Hidden health "care" reforms in "Stimulus" bill

[davester]

MacManMaz wrote:
"My health-care prejudices crumbled not in the classroom but on the way to one. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute. Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered that the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic—with a three-year wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a two-year delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks."

- The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
David Gratzer

This has absolutely no bearing on whether nationalized healthcare insurance or employer-based corporate-controlled healthcare insurance is better. I'm utterly pissed at the complete national mess we are in vis a vis healthcare.

My mother (who had what seemed to be an excellent US health insurance plan), last year experienced almost the exact same scenario you just described (only this was in California). She was taken by ambulance (which had to come from another city due to a lack of available ambulances) to the ER under severe respiratory distress. Unfortunately, the ER and hospital was jammed with people, many on stretchers in the hallways. It took two days to get her admitted to the hospital because there were no rooms available so she was put in an ER holding room with a bunch of other people. Needless to say, this was a nightmarish experience and it was very difficult to get her out of there even with my brother and I running tag team interference with the hospital administrators. Eventually they found her a hospital room (at another hospital...another ambulance ride), where she departed this earth a few days later. This is not the way someone should live out their last days. This is the american healthcare system at work. Healthcare rationing and service cuts are deeply ingrained in the american healthcare system. It may or may not get better under a national system, but at least you won't have vast hordes of people with no health insurance clogging the ER and costing the system many times what it would cost for them just to use regular clinics.

I really don't understand the people who are opposed to nationalized healthcare. Our system is in the shitter and people/companies are going broke paying the overinflated and rapidly rising for-profit insurance fees so there is no justification for wanting to stay with it. All I can figure is that people are afraid of the "socialized" medicine boogeyman because it sounds like "socialism" which sounds like "communism", disregarding the fact that we have socialized police protection, socialized fire departments, and socialized armed forces, amongst other things. There also seems to be an irrational fear of "government" control. Well, let's just look at what the actual difference is between government administered social programs and corporate administered social programs:

Government: can be wasteful due to bureaucracy
Corporate: proven to be wasteful in the health insurance arena due to bureaucracy

Government: all functions are open to oversight by the public
Corporate: most functions are hidden from the public

Government: incentive of organization is to provide care TO ALL implicit in the program's charter and to meet budgets. These two goals incentivize efficiency (though admittedly .
Corporate: corporate law requires maximization of profits...primary profit comes from raising rates, DENYING COVERAGE TO ALL BUT THE HEALTHY AND RICH, and reducing expenditures/benefits. Care is secondary.

This last one is the kicker. It is the main reason that public safety and health programs should never be run by corporations. It is the reason that we don't have corporate police, fire and armed forces. Corporations and the profit motive have their place in our economy, but not in this field.

[$tevie]

billb wrote:
and I wasn't talking about them. Try to keep abreast.

Then your post was a non sequitur, since the topic of this thread is pretty clear. If you want to kvetch about the stimulus bill there are already dozens of threads awaiting your hand.

[Mac1337]

john dough wrote:
but the BOTTOM LINE is that we need to correct the DISASTROUS course we are headed on, and the republicans, who got us into this mess, are doing no good for this country.

Doesn't sound like a "middle of the road" talk to me. Have something bad to say about Democrats by any chance? That doesn't surprise me. Liberals routinely call themselves "moderate" and "undecided" but you listen to them and it won't be long before you know who they are.

[Doc]

Dakota wrote:
[quote=john dough]
but the BOTTOM LINE is that we need to correct the DISASTROUS course we are headed on, and the republicans, who got us into this mess, are doing no good for this country.

Doesn't sound like a "middle of the road" talk to me.
When you're driving on the shoulder, it takes a big correction to get back to the middle.

[TLB]

Here is an excellent article on the history and impetus for health care reform in other countries. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/...ct_gawande
One could posit an evolutionary change in our health care system that could be quite different than a single payer system, or an English or Canadian model. I envision the possibility of a heavily regulated public health utility, with payroll and government subsidized insurance for universal coverage a la the French or Massachusetts system.

[Gutenberg]

I read that story and found it very interesting, TLB. There are a number of ways we can make the health care system affordable for patients, and one of them is to subsidize the payments. I think what we might end up with is an extension of Medicare.

Frankly I think the government should extend Medicare right now to people who are losing their jobs. It should be an adjunct to unemployment insurance payments.

[Mac1337]

Gutenberg wrote:

Frankly I think the government should extend Medicare right now to people who are losing their jobs. It should be an adjunct to unemployment insurance payments.

Can we just get one big check form the government first day of the month and be done with it? It would cover healthcare, food, education, clothes, transportation, insurance, home mortgage...You know, the stuff no human being should be denied.

Jut send me a check. It'll save a ton of administrative costs. And since the new theory is that money can be printed, we can all afford it.

[$tevie]

Gutenberg wrote: Frankly I think the government should extend Medicare right now to people who are losing their jobs. It should be an adjunct to unemployment insurance payments.

I believe that the bill included extending Medicaid to people who have to go on unemployment, although to be honest I don't know if it made it through to the finish or not.

[Gutenberg]

There are 305 million people in the United States.

The stimulus bill is 838 billion.

That's approximately $2,747.54 per person.

Let's say you're 40 years old, Dakota.

You are likely to live at least another 32 years--probably more, but we're going to be generous and give you all your money back in 32 years.

That's $7.16 a month. Don't spend it all in one place, hear?

[Mac1337]

Heh, heh, I wasn't talking about just the $800B. I am talking life, my friend. We have established a new economic theory. When asked who will buy our bonds to finance the stimulus someone said we don't need to sell anything. We will print money. Take that China.