say a border state or city that has a large illegal population, I'd bet my bottom dollar that that hospital that deals with illegals is much higher procedure wise than one that does not have that group of people to deal with.

There are also a growing group of hospitals that are owned by corporations, they may have 10 or more, some rural some in major cities, if they have a high ratio of say illegals to legals in one they pass those costs on to the others that may have more insured customers.

 

[buschwhaked]

So what do we do? Leave on the poor people to die on the sidewalk outside the hospital? I have moral qualms with that. Or my buddy David who has a job but is just getting his life going and can't afford full health insurance yet: should he be left to die or go bankrupt because he gets sick? Sorry but I don't think so. That is just shameful for the richest country in the world.

And I don't think you can point the finger at only the poor and illegal. Are they part of the problem? Yes, but there is a lot more to this issue. Insurance is short changing hospitals and doctors just as much as medicare/medicaid.

If we can all agree that healthcare is an issue what is a viable solution?

 

[fscrig75]

So, make healthcare affordable for the average American. Thats all I want. My wife had to get an ultrasound done on her neck. The hospital billed TriCare $900 and TriCare payed $90. If we didn't have insurance we would have had to cough up $900 for a 10 minute procedure. That's outrageous. So either we have a government run health insurance that people buy into, or hospitals have to come down on what they charge and do away with insurance altogether. Either way you cut it, insurance is the problem, not the solution.

Do you have secondary insurance? The way I'm reading this is that Tri-Care covered $90 and your wife's insurance paid the other $810.
My wife and I get hit with this everytime we go to the hospital here, they always hand us insurance forms and I always hand them back to them. This is how it rolls, if your family has any type of other health insurance they Tri-Care is billed as the secondary. The bill will go to Tri-Care, they will send it to your other insurance, the other company tells Tri-Care how much they are going to pay, and then Tri-Care will cover the rest. Thats how it was explained to me.

 

[fscrig75]

Consider this, if you have health insurance you have indirectly a lawyer, the company that insures you, if you don't you pay cash. Now hospitals have to treat anybody that walks in the door including uninsured, most of who cannot pay their bills. The hospital has to make up that shortfall somewhere and it's not thru the insurance companies, they can't squeeze blood from a poor person so that leaves only those who have some money but can't afford a full health care package. That leaves a rather growing group of americans who work, own homes but don't have insurance but probably have equity in their home.
Price an MRI in PA and one in say a border state or city that has a large illegal population, I'd bet my bottom dollar that that hospital that deals with illegals is much higher procedure wise than one that does not have that group of people to deal with.

There are also a growing group of hospitals that are owned by corporations, they may have 10 or more, some rural some in major cities, if they have a high ratio of say illegals to legals in one they pass those costs on to the others that may have more insured customers.

The County Hospitals have to treat everyone, for a sustained period of time. The private, corporate hospitals, bandage them up and then ship them to the county hospital. Thats how it works here, border city.
The hospital my wife works at is owned by a corp, Tenet Health Care. They are one of the largest in the nation, I think. People do not stay at their hospitals unless they have insurance, or a contract with the Gov't(ICE facilities).

 

[RichP]

So what do we do? Leave on the poor people to die on the sidewalk outside the hospital? I have moral qualms with that. Or my buddy David who has a job but is just getting his life going and can't afford full health insurance yet: should he be left to die or go bankrupt because he gets sick? Sorry but I don't think so. That is just shameful for the richest country in the world.

And I don't think you can point the finger at only the poor and illegal. Are they part of the problem? Yes, but there is a lot more to this issue. Insurance is short changing hospitals and doctors just as much as medicare/medicaid.

If we can all agree that healthcare is an issue what is a viable solution?

Step one: Eliminate or reduce the number of illegals, for those against deporting them just add an additional state or federal witholding tax on their paychecks to help defray the cost. Putting that simple check box on the W form 'do you want to contribute to the illegals health care y/n' should show the politicians which way the wind is blowing and maybe just make them enforce our immigration laws. Once we knock that 60% off the books maybe we can get a handle on the uninsured Americans we have. I think that our system needs a bit of triage first, making them legal by re-writing the immigration laws just adds 25 million to the list and we go nowhere,then we just add 25 million plus that are eligible for all the other citizens benefits.

 

[fscrig75]

So what do we do? Leave on the poor people to die on the sidewalk outside the hospital? I have moral qualms with that. Or my buddy David who has a job but is just getting his life going and can't afford full health insurance yet: should he be left to die or go bankrupt because he gets sick? Sorry but I don't think so. That is just shameful for the richest country in the world.

And I don't think you can point the finger at only the poor and illegal. Are they part of the problem? Yes, but there is a lot more to this issue. Insurance is short changing hospitals and doctors just as much as medicare/medicaid.

If we can all agree that healthcare is an issue what is a viable solution?

I agree but you forgot the hospitals and DRs that bill everything they can and then some, to the insurance companys. Its a 2 way street.

Everyone try to remember 5-10 years ago....Do you remember every seeing a commercial for a drug? Viagra, Flonase, etc...
Or how about hospitals advertising to the public to get elective procedures done. Tummy tucks, lasic, etc...

Its all about money.
If we go to a system where DRs get paid a flat rate regardless of what they are doing. The number of people enter treatment medicine will decline. DRs will just be scheduling visits every 20mins and thats all you'll get with the Doc.
Is the system we have now perfect? No, I'll agree with that, but if we remove the ability for DR to get paid more than mechanic, haha yea I know thats a stretch, why would they want to do it?

Personally I would rather have a system where the DRs are working for higher wages. People work better when they know their pay depends on it.

 

[Darky]

Hell, where do you think I get this info from, my ass?

I don't trust info from any source other than someone's ass. You just lost all credibility with me.

When I was in, I had no complaints about the health care. My eldest daughter was born on Camp Pendleton at the Naval Hospital, no charge. My wife had a tubal pregnancy right before I got out. It was early July, I went on terminal leave a couple weeks later, and was out Aug 6th, 2005. I brought her into the ER at 2300 in extreme pain, she was seen within 30 minutes (I can't remember the exact timing, but we weren't there long), they brought her in got her some pain meds, did a pregnancy test, ultrasound, and saw that the tube had ruptured. Told us the options (do nothing, she'll likely die from sepsis; try to implant the fetus in the womb, it'll probably die, and could take her with it; or remove the fetus, it will die, but she will be healthy) and took her to surgery to remove the fetus and the ruined fallopian, kept her overnight, gave us a prescription for vicodin and sent us home. They didn't stitch the belly button hole very well, and she sprung a leak, so we went back the next day and they fixed it. All at no charge to us. Since getting out, any time we've been to the ER, it's been hours. Took our daughter in to Urgent Care when she split her nose at the lip and they said they can't do stitches on a child her age, sent us to Emergency, they said there was no reason why Urgent care couldn't have just glued her nose, like they did.
My complaint/fear with socialized health care is that if it's free or very low cost everyone will be going to the doctor's like they do the ER now and everything will get backed up. Like the ER is now. IE, I think people will abuse care if it's free/cheap. Also, looking at other countries running it now, I don't like the look of their taxes. Now if they can swing it for less than $400/month in extra taxes to me, I might get on board, seeing as to how I currently am paying $400/month for insurance plus copays and 20%.

 

[buschwhaked]

Do you have secondary insurance? The way I'm reading this is that Tri-Care covered $90 and your wife's insurance paid the other $810.
My wife and I get hit with this everytime we go to the hospital here, they always hand us insurance forms and I always hand them back to them. This is how it rolls, if your family has any type of other health insurance they Tri-Care is billed as the secondary. The bill will go to Tri-Care, they will send it to your other insurance, the other company tells Tri-Care how much they are going to pay, and then Tri-Care will cover the rest. Thats how it was explained to me.

No secondary insurance. The hospital billed tricare $900 and tricare only paid them $90 and the hospital had to eat it because it's easier than leveling the playing field.

 

[Ecomike]

Frankly, the system is broken from beginning to end. It doesn't need fixing - it needs to be scrapped outright once the new system is written. That's much the same thing as what's wrong with Social Security - seventy-five years ago, it was designed as a five-year stopgap plan. It's been running on a series of Band-Aid fixes ever since. Problem is, a Band-Aid ain't gonna fix a broken pelvis - again, write a new system from scratch, implement it, and then scrap the old one. This time, design it to last more than five years...

Probably getting side tracked here, yes in fact we are, but I can't resist noting that you said SS was "designed as a five-year stopgap plan", and yet it has survived and worked for 75 years. Hmm? Perhaps they need to switch from band aids to duct tape, my favorite, LOL.

I think we all agree here that our current medical care system is broken and needs replacing or fixing. The problem is how to fix it and what to replace it with, with out killing one of the few remaining parts of the US economy that is still profitable.

We have a local clinic here that takes only cash, no insurance or other payment methods accepted. They are still only $15 to see the doctor to get a prescription for something like a cold, soar throat. Been here for about 20 years now!

 

[RichP]

We have a local clinic here that takes only cash, no insurance or other payment methods accepted. They are still only $15 to see the doctor to get a prescription for something like a cold, soar throat. Been here for about 20 years now!

For the last 3 years without coverage we have only used our local doctor, he takes cash, $55 or so a visit and if it needs drugs he usually has the ones the salesman left as samples.
My kids who are both in college and are too old for my new plan that I got with this new job have been using the college med center, comes with that disgusting tuition but it works.
The problem with revamping our current medical system is that if we did it right we'd increase unemployment a few points when we laid off all the middle and upper level paper pushers. I worked for a managed care long term company a couple of years ago as a contractor, maintaining the sun servers and the desktop side. All the support people were nurses, all RN's with at least 20 years under their belt. I have heard them talk to both patients to get them into treatment and seen them rip a new arshole in providers for 'cheaping out' on treatment. Nobody argued with that bunch, not the providers or insurance company managers, their word was final. They delt with alot of senior citizens and long term patients and from what I heard first hand are a good company.

 

[Tom R.]

No secondary insurance. The hospital billed tricare $900 and tricare only paid them $90 and the hospital had to eat it because it's easier than leveling the playing field.

They know better than to do this because every hospital or doctor that accepts Tricare also accepts the caps. I'm sure they write off the difference to their benefit.

Sometimes they'll go so far as to send the patient an invoice for the difference, hoping they'll find a sucker.

 

[Ecomike]

I think the first step, or part of the answer is keep the current system for those who like it and want to keep it, then set up a consolidated socialized system that consolidates the many (numerous) loose scattered tax payer medical systems into one system that offers minimal care and preventive, especially early preventive care, as well as emergency care to those who do not have jobs, insurance, or billions of dollars.

Also, I am one of those who believes the statistics that show that you have a much higher probability of dying while in a US hospital under best, most expensive medical care and doctors care as compared to staying home and using preventive medical care and some common sense for instance.

I am convinced that most, note that I said MOST, of the current medical practice and hospital care causes more medical problems than it solves! ON the other hand it sometimes does miracles and saves lives, when it does not accidently kill them first, or kill them after the miracle. I guess the morticians and funeral homes need an income too, another batch of blood sucking hooligans.

 

[Ecomike]

The problem with revamping our current medical system is that if we did it right we'd increase unemployment a few points when we laid off all the middle and upper level paper pushers.

You hit one of the nails on the head right there. I heard Paul Harvey do an analysis on the radio one day. He listed all the jobs that depended on the criminal element, judges, jailers, prison guards, police, lawyers, doctors and nurses and the medical staff for patching up the wounded crooks, architects and engineers and construction people to design and build the prisons, insurance to pay the theft claims, claims agents, and so on......

By the time he got finished, Paul Harvey (God rest his soul!), had convinced the radio audience that 30% of us depend on criminals for our jobs!

Pencil pushing accounts depend on the IRS for their worthess jobs too. In fact if you get down to just basic housing, food production and distribution, emergency medical and defense jobs, we could retire 80% of the workforce tomorrow.

 

[XJEEPER]

Must we always learn from our own mistakes, or perhaps we could study recent history a little closer........
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=16713

 

[Ecomike]

Must we always learn from our own mistakes, or perhaps we could study recent history a little closer........
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=16713

It's easier to be cost effective when you ignore the health care needs of 40% of the population because they have no insurance. I looked at that site, link, you posted and it looked to me like their stats for the number of people that were unhappy with their system were far lower than ours are.

To quote it said:

• "An April Gallup poll showed only 7 percent of British citizens were very satisfied with their health care system.
• Twenty-five percent of those polled said they were extremely dissatisfied with their care.
• Another 27 percent were somewhat dissatisfied."

I am not going to go digging for stats, but I'd guess at least half the US is very dissatisfied with our system.

 

[wolfpackjeeper]

They know better than to do this because every hospital or doctor that accepts Tricare also accepts the caps. I'm sure they write off the difference to their benefit.

Sometimes they'll go so far as to send the patient an invoice for the difference, hoping they'll find a sucker.

my wife gets invoices from her therapist/psychologist. They said they do not care if she pays and that it gets sent from their third party admin company just hoping for someone to pay. I asked.