Way Past Time to Attack Health Care Issue in America

[Rohirrim]

Health care is a right, not a privilege.


From (Ind.) Sen. Bernie Sanders:
Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Its function is not to provide quality health care for all, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies. With thousands of different health benefit programs designed to maximize profits, private health insurance companies spend an incredible (30 percent) of each health care dollar on administration and billing, exorbitant CEO compensation packages, advertising, lobbying and campaign contributions. Public programs like Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are administered for far less.

In recent years, while we have experienced an acute shortage of primary health care doctors as well as nurses and dentists, we are paying for a huge increase in health care bureaucrats and bill collectors. Over the last three decades, the number of administrative personnel has grown by 25 times the numbers of physicians. Not surprisingly, while health care costs are soaring, so are the profits of private health insurance companies. From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the nation's major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. And, while more and more Americans are losing their jobs and health insurance, the top executives in the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages. It's not just William McGuire, the former head of United Health, who several years ago accumulated stock options worth an estimated $1.6 billion or Cigna CEO Edward Hanway who made more than $120 million in the last five years. The reality is that CEO compensation for the top seven health insurance companies now averages $14.2 million.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-be..._b_212770.html

[loborugger]

Healthcare is a right? As defined by who?

[Garcia Bronco]

Except health care isn't a right.

[Dudeskey]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

Except health care isn't a right.

Life is a right yet preserving it isn't?...™

[gyldenlove]

Originally Posted by Dudeskey

Life is a right yet preserving it isn't?...™

Life is only a right until someone else has to pay for your ass, then **** rights.

[gyldenlove]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Health care is a right, not a privilege.


From (Ind.) Sen. Bernie Sanders:
Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Its function is not to provide quality health care for all, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies. With thousands of different health benefit programs designed to maximize profits, private health insurance companies spend an incredible (30 percent) of each health care dollar on administration and billing, exorbitant CEO compensation packages, advertising, lobbying and campaign contributions. Public programs like Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are administered for far less.

In recent years, while we have experienced an acute shortage of primary health care doctors as well as nurses and dentists, we are paying for a huge increase in health care bureaucrats and bill collectors. Over the last three decades, the number of administrative personnel has grown by 25 times the numbers of physicians. Not surprisingly, while health care costs are soaring, so are the profits of private health insurance companies. From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the nation's major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. And, while more and more Americans are losing their jobs and health insurance, the top executives in the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages. It's not just William McGuire, the former head of United Health, who several years ago accumulated stock options worth an estimated $1.6 billion or Cigna CEO Edward Hanway who made more than $120 million in the last five years. The reality is that CEO compensation for the top seven health insurance companies now averages $14.2 million.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-be..._b_212770.html

I think there is a logical explanation why the increase in administrative personnel is so much greater than the increase in physicians. There are only so many people who are smart enough to be doctors, but any mouthbreather can be an administrative professionel.

[Dudeskey]

Originally Posted by gyldenlove

Life is only a right until someone else has to pay for your ass, then **** rights.

Ah, thanks for clarifying. On that happy little note, I'm off to work...™

[DenverBrit]

I've lived and worked in three other countries where healthcare was universal.
I have to say that the rhetoric and misinformation, in the US, about 'single payer' healthcare is almost comical.

Canada is often used as an example of incompetence whenever the insurance industry wants to scare the US public and maintain their stranglehold on the huge profits they reap via gross overcharging.

This article was in Sundays Denver Post.

Debunking Canadian health care myths

By Rhonda Hackett
Posted: 06/07/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

Related

* canadian health care perspective
* Jun 7:
* What do we pay for, anyway?

As a Canadian living in the United States for the past 17 years, I am frequently asked by Americans and Canadians alike to declare one health care system as the better one.

Often I'll avoid answering, regardless of the questioner's nationality. To choose one or the other system usually translates into a heated discussion of each one's merits, pitfalls, and an intense recitation of commonly cited statistical comparisons of the two systems.

Because if the only way we compared the two systems was with statistics, there is a clear victor. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to dispute the fact that Canada spends less money on health care to get better outcomes.

Yet, the debate rages on. Indeed, it has reached a fever pitch since President Barack Obama took office, with Americans either dreading or hoping for the dawn of a single-payer health care system. Opponents of such a system cite Canada as the best example of what not to do, while proponents laud that very same Canadian system as the answer to all of America's health care problems. Frankly, both sides often get things wrong when trotting out Canada to further their respective arguments.

As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada's taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.Ten percent of Canada's GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada's. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.

What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.

Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks — unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada. There are reasonable waits for most specialists' care, and much longer waits for elective surgery. Yes, there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S. for all cancers combined, according to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group and the Canadian Cancer Society. Moreover, fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent) admit unmet health care needs.

Myth: Canadians are paying out of pocket to come to the U.S. for medical care.Most patients who come from Canada to the U.S. for health care are those whose costs are covered by the Canadian governments. If a Canadian goes outside of the country to get services that are deemed medically necessary, not experimental, and are not available at home for whatever reason (e.g., shortage or absence of high tech medical equipment; a longer wait for service than is medically prudent; or lack of physician expertise), the provincial government where you live fully funds your care. Those patients who do come to the U.S. for care and pay out of pocket are those who perceive their care to be more urgent than it likely is.

Myth: Canada is a socialized health care system in which the government runs hospitals and where doctors work for the government.Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt says single-payer systems are not "socialized medicine" but "social insurance" systems because doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source. Most physicians in Canada are self-employed. They are not employees of the government nor are they accountable to the government. Doctors are accountable to their patients only. More than 90 percent of physicians in Canada are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Claims are submitted to a single provincial health care plan for reimbursement, whereas in the U.S., claims are submitted to a multitude of insurance providers. Moreover, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities rather than being part of or run by the government.

Myth: There aren't enough doctors in Canada.

From a purely statistical standpoint, there are enough physicians in Canada to meet the health care needs of its people. But most doctors practice in large urban areas, leaving rural areas with bona fide shortages. This situation is no different than that being experienced in the U.S. Simply training and employing more doctors is not likely to have any significant impact on this specific problem. Whatever issues there are with having an adequate number of doctors in any one geographical area, they have nothing to do with the single-payer system.

And these are just some of the myths about the Canadian health care system. While emulating the Canadian system will likely not fix U.S. health care, it probably isn't the big bad "socialist" bogeyman it has been made out to be.

It is not a perfect system, but it has its merits. For people like my 55-year-old Aunt Betty, who has been waiting for 14 months for knee-replacement surgery due to a long history of arthritis, it is the superior system. Her $35,000-plus surgery is finally scheduled for next month. She has been in pain, and her quality of life has been compromised. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Aunt Betty — who lives on a fixed income and could never afford private health insurance, much less the cost of the surgery and requisite follow-up care — will soon sport a new, high-tech knee. Waiting 14 months for the procedure is easy when the alternative is living in pain for the rest of your life.

[That One Guy]

Originally Posted by Dudeskey

Life is a right yet preserving it isn't?...™

The state is never responsible for sustaining your rights. Voting is a right but the state doesn't pay you to take time off work or drive you to the polls.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Dudeskey

Life is a right yet preserving it isn't?...™

Preserving your life, is your responsibility. Not everyone elses.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by gyldenlove

I think there is a logical explanation why the increase in administrative personnel is so much greater than the increase in physicians. There are only so many people who are smart enough to be doctors, but any mouthbreather can be an administrative professionel.

Notice how the stistics stop at 2007? Why woud that be? Because everything tanked. Meaning those rates are no longer valid from company profits. Meaning these profits didn't come for health care premiums. They propbably in part came from other investments. Like mortgage securities.

[Rohirrim]

Like the essay by this Senator states, we spend more than any other country on Earth for health care, and yet we are rated 37th in outcomes. So, our health care system is a great wealth producer for some, but does not do the job the people require. Health care in America, like so many things, is just another massive boondoggle, another corporate wealth sucking apparatus of the modern, corporate optimates.

[Garcia Bronco]

I think we should just have the doctors and other medical staff just be state employees. Then it could be just as awesome as medicare and medicaid.

BTW, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, the VA, and H&HS cost us roughly 47 percent of 2.66 trillion dollars per year. So I seriously doubt they cost less than private insurance companies.

Further, there are only about 10 million uninsured Americans in this country that are citizens and cannot afford health insurance. If you include illegals and people that opt not to have it you run about 40 million people.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

Notice how the stistics stop at 2007? Why woud that be? Because everything tanked. Meaning those rates are no longer valid from company profits. Meaning these profits didn't come for health care premiums. They propbably in part came from other investments. Like mortgage securities.

Health care costs are one of the primary reasons GM and Chrysler tanked and huge swaths of jobs went offshore.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Like the essay by this Senator states, we spend more than any other country on Earth for health care, and yet we are rated 37th in outcomes. So, our health care system is a great wealth producer for some, but does not do the job the people require. Health care in America, like so many things, is just another massive boondoggle, another corporate wealth sucking apparatus of the modern, corporate optimates.

37th according to whom?

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

37th according to whom?

Didn't read the article but felt free to comment. Sorry, I don't do Reading Comprehension 101.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Didn't read the article but felt free to comment. Sorry, I don't do Reading Comprehension 101.

So you don't know. I didn't think you did.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

So you don't know. I didn't think you did.

No, I was trying to gently encourage you to read the article before commenting:
According to the World Health Organization the United States ranks 37th in terms of health system performance and we are far behind many other countries in terms of such important indices as infant mortality, life expectancy and preventable deaths.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

World Health Organization

Thank you. Was that so hard?

One of the criteria/metrics the WHO uses to rank countries is free access to healthcare. Our infant mortality rate compared to the entire world is exactly the same. Actually we come in a few points lower. We are about 8.0 on the list with the outliers at 22 and 1.5 per 1000 people. The life expectancy in this country is 78, with the longest listed country at 84. Hardly a significant difference in the world of estimated statistics.

Preventable deaths: People that die from smoking all their life are considered preventable deaths. If fact it's considered by some as the top cause. That's a very loose criterion. So in actual terms under that example...it doesn't translate to the quality of health care in a country unless it is illegal to smoke cigarettes. Further more the premise is ludicrous. You cannot hold the entire health care system responsible for the decisions of the individual.

The solution to high healthcare costs is an easy one. Just have doctors and medical personal take a 50 percent pay cut and our health care system will cost a great deal less. I mean all these people are in it for the money anyway. Right?

[Rohirrim]

[QUOTE=Garcia Bronco;2439564]Thank you. Was that so hard?

One of the criteria/metrics the WHO uses to rank countries is free access to healthcare. Our infant mortality rate compared to the entire world is exactly the same. Actually we come in a few points lower. We are about 8.0 on the list with the outliers at 22 and 1.5 per 1000 people. The life expectancy in this country is 78, with the longest listed country at 84. Hardly a significant difference in the world of estimated statistics.

Preventable deaths: People that die from smoking all their life are considered preventable deaths. If fact it's considered by some as the top cause. That's a very loose criterion. So in actual terms under that example...it doesn't translate to the quality of health care in a country unless it is illegal to smoke cigarettes. Further more the premise is ludicrous. You cannot hold the entire health care system responsible for the decisions of the individual.

The solution to high healthcare costs is an easy one. Just have doctors and medical personal take a 50 percent pay cut and our health care system will cost a great deal less. I mean all these people are in it for the money anyway. Right?[/QUOTE]

Thank. I can always come to you when I want the sophmoric take.

It's just a tiny bit more complicated than that: http://allcountries.org/health/usa_h..._2008_nyt.html
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

[gyldenlove]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

Notice how the stistics stop at 2007? Why woud that be? Because everything tanked. Meaning those rates are no longer valid from company profits. Meaning these profits didn't come for health care premiums. They propbably in part came from other investments. Like mortgage securities.

How does that have anything to do with mouthbreathing administrative personnel?

[Garcia Bronco]

[QUOTE=Rohirrim;2439579]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

Thank you. Was that so hard?

One of the criteria/metrics the WHO uses to rank countries is free access to healthcare. Our infant mortality rate compared to the entire world is exactly the same. Actually we come in a few points lower. We are about 8.0 on the list with the outliers at 22 and 1.5 per 1000 people. The life expectancy in this country is 78, with the longest listed country at 84. Hardly a significant difference in the world of estimated statistics.

Preventable deaths: People that die from smoking all their life are considered preventable deaths. If fact it's considered by some as the top cause. That's a very loose criterion. So in actual terms under that example...it doesn't translate to the quality of health care in a country unless it is illegal to smoke cigarettes. Further more the premise is ludicrous. You cannot hold the entire health care system responsible for the decisions of the individual.

The solution to high healthcare costs is an easy one. Just have doctors and medical personal take a 50 percent pay cut and our health care system will cost a great deal less. I mean all these people are in it for the money anyway. Right?[/QUOTE]

Thank. I can always come to you when I want the sophmoric take.

It's just a tiny bit more complicated than that: http://allcountries.org/health/usa_h..._2008_nyt.html
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

You first link says that almost 1/3rd of our population is uninsured. That's a lie. Even Hillary Clinton says it's significantly less.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by gyldenlove

How does that have anything to do with mouthbreathing administrative personnel?

Administrative personal to do what? I don't think people realize that in part it's increased government regulation like the patriot Act and SOX that have caused many companies to increase their staffs in many areas.

[Smiling Assassin27]

The inevitable result of government health care will be that government, in its infinite wisdom, will mandate coverages that people would not voluntarily pay for with their own money. The special interests that politicians will undoubtedly cater to will ask the government to mandate such esoteric and unnecessary coverages as breast reduction, baldness, acupuncture and others. This means more expensive insurance, not less. Name 3 things that the government does cheaper and more efficiently than the private sector.

Politicians talk about lowering the cost of health care, but they're really don't mean this. For example, the cost of developing a new drug costs roughly $800 billion. The cost of running a medical office is about $100 per hour per doctor. Politicians don't want to address these costs, but instead propose lower the PRICE for medical care through some form of mandatory means. This is different from reducing the costs of medical care. The frivolous lawsuits against medical providers is HUGE--another cost the politicians don't care about and won't address.

No, lowering the cost of medical care means short term, quick fix ideas that will secure votes, not solve issues. Why do you look to the government to fix this, Roh? Congress didn't even bother to read the Stiumulus bill before voting on it and I'd venture a guess that less than 1% of COngress are even remotely familiar with the medical field, let alone the health care field. Politicans can claim that we need this and we need to fix that, but the premise this is built upon is that Congress a)knows what the problem is; b) can understand the issue and construct a proper solution; and c) is willing to properly weight the tradeoff of any plan they propose and judiciously implement it with efficiency and common sense.

We both know these premises are false, because we've seen Congress in action already. Are they gonna use the same coverage and plan as the rest of us? Hell no.

Oh, and health care isn't a right, btw. Not to mention that many people in their 20's and 30's choose not to pay for medical insurance, even though they can afford it, because they don't expect a major health crisis at age 25 and see spending/investing the money elsewhere as wiser. A lack of health insurance does not equate to a lack of medical care.

[Bob]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Health care is a right, not a privilege.


From (Ind.) Sen. Bernie Sanders:
Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Its function is not to provide quality health care for all, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies. With thousands of different health benefit programs designed to maximize profits, private health insurance companies spend an incredible (30 percent) of each health care dollar on administration and billing, exorbitant CEO compensation packages, advertising, lobbying and campaign contributions. Public programs like Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are administered for far less.

In recent years, while we have experienced an acute shortage of primary health care doctors as well as nurses and dentists, we are paying for a huge increase in health care bureaucrats and bill collectors. Over the last three decades, the number of administrative personnel has grown by 25 times the numbers of physicians. Not surprisingly, while health care costs are soaring, so are the profits of private health insurance companies. From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the nation's major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. And, while more and more Americans are losing their jobs and health insurance, the top executives in the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages. It's not just William McGuire, the former head of United Health, who several years ago accumulated stock options worth an estimated $1.6 billion or Cigna CEO Edward Hanway who made more than $120 million in the last five years. The reality is that CEO compensation for the top seven health insurance companies now averages $14.2 million.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-be..._b_212770.html

Well, attack is the right word ...dont worry, they will attack it and wreck it, like everything other problem they are attacking.