Poor George

[spinningfreemanny]

Come on people, give Americans a chance to take care of themselves; I think that with some minor tweaks Americans can secure their own better healthcare without government interference. Free national healthcare is never free and as j2 has pointed out, has numerous disadvantages.



Edit: Just realized that this can go to either of the "healthcare" threads...

[vidcc]

Originally posted by spinningfreemanny@31 July 2004 - 01:09
Come on people, give Americans a chance to take care of themselves; I think that with some minor tweaks Americans can secure their own better healthcare without government interference.

America has had nothing but chances. What would you do to solve the problem of people that have been literally priced out of healthcare? We need more than minor tweeks because we do have a problem. Maybe not for you but one day you may find yourself with the same problem millions of low paid workers face today.
We have safety nets in place ( even though there are a group of people that get left out because they are in the twilight zone of earnings) but if something doesn't change we may find ourselves with a national healthcare system by way of the safety nets becoming the norm.

Free national healthcare is never free

I have heard this a lot. yes it's true it has to be paid for and this is usually done by tax (the dirtiest word here in the USA). It usually comes with another line...."but i already pay tax, i don't want to pay more"....... But if you didn't have to pay for your expensive insurance you would find you had more of your money left over for yourself as the tax taken from a social system for the average tax payer is less than the insurance. This is especially true for families with only one working and those on low and middle incomes.

and as j2 has pointed out, has numerous disadvantages.

But then our system has just as many to balance it out.

I am not advocating a national health system for the USA. For one it will never happen and for another we could do it better with a mixture of private healthcare coupled with social finance.

We do have a first class medical profession (location permitting) but when it comes to value for money i feel we get a poor deal as consumers.

[SuperJude™]

Originally posted by vidcc@31 July 2004 - 15:50
America has had nothing but chances.

Yeah that is how I sum up my life in America, nothing but chances.....

wait did i use the sarcasm tags?



-SJ™

[Rat Faced]

vidcc,

It wouldnt be that much more expensive, as you claim.

Hospitals have always been located to serve the needs of population centres, with small clinics and "cottage hospitals" in Dr's surgeries in the more remote area's... I cant see any change to that happening.

The greatest increase in expense would be a much larger number of "Air Ambulances", to bring patients from the more remote locations quicker in the case of emergencies and that couldnt be dealt with at the "Cottage Hospitals".

This is surely the case at the moment.

The increase in costs for air ambulances is miniscule when compared to the overall costs of a Health Service.

Australia and Canada dont appear to suffer.

Hell, the Australian Doctors in the outback are renouned throughout the world as some of the best GP's there are

[Biggles]

Originally posted by SuperJude™+1 August 2004 - 09:16--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SuperJude™ &#064; 1 August 2004 - 09:16)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-vidcc@31 July 2004 - 15:50
America has had nothing but chances.

Yeah that is how I sum up my life in America, nothing but chances.....

wait did i use the sarcasm tags?



-SJ™ [/b][/quote]


Like all probabilties, no doubt some good and some bad. Strangely that is the case where I am too.

[j2k4]

I just felt compelled here to search out an old post of mine that is relevant to the health care issue:

Quote:

....This very point is what is responsible for all the political squabbling here in the U.S.; if the politicians (all of them; in both parties) didn&#39;t owe their livelihoods as politicians to the distribution of tax revenue (how much they drag back to their districts), things could be more easily accorded proper funding.

An example: Medical Care is the eternal political football; the libs (if they had their way) would nationalize it, effectively dulling the "cutting edge" of medical research (no competition=no profit opportunity=no money for research=no breakthroughs) and we&#39;d have to also pay the exhorbitant costs of the attendent bureaucracy The conservative side opposes this for the same reasons.

The irony is, if this issue were ever resolved, ALL of the politicians lose their raison d`etre, a fact which is not lost on them.

The fact is, there is enough money wasted in government bureaucracy to pay off our debt, provide free medical care and prescription drugs. etc., etc.,.... but the pols won&#39;t spend responsibly.

We are beset by incredible greed, and a system which accomodates and winks at this behavior.

THAT is the bottom line.

-UNQUOTE

I don&#39;t feel any differently about it these days; the grandiose endeavor to push the envelope of medical technology would be blunted to some extent; the question of malpractice, and it&#39;s effect of pushing doctors out of certain disciplines, or, indeed, pushing students into the legal profession instead, would have to be addressed.

Prescription drugs would take a hit or develop their own discipline, one or the other; research would be reined in.

Perhaps some developing African country would emerge as a the world-leader in pharmaceutical development.

As I said, though-I&#39;m sure it could be done; the money is there, but only if our legislature is responsible with our cash, and if P. Diddy&#39;s rush to bring uninformed newbie voters to the polls succeeds and becomes the new norm, I doubt we will see any sort of spending discipline in our grandchildrens lifetimes, because boring facts such as those I&#39;ve recounted would not engage a new voter who is most intent on exercising his new "right".

[vidcc]

Rat
you kind of took the point too far and missed the rest of the post that went with the point.
i said we would need to spend more but i didn&#39;t say how much. There is a great deal of overspending which i pointed out, but even if we controlled that overspending you only get what you pay for. Autrailia is vast but the population is still "generally" bunched up along the coastal areas
We already have air ambulances and such but it&#39;s in private hands and has to be viable as a going concern. We can&#39;t nationalise private industry in the USA, so any attempts to bring free healthcare via a social system would need the co-operation of the private sector.

J2.
i agree with your reasoning but have to put things in my own way
One doesn&#39;t need vast profits to stay "on the cutting edge of research"....unless one has that mentality. I concede that research isn&#39;t cheap but it comes with a much heavier price tag if one has the attitude " what&#39;s in it for me". You correctly pointed out the greed factor
Universities, foundations, researchers and congressional committees have concluded for years that many major drugs owe their origins to research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute and other public agencies.
A report by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress in 2000, then headed by Republican Senator Connie Mack of Florida, summed it up: "The Federal Government, mainly through the NIH, funds about 36% of all U.S. medical research ... Of the 21 most important drugs introduced between 1965 and 1992, 15 were developed using knowledge and techniques from federally funded research."
A GAO report last year on Taxol, which had worldwide sales of &#036;6.2 billion from 1998 to 2002, noted, "Through a collaboration with NIH, [Bristol-Myers Squibb] benefitted from substantial investments in research conducted or funded by NIH." The collaboration "provided the company with research results that enabled [Taxol] to be quickly commercialized ..."

[Alex H]

I think you guys missed my point - I didn&#39;t want to start a debate on health care, we&#39;ve done that one before. My point was

What if Bush said...And then actually did it.

Why not have actual goals to achieve, instead of blanket statements like "The United States is now more secure." ?

Has anyone noticed this? Why do we alway get the most dumbed down version of what the Bush administration is doing. Has no one told Bush that three year olds can&#39;t vote, cause thats age group he seems to pitch to.

What do you think of

"failure criteria" - every policy has criteria, such as if it costs more than X, or doesn&#39;t achieve X% reduction in (something bad) or doesn&#39;t achieve X% increase in (something good), or fails to meet preset performance standards, and make a named person, politician or official, responsible.

[Alex H]

Oh come on all you Republicans&#33; Doesn&#39;t anyone think a bit more accountability would benifit the people of out wonderful democarcies?

[j2k4]

Originally posted by Alex H@5 August 2004 - 00:54
Oh come on all you Republicans&#33; Doesn&#39;t anyone think a bit more accountability would benifit the people of out wonderful democarcies?

Please re-state this, Alex?