O.T.: Will We Ever Have Health Police?

DreamStalker wrote: ... you have heard of TARP and all the other bailouts right? ... or do you only hear that Obama is making the sky fall?

Why the repeated insinuations that I and others haven't come to our conclusions based on all the knowledge available? Yes, I know very well about all the bailouts, and I was against all of them, including Bush's. How does that give BO the authority to fire CEO's and "approve or adjust" the pay of other executives outside of government?

Hi there living in Saskatchewan in Canada here, I live in the province that pioneered medicare. We had hospitalization since 1944 and full doctor coverage since
1962. We used to have pharmacare to a limited degree, but the dark forces of the the right in this country have managed to erode that away. The are also trying to destroy our medical system here by closing hospital beds, limiting the output of docs and nurses out of the universities. With all this working against our system I would say it is one of the best in the world and everyone is covered. It is run at about %40 less money than the one in the U.S. which is so so for some people and non existent for others. As far as health police and death panels that is just bullshit for those who oppose medicare. That poster woman from Canada saying thank God for the US. system, her symptoms weren't life threatening, if they were she would have been looked after right away. In fact the Mayo Clinic has it posted on their website. Thanks for letting me vent.

Grant

The other day I woke up at 5:30 a.m. in SEVERE back pain, constant pain at about an 8, with many spasms off the chart. Never experienced this. I called my doc when they opened and at 8:30 and got an appointment for 11:30. That, in itself, is great. A half hour later, I couldn’t stand it and called back. Told the receptionist I either had to see him sooner or I’d have to go to the ER. She put me on hold, came back and said if I came in right away, he’d work me in. I saw him within 10 minutes of getting to the office.

This was not a life-threatening illness. It wasn’t a life-threatening situation. BUT I was in horrible pain. Can I be assured this type of service with a nationalized healthcare plan? The people I’VE talked to say no.

I’ve received similar great service with this group whether or not I’ve had insurance. And when I just need to come in for something that’s not really urgent, I still get an appointment in less than a week. I even had a doctor at a diagnostic testing center last year have me come back to do another ultrasound without registering, without paying anything, because she wanted to see things for herself (another doc had read the previous one).

It's great we live in a country of free speech, etc. etc. Which also means we can listen to whom we please. So...I choose not to listen to the right wing conservatives as many of them are not happy with the current administration and will do and say anything (fact or fiction) to paint a negative picture of any changes that the current administration is trying to make (ala Sara Palin). I'm sick of all the BS .
An excellent website to read what is fact or fiction is http://www.factcheck.org Whether you are conservative, liberal, or in the middle, they try to report what is factual the best they can, it is not for any particular political party.
Was it on Drag Net that they said "Just the facts, Mam, just the facts". Guess I dated mayself.

WearyOne wrote:The other day I woke up at 5:30 a.m. in SEVERE back pain, constant pain at about an 8, with many spasms off the chart. Never experienced this. I called my doc when they opened and at 8:30 and got an appointment for 11:30. That, in itself, is great. A half hour later, I couldn’t stand it and called back. Told the receptionist I either had to see him sooner or I’d have to go to the ER. She put me on hold, came back and said if I came in right away, he’d work me in. I saw him within 10 minutes of getting to the office.

This was not a life-threatening illness. It wasn’t a life-threatening situation. BUT I was in horrible pain. Can I be assured this type of service with a nationalized healthcare plan? The people I’VE talked to say no.

I’ve received similar great service with this group whether or not I’ve had insurance. And when I just need to come in for something that’s not really urgent, I still get an appointment in less than a week. I even had a doctor at a diagnostic testing center last year have me come back to do another ultrasound without registering, without paying anything, because she wanted to see things for herself (another doc had read the previous one).

Then the people you talk to are lying to you to. It's not a "nationalized healthcare plan." This is health insurance reform, nothing more. The federal government won't build hospitals and it won't employ doctors. Why in the world would insurance reform cause your doctor to refuse to give you an appointment? If, as you say, your doctor doesn't even care whether or not you have insurance, what will change?

WearyOne quoted at length from an article purporting to refute the myth that "there are 46 million or more Americans without health care." It's long, so I won't quote it again, but it can be found on page 10 of this thread. It is mostly an exercise in knocking down a straw man, since the common criticism of the current system is that 46 million lack insurance coverage, not that they go completely untreated. The article repeats, at some length, the point President Bush used to make: everyone can go to the emergency department, so they don't lack care. Thanks to a U.S. law called EMTALA, if a patient comes to the emergency department of a hospital that accepts Medicare or Medicaid payments, he must be given an appropriate screening examination to see if he has an "emergency medical condition," and if he does, the hospital must either treat him until he is stable or to transfer him to another hospital that will accept him.

When I don't have my hose on, I'm a medical malpractice defense lawyer, which gives me a front-row seat for watching the consequences of how that works in practice. The authors of the article are correct in saying that hospitals rarely violate EMTALA. They are generally conscientious and comply with the law, but that doesn't mean that this system of managing the uninsured is either effective or efficient. "Stabilize" means what it says. When the patient no longer in a medical emergency, a hospital can refer him to an appropriate physician and send him on his way. It cannot force him to seek and pay for non-emergency care, so it has no role to play until the patient returns once again in a crisis. Emergency departments acquire "regulars," and often they end up my problem. This kind of care, with no prevention and no continuity, has many disadvantages, but the one I see at first hand is that it breeds medical error. The most tragic cases are mothers who don't get prenatal care. They come to the hospital when their amniotic membranes rupture, in no condition to give a complete medical history, and are treated by strangers who have never seen them before. This increases the difficulty for doctors and nurses in many ways, like trying to estimate birth weight when serial sonograms have not been taken. I see these because the lack of prenatal care increases the odds of delivering a baby with cerebral palsy or Erb's palsy. Verdicts and settlements in my city for birth injury have run as high as $35 million more than once. A few of these could pay for a hospital wing, or to put it another way, $35 million would provide a year's health insurance for thousands of families. Another typical scenario is the person who shows up with high blood pressure or chest pain. They are admitted if they are having an acute attack, like a stroke or myocardial infarction. If not, they get medication and a referral, but may never be treated for their chronic conditions, which EMTALA does not require. They can be discharged if the emergency physicians believe the emergency is over. Sometimes the doctors are wrong, and the patient has a stroke or MI the next day. Then it's another expensive malpractice claim that might have been prevented by routine care.

It should be added that those emergency visits are expensive. The hospital has a right to collect, and it is the working poor who suffer, not the hopelessly indigent, who aren't worth pursuing. Andrew Sullivan, at the Atlantic, has been collecting stories from people screwed by the current system. There are plenty of the usual cases of coverage denied, but a different kind of letter impressed me with the folly of making the emergency department the default for providing care to the uninsured. It's at http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/t ... bed-3.html. The writer has epilepsy and explains what happens when he has a seizure in public.

A stranger's first response is usually to call an ambulance and get me to a hospital. When I was younger and putting myself through college by working part time, this simple act of generosity on the part of the well meaning observer would terrify me more than the seizure itself.... The simple act of being picked up off the ground, transported to the hospital and ingesting a Tylenol offered by doctor there would run me over a thousand dollars.... After the first time this occurred I would come to in a panic asking if an ambulance had been called and if so I would do my best to bolt from the scene before the technicians showed up .... Since I was working a part time minimum wage job, I could not afford to pay those bills and my credit was destroyed for years. At other similarly less fortunate occasions in my life I have been forced to take part in studies, moderate my dosage without the approval of a doctor or simply do without the medication that makes my life livable.

So lack of insurance prevents him from always taking his medication, and when he has a seizure his big fear is another emergency department bill. Multiply his case by 46 million, and the logic of insuring people so they get routine and preventive care is difficult to refute. The modern Marie Antoinettes who say, "let them go to the emergency department" are choosing the worst of both worlds -- inappropriate care at a high price.

KSMike wrote:

DreamStalker wrote: ... you have heard of TARP and all the other bailouts right? ... or do you only hear that Obama is making the sky fall?

Why the repeated insinuations that I and others haven't come to our conclusions based on all the knowledge available? Yes, I know very well about all the bailouts, and I was against all of them, including Bush's. How does that give BO the authority to fire CEO's and "approve or adjust" the pay of other executives outside of government?

And what crystal ball are you getting all this "available knowledge" of the future health bill? The committee members writing the damn thing don't even know what is in it ... that is why they insisted on taking it home for the summer break to read it over and run it by their constituents (of course some decided to embellish it a little with death panels and government doctors taking over your current physicians and other scary things). The bill has yet to come out of a committee and it can't be voted on until then and then voted on by both House and Senate and if there are difference of opinion (which you can bet there will be) then it is back to the drawing board and then Obama still has to sign it into law if it makes all of those hurdles and even then it is not HIS bill ... it is the congresses bill cuz it is their job to write bills. People need to vote their frustrations when voting for their House and senate representatives ... the President doesn't make the laws ... he executes/enforces the laws.

As for authority to hire and fire CEOs and adjust their salaries ... when the federal government (or anyone else for that matter) owns more than half the company they have that authority.

WearyOne wrote:Can I be assured this type of service with a nationalized healthcare plan? The people I’VE talked to say no.

You are talking to the wrong people. Stop talking to the Palinites ... they make stuff up!! They can't possibly know what is in a nationalized healthcare plan cuz there ain't one.

This round and round stuff is really getting us where? ---Nowhere. People on both sides are quoting things that the other side doesn't like, doesn't agree with, or doesn't "like the source." Others are getting a little testy. I believe what I believe, and I'm not changing because I've yet to see anything worth changing my mind for. Whatever one person says that I disagree with, I can find what I consider a good source against it; and vice versa. But, of course, they don't like my source, and I probably don't like theirs!

Besides, I'm not getting any work done. (Working on a computer from home has major advantages, but a major disadvantage is if you can't stay off the Internet and forums!! ) My clients may have an an interest in this healthcare bill situation, but I think what they really want is for me to get their work done!

So, I'm bowing out of the debate for now, guys and gals!

Yeah. It's not worth arguing over. The insurance lobby has too much skin in the game. Any chance at meaningful health care reform is being quickly eroded.

apnez wrote:...046 millions of Americans...

47M has ben bandied about for about a decade; the latest number is 70M. With the massive loss of jobs, it's probably higher.

apnez wrote:...what I see here and have seen elsewhere in the world where private insurance companies are involved in health care delivery IS far from being a desirable solution : its red tape, huge profits and poor service. Something also sure is that those private insurance companies already know more on YOUR individual life that will probably know the Government with that bill. USA health system is extremely costly and inefficient and YOU already pay every day for that terrible mess. Believe it or not USA are on the 24th rank in the world (WHO) just after...Cuba.

I so agree with you on this. Get the insurance companies with their goal of more and more profit out of healthcare; they're bleeding the system of needed monies.

TSSleepy wrote:Yeah. It's not worth arguing over. The insurance lobby has too much skin in the game. Any chance at meaningful health care reform is being quickly eroded.

Exactly!

“profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies in 2007 rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.”

The status quo will be maintained and the sky will not fall until a majority third party is voted into our government.

When accounting for US annual inflation, my salary has declined by about 20% over the same period (if only my salary would increase at 428% over 8 years, I would probably not complain as much).

DreamStalker wrote:
As for authority to hire and fire CEOs and adjust their salaries ... when the federal government (or anyone else for that matter) owns more than half the company they have that authority.

Roll your eyes at someone else, please. The federal government does not "own" GM or any other corporation. As to "crystal balls" (you do have a knack for sarcasm, I'll give you that), I said very clearly that I've come to my conclusions using all the information available - just like you have, and applying at least as much thought and consideration.

With that, I'm bowing out as well.

KSMike wrote:

DreamStalker wrote:
As for authority to hire and fire CEOs and adjust their salaries ... when the federal government (or anyone else for that matter) owns more than half the company they have that authority.

Roll your eyes at someone else, please. The federal government does not "own" GM or any other corporation. As to "crystal balls" (you do have a knack for sarcasm, I'll give you that), I said very clearly that I've come to my conclusions using all the information available - just like you have, and applying at least as much thought and consideration.

With that, I'm bowing out as well.

Well OK but you might want to know before you bow that your information source is suspect ...

Current GM stakeholders include the U.S. government, which now owns 61 percent of the Detroit company. ...
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financia ... UBBB80.htm

... GM said in the filing that the U.S. government owns 61 percent of the original 500 million common shares and the Canadian and Ontario governments hold 12 percent.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08 ... ering.html

61 percent IS more than half ... but suit yourself.

And a link to your own news paper ... http://www.kansascity.com/438/story/1366414.html

to be deleted

WearyOne wrote:....
In the U.S. 37% of people with below-average income reported that they were in fair or poor health, while only 9% of people with above-average income said the same. A similar disparity is seen in the UK, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia, despite their “universal coverage.”...

This is absolutely not a surprise for anyone who is knowledgeable in those matters.

As far as Public health is concerned, a certain numbers of health determiners are admitted universally. The first two determiners which influence the health of the individuals (and populations) are, first, the economic level of the individual followed by its education.

These determiners are much more important than the health system wherever we are in the world and matter much more than the specificities of the health system being public or private, insured or not, developed by Evil or God.

It is also necessary to realize that all the hospitals of a country and all the medical apparatus do not have a lot of importance on the health state, life expectancy and quality of life of a population and its individuals.

Environment, nutrition, sanitary conditions and life habits follow, by importance, the economic economic status and education and precede the health organization and pharmaceutical arsenal (except for a few "medications" as antibiotics and vaccines).

All this is well known by all those who specialize in health organization and public health. What make the Americans unhealthy is not their health system. It is, first, the poverty, lack of education, poor environment, poor nutrition etc... Obama's bill will not make Americans noticeably healthier except for the poor, not educated etc... people who do not have an easy access to primary care. Primary care is the most "efficient" element of a health system and by far. Distribution of richness and more education would be much more efficient.

Obama's bill, from a Public health perspective, is interesting as far accessibility for poor people is improved but it would be more interesting if money could be saved and diverted to support the important determiners. Something is sure, your actual system is costing you more than any other country in the world, is inefficient and unproductive as far as results are concerned and it is a great handicap for your country, your economy, industries etc...

But, as I said before, your Government has to start somewhere, the first "transitional" priorities being a larger accessibility to the population and an important cost reduction. Obama is clear on this and he is right. One thing is sure if Obama is serious, the party is over! And, believe it or not. appetites from insurance companies, pharmaceutical industry and all the health business will have to be greatly reduced. Things can't go like that forever.