IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

Walter, I will never forgive you for that

I'm sure I deserved it - but that doesn't make it any easier.

goddamn - even old europe is enjoying this. It might have been a mistake to have left them an opening.

I intended to ask this way back....which of the three Democratic candidates are shooting for a system similar to Germany's?

Hillary was in 1993, but I think she's switched to single-payer now.

i note with satisfaction that you have been "busy beavers" today !



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i want to start beavering away by stating that i am sure that the majority of americans who are enrolled in american health insurance plans are no doubt receiving good service .

many american hospitals are known for outstanding and pioneering medical work .

i personally make frequent use of the MAYO CLINIC WEBSITE and i regularly receive their e-letter - free of charge !

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i stated earlier that a canadian citizen has a RIGHT to health services .

i should have stated :

OHIP (ontario health insurance plan)
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citizens and legal immigrants residing in ontario are ENTITLED to the services provided by OHIP .



the way i read this i am ENTITLED by the LAW to receive specified services .

i trust this clears it up .
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perhaps some background information of the canadian and ontario health insurance act and its regulations might be helpful to readers .

canada's government health insurance services are governed by the CANADA HEALTH ACT and FEDERAL HEALTH INSURANCE REGULATIONS .

the provinces are responsible for DELIVERING health care services under the act .

in 1947 the province of sakatchewan introduced a PUBLIC UNIVERSAL HOSPITAL INSURANCE PLAN .

in 1957 the federal PROGRESSIVE-CONSERVATIVE government under john diefenbaker decided to share in the cost of the plan and by 1961 all provinces and territories had joined in the plan .

succesive federal and provincial governments (conservative , liberal , new democrats , party quebecois) have continued to support the universal public health services with the approval of the electorate .

the plan was further expanded over the years to include additional medical services .

so much for now .
hbg

Thanks. That was both informative and helpful.

USAToday has an article about illegal immigrants contributing to the rise of costs.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-01-21-immigrant-healthcare_N.htm

Kindly excuse me Advocate.
English is not my father-tongue or Mother tongue.
The title has got one word
Universal.
I know the dictionary meaning and I have enough definition about the word .
My question is this.
Why the hell USA -
the only superpower right from the beginning of its birth and which had made history in all the past years -
is not able to give a cost-free treatment for the dying, ailing needy people?

Thanks
Rama

How to pay for health care
By Stuart Z. Goldstein
February 4, 2008

As the presidential campaigns heat up, all the candidates are talking about fixing the health-care crisis in America, but no one is addressing how to pay for it.



American health-care expense are projected consuming 20 percent of the gross domestic product by 2015, up from 16 percent in 2004.



Spiraling health care costs threaten the competitiveness of U.S. companies and the economy's long-term prospects. Companies are forced to increasingly transfer health-care expenses to employees and retirees. And the federal budget is burdened by the more than 45 million Americans who can no longer afford health insurance.



Ironically, the single biggest cause of this growing expense is not the delivery of health care itself, but the highly manual, paper-intensive processing of these medical transactions and payments between health insurers and medical service providers.



In fact, the delay of payment to is so long (on average 60-90 days), that this debt is often sold in the financial markets as an asset-backed security. This lag time is why medical service providers increasingly require customers to pay upfront for medical care and employer co-pay requirements are growing.



Health-care costs are projected to run in excess of $2.5 trillion yearly by 2015, and about one-third of that expense (or between $655 billion to $800 billion) will be incurred due to the error-prone and manual process of handling medical claims and payments to medical service providers.



A recent study by the Harvard Medical School supported this point, finding that 28 percent of health care expense in California went to administrative paperwork.



The question of how to pay for health care, therefore, is quite simple. We have to automate and leverage greater efficiencies out of the current system. If we can save $600 billion a year by eliminating costs associated with manually processing medical claims, this could substantially offset the health insurance costs of 250 million Americans. Just do the math.



The health insurance industry, historically, has lacked incentive to achieve this type of efficiency in settling payment of claims. Delaying payments allows the industry to make use of premiums for other investment purposes. Secondly, the industry lacks an automated and centralized infrastructure, linking insurance carriers with all of their trading partners (e.g., hospitals and medical service providers).



Ironically, the financial services industry was threatened with a similar paperwork crisis more than 30 years ago. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which traded only 15 million shares each day, had to shut down one day a week to catch up with processing paper records associated with trading securities. Today, on a peak day, there can be 11 billion shares traded across all equity markets.



The financial services industry realized that lower costs, greater efficiency and growth were possible only by creating a centralized clearing corporation to automate and streamline payment of financial obligations.



National Securities Clearing Corp. (NSCC) and The Depository Trust Co. (DTC) were created in the 1970s to bring about this automation. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., the corporate parent of NSCC and DTCC, last year settled in excess of $1.8 quadrillion in securities transactions.



Creating a Health Care Clearing Corp. (HCCC) modeled on the successful experience of the financial services industry could be a significant step in cutting health care costs. Today, the health-care industry looks like a big plate of spaghetti. Many insurance carriers and medical service providers have internal back-office technology systems, but few connect with anyone else. Much communication between parties is cumbersome and manual.



An HCCC would operate more like the hub of a wheel with spokes electronically linking medical service providers and insurance companies to a central point where data can be processed and exchanged.



The HCCC would eliminate the need for medical service providers and insurance companies to manage separate procedures and processes to submit claims. And standardizing data exchange and recordkeeping would speed payment of claims.



Health-care insurance carriers incur huge costs today by distributing millions of individual checks to cover their obligations to hospitals and physician groups. In contrast, firms in the securities industry pay for all their stock trading once a day, using the Federal Reserve"s Fed wire system for electronic funds transfers.



In the coming presidential campaign, health care will be among the three issues (next to the economy and global leadership) deciding the election. Regardless of political party or persuasion, the answer to the rising tide of health-care costs lies not within the stars, but in forcing greater efficiency out of the current system.



Stuart Z. Goldstein is a financial services executive in New York with a background in health-care issues.

What does that author mean "no one is addressing how to pay for it"....Clinton and Obama addresses everyone of those points that author brings up in their healthcare packages.

Now, McCain and Romney have been pretty silent on these issues, or at least they haven't been talking about it much.

au wrote :



INDIVIDUAL CHECKS ???
we get our dental claim payments deposited directly into our bank account and receive a simple deposit notice - and our insurance company is a rather small player in the canadian market .
claims are always paid within five working days after submitted by dentist .
the dentist's clerk enters the various codes via internet and most claims are computer processed , so there is very little clerical work or "paper" involved .
hbg

It's (nearly) all done via computer/internet here as well.

(The last "individual check I saw is 15, 20 years ago)

NHS paid £120 an hour for nurses (that's a little over $230)

Hospitals have paid over £120 an hour for agency workers to cover for gaps in staffing, according to latest figures.

The highest amounts paid for an agency nurse were £121.59 an hour by the Royal Berkshire trust and £121.10 by the Chesterfield and Royal Hospital trust.

The figures for the past year were obtained by the Conservative Party under the Freedom of Information Act.

Last year, the Commons Public Accounts Committee said temporary nurses helped NHS flexibility but could be costly.

Job cuts

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "Labour's chaotic, short-term planning has let down NHS staff. Some stability for them is the least we would have expected from the billions that the government has poured into the NHS.

"It's incredible that agency staff can be paid such high hourly rates when jobs are being cut at the same time. This is typical of the waste that's occurred under this government."

The Tories say average hourly rates in the NHS are £15.66 for a nurse, £24.14 for a junior doctor and £60.31 for a consultant.

The highest figures for non-clinical agency staff were £119 an hour for a 'turnaround director' at Coventry Teaching Primary Trust and £110 an hour for financial staff at Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals Trust in Berkshire.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7225180.stm

More joys of universal healthcare.

i'm not sure how much i believe the previos post about the medical billing problem. a large portion of the hospitals in the US have automated billing already. a lot of the paperwork doesn't actually exist anymore - except maybe in smaller organizations. and there are issues with sharing information the way he talks... HIPPA for one. there are strict regulations on the way data can be transmitted, shared and stored. it's not quite as easy as he makes it sound.

Have you ever heard of the term "medicaid" or "welfare"?

I didn't want to read all 200 odd pages, but my two cents worth about universal health care is this:

There are tests that can be done for free in Canada (like homocystine which requires a needle stick) that can determine if you are heart attack-stroke prone.

If a physician in Canada thinks that your lifestyle or family history may be an indicator for specific health problems they do not hesitate to perform those procedures. I speak from experience.

They practice preventative health care here. It's much more cost effective to prevent a heart attack or stroke than pay for by pass surgery or rehab after heart attack or stroke. Canadian physicians know this.

The article quoted above does not state why the clinic in Manitoba was 'kicked out'. Perhaps it did not meet the standards in Canada. The article is not telling the whole story.

They hold it up as a shining example of why they should continue their exploitation of sick people in the States. The fact is, I & others I have talked to have never known a Canadian who went to the States for any medical procedure. We buy medical coverage in Canada when we go to the States because we don't want to lose our homes if we have an overnight stay and surgery in a US hospital. Even a doctor visit in the States can set you back financially if you have to have lab/x-ray and a prescription.

It costs way too much in the States. My daughter pays over $300 a month for Kaiser. And she's young and healthy. Kaiser doesn't like to do any tests they don't have to. If you watched 'Sicko' it becomes clear why. It's all about saving money. Many people desperately need specific care but are turned down because they don't 'qualify'.

My husband and I pay $96 a MONTH for our health care in B.C. Would you rather pay that amount or most of what you'll make in your retirement check?

We will pay even less when we reach 65 yrs old. We receive excellent care, have not had to wait for any procedure, get free ferry passes or airfare if the doctors/clinic/whatever are out of our area. I call this humane. We have no co-pays, ever. We don't pay for lab work, ever, or any procedure. We don't have to show our health card when we come to a Dr. office. We don't have to stand in agony to give info when we come to emergency; it's all done via computer. Every doctor's office in your province can get your medical history and personal info (phone, address, next of kin) on the computer. I was amazed at how efficient the system is compared to the mess in the States.

Health care is about caring for people's health, not making money.

If a person in Canada has a bonafide medical problem diagnosed by a physician, there is no problem referring them for procedures. These people who went to the States for a procedure could have gone to any other province in Canada for the procedure for free. That's how our system works. Canada has some very hi-tech medicine. Canada is also a huge country with only 30 million plus/minus people (the population of California). We don't have huge cities everywhere, but I think we do a great job of providing great affordable health care for every citizen.

I know of too many people who have been forced to work longer than they expected so they can pay their $700 month medical insurance when they retire. Companies such as Hewlett Packard are picking up only $300 for their employees medical and leaving them to pay $600 a MONTH. No wonder so many people are going into bankruptcy.

Health insurance is not a luxury, it's a necessity. No one should be forced to choose between food and medical coverage.

America is the only industrialized country who do not provide health care for all citizens.

Also, Canadians can to to any province, with the exception of Quebec, for medical care with no hassle. Can people in the US go to any facility they want to for care without a hassle? I wonder that these Manitobans didn't know they could do this?

As I said earlier, there's more to the story than meets the eye.

Rest assured that there are many more people happy with our system than not. :wink:

In the US, part A of Medicare is FREE for all participants. For part B of Medicare the charge is about $100/month.

In the US, most Americans retire with incomes typical of the Middle Class, i.e about $75,000/year and therefore a Medicare payment of $1200/year doesn't consume very much of one's retirement income.

I personally have never heard of any Americans traveling to Canada for medical care. And why should they, when you consider the excellent Harvard-affliated hospitals we have in Boston, or the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or all the other excellent hospitals we have throughout the USA.

So you can go to any doctor/hospital you like and get "free" care there like e.g. under our healthcare system?

I like that here. My family doctor/general practioner e.g. is in a different town. No problem for 'normal' illnesses, but she wouldn't make home visits here.
That's not a big problem neither: I either would ask one of the local general practioners for a home visit ... or just call - outside the usual ordonance hours - the a doctor via emergency medical service.

For part B of Medicare, my understanding is that you pay 20% of whatever the health care bill would be. That could amount to quite a lot. My mother (a US citizen) had to have supplemental insurance because Medicare didn't cover squat. If you're not Medicare age yet, you'll soon discover this discrepancy.

Unless your employer is picking up ALL your medical costs at retirement, it'll cost you a lot more than $1200 a year.

The truth is that employers don't want to pay their retirees, so retirees are having to come up with a sizeable portion each month. I take it you aren't in the retirement bracket yet?

As for our hospitals, we have excellent facilities. We quit doing operations in igloos, oh, some time ago. Why would Americans want to travel to Canada for treatment? Well, for example, one girl did so that she could be treated for cancer because her health care in the States turned her down. Canada treated her for FREE. Tell me, are you afraid to watch 'Sicko'? You owe it to yourself. If you think you're right, you've nothing to fear.

Here is one link from many you can checkout pertaining to Canadian medical inventions:

http://www.bioscienceworld.ca/CanadasEmergingMedicalDeviceTechnology

Personally I wouldn't go to any of the clinics you refer to when I have excellent choices in my own country, and I don't have to mortgage my home to get treatment. :wink:

I think that Miller's point is that there are far more Canadians coming here for medical care than Americans going to Canada. Considering that our populations are in a ratio of about 9:1 that is a remarkable fact.