How the Health Crisis was solved 80 years ago.

[Sirrus_Asura]

Government in 9-11. Psh no.

[guartz]

Oh Burn you got me there bro.

You hold such contempt for the government do you think they have something to do with it?

I think it had something to do with it.

[Sirrus_Asura]

YouTube - True News 1: War and the Price of Empire

[Dimmauk]

YouTube - True News 1: War and the Price of Empire

Canadian? GTFO.

[Sirrus_Asura]

Canadian? GTFO.

=(

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Canadian? GTFO.

They're all Canadian. And they're coming to take your jobs.

[Sirrus_Asura]

They're all Canadian. And they're coming to take your jobs.

No, just to use our private health care.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

No, just to use our private health care.

That's a baldfaced lie and you know it.

[Sirrus_Asura]

That's a baldfaced lie and you know it.

But do the Canadians know it?

[guartz]

YouTube - True News 1: War and the Price of Empire

he's an anarcho-capitalist, fyi

[Sirrus_Asura]

he's an anarcho-capitalist, fyi

They're not supposed to know that. >=|

[Olo401]

Something to consider.. this was posted by a new visitor to one of the daily political/social blogs I visit (emphasis added):

This is an excellent post. The Canadian payment system is slightly more complicated than is mentioned here. Each province and territory adminsters it's own plan, as was pointed out here, but that's done under federal legislation to set standards and with subsidies from the federal government (AKA transfer payments).

As a Canadian who lived and worked in the US for seven years, there is no doubt in my mind that I get better care in Canada than what I had to endure during my seven years in the US system. This might come as a shock to some Americans, but this is my experience.

I am almost 60 years old and have been retired for almost four years. I have a decent pension, but I could never afford health insurance or health care in the US, even if they would accept me because of a couple of "pre existing conditions". I have just over five years before I would be eligible for Medicare in the US. This makes absolutely no difference in Canada. I have, and always have had, access to health care whenever I need it here.

I have had a couple of serious surgeries with long wait times http://fourfreedomsblog.com/emoticons/sarcasm.gif ... 4 days once for a serious one (to specialist one day, into hospital the next, testing and CT the third and surgery the fourth) and 16 days for a potentially serious one (GP to otolarygologist to surgery for removal of a laryngeal lesion (turned out to be benign) and then surgical reconstruction of the vocal cords in 16 days) I have also been going to a speech language pathologist every two weeks since that surgery (two months ago) to assist in recovering my voice (paid by the health care system) . My voice is close to getting back to normal, because of what the speech pathologist has done.

My mother had bypass surgery at age 72 within 2 1/2 days (some of that was to stabilize her so she would be more likely to survive the surgery). She also had cataract surgery at age 77, diagnosis to surgery 14 days.

My experience in the US in the 1980's is that the insurance company run around for approval would take longer than it took me to have surgery here.

Incidentally, for those fools who say there is no health care for seniors in Canada, beside the examples I have already mentioned, 1200 hip replacements done in Canada last year were done on people 85 years old or older.

Many Americans simply have no idea of the quality and efficiency of the Canadian system and opponents of reform have made up self serving lies about it. The American Patients United Now commercial with Shona Holmes, for example, was pulled by the FCC as false advertising. The "brain tumour" from which she "would have died" because of the Canadian system, was actually a non life threatening benign cyst, which her physician had prioritized as such, and had made appropriate appointments for her, based on that physician's opinion of her condition's priority. No system is perfect and our system may occassionally need some tweaking, but 92% of Canadians far prefer what we have, and would totally reject an American style one. This is the best measure of which we consider to be better anyway.

The thing I found most interesting is the part about wait times, which is often cited as a reason not to use the Canadian model of socialized medicine in favor of one of the European systems. The wait time, in reality, includes all the doctor visits for testing, imaging surgery sites & physical/mental preparation leading up to surgery (see the parts in italics above), which is also done here in the States. The real difference (which is bolded above) is that here you have to wait for an insurance company to okay payment for all procedures before they're even done, and that could take as long or longer than it takes to actually do all the pre-op procedures.

And of course, there's STILL the possibility that necessary procedures won't even be approved for payment by the insurance company out of their sadistic desire to satisfy their bottom line.

[Muffins]

@Sirrus

You asked a few pages back why Rhinox advocates for universal health care. Why I can't answer for Rhonix, I'll attempt to illuminate the reasons why some of us libs believe what we do. Guartz touched on this earlier by saying it's utilitarian in nature, and that would be correct.

Every person has an interest in living a quality, happy life, and one would assume that being healthy is a means to that end (sick people tend not to live very long or happy lives). Now, people get sick from time to time, and some have serious medical emergencies that threaten their lives. For many, it would be safe to assume that they wish to resolve the emergency to continue living their lives.

There are thousands of types of very costly medical emergencies that would financially ruin the lives of the poor and middle class. Insurance, as it ought to work, is a system where individuals prepay into a pool to protect against those loses under the promise that an individual paying in will receive reimbursement. With the way multi-billion dollar insurance cartels operate now, this isn't the case. Insurance providers have the power to cancel coverage, discriminate against those deemed "too risky", and refuse payment to those already upholding their end of the promise (to pay premiums).

Here's where utilitarianism can be applied. When a claim is denied or coverage canceled, the consequences of that action result in the provider gaining profit (positive) but at the cost of the livelihood and possibly the life of the individual (negative). When weighing one against the other, it's clear that the negative impact on the individual through loss of coverage is greater than loss a provider incurs by paying for treatment. Conversely, receiving coverage results in the individual continuing to live their life without the burden of high medical costs. This is much greater than the marginal profit a provider would make on that individual alone.

Where government steps in is in the ability to provide coverage to those who would be most affected by the high cost of care (namely the poor and middle class) that the private industry either refuses to cover or simply screws over. The reason most of us want universal health care, or at the very least the option for a public plan, is because the current system creates a much larger negative impact than positive and/or the positive benefits are consolidated to those who have the least to gain.

A system that profits through denying claims and canceling coverage in the way the industry operates now is viewed as wrong and immoral by utilitarians. A more moral, and arguably better system is to allow government, through its powers of distribution, to cover those most in need for a minor cost to the rest of us. Systems like this already exist (progressive taxation, social security, medicare), and it can be said that we're all the better for it.

As an additional note, I want to add that government as a solution isn't totally benign. Government's motive isn't profit in the literal sense, but in maintaining a productive, taxpaying workforce. A healthy workforce is a means to that end. It's just that the consequence of government health care is that everyone is covered for medical treatment.

At least, that's how I think of it, and I could always be wrong.

[Acturus]

Something to consider.. this was posted by a new visitor to one of the daily political/social blogs I visit (emphasis added):

[...]
My experience in the US in the 1980's is that the insurance company run around for approval would take longer than it took me to have surgery here. [...]

The thing I found most interesting is the part about wait times, which is often cited as a reason not to use the Canadian model of socialized medicine in favor of one of the European systems. The wait time, in reality, includes all the doctor visits for testing, imaging surgery sites & physical/mental preparation leading up to surgery (see the parts in italics above), which is also done here in the States. The real difference (which is bolded above) is that here you have to wait for an insurance company to okay payment for all procedures before they're even done, and that could take as long or longer than it takes to actually do all the pre-op procedures.

And of course, there's STILL the possibility that necessary procedures won't even be approved for payment by the insurance company out of their sadistic desire to satisfy their bottom line.

There's a comparison being made between the US system twenty years ago and the Canadian system today.

Apples and dumptrucks. There's no way that a typical surgical procedure would take 4-16 days to be authorized by any American commercial insurance company, however serious it might be (the exception of course, is emergent care. It doesn't sound like the Canadian cited needed ER attention).

[Olo401]

There's a comparison being made between the US system twenty years ago and the Canadian system today.

Apples and dumptrucks. There's no way that a typical surgical procedure would take 4-16 days to be authorized by any American commercial insurance company, however serious it might be (the exception of course, is emergent care. It doesn't sound like the Canadian cited needed ER attention).

So you're not going to take into account that the situation today is worse than it was 20 years ago in this country? Which is part of the reason we're trying to reform the health care system.

[Acturus]

So you're not going to take into account that the situation today is worse than it was 20 years ago in this country? Which is part of the reason we're trying to reform the health care system.

I'm just pointing out that the part in bold that was quoted above is most certainly not an accurate comparison of both healthcare systems from the point of view of authorizations and the timeliness of care, considering it's one person's opinion based on care he received in Canada at the time of posting, and his perceived opinion of the authorization process in the US twenty years ago.

The statement made (as I read it) is that the Canadian would have expected to wait 4-16 days for insurance approval for a serious surgical procedure if he had been in need of one in the US in the 1980s. Therre's no real understanding of what exactly was going on, except that neither described procedure was handled as emergent care since both seem to have been scheduled in advance.

In the 80s, there were no 24-hour authorization call centers, no electronic EOBs or claim forms. Life moved slower twenty years ago than it does today, technology alone has increased the speed at which healthcare processes are handled.

It just seemed like a poor example to use to make your point about a misconception that Americans have with the timeliness of care in countries like Canada.

[Olo401]

It just seemed like a poor example to use to make your point about a misconception that Americans have with the timeliness of care in countries like Canada.

Okay I'll concede that then. But I did have another point - that timeliness of care in Canada is in reality not as it is portrayed here. The wait time issue is a MYTH.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

The wait time issue is a MYTH.

Do We Want Socialized Medicine? Conservative site blah blah blah blah blah, but he cites a Vancouver news organization. Are they lieing?

[Sirrus_Asura]

The national debt is a myth perpetuated by the Corporate Fat Cats on Wallstreet. You heard it here folks.

[Olo401]

Do We Want Socialized Medicine? Conservative site blah blah blah blah blah, but he cites a Vancouver news organization. Are they lieing?

Hard to tell what political slant he is actually, even if it seems conservative. Some of his other writings indicate otherwise.

It's also tough to verify anything he says since he doesn't link anything at all (he does offer dates though). There are a number of things he cites that are easily debunked (people dying on the streets because they were denied care for lack of insurance) refuted by others (the wait time for CT scans is mentioned in the first-hand account I posted a few replies back) or irrelevant (wait times for plastic surgery in a public health system are automatically long, because they're mostly unnecessary vanity procedures).