IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

USAFHokie80 wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:
USAFHokie80 wrote:
cicerone imposter wrote:
USAF, So for those who are ill because of their genetics should be treated and everybody else shouldn't?

What is with you? Is it impossible for you to imagine anything except extremes? Your question is silly at best.

It's an irony that you consider my posts as extremes. You really don't understand much of anything; I label it ignorance.

You and I both know which of us is lacking in knowledge of health care.... and it's not me.

I never claimed to know much about medicine, but this topic is about universal health care. I'll leave the "doctoring" to the professionals.

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The problem is that the ONLY thing you seem to know about health care is that some people can't afford it. And it seem that is all you think you need to know. You don't know of any of the issues that cause these problems. You just want someone to make it all better. By in large, the consumers of the services are the ones responsible for the high cost.

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USAFHokie80 wrote:

The problem is that the ONLY thing you seem to know about health care is that some people can't afford it. And it seem that is all you think you need to know. You don't know of any of the issues that cause these problems. You just want someone to make it all better. By in large, the consumers of the services are the ones responsible for the high cost.

That's right! We have 47 million Americans without health insurance, and many of those are "innocent" children. They are the future of this country, and investment in their good health helps our society to be healthy (helps in their education) and competitive in the world marketplace.

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USAFHokie80 wrote:

The problem is that the ONLY thing you seem to know about health care is that some people can't afford it. And it seem that is all you think you need to know. You don't know of any of the issues that cause these problems. You just want someone to make it all better. By in large, the consumers of the services are the ones responsible for the high cost.

The consumers of the services are responsible for the high costs?

Really? Love to see you explain how services have caused costs to skyrocket over the last decade.

Cycloptichorn

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Cyclo, Hokie claims she knows more about health care, so watch out! ROFL

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cicerone imposter wrote:

That's right! We have 47 million Americans without health insurance, and many of those are "innocent" children. They are the future of this country, and investment in their good health helps our society to be healthy (helps in their education) and competitive in the world marketplace.

And out of the 47 million, how many can afford health insurance but don't buy it, and how many are illegal immigrants? Plus how many are elgible for Medicaid, but just don't apply?

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You see, if nobody used health care services, the cost will go down.

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I am a he, thanks. Much of the increase in cost is due to the misuse of services. Hospitals are made to treat people with tens of thousands of dollars worth of care and often do not get reimbursed. Medicare and medicaid have very low reimbursement rates. Hospitals raise their costs because of these types of things. The pass the cost on to insurance companies, who past the cost onto you. It's obviously not quite that simple, but that's the overview.

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USAFHokie80 wrote:

I am a he, thanks. Much of the increase in cost is due to the misuse of services. Hospitals are made to treat people with tens of thousands of dollars worth of care and often do not get reimbursed. Medicare and medicaid have very low reimbursement rates. Hospitals raise their costs because of these types of things. The pass the cost on to insurance companies, who past the cost onto you. It's obviously not quite that simple, but that's the overview.

Please provide evidence for your claim? Especially the one about "misuse of services>"

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USAFHokie80 wrote:

I am a he, thanks. Much of the increase in cost is due to the misuse of services. Hospitals are made to treat people with tens of thousands of dollars worth of care and often do not get reimbursed. Medicare and medicaid have very low reimbursement rates. Hospitals raise their costs because of these types of things. The pass the cost on to insurance companies, who past the cost onto you. It's obviously not quite that simple, but that's the overview.

I haven't seen any persuasive evidence that the costs have gone up at the hospital level by 20% per year; perhaps you could provide some?

Now, the fact that many insurance companies have made some very poor investments, and aren't getting as good a return on their investor's money as before; think that might have something to do with it?

Cycloptichorn

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Since I'm not that knowledgeable about health care, here's a study by the experts on why health care costs are increasing.

Health insurance premiums and underlying medical expenses have been rising dramatically since 1998. Factors accounting for rising health care costs include:

Growth in pharmaceutical expenses.
Expensive new technologies.
Aging of the population.
Increase in consumer demand.
Broader managed care networks.
Provider consolidation.
Health care labor pressures.

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Hillary Clinton unveiled the third part of her plan to ensure that all Americans have affordable, quality health insurance. Building on her proposals to rein in costs and to insist on value and quality, her American Health Choices Plan will secure, simplify and ensure choice in health coverage for all Americans. This Plan covers every American - finally addressing the needs of the 47 million uninsured and the tens of millions of workers with coverage who fear they could be one pink slip away from losing their health coverage - with no overall increase in health spending or taxes. For those with health insurance, the plan builds on the current system to give businesses and their employees greater choice of health plans - including keeping the one they have - while lowering cost and improving quality. Specifically, the American Health Choices Plan will:

The American Health Choices Plan gives Americans the choice to preserve their existing coverage, while offering new choices to those with insurance, to the 47 million people in the United States without insurance, and the tens of millions more at risk of losing coverage.

The Same Choice of Health Plan Options that Members of Congress Receive: Americans can keep their existing coverage or access the same menu of quality private insurance options that their Members of Congress receive through a new Health Choices Menu, established without any new bureaucracy as part of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP). In addition to the broad array of private options that Americans can choose from, they will be offered the choice of a public plan option similar to Medicare.

A Guarantee of Quality Coverage: The new array of choices offered in the Menu will provide benefits at least as good as the typical plan offered to Members of Congress, which includes mental health parity and usually dental coverage.

Americans who are satisfied with the coverage they have today can keep it, while benefiting from lower premiums and higher quality.

Reducing Costs: By removing hidden taxes, stressing prevention and a focus on efficiency and modernization, the plan will improve quality and lower costs.

Strengthening Security: The plan ensures that job loss or family illnesses will never lead to a loss of coverage or exorbitant costs.

End to Unfair Health Insurance Discrimination: By creating a level-playing field of insurance rules across states and markets, the plan ensures that no American is denied coverage, refused renewal, unfairly priced out of the market, or forced to pay excessive insurance company premiums.

Relying on consumers or the government alone to fix the system has unintended consequences, like scaled-back coverage or limited choices. This plan ensures that all who benefit from the system share in the responsibility to fix its shortcomings.

Insurance and Drug Companies: insurance companies will end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions or expectations of illness and ensure high value for every premium dollar; while drug companies will offer fair prices and accurate information.

Individuals: will be required to get and keep insurance in a system where insurance is affordable and accessible.

Providers: will work collaboratively with patients and businesses to deliver high-quality, affordable care.

Employers: will help financing the system; large employers will be expected to provide health insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage: small businesses will receive a tax credit to continue or begin to offer coverage.

Government: will ensure that health insurance is always affordable and never a crushing burden on any family and will implement reforms to improve quality and lower cost.

Senator Clinton's plan will:

Provide Tax Relief to Ensure Affordability: Working families will receive a refundable tax credit to help them afford high-quality health coverage.

Limit Premium Payments to a Percentage of Income: The refundable tax credit will be designed to prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of family income, while maintaining consumer price consciousness in choosing health plans.

Create a New Small Business Tax Credit: To make it easier-not harder-for small businesses to create new jobs with health coverage, a new health care tax credit for small businesses will provide an incentive for job-based coverage.

Strengthen Medicaid and CHIP: The Plan will fix the holes in the safety net to ensure that the most vulnerable populations receive affordable, quality care.

Launch a Retiree Health Legacy Initiative: A new tax credit for qualifying private and public retiree health plans will offset a significant portion of catastrophic expenditures, so long as savings are dedicated to workers and competitiveness.

Most Savings Come Through Lowering Spending Due to Quality and Modernization: Over half the savings come from the public savings generated from Senator Clinton's broader agenda to modernize the heath systems and reduce wasteful health spending.

A Net Tax Cut for American Taxpayers: The plan offers tens of millions of Americans a new tax credit to make premiums affordable-which more than offsets the increased revenues from the Plan's provisions to limit the employer tax exclusion for health care and discontinue portions of the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000. Thus, the plan provides a net tax cut for American taxpayers.

Making the Employer Tax Exclusion for Health Care Fairer: The plan protects the current exclusion from taxes of employer-provided health premiums, but limits the exclusion for the high-end portion of very generous plans for those making over $250,000.

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au, GREAT! All she has to do is get congress to pass it.

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blaming type 2 diabetes on being overweight is a rather simplistic statement .
there are a fair number of articles by medical researchers that point out the often complex reasons for having type diabetes 2 .

here is a link to just one of those articles :
TYPE 2 DIABETES

Quote:

Table 2. Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes

Obesity (weighing 20% or more over desired body weight)

Impaired glucose tolerance

Having a parent or sibling with diabetes

African-American, Hispanic, Asian-Americans/Pacific Islander, or Native-American ethnicity

Age of 45 years or older

Having delivered a baby weighing more than 9 pounds

History of diabetes during pregnancy

Blood pressure of 140/90 mmHg or higher

HDL cholesterol of 35 mg/dL or lower and/or triglyceride level of 250 or higher

to be sure , being overweight doesn't help , but to simply say that only people who are grossly overweight get type 2 diabetes is simply wrong !

another point is that if early health-education and disease prevention are not available to everyone , it's no wonder that people who for whatever reason do not have access to regular healthcare (and advice) get sick more often .
so what has been achieved ?
these people become a burden for the nation as a whole !
whether we like it or not , people with poor education and poor health will become a drag on the well-being (and the economy) of the whole nation !

the old saw : "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure " ,
applies not only to the individual but it applies to the nation as a whole imo .

if anyone thinks that denying health-care to the "undeserving" will have any economic benefits to the other citizens better study some simple economics lessons .
hbg

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We may have the best medical system in the world, but compared to other industrial societies, our medical delivery system is pathetic, and it's all because our medical delivery system is driven by greed. Don't be fooled into thinking that there are rational and ethical reasons for depriving 47 million people of health care. Capitalism has many advantages but it must be regulated.
Have a heart.

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jl wrote :

Quote:

We may have the best medical system in the world, but compared to other industrial societies, our medical delivery system is pathetic, and it's all because our medical delivery system is driven by greed. Don't be fooled into thinking that there are rational and ethical reasons for depriving 47 million people of health care. Capitalism has many advantages but it must be regulated.
Have a heart.

i think it's rather difficult in today's society to expect the opponents of universal health-care to respond positively to the words : "have a heart !".

they believe that by denying health-care to those that "do not deserve it " , they have an economic advantage (more money in their pocket) .

while it actually does NOT put more money in their pockets - just the opposite - , it seems rather difficult for them to undertsand that health-care FOR ALL would result in healthier citizens overall and be to everyones - including their own - benefit .
hbg

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Yes, Burger. Such a system would mean a more productive society, and with an emphasis on education for prevention, on life-style improvements and regulation of the fast food industry, we would all benefit. I already benefit. I exercise regularly, never eat fast food and most process foods, manage stress levels, etc. etc.. But I would still like to see others enjoying the same benefits.

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here is a link to a presentation by the president of the CANADIAN NURSES ASSOCIATION .
it gives many examples how MORE money spent on healthcare pays sizeable benefits .
it's a long article (pdf) so i'll just post a snippet .

A HEALTHY NATION - A WEALTHY NATION

Quote:

The simple (and at the same time very complicated) fact is that a healthy nation is a wealthy nation. And the converse - the economic and human burden of poor health, which depletes the nation's resources - is just as true. Not paying attention to the health of communities and individuals can quickly lead to staggering, sometimes lifelong costs for all of us.1
For example, in the study Toward 2020: Visions for Nursing, CNA notes that "for the seven leading chronic diagnostic categories, total direct medical costs are estimated to be $38.9 billion" annually. But what is perhaps more daunting is evidence that for those same chronic illnesses, the indirect costs, which include estimates of time lost due to disability, and the value of lost future productivity, were in the range of $54.4 billion per year.

The World Health Organization is so concerned by the looming invisible global epidemic of chronic disease that the organization has called for governments globally to work to reduce death rates due to chronic illness by 2 per cent each year until 2015.

And we know from Health Canada that some 20 per cent of Canadians will suffer mental illness at some time in their lives. The economic burden of mental illness alone in Canada was estimated in 1993 - more than 13 years ago - to exceed $7 billion.2

These kinds of costs reflect a seemingly ever-growing demand for acute and chronic illness care. We all know this is not sustainable - if we keep on our current course we could spend the equivalent of our entire GDP on health and still not be spending "enough."

Yes, the government and its provincial/territorial counterparts must see quality in acute and tertiary care as important - and must continue to invest in that sector of health care, for example, by reducing surgical wait times. But given the resources of a robust economy, and external pressures for Canada to increase productivity, the present federal government is well-situated to leverage the trend toward primary health care. It is now time to focus attention, action and leadership to the broader sphere of primary health care services, including preventive care and true "health" care.

We have been moving slowly on this for 25 years. Federal leadership in initiatives such as the Primary Health Care Transition Fund have indeed advanced the primary health care agenda in many areas. However, we have at the same time continued to expand the acute care sector and its costs.

We have the resources and talent to move the talk of health promotion to more concrete action. The potential payoffs for individual Canadians and the nation are huge.
Companies as diverse as the Canada Life Assurance Company, Westinghouse, and GE Aviation all found that paying attention to employee health and wellness significantly reduced medical and insurance costs compared to competitors.
At Canada Life, the employees involved in health and wellness programs had a turnover rate fully 10 times lower than those who did not participate.
And importantly, still other large organizations (e.g. NASA and Union Pacific Railroad in the U.S.) measured higher productivity among staff participating in such programs.

All these findings underscore the health and wealth link. But what is the cost? Toronto-based Preventdisease.com, which brokers information about health and wellness, notes that, "since 1980 there have been over 50 studies of comprehensive worksite health promotion and disease
prevention programs. Every study has indicated positive health outcomes. And of the more than 30 which were analyzed for cost outcomes, 29 proved to be cost effective."

Returns on every dollar invested in health were reported by numerous large American organizations, including DuPont ($2.05 saved for every dollar invested), PepsiCo ($3.00), General Mills ($3.90), and the Bank of America and Coors (both saving over $6.00 on each dollar invested).

There are lessons in the experiences of all these successful companies for Canadians, their governments and health-care leaders. Let us imagine moving these small programs to the macro level across society. Let us take the examples of seatbelts, helmets and smoking, and move that kind of thinking into health system action that helps us all reduce illness and injury, manage chronic disease and improve coordination of services rather than investing forever into the bottomless pit of acute, illness care. Therein lies the key to our productivity and wealth as a society.

link :
BETTER HEALTH - MORE WEALTH

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When I used the phrase "have a heart" I was not making a plea for the profiteers in our medical system, pharma and the indurance mafia to have a change of heart. As far as they are concerned their only ethical responsibility is to their stockholders.
They will be more responsible to all Americans only if compelled by law. Ultimately the matter is political. Laws must be enacted and enforced because of a groundswell of political will and pressure.

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JLNobody wrote:

We may have the best medical system in the world, but compared to other industrial societies, our medical delivery system is pathetic, and it's all because our medical delivery system is driven by greed. Don't be fooled into thinking that there are rational and ethical reasons for depriving 47 million people of health care. Capitalism has many advantages but it must be regulated.
Have a heart.

A good care-in-point is the situation in Massachusetts, where all residents are required by law, to have health insurance as of July 2007.

So, now more residents do have health insurance, paid for either by employers or themselves, but guess what? The insurance rates are going up 10-15% this coming jan. 2008 and in the mean time, salaries are projected to rise only 3%.

I'm now wondering about the connection between Mitt Romney
( former Gov of Mass ) and the insurance industry...

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IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

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