|
|
Post by AztecWilliam on Jul 31, 2009 9:41:55 GMT -8
|
|
|
|
Post by bananaslug on Jul 31, 2009 15:55:16 GMT -8
That is hilarious that the journal couldn't even dig up a Canadian to be negative on their healthcare. Boy the Canadians must just be clamoring to replace their system with the American one since theirs is so bad. Ooops. www.harrisdecima.com/en/downloads/pdf/news_releases/071009E.pdf8% of Canadians think the American system is superior. 8% eh? Oh and 70% say their system works "fairly well" or "Very well". No wonder the Journal couldn't find a Canadian to disparge the system. |
|
|
|
Post by Bob Forsythe on Jul 31, 2009 16:56:31 GMT -8
That is hilarious that the journal couldn't even dig up a Canadian to be negative on their healthcare. Boy the Canadians must just be clamoring to replace their system with the American one since theirs is so bad. Ooops. www.harrisdecima.com/en/downloads/pdf/news_releases/071009E.pdf8% of Canadians think the American system is superior. 8% eh? Oh and 70% say their system works "fairly well" or "Very well". No wonder the Journal couldn't find a Canadian to disparge the system. While I do not believe that there are things about the Canadian system that need to be addressed, I am unaware of any person in my wife's family who would trade their system for our system. The right-wing can bitch, whine and moan all they want about Canadians not getting MRIs or other such tests as soon as they would like to get them, but the truth is this - MRIs and CatScans are totally overblown and in many cases, unnecessary - only reason they're recommended, based upon my time in Scripps Mercy, is because they need to charge 3-4 grand in order to pay for the stupid machine. I was incredibly stupid, most likely because I was not in a particular well state of mind when they asked about doing tests on me. I agreed to all sorts of tests that I shouldn't have agreed to and the tests cost me a ton despite my wife telling them that there should be no unnecessary tests. But they didn't clear the tests with her, they just asked me while I was in not in any particular shape to say "No". So I will just write this - never, ever agree to Cat Scans or MRIs unless the doc can give you a decent reason for them. I was stupid enough to assume an MRI would only cost 800 bucks or so and wanted to see what was involved with them (curiosity killed the cat) but it wound up costing me upwards of 3500 bucks. =Bob |
|
|
|
Post by aztecwin on Aug 1, 2009 5:11:27 GMT -8
That is hilarious that the journal couldn't even dig up a Canadian to be negative on their healthcare. Boy the Canadians must just be clamoring to replace their system with the American one since theirs is so bad. Ooops. www.harrisdecima.com/en/downloads/pdf/news_releases/071009E.pdf8% of Canadians think the American system is superior. 8% eh? Oh and 70% say their system works "fairly well" or "Very well". No wonder the Journal couldn't find a Canadian to disparge the system. While I do not believe that there are things about the Canadian system that need to be addressed, I am unaware of any person in my wife's family who would trade their system for our system. The right-wing can bitch, whine and moan all they want about Canadians not getting MRIs or other such tests as soon as they would like to get them, but the truth is this - MRIs and CatScans are totally overblown and in many cases, unnecessary - only reason they're recommended, based upon my time in Scripps Mercy, is because they need to charge 3-4 grand in order to pay for the stupid machine. I was incredibly stupid, most likely because I was not in a particular well state of mind when they asked about doing tests on me. I agreed to all sorts of tests that I shouldn't have agreed to and the tests cost me a ton despite my wife telling them that there should be no unnecessary tests. But they didn't clear the tests with her, they just asked me while I was in not in any particular shape to say "No". So I will just write this - never, ever agree to Cat Scans or MRIs unless the doc can give you a decent reason for them. I was stupid enough to assume an MRI would only cost 800 bucks or so and wanted to see what was involved with them (curiosity killed the cat) but it wound up costing me upwards of 3500 bucks. =Bob Bob, don't you think that the use of these costly and marginally useful tests are mostly for the protection of the Dr. from legal problems? Sensible tort reform would take the self defense thinking away and replace it with common sense thinking about the best way to serve the patient. |
|
|
|
Post by bananaslug on Aug 3, 2009 7:15:58 GMT -8
While I do not believe that there are things about the Canadian system that need to be addressed, I am unaware of any person in my wife's family who would trade their system for our system. The right-wing can bitch, whine and moan all they want about Canadians not getting MRIs or other such tests as soon as they would like to get them, but the truth is this - MRIs and CatScans are totally overblown and in many cases, unnecessary - only reason they're recommended, based upon my time in Scripps Mercy, is because they need to charge 3-4 grand in order to pay for the stupid machine. I was incredibly stupid, most likely because I was not in a particular well state of mind when they asked about doing tests on me. I agreed to all sorts of tests that I shouldn't have agreed to and the tests cost me a ton despite my wife telling them that there should be no unnecessary tests. But they didn't clear the tests with her, they just asked me while I was in not in any particular shape to say "No". So I will just write this - never, ever agree to Cat Scans or MRIs unless the doc can give you a decent reason for them. I was stupid enough to assume an MRI would only cost 800 bucks or so and wanted to see what was involved with them (curiosity killed the cat) but it wound up costing me upwards of 3500 bucks. =Bob Bob, don't you think that the use of these costly and marginally useful tests are mostly for the protection of the Dr. from legal problems? Sensible tort reform would take the self defense thinking away and replace it with common sense thinking about the best way to serve the patient. Total malpractice awards in the US are about $10/person/year. Enough to influence behavior, but hardly a major driver of costs. The bigger issue is misaligned incentives. The doctor has all the incentive to order the test and the test facility has all the incentive to work with the doctor to get more testees. They both make money off of it. Furthermore, there is no real cost to the patient to get to the test. So who rations healthcare? (Sorry William, healthcare always has been and always will be rationed) Right now it is insurance companies or the government for gov. medical plans. Their incentive, quite bluntly, is to have the less healthy die as soon as possible and get more of the healthy on their books. There are a few things we can do that might help the cost side of the equation: 1) Give doctors an incentive to manage costs (the Kaiser model, or Canada both do this) 2) End the tax exemption for healthcare benenfits. The Republicans are right on this one. 3) Introduce a set of minimum standards on what constitutes reasonable care and have insurance companies apply it consistently. There is now way to possibly create educated consumers on this topic. 4) Like auto insurance, create a shared risk pool of high risk patients and spread their cost across the profitable insured. That risk pool would have clearly defined benefit plans but could supplment it with their own insurance. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2009 9:01:02 GMT -8
That is hilarious that the journal couldn't even dig up a Canadian to be negative on their healthcare. Boy the Canadians must just be clamoring to replace their system with the American one since theirs is so bad. Ooops. www.harrisdecima.com/en/downloads/pdf/news_releases/071009E.pdf8% of Canadians think the American system is superior. 8% eh? Oh and 70% say their system works "fairly well" or "Very well". No wonder the Journal couldn't find a Canadian to disparge the system. You get similar results when you poll Americans about our health care system. Lost in all the hub-ub are the 80% of Americans that like their heath insurance just fine. That's 175 million folks. What's the population of America's hat again? Again, the facts are clear. For certain large scale heath problems in our county and in Canada such as prostate and breast cancer, the survival rates in the US are substantially higher. Socialism doesn't scale. The Ruskies and the Chinese have discovered that very simple fact. With small homogeneous populations, it works fairly well. At the other end of the spectrum however you have the Chinese, who managed to starve millions and relegate millions more to lives of poverty and degradation with no hope of ever escaping. THAT is a health problem. A Quiz: If you increase the number of patients and decrease the number of providers by forcibly limiting their income and placing hard restrictions on what they can and cannot do for their patients, will heath care get better or worse? |
|
|
|
Post by aztecwin on Aug 3, 2009 11:08:25 GMT -8
Bob, don't you think that the use of these costly and marginally useful tests are mostly for the protection of the Dr. from legal problems? Sensible tort reform would take the self defense thinking away and replace it with common sense thinking about the best way to serve the patient. Total malpractice awards in the US are about $10/person/year. Enough to influence behavior, but hardly a major driver of costs. The bigger issue is misaligned incentives. The doctor has all the incentive to order the test and the test facility has all the incentive to work with the doctor to get more testees. They both make money off of it. Furthermore, there is no real cost to the patient to get to the test. So who rations healthcare? (Sorry William, healthcare always has been and always will be rationed) Right now it is insurance companies or the government for gov. medical plans. Their incentive, quite bluntly, is to have the less healthy die as soon as possible and get more of the healthy on their books. There are a few things we can do that might help the cost side of the equation: 1) Give doctors an incentive to manage costs (the Kaiser model, or Canada both do this) 2) End the tax exemption for healthcare benenfits. The Republicans are right on this one. 3) Introduce a set of minimum standards on what constitutes reasonable care and have insurance companies apply it consistently. There is now way to possibly create educated consumers on this topic. 4) Like auto insurance, create a shared risk pool of high risk patients and spread their cost across the profitable insured. That risk pool would have clearly defined benefit plans but could supplment it with their own insurance. I question you figure on awards. That would only be about $3 Billion a year. If that is true then the cost of Malpractice insurance needs to be looked into. Tort reform is long overdue. Do you see the constant hammering advertisements by law firms at trying to get folks to file suits for any number of things? |
|
|
|
Post by Bob Forsythe on Aug 3, 2009 16:09:34 GMT -8
While I do not believe that there are things about the Canadian system that need to be addressed, I am unaware of any person in my wife's family who would trade their system for our system. The right-wing can bitch, whine and moan all they want about Canadians not getting MRIs or other such tests as soon as they would like to get them, but the truth is this - MRIs and CatScans are totally overblown and in many cases, unnecessary - only reason they're recommended, based upon my time in Scripps Mercy, is because they need to charge 3-4 grand in order to pay for the stupid machine. I was incredibly stupid, most likely because I was not in a particular well state of mind when they asked about doing tests on me. I agreed to all sorts of tests that I shouldn't have agreed to and the tests cost me a ton despite my wife telling them that there should be no unnecessary tests. But they didn't clear the tests with her, they just asked me while I was in not in any particular shape to say "No". So I will just write this - never, ever agree to Cat Scans or MRIs unless the doc can give you a decent reason for them. I was stupid enough to assume an MRI would only cost 800 bucks or so and wanted to see what was involved with them (curiosity killed the cat) but it wound up costing me upwards of 3500 bucks. =Bob Bob, don't you think that the use of these costly and marginally useful tests are mostly for the protection of the Dr. from legal problems? Sensible tort reform would take the self defense thinking away and replace it with common sense thinking about the best way to serve the patient. I was told that she wanted to make sure there wasn't some neurological problem even though I was diagnosed with alcoholic neuropathy a week earlier and it was my decision to make as to having the test. But I think you're naive if you believe that all sorts of tests are necessary to thinking about the best way to serve the patient. They knew what was causing my problem. They had blood work telling them that there was nothing wrong with any of my internal organs (something Kaiser confirmed) and that the real problem was that the drinking had screwed up my gag reflex to the point where I had barely eaten anything for a month before I went into the hospital. My real problems were being malnourished and anemic. I was eating muscle mass like crazy during the two or three months before I was admitted. =Bob |
|
|
|
Post by Bob Forsythe on Aug 3, 2009 16:17:18 GMT -8
Total malpractice awards in the US are about $10/person/year. Enough to influence behavior, but hardly a major driver of costs. The bigger issue is misaligned incentives. The doctor has all the incentive to order the test and the test facility has all the incentive to work with the doctor to get more testees. They both make money off of it. Furthermore, there is no real cost to the patient to get to the test. So who rations healthcare? (Sorry William, healthcare always has been and always will be rationed) Right now it is insurance companies or the government for gov. medical plans. Their incentive, quite bluntly, is to have the less healthy die as soon as possible and get more of the healthy on their books. There are a few things we can do that might help the cost side of the equation: 1) Give doctors an incentive to manage costs (the Kaiser model, or Canada both do this) 2) End the tax exemption for healthcare benenfits. The Republicans are right on this one. 3) Introduce a set of minimum standards on what constitutes reasonable care and have insurance companies apply it consistently. There is now way to possibly create educated consumers on this topic. 4) Like auto insurance, create a shared risk pool of high risk patients and spread their cost across the profitable insured. That risk pool would have clearly defined benefit plans but could supplment it with their own insurance. I question you figure on awards. That would only be about $3 Billion a year. If that is true then the cost of Malpractice insurance needs to be looked into. Tort reform is long overdue. Do you see the constant hammering advertisements by law firms at trying to get folks to file suits for any number of things? Looking at insurance company profits is what I've been arguing. The CEO of Cignet makes over 12 million bucks a year and who knows how much more in bonuses. I agree with Banana on the Kaiser model. Kaiser is consistently cheaper than any other health plan I was ever offered in employment or retirement. People can whine about wanting to chose their own doctors, but Kaiser offers a pretty decent choice of GPs and I can switch docs if I don't like the one I have (not that I've seen one of them very often over the past 30 years). And it also ain't much of a hassle to see a specialist at Kaiser, something that's not always the case with the for-profit HMOs. =Bob |
|
|
|
Post by aztecwin on Aug 4, 2009 4:18:26 GMT -8
I question you figure on awards. That would only be about $3 Billion a year. If that is true then the cost of Malpractice insurance needs to be looked into. Tort reform is long overdue. Do you see the constant hammering advertisements by law firms at trying to get folks to file suits for any number of things? Looking at insurance company profits is what I've been arguing. The CEO of Cignet makes over 12 million bucks a year and who knows how much more in bonuses. I agree with Banana on the Kaiser model. Kaiser is consistently cheaper than any other health plan I was ever offered in employment or retirement. People can whine about wanting to chose their own doctors, but Kaiser offers a pretty decent choice of GPs and I can switch docs if I don't like the one I have (not that I've seen one of them very often over the past 30 years). And it also ain't much of a hassle to see a specialist at Kaiser, something that's not always the case with the for-profit HMOs. =Bob I see your point and I was a member of Kaiser for a while when living in Lodi. I liked their focus on preventative medicine, but finally left them shortly before moving to Seattle. Kaiser is a good model but still there are some problems. I am just dead set against any government option on a large scale. Medicare and Tricare are examples of good plans for what they do, but not cost effective on a large scale. |
|
|
|
Post by bananaslug on Aug 4, 2009 9:57:46 GMT -8
Total malpractice awards in the US are about $10/person/year. Enough to influence behavior, but hardly a major driver of costs. The bigger issue is misaligned incentives. The doctor has all the incentive to order the test and the test facility has all the incentive to work with the doctor to get more testees. They both make money off of it. Furthermore, there is no real cost to the patient to get to the test. So who rations healthcare? (Sorry William, healthcare always has been and always will be rationed) Right now it is insurance companies or the government for gov. medical plans. Their incentive, quite bluntly, is to have the less healthy die as soon as possible and get more of the healthy on their books. There are a few things we can do that might help the cost side of the equation: 1) Give doctors an incentive to manage costs (the Kaiser model, or Canada both do this) 2) End the tax exemption for healthcare benenfits. The Republicans are right on this one. 3) Introduce a set of minimum standards on what constitutes reasonable care and have insurance companies apply it consistently. There is now way to possibly create educated consumers on this topic. 4) Like auto insurance, create a shared risk pool of high risk patients and spread their cost across the profitable insured. That risk pool would have clearly defined benefit plans but could supplment it with their own insurance. I question you figure on awards. That would only be about $3 Billion a year. If that is true then the cost of Malpractice insurance needs to be looked into. Tort reform is long overdue. Do you see the constant hammering advertisements by law firms at trying to get folks to file suits for any number of things? Quite consistent with other sources |
|
|
|
Post by aztecwin on Aug 4, 2009 10:15:56 GMT -8
I question you figure on awards. That would only be about $3 Billion a year. If that is true then the cost of Malpractice insurance needs to be looked into. Tort reform is long overdue. Do you see the constant hammering advertisements by law firms at trying to get folks to file suits for any number of things? Quite consistent with other sources If true, I am surprised. It still does not change my point about malpractice insurance as one of the factors. If you have to pay 200K a year for the insurance, then you guys are even more right than you think about insurance companies. |
|
|
|
Post by Bob Forsythe on Aug 4, 2009 15:18:26 GMT -8
Looking at insurance company profits is what I've been arguing. The CEO of Cignet makes over 12 million bucks a year and who knows how much more in bonuses. I agree with Banana on the Kaiser model. Kaiser is consistently cheaper than any other health plan I was ever offered in employment or retirement. People can whine about wanting to chose their own doctors, but Kaiser offers a pretty decent choice of GPs and I can switch docs if I don't like the one I have (not that I've seen one of them very often over the past 30 years). And it also ain't much of a hassle to see a specialist at Kaiser, something that's not always the case with the for-profit HMOs. =Bob I see your point and I was a member of Kaiser for a while when living in Lodi. I liked their focus on preventative medicine, but finally left them shortly before moving to Seattle. Kaiser is a good model but still there are some problems. I am just dead set against any government option on a large scale. Medicare and Tricare are examples of good plans for what they do, but not cost effective on a large scale. I'm not sure what is cost effective on a large scale, but surely what we have now is not. I do think attacks on Medicare are unwarranted, given what the program spends on people in the last two years of their lives. It ain't like most, if any, for-profit health care plans would accept them. If Medicare were to go away, would any for-profit health care plan in this country accept my soon to be 92 year-old mother, given the fact that she's going blind from glaucoma and is seriously bent over from arthritis? And despite those problems, she's quite healthy for her age. Her doctor, who is 75 and specializes in geriatric medicine, told me he wishes he had her blood tests and her blood pressure (last time, a month ago, her's was 115/96). She's wearing down, not unexpected when she's just a 10 days short of being 92, but where would she be if she didn't have Medicare? And where would she be if once she goes completely blind from glaucoma if Medicare wasn't around to pay for her being put in a "home"? I could bring her in here to take care of her and may do so, but there are a lot of parents with kids who couldn't do that, either because they don't make enough money or because they've moved away from their parents in order to follow jobs. =Bob |
|
|
|
Post by aztecwin on Aug 4, 2009 16:13:37 GMT -8
I see your point and I was a member of Kaiser for a while when living in Lodi. I liked their focus on preventative medicine, but finally left them shortly before moving to Seattle. Kaiser is a good model but still there are some problems. I am just dead set against any government option on a large scale. Medicare and Tricare are examples of good plans for what they do, but not cost effective on a large scale. I'm not sure what is cost effective on a large scale, but surely what we have now is not. I do think attacks on Medicare are unwarranted, given what the program spends on people in the last two years of their lives. It ain't like most, if any, for-profit health care plans would accept them. If Medicare were to go away, would any for-profit health care plan in this country accept my soon to be 92 year-old mother, given the fact that she's going blind from glaucoma and is seriously bent over from arthritis? And despite those problems, she's quite healthy for her age. Her doctor, who is 75 and specializes in geriatric medicine, told me he wishes he had her blood tests and her blood pressure (last time, a month ago, her's was 115/96). She's wearing down, not unexpected when she's just a 10 days short of being 92, but where would she be if she didn't have Medicare? And where would she be if once she goes completely blind from glaucoma if Medicare wasn't around to pay for her being put in a "home"? I could bring her in here to take care of her and may do so, but there are a lot of parents with kids who couldn't do that, either because they don't make enough money or because they've moved away from their parents in order to follow jobs. =Bob You are hitting on some of the points that make Medicare very expensive and not sustainable on a larger scale. It is due to go bankrupt soon as it is. I guess if you were to consider the end of life rationing that Obama Care entails as cost containment then those last few years of life would just be waiting to pass away with no more care given. I don't think you want that for your Mother nor do I. |
|
|
|
Post by aztecwin on Aug 4, 2009 16:42:08 GMT -8
Here is what Dick Morris has to say on the issue.
Healthcare Reform Means Less for Seniors
Monday, August 3, 2009 2:51 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann Article Font Size
The health-reform debate on Capitol Hill is skipping over the key issue: "Universal insurance" means less care for people who have coverage now — especially the elderly.
And the "compromises" now under way only make the problem worse.
Here's a point that's no surprise except to the "reformers": People with insurance use more healthcare.
President Barack Obama seeks to cover 50 million new people. Where are the extra doctors, nurses, and so on going to come from? Neither the administration nor anyone on the Hill has proposed anything to add to the supply of medical services even as they plan vastly to increase the demand.
The politicians are playing a Washington game — compromising on false or tangential issues while failing to address the central one.
It doesn't matter if you reduce or eliminate the mandate for employers to provide coverage, if you're still insuring more people without adding medical personnel and other resources. Same story for whether you replace the "public option" government-run plan with government-run "co-ops."
More, all the bills come up with cash to cover their huge costs by ordering cuts in Medicare — cuts that Congress could reverse only by affirmative majority votes. Basically, the government will be paying doctors and providers even less to treat the elderly — at a time when countless doctors are starting to refuse new Medicare patients.
More demand; no added supply; Medicare cuts: It all adds up to rationing — lower-quality medical care for most Americans, especially for the elderly.
A doctor in Massachusetts — where an Obama-style plan is already in place — recently told us that she now has to read 60 mammograms a day in the time she once spent on 45. "It keeps me up at night," she told us, "that I might make a mistake, I am so rushed."
For the elderly, it means less care, period. A federal health board will sit in judgment of medical procedures and protocols and impose guidelines on all providers for when to withhold certain kinds of care.
For example, the drug Avastin is widely used in America to treat advanced colon cancer. But it costs $50,000 a year — so Canada's national-health system doesn't permit its use. As a result, 41 percent of colon-cancer patients in Canada die each year, as opposed to 32 percent in the United States. (Canada's average eight-month wait for colonoscopies, another result of national-health rationing, also contributes to the problem.)
Members of Congress will be home through August to test public opinion. It's up to us to give them an earful.
© 2009 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
|
|
