Those of you with "socialized medicine"...

[Guest navinjohnson]

I never once, in my entire post mentioned what view I have on this matter. I merely presented some links to websites that make legitimate arguments and counterpoints. Why? When you word opinions as statements of fact, I think it is necessary to provide an opposing perspective regardless of my own personal opinion.

 

there still hasn't been a single bit of proof that his movies aren't truthful

 

I followed up with something that has been missing from this thread, an opposing viewpoint of another (American) filmmaker. Oh and he happens to be rich, he pays for his own films and the films of others. Yes he has an agenda, as does Micheal Moore. You seem more inclined to believe Moore's facts though. Why?

 

(and your links...those sites DO have an agenda, and that agenda is not the betterment of our health care system...do some research on who funds those websites, then come back and tell me you still believe their "facts").

 

Did I ever mention that the sites were entirely objective? No news source is. So one has to be careful in evaluating whatever is presented. I honestly don't care who funds his website. It doesn't change the content of what is presented, and I don't care who funds Moore's endeavors for the same reason.

 

 

 

If my opinion (which I never gave) of a proposed government healthcare system is not worth 2 cents, then why would you ask a question like this...

 

Tell me, is there anything in the world you would give up your free health care for?

 

 

This is my last post here. If this argument is to continue, I suggest you start another thread Angry.

[cegras]

Angry_Games: Socialized healthcare isn't just happy go "okay I see doktor now I geev card and get peels"

 

Remember that we have ridiculous taxes over here, especially income tax. And a bunch of new taxes being put in. Honestly, the politicians waste allot of it. Ontario's Premier just spent 80 million dollars to plant trees all over Ontario.

 

Meanwhile a major artery highway bridge has been under lane expansion for two years.

[Angry_Games]

Angry_Games: Socialized healthcare isn't just happy go "okay I see doktor now I geev card and get peels"

 

Remember that we have ridiculous taxes over here, especially income tax. And a bunch of new taxes being put in. Honestly, the politicians waste allot of it. Ontario's Premier just spent 80 million dollars to plant trees all over Ontario.

 

Meanwhile a major artery highway bridge has been under lane expansion for two years.

 

I've no doubt that there are pitfalls and negatives to all socialized medicine. I'm not expecting everyone to be super-happy-hyperforce-team-go! about it, I just want to know if what we've been fed for the last 20 years (and especially when Hillary Clinton tried to socialize it when Bill was prez) about how horrifying and terrible everyone's socialized medicine is is actually true or not.

 

Hence the question for you as well: Is there anything you would give up for your national healthcare system?

[allthatwhichis]

Angry_Games: Socialized healthcare isn't just happy go "okay I see doktor now I geev card and get peels"

 

...but would you give it up, and for what?

[red930]

I've waited to see if there were more posts before I put my two cents in so here goes another exciting episode of the ExRoadie Rant.

 

Full disclosure. I pay for my own health-care. I have a major medial/catastrophic emergency policy with a huge deductible*, but all of my medical expenses are paid out of my own savings. I pay cash to my Doctor for visits and for all of my medicine and procedures.

 

AG spoke the truth. I did enjoy the Michael Moore movie Sicko. It was quite entertaining and informative. Not as good as Roger and Me but much less deceptive than Bowling for Columbine or Fahrenheit 9/11.

 

That said, I take issue with the term "free health-care". There is nothing free in a society. Everything has a cost attached whether it's Fire and Police protection or the roads we drive on.

 

"Free" is a complete misnomer in this situation and a distortion of the facts in the best tradition of Michael Moore's films.

 

Let's take this simple trip down the economic highway.

 

You've decided you want "free" health-care and limit it to your immediate family. Everyone in your family decides it's a good idea and agrees to put money into a pot to pay for doctor visits and medicine.

 

You're feeling pretty good right about now, then you remember your alcoholic Aunt that is grossly obese and has diabetes. Suddenly you realize that she's gonna be a huge burden on your system so you decide to disqualify her from participation to keep the costs of your system down. Done.

 

But what about your Sister In-law with a family history of breast cancer. Out and done.

 

Then there's your... well, you get the idea. Since someone has to pay for every bit of care anyone in the group receives, you've rapidly come to understand why me next proposal makes the most sense.

 

Eliminate health insurance.*

 

That's right, do away with health insurance and make everyone pay their own way.

 

The first big savings in the system will be to do away with the huge patient billing systems that are currently a 10% to 12% burden on the system. Some physicians see up to a 43% cost to their gross income spent on billing.

 

When I was dropped by my insurance carrier, I negotiated with my doctor for cash payments. Instead of billing insurance $180.00 for a visit she now charges me $50.00. Last year my MRI and interpretation was billed at just over $3,500.00. This year I paid $750.00 for the same exact service.

 

Here's an example of the overhead costs for billing and insurance in California using 2005 numbers... http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/conte...tract/24/6/1629

 

You might be asking your self, Self?, how did ExRoadie come up with such a simple yet elegant solution to this problem?!

 

Some of my best customers are medical billing offices. I see exactly how much is spent by physicians just to get paid for their services. I armed myself with this information before I approached my doctor to negotiate for her services. Now I actually pay less for my health care than I did when I had "full coverage" insurance.

 

Just think about this. You will be responsible for your own health. There's a novel idea.

 

Beware the asterisk. Yeah, I know, my rant has one of those pesky asterisks in it. I understand that some health insurance is necessary for major issues like Cancer and such. But wouldn't you rather pay less for medical care?

 

BTW The number of "uninsured" Americans being promoted as high as 41 million has some significant * issues its self. First and foremost is the fact that healthy young adults that elect not to pay for health insurance are included in this number along with everyone that's covered by government health programs. Logic dictates that if government is paying for your health care then you're covered. Right?!?

 

It's sorta like the "number of people living under the poverty level". The problem with the "number" is that they don't include the government subsidies that these people receive. If you include payments from the government to these ""under the poverty level" numbers they shrink by more than 90%. Being purposefully wrong by a more than 2 to 1 ratio is called lying. Wrong by a factor of 10 is criminal.

[ponderingpete]

Greetings all from north of the border. After thinking this question through the answer is no. There is nothing I would give up or trade for the way health care is set up in Canada. I could wish for millions of dollars so that in the worst case scenario I could look after myself and afford to be hooked up to machines that go bing! But what about everybody else? How is a nation to succeed when its population is sickly? Within the past two years two people very close to me -mother and brothers girlfriend, have just had lymphectomies, coincidentaly at same hospital, same surgeon, same nurses and all too many deja-vu attributes which really freaked my brother out. The care and quality of service in both instances has been fantastic. From pre-op to post-op, to two weeks of homecare afterwards. In the end though, let's not kid ourselves. Collective taxes from all Canadians pay for all of these services. Everey day I work I pay into the system whether I need hospitalization or not. If someone else needs it before me...brother, sister go under the knife it's on me, all of us actually. Private health care exists here as well and yes you pay for it. Personally, I just saw my family doctor for the first time in like 8 years -yeah I know I should go yearly, and the last time I had to use the hospital was 21 years ago when I was 16 and drunkenly ran out into the road and got hit by a truck. I was released the next day, a little too soon for it wasn't until about 2 days later that we realized that my kidneys took a major beating and were infected. So back to emerge and more pills to follow. In the end I'm better and only have joint pains every now and then. The worst other than the accident was I had to pay for the ambulance,- don't even remember the ride with sirens and all, and was given a jay walking ticket in bed by the officer who responded to the call. All in all the system here is great. Yeah, you may have to wait a few hours to get stitches, a few hours to get that new rash diagnosed, a few hours to have something that your daughter shoved up her nose removed. In the end your cared for and thats what matters the most. Knowing that on any given day you can walk into a hospital and be treated and not have to pull out a wad of cash or a credit card.

[suedenim]

And there's the rub - its not free.

 

We may think of it as free as we don't have to pay at point of service but it isn't, but on the other hand its good for society.

 

Good for you ExRoadie being able to game the system but what next the police, ambulances, fire service, coastguard etc. etc. (this isn't a dig at you by the way just extrapolating the scenario)

 

Also what if through no fault of you're own your severely injured and require long term (or life) care. You have your pot of cash and your negotiated fees but things change, and costs generally rise, and new doctors/medical associations might not negotiate with you.

 

What if you die young and you're parents aren't able to financially fund their care and welfare or even your wife and kids. Where do we draw the line. Shall we have the poor dig their own graves.

 

There is nothing to fear from social healthcare. The real fear is the incompetency of those in charge of the funds (AND those in charge) and the political disinterest of those that put them in power.

 

Apologies after the fact for the politics rant but it's unavoidable if there is any kind of official or agency involved.

[Angry_Games]

oops I should have specifically stated that I know 'free' healthcare is not free, that socialized countries with this type of system pay a lot in taxes. Which is why I posed the question: is there anything you would give up your healthcare system for?

 

ponderingpete said exactly what I was hoping to hear, because it means that we still have some humanity left (well, not so much in America where the dollar and what Paris Hilton is doing is much more important than your neighbors or the rest of the citizens in your country as you are too busy trying to ban gay marriages and stop abortions):

 

But what about everybody else? How is a nation to succeed when its population is sickly?

 

that almost made me and momma cry because it's rare for someone to feel that way enough to express it to someone else. Yeah yeah, all of us claim to feel such things, but in this country, it's never spoken of which means people say they might think this way, but they never do anything about it which leads me to believe they just say it so people will think they are good.

 

It's just sad that we have to hear it from people in other countries instead of our own. As I said, sure we might claim it here, but in other countries they actually do it, and while they might complain about this or that when it comes to it, if you tried to take it away from them, there would be a revolution.

[ReelFiles]

You nailed it Travis that is exactly the type of thinking that goes on in a lot of countries besides the US, where the wellbeing of the nation's citizens matters the most, and not the government's. That's showing real patriotism in my eyes, not just saying "America...Fxxx Yeah!"

[taowulf]

I used to work in the Patients Accounts department of a county hospital in Southern California. One of the jobs I did was apply Medicaid and Medicare payments (federal) as well as the CA state equivalent programs to accounts. I would start of with blocks of cash in the millions and start working through accounts of people that were unable to pay the bill, mostly indigents (homeless) and illegal immigrants (lots of childbirths). Those millions never got far.

[red930]

Excuse me for butting in but what does paying for someone else's health-care have to do with compassion or human rights or a "sickly" population?

 

How about this thought! Personal responsibility! What a unique and wonderful thought!

 

If everyone was responsible for their own health, they would take better care of their bodies.

 

I'm all for a healthy population of productive citizens. The problem is that with socialized medicine there's no incentive to be healthy.

 

To be brutally honest, paying for my own health-care has made me quite conscious of my "health" decisions and I'm much better off for it.

 

This single quote is exactly what's wrong with socialized health-care...

Knowing that on any given day you can walk into a hospital and be treated and not have to pull out a wad of cash or a credit card.

 

Why are so many people willing to give up their control to governments? This simple act seems so backwards to logic that I simply can't understand the great cry for socialized medicine.

 

Compassion has many definitions. My favorite is "The wish to free others from their suffering." Of course my solution means there's some personal responsibility so that won't go over well with the Socialists.

[3stars]

To be brutally honest, paying for my own health-care has made me quite conscious of my "health" decisions and I'm much better off for it.

 

I'm sorry but i'm not putting this in to be argumentitive you attitude is commendable, but...... and heres the but, some medications can cost upward of 100,000.00 per anum these are for things that even if you were the most health conscious of people can and do strike people down.i don't think that your savings can cover that especially if your ill and have no earning capacity.

 

The notion of "free" health care here is not free you get a tax hit if you earn over 50,000.00 pa and do not have health care insurance, the goverment will get its money one way or other.

 

the idea that you can walk in and been seen buy a doctor is great i wouldn't give it up.

on a foot note the whole spending of the british national health is covered by the revenue created buy taxes on smoking.