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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (204291)	9/25/2006 1:44:25 PM
From: Ichy Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

But Chris thinks it is better to die waiting knowing that you have health care than to live by paying for it.

To: Ilaine who wrote (204291)	9/25/2006 2:31:32 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I think both systems should be available, but no employer should have to provide it. That way you Repugnicans can live to be hateful old mummies, and the rest of us can just live..

To: Ilaine who wrote (204291)	9/25/2006 2:50:58 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"The simple fact remains, Americans spend more on health care because we DEMAND more and GET more." Oh? The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems. Source: WHO World Health Report - See also Spreadsheet Details (731kb) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rank Country 1 France 2 Italy 3 San Marino 4 Andorra 5 Malta 6 Singapore 7 Spain 8 Oman 9 Austria 10 Japan 11 Norway 12 Portugal 13 Monaco 14 Greece 15 Iceland 16 Luxembourg 17 Netherlands 18 United Kingdom 19 Ireland 20 Switzerland 21 Belgium 22 Colombia 23 Sweden 24 Cyprus 25 Germany 26 Saudi Arabia 27 United Arab Emirates 28 Israel 29 Morocco 30 Canada 31 Finland 32 Australia 33 Chile 34 Denmark 35 Dominica 36 Costa Rica 37 United States of America photius.com

To: Ilaine who wrote (204291)	9/25/2006 3:35:17 PM
From: ThirdEye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The simple fact remains, Americans spend more on health care because we DEMAND more and GET more. That statement is so ridden with assumptions, questions and fallacies I don't know where to start. 1. Americans may spend more on health care premiums than anyone else, but that doesn't mean they are getting expensive health care. 2. The difference between what is billed to insurance companies for care and what is actually paid to the provider is large. So how are those costs calculated? By what the providers charge? Or what the carriers pay? 3. Health care costs include drug fees. Everyone knows we pay more for drugs than anyone else in the world. And we also use more drugs than anyone else. We also have a drug industry that markets directly to consumers, encouraging even more drug use than ever, including the creation of ever new "conditions" and "syndromes" that require "treatment." 4. The 45 million people who are not covered by health insurance create a massive drag on the system because they do not seek care until a condition reaches emergency status, which ends up costing MORE than it would have otherwise. 5. The vast majority of health insurers are for-profit entities, which means their bottom line is more important than the care they authorize. They constitute a massive bureaucracy that is dedicated to restricting care and paring their customers to the most healthy. 6. The boomer generation is not a worldwide phenomenon. It's unique to this country, which means our health care costs will reflect the aging of that generation, at least temporarily raising costs relative to other countries. 7. Do you actually believe that a cost overhead of 20-25% to administer health care claims is better than a cost overhead of 2%?

To: Ilaine who wrote (204291)	9/25/2006 3:54:36 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

CB, <The simple fact remains, Americans spend more on health care because we DEMAND more and GET more.> I spend money on health care according to what I need. I only buy what I think is necessary and value for money. Most of the money I do spend I believe is due to the medical guild cartel keeping the supply of medical services tighter than oil supplies. A potential young doctor in New Zealand is told "Sorry, you are not allowed to study and become a doctor" purely because of restrictive trade practises. Their argument is that they don't have the capacity to produce more doctors, but the capacity is limited by the amount of money made available. A potential young doctor isn't allowed to pay their own way. So, there is always a shortage. There is also criminality in the medical guild. A couple of opthalmologists were found guilty of typical money-grubbing medical guild scum-sucking criminal values contrary to their Hypocritical Oath nzma.org.nz Note how The New Zealand Medical Journal treats the case almost as an accidental outcome of being caring about the quality of service the patients would receive. Yeah right. "We were only worried about the patients". <The case involved an arrangement between ophthalmologists which hindered the efforts of Southern Health to hire an Australian ophthalmologist to reduce its unacceptably high waiting list for cataract surgery. The proposal from the Australian surgeon was at a very favourable price. The incumbent ophthalmologist objected strongly to the hiring of the Australian surgeon and entered into an arrangement to oppose this with the ophthalmologist from Canterbury Health who was assisting during weekends once a month. Other ophthalmologists from Canterbury Health were drawn into that arrangement after the views of the two surgeons were discussed at a meeting, the minutes for which recorded unanimous support for the incumbent surgeon’s ‘predicament.’ Two ophthalmologists from that meeting contacted the president of the Ophthalmological Society of New Zealand (OSNZ) to enlist its help, and the supporting conduct of its president, on behalf of OSNZ, drew that society into the arrangement also. The result of this opposition was that the Australian surgeon was unable to obtain the necessary ‘oversight’ (required because he would be practicing in New Zealand for less than 4 months). > Deregulate the medical guild and costs will plummet to human levels. One of the absurdities is that specialists take about a decade to become a specialist. When I was 15 years old, I could have become a skin specialist by about age 16. An apprenticeship would have had me up to the standard of actual specialists "practising" now by the time I was 18. I could handle skin cancers and other skin problems for very low prices [my alternative occupations of lifting cement bags and sheep carcasses, inter alia would have been about what I'd have done the skin services for, though manual labour is pleasurable so maybe I'd need a bit more money to do skin specialist work]. Hang on, I didn't even need that training. I'm better at diagnosis and statistics than the current skin specialist experts right now. I have personally determined that a melanoma should come off when the skin specialist thought it could stay on and be observed. The patient, who also thought it should come off, is alive and well after it was removed. Another person, who trusted the "just keep an eye on it" has been dead for 12 years [aged about 43]. I also diagnosed a squamous cell carcinoma as "That should be cut out" though three doctors had thought it nothing. When the last one did cut it out, he was surprised when the pathology report came back "squamous cell carcinoma". I could go on and on and on about personal medical guild blunderings, [not "I heard from a friend that somebody they knew" - I mean my own personal family], some of which would have been fatal but for personal intervention. Increase supply and competition and prices will come down. Deregulation would take a lot of the absurdity out of medical treatment. Where's the Exxon of the medical industry, with a brand to be destroyed if they mess up with patients? I could have learned to do cataract operations for a tiny fraction of the price charged by the New Zealand convicted crooks running the cartel. There's no need to learn that the thigh bone's connected to the knee bone and all the other morass of stuff that doctors learn before they start eye surgery. A foot won't fall off because a scalpel slips into an eye. Hundreds of people could be highly skilled in specific things with little training. Talented individuals could expand their skills over time to become general practitioners. The medical guild has it upside down. The general practitioner is lower-ranked than the specialist. It should be the reverse. The general practitioners should be the top of top with the widest knowledge and able to give correct diagnoses and direction to the right specialists who would fix the specific problem. Another bone to pick; how come doctors are always practising? At some stage they should know how to do it. Mqurice

To: Ilaine who wrote (204291)	9/25/2006 5:37:34 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"The simple fact remains, Americans spend more on health care because we DEMAND more and GET more. I spend a lot on insurance and have full coverage. I haven't been to visit a doctor in over 10 years (that was just for a check up). I hope I get sick soon, what a rip off it would be if I got run over by a truck or something.