Has anyone watched Sicko?Shocked by what i learnt.

Yes, and Medicare is no panacea.  I am doing my taxes and added up my out of pocket drug cost - even with PartD.  I have paid 7,000 last year in drugs and still have to pay 360.month in partB and C Medicare BCBS Premiums.

Left wing/right wing bla bla bla - the net is the US is now like 18th in the world in health care (France is #1).  And to those who claim there is no health care issue in this country...you may be only several paychecks or a disability away from the alleged health care crises.

Try walking a mile in your neighbor's (not at the country club) shoes.

bob

love to all

i didn't think my post would have stirred such a reaction. It obviously is a major issue for all Americans. But in the end i believe no matter what your circumstances are you shouldn't have the serious stress of corrupt health insurance companies being responsible for your health. Every person should have healthcare, under no circumstances should a seriously ill person be denied treatment because he cannot afford it.
I really caannot understand how a country with the best doctors and hospitals in the world operate by letting insurance companies decide who can get treatment and who can't.This system is crazy foi us Europeans to understand.Seems like the poor people or those who really need to be taken care of are left to suffer whilst the greedy insurance companies just get richer and richer.So sad that this is how things are in some parts of the world when there has been so many advances in medicine, if only these advances and treatments could be available to everyone no matter what their circumstances are.
Marty

"The biggest negative I can think of to a Canadian-style universal system would be potentially less dollars going to research new cures. If there are price controls on drugs, I would think less investment would be made in new cures for things like UC."

Exactly!  If the financial incentive is removed, who will develop the new drugs? 

I happen to think that healthcare costs so much due to there being so much more of it than ever before.  It costs a lot because we are getting a lot.  People are complaining about the cost of their meds, but these meds are extending lives and they did not exist 10 or 20 years ago.  There is a price for the miracle drugs that save our lives, and the value is certainly more than the value of a plasma TV. 

It would be unfair for me to complain about the cost of my insurance.  I paid a few thousand dollars for coverage last year, and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefit.  I cannot speak for others, but I know that I got a fair deal.   

Maybe I'm just lucky.  I don't intend to be insensitive to those with bad sitauations.   

Whatever happened to living in a free country that believes in liberty for its citizens. I can't believe that so many of you are eager to forfeit your liberties to a government that can't tie its own shoes. I still have the right to make my own medical decisions, and I don't respect the point of view that the government has the right to get involved.

Sicko is pure propaganda from socialists that want a cradle-to-grave nanny state. When government-run health care runs out of money (and they will), get ready for medical services to be rationed. Be very, very careful what you wish for.

I have even more distaste for insurance companies that are out to screw us out of the coverage that they promise and for drug companies that pay other drug companies not to produce generics. Unlike the socialized medicine crowd, they know exactly what they are doing, and they don't care.

I believe in free market competition. Doctors used to have to compete with other doctors and post their prices for medical services like any other business. Why don't they do that anymore? The answer is insurance. Doctors and insurance companies agree to what YOU are going to pay. It would be better to have catastrophic health care insurance and to negotiate and pay as you go for the medical services that you need.

4Johanna - "Forfeit our liberties?" I do not see how making sure everyone in this country has health insurance takes away liberty. In fact, it seems to be doing the opposite. And your comment about the movie being "socialist propaganda" is way off base. Have you even seen the movie or done any research on the numerous other countries that have a universal health care system already in place? They aren't running out of money, as you claim the U.S. would.

You don't believe it's important for a country to care for the poor and others who are sick and uninsured?

4Johanna, I really don't think that any members here, certainly not I, need a lecture from you on what the U.S. Constitution covers or does not cover, nor your insinuations that I do not know the history of health insurance in this country. Furthermore, we are not discussing "socialized medicine" in this thread. It seems like your mindset (& vocabulary, too) is somewhere back in the 1950s with the John Birch Society, Senator Joe McCarthy & J. Edgar Hoover. / Old Hat

Zach, I don’t know where The Fraser Institute gets there data from but I must be lucky. They say the average wait time for a CT scan is 4.3 weeks. I had one here in Toronto about a month ago after I slipped on some ice and hit my head. I walked in off the street to the emergency department at a local hospital and I waited a couple hours before I had a CT scan. The fact is waiting lists are for none emergency or life threatening cases. They always prioritise cases based on need. Our system isn’t perfect but when patients fall through the cracks they quite often make national news. It happens every few months. A lot of the propaganda about our Canadian health care system coming out of the US is greatly exaggerated or just plain wrong. I for one am happy with our system and am thankful for it.

4Johanna said...
 Our country does care for the poor (see welfare, Medicare). There is no right to health insurance the last time I looked at the Constitution.

So, every insurance company turning me down for having a pre-existing condition is my fault I take it? Wow, well let me apologize to the government and the health insurance compaines. I was covered by BCBS through the government until I turned 18. Not realizing right away that I had to re-signup for an adult plan they cancled my plan without a choice a renewing because it was over 30 days or something, I had to pay $600 a month to get a plan with them and had to wait a year for pre-existing condition to be able to see the doctors I wanted to see.

I tried medicare, when I was 19. I wasn't employeed and my mom never had a great paying job, yet they decided I didn't need their help.

So, it was either pay $600+ dollars to Blue Cross, get denied by everyone else including our government or just wing it and not have health insurance. But again, it's all my problem because this country gave me the tools to use, I just missused it I guess. Oh well, maybe I'll smarten up next time I get a new illness...... stupid me.

Zach - I don't care if it's in the Constitution. If it's not, it should be amended.

Re: your liberty question: If you don't have to constantly worry about getting sick, being unable to function or work and dying because you have decent healthcare, it would give you more freedom....if it was a government-run healthcare that was run well, it would give patients more freedom than we have now, since we are so controlled by the insurance companies. If you didn't understand me, you could simply just ask, not give me a lecture.

I have yet to see the movie but in my opinion there are many ways to improve our system and not all involve socialized or universal health care. There must be ways to provide affordable insurance to all without completely changing out entire system. One simple way would be to allow insureds to put all household members on their insurance or all family members. Then sick, disabled, or retired people could go on the plan of their caregiver, regardless of whether or not they were married. In our current system, if I was a single person who was only interested in dating those of the same sex I could marry my friends 75 year old grandfather just to make sure he had health care, since I wouldn't be able to marry the partner of my choice in my state. That just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me... Im off on a tangent now but I anticipate marrying for benefits will be the new marrying for citizenship.

Oh and regarding the threat of unheard of wait times for treatment under socialized/universal plans... have you lived in a US city? When I lived in Mass I was going to have to wait 6 months for a Cat Scan when I had severe debilitating head aches. Also, 6 months to see a neuro. Only after my dad called my pediatrician scared to death that I could have a tumor did they order an emergency CT for me. Turns out the headaches were from an old neck injury but my point is this system has plenty of long waits. But I must say now that I live in a far less populated state I get much quicker care.

PS: I think it is silly that our editing software blocks out the proper term for a female attracted to other females.  And how is that word offensive?

Basically you have the healthy people pay "insurance" which pays the bills of the sick people who also pay, just less than if they had to pay it all. So thanks to the healthy people.

With our obesity problem here and unhealty lifestyles I would think the balance would break any government system to where it was ridiculously expensive.

Insurance companies were originally started to keep costs down which is a good thing but the problem is they have gotten too powerful and are exercising too many restrictions. Just like how I think Unions served a purpose but now are too powerful for their own good.

My only fear is that I cannot start my own business for fear of losing my company healthy insurance.

vector, i agree with you except for the 'now' aspect of your statement concerning unions. union membership in the 50's may have reached around 30%, however now it is more like 7% in private industry. the government has the highest union membership at around 35%, but that is tempered by the fact that they cannot strike. (as evidenced by the patco strike in the 80's when a former union president, turned president of the US, fired them all. the air traffic control problems live on and is again headed for critical mass by all accounts. the difference is that now, the controllers have no advocacy. that had a chilling effect on unions everywhere, and picket lines have become a laughing stock. without that, unions have no teeth, and have been in decline ever since. the hard fought benefits that were gained back in the 20's and 30's have already begun to erode. young people coming into the workplace have no idea where health insurance, vacation, a 40 hour work week, etc., come from. health insurance at one time, was a benefit totally paid for by the company. now they have massaged employees into paying a certain percentage of the premiums. when i was still working, we long suspected the company and the insurance company (that also had a financial wing that handled the company's business finances) were in bed together and present figures to us that showed healthcare 'costs' skyrocketing so they had to increase our share of the premiums. goodbye 10 cent raise that we just got! gee, you don't suppose they had that all figured out? kickbacks? i dunno. it's certainly possible. who sees the real figures except them?

if you need any more proof in your own life that these corporate financial companies have gotten out of control. look at your own credit cards and the games they play with the rule changes that they mail you periodically. it's just notification of another way they've figured out how to legally rob you and suck you in deeper and deeper.

look at the reasons given for jobs leaving the US. healthcare costs, unions, americans don't want to do these jobs. how can all that be, when this country has thrived in the past with all these intact? here in iowa, the packing companies busted unions for decades, by shutting down plants and reopening in another location. working the kill line in a packing house is a terrible job, but americans did it - for good pay! now, we have immigration agents raiding the packing plants and hauling off workers en masse to deport them. it scares me to think of what we may be eating these days.

we've lost our manufacturing base in this country......our steel industry is all but dead. we're looking at imports for almost everything. and now our government has hopped on the outsourcing bandwagon. 'rollerball' is coming.

vv

Many thanks, VietVet! Having grown up in the now-called "Rust Belt" with a chronically ill father who had no medical insurance, I appreciate your effort to articulate the need for adequate/rational health care coverage, as well as to explain Michael Moore to people who've been propagandized by union-busters, etc. In the early 1970s I worked with a young woman whose Marine husband had been wounded in the knee in Vietnam. He was 21 & looked pretty healthy, though thin. The VA at 1st refused to cover payments for rehab therapy his wound justified. That led this couple to get involved in anti-war protests. It's all related, but people who tune in to the type of radio you mention want to have the wool pulled over their eyes. Liberty requires vigilance, but they would rather be lulled to "sleep" by charlatans & worse. / Old Hat (nearly 30 yrs with left-sided UC ... etc.)