Its good if you can afford insurance or are supplied it by your employer, really bad if you can’t afford it. A large number of people can’t.
[quote]belligerent wrote:
The movie fails because I don’t care how long it takes for anybody else to get health care. The fact that universalism puts me at the government’s mercy to receive treatment is more than enough reason to reject it. [/quote]
I agree with this. Michael Moore makes political movies, not documentaries. His subversive nature just rubs me the wrong way.
I think our care is really outstanding, having been in the hospital twice recently for kidney stones. (Morphine = best invention ever)
But then again, I have excellent insurance. Here in the US, if you have insurance you are golden. God help you if you have a serious accident or illness and you don’t.
It is not rare to see people who do not have ins. or who have hit their coverage limits to be bankrupted. Of course, if they get sick then, they end up at the emergency room anyway, and the rest of us pay for their care…Which would happen under a single payer system.
I have somewhat of a personal stake in this, as my SO has a genetic disease which will quite literally kill her in <18 months or so without her medicines and treatments. We are currently in the process of transferring her coverage, and it is nerve wracking. There is always the fear that some mistake could be made in the paperwork, or the ins. could be modified or canceled for reasons beyond our control. Without coverage, her care and medicine run over 3,000 per month.
The question, the final central question is how much gov’t we are willing to pay for, and what kind of civilization we want to live in. I have lived in a third world country, where crippled people beg in the streets. I don’t want that. Neither do I want so much of our income taxed away that there is no incentive to achieve.
There has to be some kind of safety net. One of the measures of a country is how well they care for their most helpless citizens. We don’t do well there.
In any event, this particular debate, I think, is about over. The new pres has made it clear that we will have some kind of system in place soon. The left will shout about how it doesn’t go far enough. The right will scream that their money is being taken to help lazy people. And over the next few years it will become accepted as the status quo.
Worst case scenario, I guess we could move to Canada. The people are relentlessly nice, BC is not as cold as you might think, and bud is pretty much legal…
I haven’t seen Sicko but usually I want to do horrible things to Michael Moore after any of his movies, even if I agree with his point in some of them.
As a rugby playing dane, I’ve been through the public healthcare system many a time. The waiting lists can be an annoyance but when it’s really needed you can’t complain. I have 2 cancer sick grandparents, one with Stage 5 prostate cancer and both of them have been treated impeccably.
The quality of the doctors and hospitals are very high too. One option the danish healhcare system has is to send patients to private hospitals if the waiting list is too long, which is of course payed for. This works quite well.
If we can afford 10 billion dollar/mo wars, we can afford health care with no extra taxes.
Yeah, but you can’t afford 2 wars and universal health care.
I have never waited more than an hour at an ER, nor have I had any trouble making appointments. The best doctors may not accept new patients but that’s to be expected.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
We rarely have to wait more than 30 minutes to see a doc. Everyone is still alive, and healthy.
Our doctor gives us a 60% self-employed discount when we pay out of our pockets, which is about 99.9% of the time.
About the only time we have to wait is when we are referred to another physician for more tests. My son hurt his knee a couple of years ago and we had to wait about an hour for the traveling MRI truck to get set up.
Moore could find dog shit in a pork loin. It’s what he does. There is zero objectivity in anything he does.
We don’t need nanny care. That is for the nutless Euros and the half-French Canadians.
[/quote]
Yup. Moore thinks being an American makes you evil, just by the fact that you’re an American. Of course, the dimwit is from Michigan.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Yup. Moore thinks being an American makes you evil, just by the fact that you’re an American. Of course, the dimwit is from Michigan.
[/quote]
That’s a heavy statement from someone who hails from Ohio of all places
Why everyone wants to have services provided to them by the government is beyond me. When was the last time you had a positive interaction with a governmental agency. You are at the governments mercy if it is your service provider. With an insurance company you can tell them to get fucked and go buy different insurance. Not to mention all the beruacracy that comes with any kind of government agency.
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Yup. Moore thinks being an American makes you evil, just by the fact that you’re an American. Of course, the dimwit is from Michigan.
That’s a heavy statement from someone who hails from Ohio of all places
[/quote]
No rip on the people of Michigan. Hell I grew up there. The point was that he makes Americans out to be so bad when he himself is an American.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
bigflamer wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Yup. Moore thinks being an American makes you evil, just by the fact that you’re an American. Of course, the dimwit is from Michigan.
That’s a heavy statement from someone who hails from Ohio of all places
No rip on the people of Michigan. Hell I grew up there. The point was that he makes Americans out to be so bad when he himself is an American. [/quote]
Well, my comment was meant to come off as more facetious than it did. Just getting a little jibe in with someone from Ohio as I truly despise OSU 
Seriously though, there are many folks in the political world that are an embarrassment to the state of Michigan; Levin, Stabenaw, Granholm, and or course Micheal Moore. Thank God for Ted Nugent…
Growing up in America, my parents had little money and poor insurance. My family was treated badly on several occasions. Generally we could go to an emergency room with only a few hours wait, but getting in to see a doctor was a 2-3 month wait.
The insurance companies we had would almost always fight with us about bills. There was always one reason or another that we were denied coverage. Some of the issues with my sister took years to resolve.
My experiences with Japanese universal medical insurance were different. While that country has serious issues with it’s healthcare bureaucracy, generally, if you cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s you’ll be fine. Generally waits to see the doctor lasted around 1hr for non-serious issues.
A good friend of mine’s father had a serious stroke and he was given fast and decent service at first, and amazing service as he re-leaned how to walk and use his body. While there were some serious worries about how much the govt-issued healthcare would cover, they eventually offered a lot of help and good service. The govt representative that helped the family worked very hard and did a lot for the family.
I’ve heard horror stories both from America and Japan about poor medical service. But I’ve never heard about a Japanese family being bankrupted by medical costs as happens in America.
Poor medical care and long waiting times has very little to do with the universal healthcare debate. The current system works fine for most.
The issue is providing healthcare for those who don’t have it. Those who can’t afford decent insurance. And the debate centers around whether some should foot the bill for others who can’t afford it.
The simplist way to answer that question is with this statement. “Canada is a great place to live, just don’t get sick”.
Hip & knee replacement and elective surgery have up to a three year wait list. Emergency rooms are hours of waiting, I think thats pretty standard.
By the way, it’s not free either. One was to pay into their provincal medical plans on a monthly bases. It’s not a real lot but you pay then and in your federal taxes.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Poor medical care and long waiting times has very little to do with the universal healthcare debate. The current system works fine for most.
The issue is providing healthcare for those who don’t have it. Those who can’t afford decent insurance. And the debate centers around whether some should foot the bill for others who can’t afford it. [/quote]
I agree with you and I don’t. You are right that the current debate has moved beyond the state as sole provider and onto questions of how to best serve the uninsured and under-insured. Yet implementation of policy is important and can contribute to waiting lines and general care. But, yeah, now the debate has moved beyond that mostly. We still need to keep these things in mind however.
I think another thing to keep in mind is we need a movement to preventative care in this country. When I was living in Japan people would go into the doctor for just about anything (for a small fee). At first I thought this was silly…then I realized it was a major part of the reason they’re such a long lived people…a penny of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.
So who’ll lead the world in medical know-how, technological advancement, etc., when whe go universal?
We need less government involvement, if you’re asking me.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
So who’ll lead the world in medical know-how, technological advancement, etc., when whe go universal?
We need less government involvement, if you’re asking me.[/quote]
were not doing that as it is, so whats your point?
and regardless of who is, the vast amount of new advancements and cutting edge equipment are used for a fraction of overall health care. Which is why countries that spend half or a quarter of what we do have much better health care. or why rural ER clinics can accommodate 99% of a towns needs.
with all the money we would save going universal, no ones costs would rise and everyone could be covered. and we’d still have money to go around.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
bigflamer wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Yup. Moore thinks being an American makes you evil, just by the fact that you’re an American. Of course, the dimwit is from Michigan.
That’s a heavy statement from someone who hails from Ohio of all places
No rip on the people of Michigan. Hell I grew up there. The point was that he makes Americans out to be so bad when he himself is an American.
[/quote]
are you really that dense? even if you dont like him its pretty easy to realize he’s talking about American politics/institutions and not the people.
funny that he payed the moore watchdog groups leaders medical bills. his wife was really sick and they racked up like 12 grand in bills. Man he must of hated that guy so bad!
maybe if you all keep complaining/crying, he’ll pay your medical bills, or protein bills for the year!
[quote]Physiophile wrote:
Sloth wrote:
So who’ll lead the world in medical know-how, technological advancement, etc., when whe go universal?
We need less government involvement, if you’re asking me.
were not doing that as it is, so whats your point?
[/quote]
We aren’t?
Moreover, the United States drives much
of the innovation and research on health care
worldwide. Eighteen of the last 25 winners of
the Nobel Prize in Medicine are either U.S.
citizens or individuals working here.32 U.S.
companies have developed half of all new
major medicines introduced worldwide over
the past 20 years.33 In fact, Americans played
a key role in 80 percent of the most important
medical advances of the past 30 years.34
As shown in Figure 2, advanced medical technology
is far more available in the United
States than in nearly any other country.35
The same is true for prescription drugs.
For example, 44 percent of Americans who
could benefit from statins, lipid-lowering
medication that reduces cholesterol and protects
against heart disease, take the drug.
That number seems low until compared with
the 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of
Britons, and 17 percent of Italians who could
both benefit from the drug and receive it.36
Similarly, 60 percent of Americans taking
anti-psychotic medication for the treatment
of schizophrenia or other mental illnesses are
taking the most recent generation of drugs,
which have fewer side effects. But just 20 percent
of Spanish patients and 10 percent of
Germans receive the most recent drugs.37