In favor of the new health care program? Why or why not?

I haven’t looked into it (since I’m not American and could hardly care less) but I can’t imagine anything people come up with to be worse than what you guys currently have.

You are referring to the US, right?

For more details, you can visit the official website for Obama’s proposed health care reform plan.

What’s important is what’s coming out of the Senate Finance committee.

“but I can’t imagine anything people come up with to be worse than what you guys currently have.”

Ya people only come to America for the best health care treatment than any other country.

@mass_pike4, not entirely true. What’s true is that people come here for better health care education and training than any other country.

Lots of Americans are going to other countries for medical treatment, such as India, because it’s more affordable.

@mass_pike4 :: Two months ago I went to the Emergency Room for chest pains. They did a CAT scan and I got a bill for 11K. I’m not going to pay it, my credit is fucked already.

They took care of me that time. But if I get cancer I am fucked.

ya def understand how outrageous prices are trust me. We need to lower costs no doubt. But idk if a complete change for health care is the answer. We need to tweak a few things for sure, but I have a feeling that this could get out of hand if so many changes are made.

We need to better educate our doctors, get better training, and lower costs.

People who can afford health care come to the US for these premium services. The problem is that many people within the US cannot afford them so they don’t go. That shouldn’t happen in an industrialized nation.

so you guys are for this big change?

And I should add that I am not in favor of the health care overhaul unless it has a public option.

Keep your insurance. But make the government compete and see who wins.

@mass_pike4 :: It isn’t really a big change without the public option.

@mass_pike4
* Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
* Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
* Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
* Invest in prevention and wellness
* Improve patient safety and quality of care
* Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
* Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
* End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

If Obama’s plan accomplishes these things, I’m for it.

@johnpowell How do you not pay a bill like that? We’re being hounded by a hospital for a bill from when my husband was injured at work…his ex-employer screwed my husband yet again by not filing the appropriate papers and now we owe money we cannot pay :( We called the state and they’re helping us file for workman’s comp for it.

I went in for a physical the other day…arranged the visit 3 weeks in advanced. I get there and they say that for the first visit they cannot do a physical. They take my BP 3 different times and say it is too high. They proceed to tell me that they may have to put me on medication! I’m 21 years old, physically active in sports, have no family history of high BP and am a healthy individual. I get a $144 charge for giving a urine. Unbelievable.

Looks good on paper doesn’t it? Do some extra research on the topic. You may look at it differently

@mass_pike4 Do you have particular details about the health plan you disagree with?

I’m just a little scared knowing the govt. will have control over my health

@casheroo :: I don’t open the red envelopes. I don’t make enough for them to garnish my wages. They cant touch me.

@mass_pike4 :: But you are fine knowing a company that is motivated by profit is doing it allows you to sleep easy at night. Fucking brilliant.

@mass_pike4 They already did in some respects.

@mass_pike4 So just make a couple little changes to the system. That way you can spend $142.

@johnpowell 11k for a CT scan!!!!! falls on floor in shock

@Lightlyseared :: It was kinda neat to see what is like to piss your pants without actually urinating on myself. I still wonder how it cost 11K for two minutes in a machine. I understand that the machine is expensive and someone had to look at the results. But something seems wrong.

@johnpowell I get the same feeling every time I go to my dentist. His first quote was £17,000. That gave me chest pain.

@Lightlyseared Damn, that’s a lot of dental work! Our bill is..gosh I think close to 1,000. All the doctor did was touch my husbands thigh and sent him on his way with a diagnosis of strained muscle.

Yes, I’m in favor. Lurve for @The_Compassionate_Heretic for clearing up a few details. I have no idea where people get their misinformation information from.

@johnpowell @casheroo 11K for cat scan because they are charging extra for everyone who has failed to pay their ER bill.

I would require more insight on the matter before developing a reasonable argument but as it stands, i’m in favour of the new health program solely on the basis that the costs implemented in the current US healthcare system seem extortionate.
@Vincentt The US population could have it far worse with concerns to healthcare, this health plan is intended, I assume, to improve what is already a reasonably functional system.
@mass_pike4
“Ya people only come to America for the best health care treatment than any other country.”
It’s expensive and of a lower standard than many European and Asian equivalents (according to studies). In some countries, Japan being an example I believe, it takes a longer period of study and experience to achieve a full medical doctorate than in the US. Yes, the US universities are considered some of the, if not the finest educational facilities in the world but one cannot make such unjustified assumptions based only on this evidence.
“I’m just a little scared knowing the govt. will have control over my health”
Are you not scared of corporations having control of your health? Do they not have as much to gain or lose as the government in this regard?

ya sorry im not taking the risk of waiting months just to get an mri, etc.

Medicare and Tricare (military) is administered by commercial health insurance providers. I would have to think that universal coverage would have to be handled in the same manner; the government does not have the infrastructure to process claims.

@mass_pike4, the government does not have “control over your health.” That’s Fox network buzz-speak. Your health is influenced by lifestyle choices, heredity, and happenstance. The level of care you would receive is different than “your health.” At any point, you could have the option to pay cash for what you perceive is a better level of health care. (This is what happens in Canada. You have the health care you receive under the national plan, and you have health care you can choose to pay for if you don’t like the care offered by the national plan.)

precisely, but why would we go from the health care we have now to one similar to canadas when we have a better system than them?

@Nially_Bob Sure, it could be worse, but when devising the plan I assume the goal was to create a better system. With that the case, the change is very slim to make it worse, and since it definitely needs an overhaul, I really think it’s worth taking the risk.

@mass_pike4: We don’t have a better system than Canada. We have significantly better availability of health care for people who are willing to pay cash out-of-pocket for it than Canada does, but we also have millions of people who have no access to health care at all short of going to the emergency room.

What “system” we have is great for the affluent, mediocre for the upper middle class, and nonexistent for everyone else.

@Vincentt By all means I understand what you are trying to describe but I believe your original statement was made rather rashly (to claim that nothing that could be devised could be any worse than the current US healthcare system) and, being uncertain as to how literally you wished that to be interpreted (as many may have also been), I argued accordingly. I agree that it would be to the US populations benefit to have a alterations done to the healthcare system, though obviously many variables must be considered.
@mass_pike4
“ya sorry im not taking the risk of waiting months just to get an mri, etc.”
I apologise for the confusion but was this comment directed at me or someone else?

@Nially_Bob You are absolutely right and I apologize for the ambiguous wording.

@mass_pike4, 48.8 million people in the US are uninsured (2004 figures, more now) and more than half of them work full time. In Canada, everyone’s insured. That’s a major difference right there. 24.4 million people work full time and can’t afford life insurance.

Correction: 45.8 million uninsured, 22.9 working full time.

@Vincentt No need to apologise my friend, I merely wanted to clarify some matters :)

Whatever they do pass, I think they, being the Congress, are obligated to participate equally without exception as the American public will. Otherwise I don’t I buy into it, if will be indirectly more costly, inefficient and stifle advancements in medical technology. We are the leaders in medicine and medical technology, and I don’t think that will be the case without a free market system.

The 49 million number is really inflated. Dept of Health says themselves that 8 million are people who refuse insurance from their companies (mostly people in their 20’s) and 12 million of that number are illegal immigrants. BTW illegal immigrants would not be eligible for insurance under the current plan being floated either. While the number is still high its nowhere near the 49 million most are floating

1) Setting up government health insurance doesn’t magically reduce the costs of health care. The costs are still there; they’re just paid for in your taxes (which will be much higher – no arguing with that).

2) I agree that there are plenty of people out there who truly cannot afford health insurance. However, a lot of that 49 million are people who can afford health insurance, but choose to spend their money on other things instead. People have been living beyond their means and making bad financial decision; that’s what caused our recession.

3) Malpractice lawsuits cause so much harm to practitioners that they must may outrageous expenses to insure themselves, severely inflating the cost you pay to see them.

4) Even if we give the government control over our health care, resources are still limited, and the government is going to have to decide which procedures they will cover and which ones they won’t (aka “rationing” out health care). This is essentially what insurance companies are doing today when they decide to approve or deny a procedure.

5) Doctors are over-medicating patients, resulting in increased costs, because they want to make more money. You can’t blame the doctors 100% though because some patients go crazy when they come in with a cold and want some kind of medication to make them better. Sometimes the best solution to a health problem is not to do anything and let it fix itself (believe it or not, there are even some harmless kinds of cancer that people run to get removed, but in reality the chemo and/or radiation therapy does more damage the cancer itself will do over the person’s lifetime).

6) If the government picks up the tab on everyone’s health insurance, there is less incentive to stay healthy. Sure, you’ll feel better later on if you have preventive health care now but the one thing that drives people is MONEY. If changing a habit now prevents a costly procedure down the road, people will be driven to do so.

7) In a government health care system, one has little choice on which doctors/hospitals/centers to see. There’s little incentive for a facility to have high-quality service since it’ll be serving patients regardless of its quality. We need a system that lets free market forces rule. If a practitioner is doing a poor job or a patient wants a second opinion, a government system is less likely to let him/her see another doctor.

8) Doctors will be paid less with a government system. While many people think doctors are overpaid to begin with, I disagree. With the amount of money/time/effort MD’s sacrifice to get their education and experience, they deserve a large paycheck.

Many of you may say that Obama is not trying to move us to a single-pair government (England/Canada/France-type system), like I am arguing against in some points above, but it’s a slippery slope. Once the government starts providing a free healthcare option, it’s only going to get more government-run. There’s no going back from there.

What am I in favor of? Medical Savings Accounts, like they have in Singapore. It has all the good of universal health care, but at less cost to the government, and it emphasizes personal responsibility and free-market forces. It’s far from perfect, but it works better than the Obama plan or our current system.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st203