How would you feel about socialized medicine?

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Hillary understood very well with her Hillarycare push that if the government controls health care then they can totally control you...with a 5-year felony penalty for circumventing the government plan.

If the government is responsible for your health care, then anything you do related to your own health can be regulated by the government. What you eat, your exercise, your travel even what you express about what you think. If it has the potential to cost the government money due to contrived or real risks of treatment, it will be in their interest to regulate it.

No one can give away my God-given rights but me. I don't care about their silly bills or speaches on C-SPAN. I would ask these socialists to move to Cuba or North Korea, but they are not interested in "living" in a communist/socialist society. They are dedicated to being the ones imposing their will to feed their egos that are so oversized that it prevents even the belief that there can be a God above them.
 
I'll repeat, rephrasing: I shopped around (Okay, so it was my wife who did the actual shopping.) We saved a ton of money, that way.
Right, Art. What you would have how is a Medicare supplemental. There are several standard plans, A through J, I think. None but the top 2 or 3 are very expensive, because they only pay the portion Medicare does not pay.

If, however, you must cover yourself from square one, you'd find most insurers would charge you about the same amount (and it would be high), as the risk is based on commonly shared actuarial tables.
 
Two tier care in military medicine?

A poster above reported on his USAF service and his belief that the military medical system provided two tiers of care: one for officers and a lower level of care for enlisted.

I asked my wife about this. My wife spent twenty years in the Navy in military medicine. She retired as a Chief corpsman, and did three duty tours as an IDC: an independent duty corpsman, much like a sea-going physicians assistant. An IDC provides the medical care at remote shore stations and the smaller ships such as destroyers, frigates, and submarines. So before she moved into healthcare administration, she spent a lot of time with hands on patient care.

Generally speaking, at least as far as the Navy is concerned, she said there was no way that she or her colleagues provided a higher level of care to officers and a lower level of care to enlisted. There may be certain procedures that an officer is more likely to get; she cited a flight physical or laser eye surgery to a pilot as an example. But even that is more due to job duties than rank.

But when it came to general or specialty care, performing surgery, prescribing medications or ordering tests, the clinical condition of the patient, not their rank, dictated their care. She recalled that probably the only thing that was different was an O-6 and above probably did not have to wait for an appointment, at least as a matter of course! At a couple of her duty stations, she would have O-5's and above come to see her in preference to one of the family practice physicians.

In terms of allocating scarce military medical resources, such as surgeries (since there is a finite number of surgeons who can do certain procedures), precedence would be given to the warfighters first regardless of rank, then urgent clinical need, then less urgent clinical needs, then elective procedures. If demand exceeds capacity, then the patients are sent out to the civilian market.

I work as an administrator at a large civilian multi-specialty clinic in a Pacific NW port city hosting a Navy base. I can tell you that over the past couple of years, as more physicians and corpsmen have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, more of the military patients and dependants back home are being referred to us given the shortages in military medical staffing. We certainly provide the same level of care to all active duty and dependents.

Perhaps the USAF medical system would be different, but in speaking with my healthcare colleagues at McChord Air Force base south of me, it sounds pretty similiar to the Navy.
 
Iain wrote:

What is your realistic alternative?

Realistic? I have none. Sadly, a morally and idealogically acceptable (to me) alternative is decidedly unrealistic. Namely, the abolishment of all government-administered social welfare programs. While we're at it, Social Security needs to go too. Why unrealistic? There is moral, and there is politically expedient, and never the twain shall meet. Not while politicians continue to purchase votes with my tax dollars.

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would think it would only matter if you already had health care insurance or not. I can't wait for everybody here to turn 65 and then present this thread again.

I'm only 51. But 11 years ago, just after I graduated from the Medical College of Georgia's School of Nursing, I was hospitalized for surgery to remove a spinal cord tumor. Without insurance of any description. I was numb from the level of my nipples on down. Numb enough for minor surgery.
My neurosurgeon's prognosis was,"You might get better, you might get worse, and you might stay the same."

Two out of those three meant that I would never work again and that I would be unable to ever repay my bill to the neurosurgeon and the hospital.

Maybe the hospital went above and beyond because I was an alumnus of the hospital...I don't know. But my destitute butt had his surgery performed by the Head of Neurosurgery at one of the top teaching hospitals in the US. And then I was sent to the Neuro ICU. From there I was sent to a private room at my surgeon's orders. Five days later, I was discharged. And presented with a bill for thirty thousand dollars. Which I cheerfully paid. With gratitude.

Guess what? I would have cheerfully paid three hundred thousand dollars and worked as an indentured servant to the hospital for twenty years for the results achieved. I can walk. I can work. I can function as an able human being. Thirty thousand dollars. My friends, that was one hell of a bargain.

saltydog,

I'll see you. And call. I've stared more serious health issues in the face than most of the elderly. Both with insurance and without insurance. Latest was a cervical spinal cord tumor this past March. Last year I had a stroke. I have a problem with Social Security, Medicare, and other programs of that ilk.
It reminds me of a car theft ring that steals your car several times over the years. Then one day the ring's members come to make amends to you. By giving you a car that they stole from someone else. The money the government took from me for Social Security has been spent as fast as they stole it. I am uncomfortable with taking money from them as my just due while knowing that they are stealing it from someone else to give to me.

What am I going to do? I'll pay my own way or check out. Simple as that.

"Is life so sweet or peace so dear as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not how others may choose...but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry

I'm a health care professional. I've seen the hells that people and their families have put them in in pursuit of the Holy Grail of life at any cost. It's not for me, my friend, for I'm not that scared. Death will come for us all, no matter how much money we may have or spend to avoid the inevitable.
 
NINO------Oh yea Teddy Kennedy was a big pusher of HMO's way back when (the early 80's). Does that really surprise anyone. It is like Ronald Reagan said---------Democrats believe that if it moves tax it, if it slows down regualte it, if it stops subsidize it. Government ALWAYS leads to more Government.
 
I never knew that. If that's true, where the hell do the Dems get off blaming the Republicans for the problems caused by HMOs?
You ARE kidding me right?


I would think it would only matter if you already had health care insurance or not. I can't wait for everybody here to turn 65 and then present this thread again.
Well, I have to say that the "elderly" in the US today are the longest-lived, most free, most potentially happy and the richest group of people in the history of all time.
Spending more on beer and cigarettes than prescription drugs does not gain them much sympathy from me.
Although I have to also admit that having any ailment stilll sucks.
But since the US govt puts all seniors on welfare by fiat and makes us their indentured benefactors through mandatory high taxes I think they have no excuse, on their part, for not having used their lives to amass enough money/property/insurance to cover their old age in reasonable style.
Newsflash: you tend to get sick when you get old.


I'll admit - on this issue I have socialist tendencies.
Sorry to use you as a stereotype Iain, I am sure you are a great guy, but this is why I dislike most English people. They have had their mediocre Socialist system for so long they really believe that it is good to be mediocre and that anyone that says otherwise is hard-hearted and unreasonable.
There is NO REASON why anybody else should pay for my medical problems unless I contract them to do so (insurance) or unless I beg for their help (charity).
Hell, if you like using other people's money for your stuff then just go out panhandling. No different to getting handouts from the govt. except you have that awkward face-to-face moment as you take their money under false pretenses. The got. makes it so much more... civilized... so British!
(disclaimer: I was born an Englishman and lived the first 25 years of my life in England. Can't stand the place.)

Get the govt out of healthcare and watch it get better, cheaper and faster.
Seriously.

G
 
I beleive socialized medicine would be like V.A. medical care.Health care would become a political football. You would wait months to see a doctor.
You would have to travel hundreds of miles to see a specialist. You would spend hours filling out forms. The red tape would be overwhelming. Anything the government touches turns to political horse pucky.
 
I never knew that. If that's true, where the hell do the Dems get off blaming the Republicans for the problems caused by HMOs?


You ARE kidding me right?
No. I never claimed to know a lot of the politics surrounding HMOs. But, seeing the dems criticize the repubs when one of their top guys helped create the HMO system seems pretty hipocritical.
 
Socialised healthcare is a political football. I'm not denying any of the problems with it, I'm also not arguing for it to be in place across the board.

GT - I've had worse said to me don't worry. Nothing mediocre about the healthcare I have received since I was 14, owe my continued (and phenomenally healthy) existence to Birmingham Heartlands Hospital CF Centre.

I tend to think that there has to be some sort of structure in place for those who could never afford to meet the basic costs of their healthcare. It's all well and good to say that anothers healthcare is never your responsibility, and from a purely theoretical standpoint I understand the point. It doesn't match up with my reality.

You could argue that charity is the way forward. Reckon it would work to a certain extent too, then again last week on my work I saw a car deliberately drive through a large puddle in order to soak two elderly men, one in a wheelchair.

In another thread I saw a member ask another member with Crohn's Disease, who admitted he had run up $2m in medical bills, what he felt that everyone owed him. I figure that at the very least he is owed an existence that is slightly more comfortable and worthwhile than he would have if everyone took the angle that his health is not their responsibility.

I guess all this comes from my personal situation, I'm not looking at one operation that will cost as much as a house and make me all better. I'm looking at 50 years of healthcare that will probably run to the total cost of a house yearly. That is my reality and it doesn't square 100% with the ideologically pure position.

Again, I'm talking about healthcare for those that could never afford what they need through no fault of their own. When I say 'need' I really mean need, for me the three-weekly infusions of immunoglobulins are not a luxury, I'd have died by now without them, you can't get pneumonia 7 or 8 times a year with CF and expect to be hale and hearty.

So there we go, personal and emotive, and as far as I'm concerned, the reality of it all.
 
The federal government already runs a socialized health care system and it's the one that provides care for dependents of active duty military personnel. As a military husband, I have free health care through the military but will soon be opting out into a private HMO contracted by the government where I will have co-pays at a very reasonable cost, but will at least receive timely care.

Disclaimer: I want to say up front that the actual doctors and corpsman that I've dealt with in the military healthcare system are FIRST RATE, but the "system" is simply not working for me as a dependent.


Here's what I get for my "free" healthcare:

I get to call my so-called primary care physician at the local installation who is a different person every year or two. Sometimes they are civilian contractors, sometimes active duty, other times reservists.

I MAY get an appointment within the next month.....case in point when I had a lump appear under the skin on my forehead for no apparent reason and explained that I had a history of skin cancer and other cancers in my family. Four weeks from call to initial appoinment.

Same case: Primary doctor, after a 3 week wait, sees me ( I took a whole day's leave for this mind you) for 10 minutes and says, "Yup something there.....let's get you to Bethesda (Naval Medical Center) to see the dermatologist.

Fast forward three more weeks of worrying about this lump.

Another day of leave, and a 1.5 hour drive to Bethesda in rush hour traffic. Go to dermatology clinic, doctor looks at it and in 15 seconds says that it's not in the skin, but on the bone and therefore is not a dermatology case :banghead: On the plus side, she excised a little blue nevus (like a mole) from my brow to save me the trip later on.

So...back to phone with primary care to get approval to set up appoinment with neurosurgery at Bethesda NNMC.

Another three weeks of worrying.....another day of leave.....another trip 1.5 hours around the beltway from Annapolis to Bethesda. Get to neurosurgery clinic and they ask for my MRI film :confused:

No one told me to get an MRI before coming :cuss:

Back to Annapolis....get an MRI through private contractor (the next day I might add)......get expedited appoinmtment with neurosurgery (two weeks later).

Another day of leave....another 1.5 hour trip.....

Neurosurgeon looks at MRI film for 15 seconds and says, "This is nothing....it is a normal protrusion in your skull that has will appear to grow or recede based on your body weight and water content.........it is part of the aging process that you will have small protrusions of bone appear on your skull".

Good news but took me the best part of 3 months to get to that point. If it had been sonething serious I could have died before anyone got down to the actual business of treating me.

Why should I believe that if this is the best that the government can do for the dependents of those actively serving our country that they will be able to do anything better when trying to provide for 250 MILLION people? :cuss: :fire:
 
I grew up in a country with socialized medicine. I greatly prefer private health insurance...it's faster, more efficient, less bureaucratic, and ultimately cheaper. (Remember, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and the "free" health care will have to be financed by higher taxation somewhere else.)

If the government pays for your health care, then the government gains the right to be able to tell you what you can and cannot do with your body. Why would anyone want that?
 
What it all comes down to

is the fact that no one has a right to something which must come from the sweat of another's brow. Period. You may disagree with that, but it's the truth.

The rights of man are not material rights, they are freedoms. They are essentially negative: the right NOT to have govt control your speech, the right NOT to have govt search you or imprison you without just cause, the right to defend yourself without the leave of govt, etc.

You cannot establish rights to material things without abridging the rights of man. Once you give material 'rights' primacy over the rights of man, there is no limit--none--to how far the majority can go in suppressing your rights.

As for the poor, uninsured,etc., we docs do now what we always did:treat the patient and accept that we will not be paid. We are not saints, so there's a limit to how much we'll do for free. But when govt fixes how much we can be paid, you can bet that amount won't be very motivating. And then you'd better hope that we ARE saints, because only extraordinary charity will make a man work harder than he has to day in and day out if it gets him nowhere.
 
In another thread I saw a member ask another member with Crohn's Disease, who admitted he had run up $2m in medical bills, what he felt that everyone owed him. I figure that at the very least he is owed an existence that is slightly more comfortable and worthwhile than he would have if everyone took the angle that his health is not their responsibility.

Let's see what the list is thus far:

1)neurofibromatosis...two spinal cord tumors removed, two peripheral nervous system tumors removed, and one more that will need to be removed at some futute date. Plus whatever more that the disease produces.
2)diabetes...one stroke affecting balance and my left eye.
3)Hypertension...complication of neurofibromatosis, four medicines and it's still too high...it's beginning to affect the kidneys.
4)arthritis...just hurts thus far.

The government would not be responsible for any children of mine who inherited neurofibromatosis. Besides, I had enough integrity at eighteen when I found out I had neurofibromatosis...to decide not to get anyone pregnant.

You know what anyone else owes me for my health care? Not one penny. Not even at the cost of my life do I have the right to demand that government force others to care for me at gunpoint. Now if a group of altruistic folk want to take me under their wing when I get so that I can't work...I'll be grateful. But I'll never demand it as my due for it is not. I am not owed anything by any person, organization, government, or society because I have serious health problems. Neither is the guy with Crohn's Disease. Neither are you. Just had a cousin born with CF. He's not owed anything either.

About the only thing I know how to do besides being a nurse is being a bill collector and repo man. That's work that was driving me crazy. On the first day that socialized medicine becomes a reality in the US...well, I'll be going crazy again for I won't be a nurse.
 
In another thread I saw a member ask another member with Crohn's Disease, who admitted he had run up $2m in medical bills, what he felt that everyone owed him. I figure that at the very least he is owed an existence that is slightly more comfortable and worthwhile than he would have if everyone took the angle that his health is not their responsibility.

That would have been me who posted that, and I stand by it :)

Ok, since you don't like the free market approach, which would incluse a massive reduction in the cost of healthcare because govt intervention would be cut to a minimum (see Hegel), let us look at it from the socialist angle. If someone is going to run up 2 million in medical bills, what do you think the chances are that they will ever repay that 2 million to the healthcare system, or even 2 million in total revenue in his whole life? It will not be very common that many people will gross that much, so what benefit does "society" have if they spend 2 million on 1 person's medical bills when he will only return a fraction of that back to society? It would seem he is a net loss to the hive.

Ok, why should we stop just with people in our own country? If someone is entitled to medical care simply because they exist we should provide medical care to the entire planet, right? Should we intervene in every country and pay for their care, no matter how costly it is, or no matter how we bankrupt ourselves in the process making that continued intervention impossible?

Also, just how much care should we give them? I remember a poster complaining in a thread a while back about how his father's health insurance was as expensive as his mortgage payment, even though his father was 92 and was in and out of the hospital constantly. Who will decide, by what criteria, how much, and in what order, someone will get treatment? Personally, I don't see much point in keeping a 90 year old alive through costly medical intervention unless they are still producing something incredible, maybe a new formula for infinite energy or real lightsabers.

Do you want the govt to decide who will live and who will die? Maybe your family and friends might have been able to pool together and get enough money to pay for your medical care, I have seen many churches do exactly that many times, but now they cannot do so because the govt. is already taking all their money leaving them with almost no disposable income.

I suppose the scenario of people being charitable on their own is impossible because you saw some thugs splash 2 old guys with water. You guys seem to like that kind of reasoning, I remember several years ago in England how 2 POS kids abducted a 5 year old then took him to a train track and beat him to death. From what I understand these 2 maggots are unfortunately still drawing breath but I guess it does prove that all people are bad and that maybe you evil people dont deserve to defend yourselves. Maybe a brutal death by the hands of a thug is deserved unless the govt decides otherwise, and your draconian gun control is therefore quite logical.
 
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No, RileyMc; lemme try again: I had a bare-bones deal. Car wrecks, cancer, heart attacks, strokes. The stuff you can't afford from your own pocket. Hospital in-patient stuff, mostly, and some out-patient surgery. I'd pay for my own colds and sore throats and stubbed toes and suchlike, or various pills and potions. No coverage for a nose-job.

Medicare Supplemental (Plan B) ranges in coverage from just the balance of a bill--the deductible--on up to medications and nursing care at various levels. The optional sub-plans within Plan B are the same for any insurance provider, and the costs are the only variable. The best $/month deal is through the NRA.

Kim & nico: Y'all are sorta into a chicken-and-egg argument. As the feds got more involved in medicine, costs rose. As costs rose, folks in the private sector came up with the idea of the HMO. THEN Congress got into the act. I won't go further except to say that I think Congress could break an anvil with merely the use of a rubber tack hammer.

:), Art
 
From Zundfolge:

Another problem with Socialized Medicine.

If the government is paying for your health care (which means your fellow citizens are paying for your health care) then you give the government the right to make health decisions for you.

That would include things like eating meat, driving a convertable or motorcycle, owning guns, spending too much (or too little) time in the sun, sitting too close to the TV, not drinking your required 8 glasses of water a day, etc.

If government pays for the upkeep of your body, then they own it.

There is no way that freedom can exist under any form of Socialism.

Excellent point. How can you resist the government when they control your medical care? Ans- you can't.
 
Car wrecks, cancer, heart attacks, strokes. The stuff you can't afford from your own pocket. Hospital in-patient stuff, mostly, and some out-patient surgery.
All of those are covered by Medicare. Your medicare premium is deducted from your social security check. The various optional supplemental plans pay the 20% Medicare doesn't cover.
 
Ok, well I've started something here anyway. I figured that these threads are all well and good when they are theory, but reality often does not square.

Hands up who thinks that charity would cover the cost of healthcare for those that could not afford basic healthcare - I'm not talking keeping 90 year olds alive, I'm not talking liver transplants for alcoholics - I'm talking basic simple, I was born this way and there is nothing I can do about it, I can't afford IV's, X-rays, hospital stays in the quantity that I need to do ok.

I'm uncomfortable with this, despite what some seem to see as an 'English mentality', I don't like the welfare state or government control. Some people just plain need some help though. I work for a charity (my way of trying to put things back) that helps people with disabilities, some of these people have no-one and nothing and conditions like Multiple Sclerosis to boot. Where would they be?

So again, in the absence of govt tax deductions from the pay packet, and the arguably reduced cost of medicine as a result, and the morally pure state that would exist - are people with basic straightforward treatable diseases and conditions who cannot pay going to get any help? If doctors cover some of the cost by treating those who can not afford to pay then they are doing so by charging those who can afford to pay. You pay one way or the other, and if I understand what Riley is saying then you aren't paying for as much via insurance as you think you are anyway.

Excuse me for being cynical about insurance companies too. I tried to get standard travel insurance for a coastal sailing trip in Greece last year for one week. I can run over a mile (don't train for it either), I weight lift, I require few drugs and no oxygen and the premium was $400. I'm a bad risk, and as far as my health is concerned you might as well insure the Titanic because I'm going under. The free market is great, but it chooses it's risks, as it should, and some people are always going to be bad risks. That's not always their fault.

I'm not changing anyone's mind I know, and I'm definitely showing myself up for the Englishman that I am in your eyes. That's ok with me. I went to university, I work and I'm healthy (and I'm not having any kids) - I got the chance to do that, and hopefully more.

http://www.cff.org/special_people/index.cfm?ID=5544&blnShowBack=True&idContentType=771
 
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Clean,
I'll admit to not reading your post thoroughly however your title says enough.

I am absolutely against just about any government monopoly. There is very little that government should provide.

Would you want some beaurocrat dictate to you what you can charge for the services that you provide? Whatever your job is right now, and what ever you are paid to do that service, would you want the government to decide that you should be paid less than what you are making right now and require you to work more hours a week?

No one has any RIGHT to tell you how much you can charge for the service that you provide!!! YOu can charge as much as you like. The only restriction on charging whatever you like, is the market for your skills and talents. Will someone pay you $500/hour for yoru skills? If your skills have enough demand, yes they will. If they cannot or won't pay $500/hour for your skills, talents and services then you have to charge less or don't provide the service etc.

I"ll stick with capitalism. Capitalism has worked for this country and others for several hundreds of years and it will keep working unless socialists succeed in changing it.

-Jim
 
RileyMc, at the time I signed up for that policy, I was five years too young for Medicare. I was only 60.

I was trying to point out that there are reasonable levels of coverage out there that don't seem to me to be unduly expensive. $140 a month at age 60 (Premiums rose slightly with my age.) for individual coverage is cheap, compared to what people (much younger than I was) say that health insurance costs them as individuals or families who aren't in a group plan.

Overall, as a society we've brought this on ourselves. We've demanded full bells and whistles coverage for no or low personal cost, and TANSTAAFL. When a car company spends more on worker health insurance than it does on steel, something's gone wrong, somewhere.

Art
 
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