Health Insurances Would Accpet Everyone IF .....

echo wrote: We're talking about investing in your OWN future too. THIS line of thinking is what makes the US one of the poorest country, in my opinion. This entire ME ME ME culture. Well one day, YOU TOO could be ONE OF THEM.

stacia123 wrote:

ractar28 wrote:All I read was "bail me out, not the auto industry".

That's very rude and disrespectful, to just say "la la la I can't hear you" and still rant and rave against what you didn't bother to read.

DreamStalker wrote: In the US model there is a growing number who have to wait a lot longer than 6 months ... as in forever or til dead or becasue they are broke

Just because Canada doesn't do nationalized medicine effeciently doesn't mean it can't be done efficiently ... or at least more efficiently.

ractar28 wrote:

DreamStalker wrote: In the US model there is a growing number who have to wait a lot longer than 6 months ... as in forever or til dead or becasue they are broke

Just because Canada doesn't do nationalized medicine effeciently doesn't mean it can't be done efficiently ... or at least more efficiently.

Then quit accepting the "poor, downtrodden, et al" who sneak in here and GET free health care. We are not here to support the world! And yes, nationalized medicine COULD be done more efficiently, at even GREATER cost.

We have some sort of public-funded healthcare -- go to a free clinic -- is that what you want YOUR doctor's office to look like? Long lines, no one getting help, parents who can't control their kids? No thanks.

Slinky wrote:Health Insurers Would Accept All Customers if Congress Mandated Coverage

Health insurers would agree to accept all customers, regardless of illness or disability, if Congress required all Americans to have coverage, two main industry trade associations said Wednesday.

If people aren't mandated to have coverage, many would wait until they suffer health problems before they buy insurance, said America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, The New York Times reported.

The industry's position could help ease passage of legislation to expand health care coverage and control health care costs. Such legislation is favored by President-elect Barack Obama and has widespread support in Congress, the newspaper said.

However, there's one major difference between Obama's position and that of the insurance industry, the Times reported. The industry wants the federal government to require all Americans to have and maintain insurance, while Obama wants the rule, at least initially, to apply only to children.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01837.html

DreamStalker wrote: So let's see ... you hate the poor, downtrodden, et al (only if they are sneaky though correct?), long lines, and parents (but only if their kids cannot be controlled). And what about minorities and gay peoples? Are they ok if they are not sneaky? What about al queda? Will nationalizing our health care result in public funding for Osama's ailments? Will the boogy man come and steal our cpap machine while we sleep?

Can you think of any other fear nonsense to support your position?

ractar28 wrote:

DreamStalker wrote: So let's see ... you hate the poor, downtrodden, et al (only if they are sneaky though correct?), long lines, and parents (but only if their kids cannot be controlled). And what about minorities and gay peoples? Are they ok if they are not sneaky? What about al queda? Will nationalizing our health care result in public funding for Osama's ailments? Will the boogy man come and steal our cpap machine while we sleep?

Can you think of any other fear nonsense to support your position?

I'd say I hope you're not that dense, but Obama did get elected, so somewhere, there are some really dense folks.

When people can illegally cross the border to steal healthcare and other benefits, then no, I'm not interested in providing MORE free healthcare. I don't want long lines, and I don't want to have to sit around a bunch of sick people who can't control their children. PEOPLE, regardless of minority or sexual orientation, would be covered just like anyone else. The fact that you're trying to derail the conversation by inferring that I'm a homophobic racist just shows that you're not interested in discussing the issues, but rather just throwing red herrings into the mix. I WISH Osama would come here for free health care -- I need the $25 million!

Health Care Lessons From France
by Joseph Shapiro

In 2000, health care experts for the World Health Organization tried to do a statistical ranking of the world's health care systems. They studied 191 countries and ranked them on things like the number of years people lived in good health and whether everyone had access to good health care. France came in first. The United States ranked 37th.

Some researchers, however, said that study was flawed, arguing that there might be things other than a country's health care system that determined factors like longevity. So this year, two researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine measured something called the "amenable mortality." Basically, it's a measure of deaths that could have been prevented with good health care. The researchers looked at health care in 19 industrialized nations. Again, France came in first. The United States was last.

French Lessons
Now some American experts say there's a lot Americans can learn from the French.

For starters, the French system is not what most Americans imagine, says historian Paul Dutton at Northern Arizona University, author of Differential Diagnoses: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France.

"Americans assume that if it's in Europe, which France is, that it's socialized medicine," he says. "The French don't consider their system socialized. In fact, they detest socialized medicine. For the French, that's the British, that's the Canadians. It's not the French system."

France, like the United States, relies on both private insurance and government insurance. Also, just like in America, people generally get their insurance through their employer.

In France, everyone has health care. However, unlike in Britain and Canada, there are no waiting lists to get elective surgery or see a specialist, Dutton says.

He says the French want pretty much the same thing as Americans: choice and more choice.

Universal Coverage, Not At Expense Of Choice

Dutton says these shared values come out of a shared history. Both countries are products of Enlightenment-era revolutions.

"The French hold individual liberty and social equality very dear ... 'liberty, equality, and fraternity' — of course the slogan of their revolution," he says. "And in this country, of course, we have similar ideals: individual liberty, social equality — equal chances for everyone."

But the French have done a better job of protecting those values in health care, Dutton says.

Americans often assume that when people get universal coverage, they give up their choice in doctors, hospitals and care. That's not the case in France, Dutton says. The system is set up both to ensure that patients have lots of choice in picking doctors and specialists and to ensure that doctors are not constrained in making medical decisions.

In France, the national insurance program is funded mostly by payroll and income taxes. Those payments go to several quasi-public insurance funds that then negotiate with medical unions to set doctors' fees. (Doctors can choose to work outside this system, and a growing minority now charge what patients are willing to pay out of pocket.) The government regulates most hospital fees. This system works collectively to keep costs down.

When someone goes to see a doctor, the national insurance program pays 70 percent of the bill. Most of the other 30 percent gets picked up by supplemental private insurance, which almost everyone has. It's affordable, and much of it gets paid for by a person's employer.

"There are no uninsured in France," says Victor Rodwin, a professor of health policy at New York University, who is affiliated with the International Longevity Center. "That's completely unheard of. There is no case of anybody going broke over their health costs. In fact, the system is so designed that for the 3 or 4 or 5 percent of the patients who are the very sickest, those patients are exempt from their co-payments to begin with. There are no deductibles."

Treating The Sickest

In France, the sicker you are, the more coverage you get. For people with one of 30 long-term and expensive illnesses — such as diabetes, mental illness and cancer — the government picks up 100 percent of their health care costs, including surgeries, therapies and drugs.

France has made an unusual guarantee that every cancer patient can get any drug, including the most expensive and even experimental ones that are still being tested, says Dr. Fabian Calvo, deputy director of France's National Cancer Institute. This kind of access is why the French — unlike Americans — say they are highly satisfied with their health care system, he says.

"It's a feeling of safety — that if you have a big problem, you could have access to the good therapy," Calvo says.

When compared with people in other countries, the French live longer and healthier lives. Rodwin says that's because good care starts at birth. There are months of paid job leave for mothers who work. New mothers get a child allowance. There are neighborhood health clinics for new mothers and their babies, home visits from nurses and subsidized day care.

The Cost Of Care

It's expensive to provide this kind of health care and social support. France's health care system is one of the most expensive in the world.

But it is not as expensive as the U.S. system, which is the world's most costly. The United States spends about twice as much as France on health care. In 2005, U.S. spending came to $6,400 per person. In France, it was $3,300.

To fund universal health care in France, workers are required to pay about 21 percent of their income into the national health care system. Employers pick up a little more than half of that. (French employers say these high taxes constrain their ability to hire more people.)

Americans don't pay as much in taxes. Nonetheless, they end up paying more for health care when one adds in the costs of buying insurance and the higher out-of-pocket expenses for medicine, doctors and hospitals.

France, like all countries, faces rising costs for health care. In a country that's so generous, it's even harder to get those expenses under control.

Last year, the national health system ran nearly $9 billion in debt. Although it is a smaller deficit than in previous years, it forced the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy to start charging patients more for some drugs, ambulance costs and other services. Debates over cost-cutting have become an expected part of the national dialogue on health care.

It's expensive to provide this kind of health care and social support. France's health care system is one of the most expensive in the world.

But it is not as expensive as the U.S. system, which is the world's most costly. The United States spends about twice as much as France on health care. In 2005, U.S. spending came to $6,400 per person. In France, it was $3,300.

It's not that there's anything wrong here, per se; most of the French do get an excellent standard of care, and they do pay a lot for it in taxes, which Moore -- very briefly -- does acknowledge. But what does "most" mean? Although coverage and benefits are universal on paper, I don't think there are too many French doctors making midnight calls to the infamous banlieues, where France's large population of disaffected citizens of North African origin live, resentful, unemployed, unassimilated, and prone to outbursts of spectacular violence. This is not just a simple case of social injustice. It relates to a massive misunderstanding on Moore's part.

For Moore believes that the French have their health care system because they have intimidated their government: they will go on strike, march and besiege the streets of Paris whenever the government wants to cut any part of France's bloated welfare state, all on that principle of solidarity. But in fact it is anything but solidarity. Because France has very powerful unions that have made it almost impossible to fire anyone with a job, to demand productivity, or to make economic reforms that encourage economic growth, it's a great place to live if one has a job. And who is most likely to have a good shot at a job? The educated children of the large French middle classes. Those marchers in Paris, the ones protesting against any interference with job security, any meddling with the 35-hour work week, are in fact parochial guardians of class privilege, a most un-socialistic phenomenon. This situation has led to very high unemployment, very low economic growth, and massive social problems. Left out of the rent-seeking club are French citizens of non-French ethnicities, immigrants, those who are trapped in the exurban ghettos, all of whom may technically have access to great health care but who, due to the circumstances of their lives, may have a hard time getting into the system. Socialized medicine can and should operate in a social context that expects it to be both efficient and inclusive. The French, in recently electing Nicolas Sarkozy president on promises to make them work harder and to open up the job market, in preference to a featherweight Socialist who tried to bribe them with more and more free stuff, seem to have understood that their society was in cultural and economic decline.

To fund universal health care in France, workers are required to pay about 21 percent of their income into the national health care system. Employers pick up a little more than half of that. (French employers say these high taxes constrain their ability to hire more people.)