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The 'problem' comes from the program being so popular that it has already run out of funding. If they had done as the previous administration did with the funding for the Iraq war and kept the cost off of the budget they would have no funding issues.Quote:
Originally Posted by honedright
The founding fathers did not grant us any inalienable rights. That seems to be the point you are missing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Leighton
Inalienable rights are granted by our creator. This is the truth that the founders held to be self-evident.
Rights granted by man can be taken away by man.
Rights granted by God supersede man's laws and cannot be taken away by man.
I believe that there is no room for interpretation on this. Past, present or future, it is self-evident.
"I'm sorry Mr. Smith, but due to the popularity of our national health care program we have run out of funding. Pending the procurement of additional funds, please remove your catheter and your IV. We must ask you to leave the hospital.....sorry, have a nice day."Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
"I'm sorry Mr Smith but you health insurance does not cover that type of cancer treatment you'll have to cut your treatment short and pay the 250 grand out of pocket. Your credit history indicates you own a home and have 50 grand in the bank. Sell your house and close you bank account to pay for your treatment. After that you can go on-line and beg for donations from people. have a nice day."Quote:
Originally Posted by honedright
Actually what happens (IIRC) is that the cash gets spent. The residence does not get sold. but the liquid assets get spent before they go on Medical Assistance. I know of someone going through this right now. He has to go to a long term health care facility because he is uninsured, on a ventilator and can't be weaned off. He is being required to sign over his life insurance policy, but he keeps the farm.
But for the grace of God, any of us, with the wrong illness and an expensive treatment could suffer the same fate with the present private insurance system. Almost two thirds of people going into bankruptcy today in the US do it because of medical bills.Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
Medical Debt As a Cause of Bankruptcy Examined by House Subcommittee | Kansas City infoZine News | USA
In many cases unless you are low income when you go to the hospital you will be told what the bill is and that they want a hefty % up front and they have run your credit and finances and tell you to zero out your savings and in many cases tell you to apply for a medical credit card and when you can't pay the CC bill they up the finance charges to 25% or more and go to garnishee your wages. Then you can't pay your bills and mortgage so you have to sell your house and since they placed a lien on your house they get whatever money you make when you sell it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyment
I have not really noticed this thread before but after filing through the pages it amazes me the point of views and lies people believe about healthcare in general. As a rising Doctor I can tell you that I am sick of people belly aching about Doctors getting paid. People on this site don't give their razors away, Classic Shaving, SRD, or any of the other forum sponsors don't give their products away, so why should a doctor.
One of my teachers is a family practice doc, he gets $15 from Medicare or Medicaid for seeing a patient in his office. He spent at least 7 years and probably close to $200,00 AFTER college to get his degree and training. He deserves to make more money than CEO's, bankers, razor makers, plumbers, electricians, or virtually any other career except for areas of medicine like Surgery that require more training. I am sick of people like construction company owners, commercial painters, electricians, or other fields complaining about having to provide insurance to their workers because of cost. I am also sick because no one blames the billions of dollars profited by insurance companies each year who make greater profits each year and pay less.
For example in 1989 a colon resection paid the surgeon about $4000. Now it pays $1500 if the person has good insurance.
Also the stats about infant mortality quoted and unavailable healthcare are idiots. The best care in the world is in the US. That is why a US trained doc can practice medicine anywhere in the world, but other docs must re-train to practice in the US. AS for the cost, you can go to any number of NYC hospitals or other areas of the US and watch the immigrants and irresponsible parent who rear their children to get pregnant at 16 years old and receive free government assistance. I told to a nurses aid in NYC who claimed that it would be cheaper to not work and apply for WIC (women-infants-children) than to work. The recent lawsuit also in FL where the hospital sent the illegal immigrant home and then the relative expected the American Taxpayers to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars of free healthcare to an ILLEGAL immigrant.
The answer is not nationalized healthcare either. If you think its better, than look at the actress Natasha Richardson who recently died. Canadian medicine is so cheap that she didn't receive a CT scan that would have diagnosed her and saved her life. Also the average tax rate for countries with national healthcare is at 10-30% higher than the US. So if the government taxes the US people (and it will) to that degree, we will go broke and hopefully all these small business owners who are making their $200,000-1,000,000,00 per year will think its cheaper to just pay for the insurance.
Finally the last issue is the lies about the cost of healthcare. The average 4 day stay in a hospital is billed at about $200-250K. It does not cost this, the hospitals bill this because for every responsible person who sacrifices if necessary for good insurance pays for every person who either does not work, is an immigrant who can't be traced to make pay, or to pay for 10 other people who "can't work" because of a bs excuse like anxiety.
My proposal is to do away with insurance period. Most people never maximize their insurance and the only person loosing is the doctors after working so hard they are now abandoning private practice because people think they should work for free basically. If the cost were calculated as what it really costs, and any illegal immigrants only allowed minimal care and deported once treated, and people paid a fee for service rather than lining the insurance companies pockets than everyone would be better off. Parents who rear irresponsible children should be responsible for them. Immigrants should not qualify for any government programs until they are made citizens or have proven that they pay taxes Only people who are disabled who can't physically work should not get any welfare. I propose workfare. If government starts making people support themselves and save some money as opposed to buying things they know they can't afford and cutting the fat and hand-outs then life will get better. Smaller government is the answer. Besides many medical students are abandoning the practice that can as well as some established physicians to do other things. They are usually very successful when they do so as well because they were usually already the most talented students when they were in college.
I would like to know why the majority of Americans seem to be so against chipping in a few dollars to help out a fellow countryman who for some reason cannot afford private insurance eg, disabled, out of work, a veteran, pensioners. Is it a cultural thing or just a paranoia of some sort.
None of the other goverments with national health services take away your right to have private insurance, most will even give you a rebate for having it, 30% in Australia, all they ask is that you chip in 1.5% of your wage. Is this to much to ask to help out a fellow human being who is ill?
Just think about it, there are no guarentties in life and one day you could find yourself through no fault of your own disabled or unemployed and no longer able to afford private cover and if you became very ill or god forbid your children or wife, would you not want yourself or them to get cared for without having to loose every thing you have worked hard to obtain, a roof over your families heads, car, ect. to get better?
I'm not sure anybody 'deserves' to make anything. The doctors are making less money than other professionals with similar amount of training, that's just a fact. If somebody decided to be a doctor for the money, I'd argue they are not all that smart at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by treydampier
University professors in the technical fields make way less than their peers who choose a career in the industry, it has nothing to do with how good somebody is at it.... Or just look at many of the successful start-ups, or even microsoft for this matter. Bill Gates became so successful largely due to a terrible mistake of IBM.
well as you know with advancements in technology a lot of things do get cheaper. Just think how much did an x-ray cost in 1902 compared to today.Quote:
Originally Posted by treydampier
Hmm, have you looked at https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat.../2091rank.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by treydampier
I think you mean possibiliy, as far as i understand the problem is availability due to costs.Quote:
Originally Posted by treydampier
I am not familiar with the case, but I don't think you are either. From what I know the question was not being 'cheap', but that she felt 'fine' and refused further immediate treatment. I don't think that type of things is standard procedure in US either. Once I was in an accident and was asked by the paramedics whether I would like to be taken to the hospital. It sounded that if I had said, no, don't worry, they'd have said 'alright, get better soon'... I was confused and basically told them - 'I don't know, isn't it your job to know whether I should be taken or not'.Quote:
Originally Posted by treydampier
This is certainly a possibility right now and once you're done you can just go that way. As far as I know doctors who only take direct payments and not medical insurance do very very well financially. I just don't understand if this is a great option how come it hasn't become the dominating slice of the market.Quote:
Originally Posted by treydampier
I just talked to a very young doctor the other day, almost just out of residency. He's leaving his current job and is starting a new one... with Kaiser.