Sicko

[PreTTy PeTe]

i just watched it

a question to americans is the health system in the USA as much as a mess that this movie makes it out to be.

or is michael moore just pushing his own agenda

any bad experiences when you went to the hospital and didn't have insurance.

just asking

[gaypiper]

The health care "system" if it can be called that, works just fine for those who (a) have a job with benefits or (b) can afford it. Apart from either of those two options, there is no "system." I'm planning to see it today after church.

[Hair Hunter]

I have not seen the movie, but I have read reviews of it, and I'm not necessarily a Michael Moore fan, but the healthcare system in the US does have it's problems. 2 1/2 years ago I had a massive heart attack. (without insurance) I was in the hospital for 10 days. When I got out my bills totalled $117,000!!!! and my prescriptions were around $600 per month. I had to file bankrupcy because there was no way for me to be able to pay that amount. They would have worked with me to reduce the amount, but only by about a third. Now having a job with insurance, the insurance companies sometimes deny some coverages calling them either pre existing conditions or them feeling they are not necessary treatments.

Mike

[Brad]

I have a job and health insurance. I've never been "in" the hospital. However doctor visits and emergency room visits are unbelivably priced. I stay away from the health care system. It can ruin you financially. Thank God I'm healthy enough to have that choice.

[gsdx]

When I got out my bills totalled $117,000!!!! and my prescriptions were around $600 per month.

I knew some people in the States who went through a similar thing when the husband went to hospital also with a heart attack. Their bills amounted to over $250,000.

Do they honestly believe that the majority of people are going to have that kind of cash lying around, or to at least have access to it?

[Riverrick]

I haven't seen the movie but do they mention that we expect to get the very best that medical science can offer when we get sick? There is this culture of thought here that when I or my loved one is ill, then pull out all of the stops and work your medical miracles to make us better. Well, that kind of care comes with a price......years of research and training and very specialized equipment and drugs.

Yes, healthcare is overpriced but so are our expectations oversized. We are all going to get old and sick and die so maybe we should all take a few steps back and agree on what's appropriate care and what is too costly for our society to sustain at this time.

[momp57]

My Hubby and I saw it Friday. As his movies typically do, it made me angry. As a teacher, I have the worst insurance I've ever had in my life. I had the best coverage of my life at one of my first and lowest paying jobs.:confused:

[Horschallen]

I can see the "Do Not Resusicate" directives becoming very popular someday. I am fortunate to have a job with health benefits. I am on different medicine, and for my 2 insulins, the monthly combined cost would have been about $1,600, not including test strips and needles which I pay totally. Thanks to insurance, my copay monthly for both insulins is $36. I often wonder what happens if something happens to my job or when I retire. How will I be able to afford the high costs of medical care, and part of me hope that I will either strike it rich or die before I get stuck with these expenses... or even go without medication.

[PreTTy PeTe]

i always wonder if i would be dead today if i lived in the us

and didn't have insurance

i had a bad accident.
i don't know what i cost the province but it must of been more then a million.

if i had to deal with that bill i'd be living on the streets now

me love Tommy Douglas (and his grandson kiefer sutherland oh yea)

[Jannus]

i always wonder if i would be dead today if i lived in the us

and didn't have insurance

i had a bad accident.
i don't know what i cost the province but it must of been more then a million.

if i had to deal with that bill i'd be living on the streets now.

You'd still be alive Petey, just bankrupt. Health care costs are the number one reason for personal bankruptcies in America.

The health care system in America is far worse than Michael Moore presents it, even though I suspect he was trying to exaggerate things.

The odd part is that we spend more per person on health care than any other country on Earth! The system we have rewards inefficiency, and it gets worse every year.

It's not going to change anytime soon, though. Americans hate government involvement in things (even when it works better) and we do not place a high value on health generally (except our own, of course!). We are doomed to watch the system get worse and worse and worse in coming years.

[cumtasteit]

At one point, my mother and I had to make a decision whether to keep my father in the hospital. He was suffering from a virulent cancer. He made the decision himself to come home. I had no idea at the time that Medicare had $$$ limits. His hospital stay, if it had continued, would have bankrupted our family. About two weeks after he came home, he died. Sadly, it was almost fortunate he died because the bills, home care, etc., were continuing. Something is wrong when people have to die because they cannot afford healthcare. We all know it, but we don't take enough action to stop the craziness of the system. Please be aware - the system will not pay out endlessly for your condition or a loved one's illness. If we can spend trillions in Iraq, we can overhaul our healthcare.

[MRMATTX2]

I haven't seen the film and don't plan to. I don't need to watch something like that to know that our system is badly fucked. That we live in the richest country on earth, yet we have millions of people who have no health insurance.

My 84 year old mother was in the hospital for 2 days in May, I saw the bill, it was $23,000. Of course, she is on Medicare - which is for the seniors. Her portion of the bill was $100.00.

Now, if I was in for 2 days with that kind of bill, my portion would be about $4,600.
I have coverage through my employer, a basic HMO. They cover 80% of hospital costs. EVERYTHING has to be pre-approved, if there's something I need that they don't cover, but I needed to have done....it would be at my cost.

I hate to think it's going to get worse, but it probably will. We elect people, and they seem to do what they want, never mind they are supposed to represent us.

UGH. I love my country and all, but I just don't believe this is the best place to be anymore. It just isn't.

[GL]

there is both good and bad with our country's healthcare system. all i can say is that i am thankful my employment affords me a fairly decent health insurance program. i'd be up shit creek without it.

[Riverrick]

If we can spend trillions in Iraq, we can overhaul our healthcare.
Isn't that the sad truth.

[gsdx]

there is both good and bad with our country's healthcare system. all i can say is that i am thankful my employment affords me a fairly decent health insurance program. i'd be up shit creek without it.

A lot of people don't have the benefit of a good job with a decent health insurance program. New York State has recently been advertising a program for parents with children under 18 which would allow the parents health care for their children, the the parents have to apply for it.

What if the parents apply and are denied coverage? What happens then? I'm sorry, but I don't think I could stand to see my child in distress simply because I couldn't afford a hospital visit. I find that thought seriously disturbing and discomforting.

[GL]

A lot of people don't have the benefit of a good job with a decent health insurance program. New York State has recently been advertising a program for parents with children under 18 which would allow the parents health care for their children, the the parents have to apply for it.

What if the parents apply and are denied coverage? What happens then? I'm sorry, but I don't think I could stand to see my child in distress simply because I couldn't afford a hospital visit. I find that thought seriously disturbing and discomforting.

here in texas we have the 'chip' program for kids who's parents make too much money to qualify for medicaid but for whatever reason do not have private health insurance. it's a worth while program that does a great deal of good but its suffered from partisan politics in austin.

you have republicans, who for a myriad of reasons have cut funding to the program and made eligibility requirements and coverage periods so difficult that enrollment figures had dropped substantially. thankfully after the pasting they received at the national level, attitudes within the conservative element in power have changed and many of these roadblocks are being lifted.

parents who do not have coverage either for themselves or their children will still go to their local e/r's. the law forbids the refusal of medical assistance by the hospital for any reason. unfortunately what ends up happening is that the local community ends up absorbing that cost through increased fees and sometimes property/municipal taxes. which makes austin's mucking around with this program and medicaid in general so perplexing. it ends up being cheaper to address these expenses through these programs up front.

[luckotheirish]

[begin:soapbox:]

The healthcare problems in the US are rooted in the same place as our energy problem - extraordinarily well funded special interest groups.

The private health insurance business is a multi-billion $$$ business and they are doing everything they can to keep any form of single-payer system from developing. Such a system would end their industry - even though it's in the public's best interest.

First, no private insurance company is large enough or powerful enough to command a more reasonable cost for treatment. The only "insurance" that comes close to it is Medicare/Medicaid - government programs. They can and DO dictate to ALL providers what charges will be. And providers sqeal like a pig under a gate about it.

Second, having literally thousands of insurance companies all out their duplicating each other's work (each one has a corporate structure...) is incredibly inefficient. A single-payer system (like that in practically every other industrialized society but the US) would eliminate much of that and thereby reduce cost.

Third, those opposed to single-payer complain that there'll be waiting lists like in Canada and the UK. If I understand it correctly, the waiting lists are primarily for things that are not life-threatening or severely debilitating. We here in the US live in a drive-up window society and expect everything RIGHT NOW or sooner.

Fourth, those opposed to the single-payer system say that if you take away the profit motive for development of new treatments, such developments will stop and new treatments won't be found. I don't agree. There are plenty of scientists and researchers who do their job for the thrill of the hunt and the sense of personal satisfaction that comes with discovery. I don't think Thomas Edison was sitting in his lab in New Jersey imagining how rich he'd be when he developed the light bulb, or the phonograph; nor Alexander Graham Bell when he developed the telephone, nor Louis Pasteur when he developed the process that bears his name. Besides, take all the researchers who work for private companies and put them to work at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and public universities - which BTW is where MOST medical research is done now anyway.

Fifth, those that oppose the single-payer system argue that free-market forces produce the best levels of efficiency - which in the case of healthcare is demonstrably false. Moreover, healthcare is NOT a Toyota or Computer. Consumers don't have complete freedom to move fluidly from bad coverage to good. The vast majority are locked in by their employer for at least a year. The decision about which company to choose is not made by the consumer but instead by the employer - to minimize their cost, not maximize efficiency.

Finally, there is a moral contradiction, IMO, with considering healthcare as a marketable commodity. Isn't withholding treatment from a sick or dying person somewhere up there with battery and murder? Instead of sins of COmmission, these are sins of Omission. Our system turns its back on the sick and suffering every day for no sin greater than being poor. Instead we choose to throw good money after bad into frivolous and despicably wasteful things like "The Bridge to Nowhere" and Iraq.

Our nation is being kept from a much more efficient and humane delivery of healthcare because well funded people don't want anyone screwing with their cash cow. I see it happen to people EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And it's incredibly shameful. We CAN afford Nationalized Healthcare. We CAN.
[/:soapbox:]

[Shepherd 2]

Thanks for a thoughtful forum discussion.

[metta]

It is a very complicated issue. I'm going to see the movie today as well. :)

-the pharmaceutical industry
-over paid medical workers (not all but the ones that are making several million dollars each year....I do question that). How many $5 million dollar homes do some of these doctor's and administrator upper managers really need? I think that it is unethical to make that kind of money off of the sick.
-health insurance companies
-hospital over charging so that they can get what they need from insurance companies
-prioritizing saving lives at any cost. I feel that it would be better to focus on the quality of life in some situations than saving lives at any cost.

I'm self employed and I have health insurance that I have never used. My best friend made me get it before we bought the house. I have a plan with a very high deductible...something like $3500 that has a saving account attached to it. I plan on switching to a regular health plan eventually. In the mean time, I have been building my medical savings account up so the money will be there when I need it...not that it is very much money.

Medical costs is THE most biggest factor that scares me about the thought of retiring in the future. How can anyone really save enough money to ensure that they will have enough money to take care of medical costs when they are so astronomical?

[Lube]

I haven't seen the movie but do they mention that we expect to get the very best that medical science can offer when we get sick? There is this culture of thought here that when I or my loved one is ill, then pull out all of the stops and work your medical miracles to make us better. Well, that kind of care comes with a price......years of research and training and very specialized equipment and drugs.

Yes, healthcare is overpriced but so are our expectations oversized. We are all going to get old and sick and die so maybe we should all take a few steps back and agree on what's appropriate care and what is too costly for our society to sustain at this time.

Many excellent comments on this thread, but I think Riverrick nails an important point here.

[rotary]

a question to americans is the health system in the USA as much as a mess that this movie makes it out to be.
Just ask yourself if Canada's health system is as good as Moore makes it out to be, and you'll have your answer.

His "documentary" is pure bullshit.

[PreTTy PeTe]

the canadian health system is just amazing
never have to worry to go to the doctor because yea you don't have to pay
never worry if you go to the ER and oh you don't pay anything

yea it has it's problems and flaws

but it saved my life and countless others.

kudos to St. Mikes Hospital aka The Urban Angel
the bestest hospital on the plantet

[rotary]

the canadian health system is just amazing
never have to worry to go to the doctor because yea you don't have to pay
never worry if you go to the ER and oh you don't pay anything

yea it has it's problems and flaws

but it saved my life and countless others.

kudos to St. Mikes Hospital aka The Urban Angel
the bestest hospital on the plantet
Physician shortages leave millions of Canadians without a doctor, wait times that force some people to leave the country for specialized surgery or sit in pain for weeks until their turn, what a perfect system!

It's good here, but not great, and definitely not the perfect setup Moore tries to paint for his viewers. Take what you saw with a grain of salt.

[PreTTy PeTe]

Physician shortages leave millions of Canadians without a doctor, wait times that force some people to leave the country for specialized surgery or sit in pain for weeks until their turn, what a perfect system!

It's good here, but not great, and definitely not the perfect setup Moore tries to paint for his viewers. Take what you saw with a grain of salt.

honestly never had a problem in ontario.
i can get an MRI in a week.
or whatever i need so fast.

is it alberta that's messing things up for you.

[gsdx]

is it alberta that's messing things up for you.

I wouldn't think so. He lives in Saskatchewan.

[PreTTy PeTe]

I wouldn't think so. He lives in Saskatchewan.

oh yea regina i just noticed

thanks for that GSDX

[gsdx]

oh yea regina i just noticed

thanks for that GSDX

Not a problem.

[doctorsun]

It's as bad as Michael Moore makes it out to be. I just saw the movie and I was very deeply affected by it. It's an amazingly important movie for all Americans to see. The way we treat our citizens is disgusting. It's fucking shameful that we are the richest, most powerful country in the world and we treat our middle class like shit.

If I had the resources, I would move to Canada because I'm fucking sick and tired of this country's corruption and greed and shameless disregard for its citizens.

[PreTTy PeTe]

but do you have to call your HMO before you go to the doctor?

[doctorsun]

but do you have to call your HMO before you go to the doctor?

I don't have an HMO, but those who do have them do have to call to get authorization to go to the doctor unless they go to one that's within the pre-approved network of GPs. Anything else, such as having to see a specialist requires a referral and authorization.

[PreTTy PeTe]

I don't have an HMO, but those who do have them do have to call to get authorization to go to the doctor.

so in the middle of the night and you feel really sick

they have to call an HMO.

and they decide your care?

what's happens if you call 911.... do they bill you?l

[Riverrick]

I don't have an HMO, but those who do have them do have to call to get authorization to go to the doctor unless they go to one that's within the pre-approved network of GPs. Anything else, such as having to see a specialist requires a referral and authorization.
Its not that big of a deal. Why would you want to go to a GP other than your own? If you need a referral, you either call your doctor's office or go in and see him first. A lot of times he takes care of the problem and you don't have to see the specialist.

Also, a lot of specialists don't require preauthorization, such as Podiatry, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, and sometimes Ortho, Cardiology, and Dermatology.

I could understand the exasperation if YOU had to do the work but its your doctor's office that has to do the extra legwork. ER visits are always covered in these plans as long as they are emergencies, so you should have no fear of calling 911.

[doctorsun]

ER visits are always covered in these plans as long as they are emergencies, so you should have no fear of calling 911.

Until you get the bill for the ambulence ride, the prescriptions for any medications you need, and any services you received in the hospital that your insurance provider decided were unnecessary.

Believe me, I've been through the system. Michael Moore didn't exaggerate anything.

[Hard-up1]

Health care in the U.S. is a disgrace.

Insured or not, you spend 10 mins. in doctor's office, and they act like they're doing a frickin' favor to spend that long.

They don't remember you, they seem to resent having to touch you, and they rarely use as much bedside manner as the average veterinarian.

As for access, the working classes bitch endlessly about illegal alien burdens on the system, welfare moms, etc., but not a word about the trillions we spend on more missiles lying around that it would take to blow up the moon. I know, as I used to work in a missile factory.

Yes, there are those who abuse the system, but the whole thing is a big racket, about as ethical as the defense industry.

I'm not saying there aren't individuals who are there to serve people and care about them, but there are fewer and fewer.

I'm ashamed of the standards the U.S. has for access, especially for the poor. Although the elderly are covered largely, it is often the case that they are treated poorly, and all of their available income is consumed by medicine and treatments. Who wants to live to be old under those circumstances.

Even the healthy, jogger-biker-fitness types break down with something.

I want to be proud of America, but for reason, not rote repetition.

[doctorsun]

I want to be proud of America, but for reason, not rote repetition.

Amen. Really, this movie made me ashamed to be an American. For all of the problems this country has developed, most can be blamed on the current administration and I have kept the attitude of "I love my country, but I the president." But seeing this, knowing what I already experienced in my own life...it's just made me ashamed. This problem is a decades-old issue that's grown and grown and grown until it's just completely out of control now. The US will never see decent healt care.

[gsdx]

The US will never see decent healt care.

Is it not possible? Here in Canada, each province has its own health care system which, I believe, is federally funded as well. In Ontario, it is OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) and is mostly paid for by premiums paid into it. It's the same as regular insurance, I suppose, except that it's province-wide and covers everybody. Surely something like that could happen in the United States. I'm sure the citizens wouldn't mind paying premiums if they get the coverage.

[doctorsun]

The problem with that is that it never gets to be voted on by the people. Congress is so deep into the drug and insurance companies' pockets that they'll pass ANY bill that supports their profits, not the well-being of the people.

[gsdx]

^^ Oh, dear. I didn't know that.

[doctorsun]

^The system is shamelessly corrupt and they don't even try to hide it.

[gsdx]

It appears they've got you by the proverbial balls.

[doctorsun]

^Precisely. Everyone has to go to the hospital at some point...

[frankfrank]

The problem with that is that it never gets to be voted on by the people. Congress is so deep into the drug and insurance companies' pockets that they'll pass ANY bill that supports their profits, not the well-being of the people.

And even if an individual Congress-person DID NOT get lavished on, in one way or another, by the health-"care" lobby, they probably have a large portfolio which includes health-care stocks, and they will generally vote in ways that will enhance the values of their portfolios.

The best way for the health-care industry to profit, is to deny care as much and as often as possible.

See Post #12 (MRMATTX2). I DO have health insurance, and it's nothing near as rosy as his analysis. I had a problem in 2003 which ran up nearly $27,000 in medical bills. After the insurance company taking MONTHS to pay what they decided to pay, with the hospital and everyone else on my ass, I was pretty well "beaten down" where I didn't feel I could fight the insurance company anymore, and they knew it. Of course this is part of their strategy, take FOREVER to pay, don't pay until the patient is considered on the verge of default, and the patient will have to settle for whatever the insurance decides to pay.

In my case they paid about ONE-HALF of my costs. I had to come up with the rest. Crummy insurance, considering I'm shelling out more than $6,000 a year in premiums.

[doctorsun]

In my case they paid about ONE-HALF of my costs. I had to come up with the rest. Crummy insurance, considering I'm shelling out more than $6,000 a year in premiums.


Exactly...we have to work our asses off just so we get the ABILITY to get ACCESS to insurance through our a work. We pay dearly for it and it's worthless. Everything is "pre-existing" or "does not fall under the coverage of your plan."

[gsdx]

The best way for the health-care industry to profit, is to deny care as much and as often as possible.

Exactly...we have to work our asses off just so we get the ABILITY to get ACCESS to insurance through our a work. We pay dearly for it and it's worthless. Everything is "pre-existing" or "does not fall under the coverage of your plan."

Why does the Christian Children's Fund work so hard to get Third-World children some health care when this is going on at home? I'm sorry, but it tears me apart inside to think of a child being in pain because Daddy and Mommy don't make enough money to take the pain away.

[doctorsun]

...because Daddy and Mommy don't make enough money to take the pain away.

...but they make too much to be able to be on welfare and get free health coverage from the government.

If you want any kind of decent health care in the US, you either need to be very rich or very poor. The middle class, which makes up the majority and is the backbone of the nation gets fucked right and left by the health industry.

[2gayguys]

And it's not just cost of care but quality too.
Last year when my former wife was in the end stages of her cancer, her visting nurse decided it was time for her to go to the hospital. The nurse was right. The Nurse made three phone calls 1 to my wife's doctor, 2 to th ambulance company for transport and 3 to my wife's hospital, where she ahd received a large amount of her care.
Her doctor also called the E.R. at the hospital to let them know that a patient of their's ( his and the hospitals) was being transported by ambulance for intermediate care.
The ambulance driver radioed the hospital to advise them of whothey were transporting and why.
My former wife wasn't seen by anyone for other than a triage nurse for more than for hours. She was in the er literally screaming and crying for her pain meds. It finally to my daughter going up to the charge nurse and swearing at her. Screaming at her to go some fucking meds for my mother, before anyone did anything.When I got there the next day,I was appointed health care advocate for her by our daughter and my wife's husband. We had a meeting with the staff social worker that went something like this. We can keep her here for three days as that is all that the insurance will allow. We told her of our plans to get her to this particular hospice and anything she could do to help would be greatly appreciated. She got back to us later in the day saying we may have to take her until a bed opens up at the hospice. I went into my nurse mode then telling her what had happened at the er the previous day. I also told that nurses take an oath after graduation promising to be an advocate for their patients. Where was the advocacy hte previous day. I also told her that part of the Hippocatic Oath that doctors swear by is "cause no one pain and suffering". Where were the doctors the previous day?
That meeting was over and we went back to my wife's room. A couple of hours later the social worker tracked us down to inform us that regardless of how long it took or what insurance would cover, that they would keep my wife until a hospice bed was available.
It took hours of meetings and phone calls to different department heads includin a couple of Vice Presidents to get that, which should have been offered from the start. Here was their patient coming in, they were informed by three different people, three different ways that this person was coming. They should have been ready, period.
Someone earlier said we have an instant mentality, that we want it right now, well you know what, when it comes to a human life, your damn right. For me it's not just family either, it's any person, from any walk of life. They, we all deserve the very best. Screw the cost, help the patient. Forutnately for my wife she didn't have to endure the health care neglect for much longer. After 3 days in the hospital, a bed opened in the hospice facility and after 5 days theere she passed with our daughter by her side.
This is human life, not corporate life.

[KennyD]

I was recently in the hospital for a heart attack . It was a mild one and I was kept for only two days ... Thank God, I had a Medicare HMO ! My hospital bill was close to $45,00 ..and I only had to pay $155.00 .....
ANYONE on Medicare should see if there is a Medicare HMO in your area . Most are ran by Humana and United Health Care . They are not the BEST solution to all the problems .. BUT I'm paying a lot less that if I had paid straight Medicare ....

Also; If you are a veteran ; you can get in many cases ..health care from the VA . I get my two types of Insulin from the VA for only $7.00 a vial as wellas my pills run $7.00 per script . My syringes and test strips are also FREE. I get FREE glasses once a year after an exam by an Opthomologist (sp) instead of some girl with little trainning at Wal mart . So; if anyone is a Veteran .. ya' might want to try going to a VA clinic or VA Hospital and signing up .

[gsdx]

My mother spent the last two months of her life in hospital. For the first month, she was in a double room and shared with several other patients during that time. She was bedridden and paralysed from the waist down.

In early December, she was moved into a single room when it was discovered that she was in much more serious condition that originally thought. Soon she was taking morphine and was eventually put on a morphine drip. She failed health-wise extremely quickly and died early in the morning of the day after Christmas.

OHIP paid the entire thing. Whatever she needed to keep her comfortable, she received. No questions asked. The hospital submitted the bills to OHIP and that was it.

Our health care system may not be the best in the world, but Mom's hospital stay cost us nothing and we didn't have to worry about how we were going to pay for it.

[frankfrank]

How often is it, when I talk about health care in other modernized countries, the person I'm talking to asks me a question like "But would you want to pay your taxes at the rates they pay in Canada or Germany?"

I get that reaction MORE OFTEN THAN NOT!

My answer to the comparative taxation question?

HELL YEAH I WOULD!!!! GLADLY!!!

The $6,000+ per year that I'm paying for insurance, as well as my clinic visits, routine blood tests and routine diagnostic tests (such as X-rays or colonoscopies), and prescriptions, *NONE* of which my insurance covers, add up to

**MORE**

than I would be paying in taxes in Germany, when I add those amounts to the taxes I pay!

Give me the higher taxes of some other country, and the FREE health care that comes along with it, any day. I'll be able to keep MORE of the money that I earn!

Or even give me the health care system in a country which doesn't guarantee coverage for everybody, but the care is priced reasonably and affordably - Colombia comes to mind as one such example. (I just don't know about the systems in many of these countries, otherwise.) I'm told that health care there is as good or better than normal U.S. healthcare, and I get the drift that something that costs $180,000 here might cost as little as $2,000 or $3,000 there.

[metta]

I thought that the documentary was excellent and entertaining. I would encourage every one living in the US to watch it.

California has a bill that they are trying to get approved for Universal Health Care. I will start a new thread to encourage people from California to support it.

[davy]

...
California has a bill that they are trying to get approved for Universal Health Care. I will start a new thread to encourage people from California to support it.

i'm going to hate myself for saying it, but:

all it's going to take to defeat that, or any other bill like it in this country, is to make a few commercials about how "illegal aliens" are going to jump across the border to take advantage of the new system.

[metta]

i'm going to hate myself for saying it, but:

all it's going to take to defeat that, or any other bill like it in this country, is to make a few commercials about how "illegal aliens" are going to jump across the border to take advantage of the new system.


I hope that people will be more rational than that and consider how they will ever have a chance to retire, and the potential for their quality of life to be destroyed with the possibility of having to pay astronomical health care costs. I would think that businesses would support this. Most businesses are really having trouble offering health care benefits because of the annual rate of increased costs.

I was just talking to one of my friends today about this. He gets horrible healther care coverage and the healther care company gets over $600 per month. Half is now paid by his employer, a small mom and pop business, in which he was recently told that the employer will not be able to offer help of the coverage next year because he can't afford the annual increase costs, even though, each year, they cut the coverage they have.

[Ninja108]

Yes, the health care system here in the U.S. sucks. Some E.R. visits cost more than a person makes in a year. Having siad that, the health care systems of Canada, England and others have to have a flaw in there somewhere. Nothing is free, there is ALWAYS a catch somewhere.

[Kennyworth]

I am an Army veteran and I have had pretty good luck at Veterans Administration hospitals...

I have heard horror stories about some of them though, and the the one I spent a few days at in San Francisco was a little scary..

I had a tumor like growth my spine a few years ago that was really making life miserable (could have lead to paralisis and blindness)..

It took six months of excruciating pain till they figured it out..

Once they finally did an MRI ,I had an operation a few hours later and spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, with a long recovery at home..

It didn't cost me a dime.

[doctorsun]

Yes, the health care system here in the U.S. sucks. Some E.R. visits cost more than a person makes in a year. Having siad that, the health care systems of Canada, England and others have to have a flaw in there somewhere. Nothing is free, there is ALWAYS a catch somewhere.

Ask a Canadian. They pay taxes for their health care which usually amount to less than the average American pays for insurance policies and uncovered medical care in a given year.

[gsdx]

Having siad that, the health care systems of Canada, England and others have to have a flaw in there somewhere. Nothing is free, there is ALWAYS a catch somewhere.

It is not 'free'. As I said earlier, we have provincial health insurance plans and we pay premiums into the system. We all apply for and receive Health Insurance identification cards. If we go to our doctors or to the hospital, virtually everything is covered. Throughout my entire lifetime, I can't ever recall paying so much as a penny even for an X-ray or stitches or anything else.

In other words, if I have a health emergency and have to call 911, I know I don't have to worry about not having enough money to pay for the ambulance ride or my hospital visit or my hospital bed. They're already paid for.

[PreTTy PeTe]

^actually you get billed for the ambulance

it's not covered by OHIP. sometimes the hospital pays it for you

[gsdx]

^actually you get billed for the ambulance

it's not covered by OHIP. sometimes the hospital pays it for you

Oh. Didn't know that. Never needed an ambulance.

[JR]

A few months back I was 99% sure that I had gallstones and needed my gallbladder yanked out. So I went to the ER for and ultrasound. I had read the classic indications, memorized them and repeated them over and over. Once they discovered that i had good insurance, they decided that my chest pain indicated heart failure. I restated that I had no chest pain over and over. Ultimately I was assigned a cardiologist who tried desperately to delay my ultrasound because he wanted in on the action. I told him point blank that if he did anything to delay the care I actually needed so that he could pay for his BMW that I was going to hunt him down and kill him if I survived. And even though I refused his treatment I was still pasted with nitro patches and tagged with a cardio monitor for days. Cost: $6800.

I did get my ultrasound, but after the results came in that there were large stones, they decided they needed to double check the results with an MRI. There are facilities all over Miami where you can get an MRI for under $400, but at this hospital, it cost $7200.

I was admitted to the hospital and the following morning the gorgeous, young admitting doctor read my results and told me that my tests came back positive but that things were already well healed and that I would be released the next day. A surgeon would lead a team meeting later to discuss the matter, but this doctor wanted to release me. 5 minutes later an older and respected surgeon came in and explained that my gallbladder was badly diseased and that there was a good possibility that I would die if I didn't have immediate surgery. Now what do you do with information that is so contradictory?

The next morning when Dr. Mc Hottie came in to release me, I was down in surgery. And sure enough things were pretty bad in there. After a few days i was released and I received my $48,000. bill.

Part of this bill was some rather unskilled nursing care. And through a VERY stupid mistake by a nurse that was vigorously defended by the chief of nursing, my innards were severely messed up and i had to be re-admitted for emergency surgery.

This time I was in REALLY BAD shape. I had 9 different doctors constantly checking on me. This time, I had 4 MRIs, 3 more surgeries, gallons of IV drugs, dozens of tests, and i was in for a much longer stay. Based on the previous bill, I was able to fugure out the I was going to get a $200,000 bill. But it was $26,000. My best guess is they didn't want to tempt fate with the insurance company when it came to correcting a mistake made in the hospital. But still, 2 months after the operations, I don't know whether I owe $1340 or $28,700. I have statements that say both and the billing is a mess. I know that my personal responsibility is for the $1340, but who knows if the insurance company is going to pay the rest. The whole thing is such a gang bang.

The entire "system" is diseased. There isn't a reason in this world that a 2-hour gallbladder surgery should cost more than $5000. How they can legally make a case for 10 times that amount really is SICKO!!!

[gsdx]

I have to be honest here. You can read all the reports you want and watch all the interviews and hear all the horror stories about things like this happening, but it's a kick in the face when you hear someone you know talking about it.

As much as Michael Moore might influence me were I to watch his movie, I don't think it would affect me half as much as some of the stories I've read right here.

[doctorsun]

I broke my leg in 2004. At the time, I had (really shitty) insurance and I went to the hospital and had it was casted and everything was fine. I had to visit an orthopedic specialist every week for the following three months. My insurance covered some of my bills, but I still received bills from the specialist to pay for what wasn't covered. However, I never received a bill from the hospital for my initial ER visit. Several months later, I was visiting my father at his house and he handed me this stack of bills from the hospital. For some reason, they had sent everything to his address despite the fact that I was over 18, signed into the ER with MY OWN name and all related information, and used MY OWN insurance. My father's name was nowhere on ANY of my paperwork, much less his address. So, not only did I have this stack of bills, but my account was in default and my credit was being affected because they had been sending me bills for months and I wasn't paying them. So...I called the hospital and I was livid. I bitched this woman out about how there's no way I can pay bills that I don't receive because of some clerical error on their part that made absolutely no sense. It turns out that they LOST my address and filed through their records trying to find a relative of mine to whom they could send my bills. What kind of bullshit is that? All of this for an ER bill that was less than $200.

[PreTTy PeTe]

i found a link to the entire movie

it's ok you can watch it michael moore dosen't mind. in fact he wants people to watch it online.......

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6547358554002021486

[cabal74]

Yes things are as bad as they seem. It is time to overhaul the system.

[Matthew]

Jacob and I went and saw this and Transformers last night. I have this story to share and they actually touched on it in the movie.

The ladies up at work were telling me about something that happened about two years ago where I work. Their bosses were trying to get competitive quotes from insurance comapnies so they had all the employees fill out applications. They told all the workers to only put down the serious things like diabeties, cancers, heart surgeries and stuff like that in the previous history section. Reason being, the less issues the lowere the quote. Lower the quote and the less the business will have to pay. Several people didn't want to and they assured the people that these were not the real forms. So they signed with Blue Cross/Blue Sheild and everyone had to fill out the applications again. The next year was a nightmare for health claims. Blue Cross/Blue Sheild denied them treatment left and right because they claimed their applications were inaccurate and that they had pre-existing stuff they never claimed even though they declared all this stuff on the second application.

Business and healthcare, they both wanna fuck you.

[frankfrank]

^ Yup, as soon as you got to the part about "only put down the serious things," I saw that coming. If they find out that you had a bloody nose in 1992, there are probably companies that will try to deny your claim because of an undisclosed pre-existing condition.

[PreTTy PeTe]

i found a link to the entire movie

it's ok you can watch it michael moore dosen't mind. in fact he wants people to watch it online.......

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6547358554002021486

the link is gone already

i'm uploading it to stage6 again

when it's done i'll post it here

[metta]

the link is gone already

i'm uploading it to stage6 again

when it's done i'll post it here

hey pretty...got link?

[metta]

http://pol.moveon.org/sickoflierweek/

http://craphound.com/images/moveonsicko.jpg

MoveOn members are calling on the presidential candidates -- Republicans and Democrats -- not to take campaign money from the HMOs, big health insurers, and drug companies. They get a fair amount of money, but not so much that they couldn’t give it up if forced to.
MoveOn members are going to more than 7,000 screenings with hundreds of thousands of fliers asking people to call presidential candidates with a toll-free number we set up. You just call and connect to the candidate of your choice.
Go see this movie -- and bring along some fliers.

[metta]

I thought that the documentary was excellent and entertaining. I would encourage every one living in the US to watch it.

California has a bill that they are trying to get approved for Universal Health Care. I will start a new thread to encourage people from California to support it.


http://www.justusboys.com/forum/showthread.php?t=167459&highlight=californians

[metta]

:wave:


Michael Moore slams CNN, Wolf Blitzer on live TV
He is very passionate and agressive about the things he says but that does not mean that what he is saying is not true.




The following video is from CNN's The Situation Room, broadcast on July 9.

AlXikq7ckPc


Michael Moore slams CNN, Wolf Blitzer on live TV
07/09/2007 @ 7:06 pm
Filed by David Edwards and Josh Catone

And if you want to know what YOU CAN DO about our broken healthcare system go to: <a http://www.myspace.com/onecarenoworg Before a live interview with documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, CNN aired a segment entitled "Sicko Reality Check" in which Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the network's chief medical correspondent, aimed to keep Moore "honest" and fact check his new film, Sicko. The 4-minute piece concluded that Moore "did fudge the facts," and implied that Sicko was misleading in portraying health care systems in other countries, such as France, the UK, and Canada, as better than the one in the US. When given a chance to speak, Moore immediately put host Wolf Blitzer on the defensive. "That report was so biased, I can't imagine what pharmaceutical company's ads are coming up right after our break here," said Moore. "Why don't you tell the truth to the American people? I wish that CNN and the other mainstream media would just for once tell the truth about what's going on in this country." Moore argued that CNN has such a lousy track record of reporting the truth about the war in Iraq and asking tough questions, that Americans should be skeptical of their reporting on health care. "You're the ones who are fudging the facts," said Moore. "You've fudged the facts to the American people now for I don't know how long about this issue, about the war, and I'm just curious, when are you going to just stand there and apologize to the American people for not bringing the truth to them that isn't sponsored by some major corporation?" Blizter grew defensive and backed up his fellow CNN employee, saying that he would stand behind correspondent Sanjay Gupta's record on medical issues. Moore, in response, vowed to post a rebuttal to his website, MichaelMoore.com, showing that Gupta's facts weren't accurate. "I'm going to put the real facts up there on my website," said Moore, "so that people can see what he just said was absolutely wrong." Turning to the war in Iraq, Moore accused Gupta, who spent time embedded with US troops in Iraq, and the mainstream media at large of refusing "to ask our leaders the hard questions, and demand the honest answers." Moore laid the blame for the continued US involvement in the war in Iraq at the feet of the media, arguing that they failed to do their jobs and question the Bush war policy. Blitzer refused to argue with Moore about Iraq, and instead steered the conversation back to the topic of health care. Moore was asked which of the US presidential candidates he thought would best fix America's health care system. Moore did not name a specific candidate, but said that the Democratic candidates as a whole need to be more specific about how they plan to achieve their goal of universal health care. "Our own government admits that because of the 47 million who aren't insured, we now have about 18,000 people a year that die in this country, simply because they don't have health insurance. That's six 9/11s every single year," concluded Moore. We need "universal health care that's free for everyone who lives in this country, it'll cost us less than what we're spending now lining the pockets of these private health insurance companies, or these pharmaceutical companies." After the interview, Blitzer found sympathy from fellow CNN hosts Lou Dobbs and Jack Cafferty. "After watching that Michael Moore interview," said Cafferty, "I've decided whatever CNN's paying it ain't enough."


http://michaelmoore.com/

[theblackajah]

For those who want the perspective of a Canadian on Canadian Health Care, let me just say a few things: First off, yes, we get all necessary health care paid for (I'm not sure about ambulance rides though...).

Is it perfect? Hell no. There are flaws and problems, depending on the province (As each province runs its system a bit differently). I live in BC, and our system has a few kinks such as (supposedly) long wait times for SOME specialized treatments like hip replacements. This is understandable due to the concept of supply and demand- The sudden increase in demand for specialized health care has suddenly boomed with an aging population, but it takes YEARS (half a decade) to train doctors! Go figure.

Overall though, I must say, I love our health care system over here in the north. If I have a medical need, all I have to do is go to the nearest walk-in clinic, wait about 30 minutes, and a doctor will see me about my cold, etc. If it's my regular doctor, I don't even have to fill out any paperwork- just go in, get checked, walk out the door. All free.

<3 Canada.

[Rali_hates_Mondays]

Oh my god I didn't realise that health costs would be so expensive. I'm so thankful that we have a free nationalised health service in Britain. I don't mind the long waiting lists and I would much rather pay more tax than pay huge health bills.

[frankfrank]

Yeah, I worry that, being a sole employee of my company and having insurance through an association, anything chronic could wipe me out. The last time I had a problem (2003) I had to pay about one-half of the $26,000 of bills. What if something became $200,000 or $300,000? I understand they can even get away with dropping you midstream, leaving you to fend for yourself. Very, very scary - as well as UTTERLY UNCIVILIZED AND BARBARIC - stuff. There is absolutely no excuse that the United States should have such a shabby system.

[metta]

CNN Admits All Sicko Facts Are True to Their Source


The saga finally ends........ What took them so long? See letter from Michael Moore below.


CNN Throws in Towel, Admits to Two Errors, and States That All 'Sicko' Facts Are True to Their Source (or something like that)... Moore Realizes All This is Huge Distraction and Then Spends More Precious Time Thanking Paris Hilton for Seeing 'Sicko'... Meanwhile, More than 300 Americans Die Because They Had No Health Insurance During the 8-Day Gupta-Moore War...

July 17th, 2007


Friends,


The mighty CNN, in a lengthy and sad online defense of their woe-begotten 'Sicko' story (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnlvdXR1YmUuY29tL3dhdGNoP3Y9SnBLb0 40MEs3bUE=) of last Monday, has admitted that they did indeed fudge at least two of the facts in their coverage of my film and have apologized for it:


1. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN: "To be clear, I got a number wrong in my original report, substituting the number 25, instead of 251." -- My Conversation with Michael Moore (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vSEVBTFRIL2Jsb2dzL3BhZ2 luZy5kci5ndXB0YS8yMDA3LzA3L215LWNvbnZlcnNhdGlvbi13 aXRoLW1pY2hhZWwtbW9vcmUuaHRtbA==), July 11th, 2007; and


2. CNN: "Moore is correct. Paul Keckley left Vanderbilt in late 2006." -- CNN's Response to Michael Moore (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vMjAwNy9TSE9XQklaL01vdm llcy8wNy8xNS9tb29yZS5ndXB0YS9pbmRleC5odG1s), July 15th, 2007.


Furthermore, CNN confirmed that all of our statistics in "Sicko" are the correct numbers from the sources we cited. Although CNN still prefers to use older World Health Organization statistics, we will stick to using this year's Bush administration stats and more recent U.N. data. (In "Sicko," we consistently use only U.N. Human Development Statistics unless it's for studies they don't do or have recent numbers for.) CNN did apologize for these two factual errors, but no apology seems to be coming for the rest of their errors. These days, to get the mainstream media to admit they were wrong is rare; to get them to admit it twice, as they have with "Sicko," I guess should be considered a whopping victory. Will they eventually apologize for the rest, or for their reporting on the war? Will the Cubs win the World Series this year?


So the truce has been signed, the peace pipe has been smoked. And the public is left with a much more cautious and wary eye when it comes to CNN. To be fair, this is what happens when you have to grind out "news" 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a staff you have shrunk through layoffs over the years (like all the broadcast networks have done). You end up rushed and having interns do your research. You have robots replace live camera operators. And, if you're CNN, you are constantly dodging the accusation that you are "too liberal." So when you do a piece on someone like me, you have to make sure you add superfluous and standard ad hominems attacking me simply to prove that you are NOT too liberal. I get it.


Until the last month or so, I have not appeared on a single national TV show for nearly 2 and 1/2 years. After the attacks I had to endure three years ago, from a media intent on questioning my patriotism because I dared to speak out against the war when none in the media would, I decided I had had enough and would simply concentrate on making my next film. I had no desire to participate in networks that were complicit in the war because of their refusal the challenge the commander in chief.


I have to admit, though, I do feel kinda bad taking it all out on Wolf Blitzer. It's not like he's the official representative of the mainstream media. I mean, he's from Buffalo, for crying out loud! He said to me at the end of the show last week to please come back on "anytime you want." I will take him up on that offer and appear again with him tomorrow (Wednesday). I'm not expecting a dozen roses or make-up sex -- I only want a promise that there will be no more distorted distractions so we can have a decent discussion about the REAL issues like why 18,000 Americans die every year because they don't have a health insurance card. More than 300 of them died this week. As Ehrlichman said to Nixon in "Sicko": "The less care they give 'em, the more money they (the insurance companies) make."


THAT'S the only thing we should be talking about. How profit and greed are killing our fellow Americans. How profit and private insurance have to be removed from our health care system. CNN should join me in asking why our 9/11 rescue workers aren't receiving medical care. Somebody should send a crew to Canada to find out why they live longer than we do, and why no Canadian has ever gone bankrupt because of medical bills. And all of the media should start saying how much it costs to go to a doctor in these other top industrialized countries: Nothing. Zip. It's FREE. Don't patronize Americans by saying, "Well, it's not free -- they pay for it with taxes!" Yes, we know that. Just like we know that we drive down a city street for FREE -- even though we paid for that street with our taxes. The street is FREE, the book at the library is FREE, if your house catches on fire, the fire department will come and put it out for FREE, and if someone snatches your purse, the police officer will chase down the culprit and bring your purse back to you -- AND HE WON'T CHARGE YOU A DIME FROM THAT PURSE!


These are all free services, collectively socialized and paid for with our tax dollars. To argue that health care -- a life and death issue for many -- should not be considered in the same league is ludicrous and archaic. And trust me, once you add up what you pay for out-of-pocket in premiums, deductibles, co-pays, overpriced medicines, and treatments that aren't covered (not to mention all the other things we pay for like college education, day care and other services that many countries provide for at little or no cost), we, as Americans, are paying far more than the Canadians or Brits or French are paying in taxes. We just don't call these things taxes, but that's exactly what they are.


See you all when I'm back on CNN tomorrow -- where the discussion will be not be about whose statistics are right, but rather about the guy without insurance who died while I was writing this letter.


Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com (mmflint@aol.com)
www.michaelmoore.com (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3Lm1pY2hhZWxtb29yZS5jb20v)

[JohannBessler]

A co-worker, who's from Lithuania, never ceases to tell me how horrible America's Health Care system is.

All I can tell you is that a one-day herniated disk operation cost $40,000 of which $8000 had to come out of my own pocket. I was lucky that I had insurance.

Looking back, I don't know how I survived, financially.

[JohannBessler]

Have you noticed that the Republicans have been vewy, vewy quiet on this thread?

[ljhotboy]

I know someone who had a premature baby and had she not had good insurance she would have had to pay nearly a million dollars by the time she was able to take her baby home.

[metta]

a free weekend to the universal health care country of your choice!



Good news! "Sicko," after less than three weeks in national release, has become one of the top five grossing documentaries of all time! So, this coming weekend, the distributor is expanding the movie by opening it in nearly 500 new theaters in small cities all over the country (for a total of nearly 1,200 screens nationwide)! From Rapid City to Carson City, from Gettysburg to Pearl Harbor, from Juneau to Battle Creek -- they're all getting "Sicko" tomorrow (Friday). Scores of cities that never have a documentary come to their local theater will now be able to see this one. It's happening all thanks to you who live in the larger cities and have supported "Sicko" so strongly. It's led the studio to say, "Let's make more prints and ship them to Oshkosh (and Beaverton and Brattleboro and Sault Ste. Marie and...)." The entire country goes "Sicko" in less than 48 hours!

So, friends, this is it. This is the weekend to go see "Sicko" if you haven't seen it. I get a lot of letters from people saying they plan to "get around" to seeing it "soon." Well, soon is here! Trying to get theaters to give us screens when we are up against huge summer blockbusters is an almost impossible task. "Sicko" won't be around forever. And if you're waiting for the DVD, ask anyone who's seen "Sicko" -- this is a movie you want to see with a crowd of people in a theater.

So let's pack the movie houses this weekend! Send an email to everyone you know, call your friends and tell them, "It's 'Sicko' Night in America!"

And, to show my thanks to all of you who'll go see "Sicko" this weekend, I'm going to send one of you and a guest on a free weekend to the universal health care country of your choice! That's right. You'll get to pick one of the three industrialized countries featured in the movie where, if you get sick, you get help for free, no matter who you are. All you have to do is send us your ticket stub (make sure it says "Sicko" on it and has the name of the theater and this weekend's date on it -- Friday, Saturday or Sunday - July 20th, 21st, 22nd). Attach the stub to a piece of paper with your name, address, phone number and email and send it to: 'Sicko' Night in America, 888c 8th Avenue, Suite 443, New York, NY 10019. (Yes, you have to use that old 18th century device called the U.S. Postal Service, and it has to be postmarked on or by Tuesday, July 24th). First prize is a weekend in the city of your choice: Paris, London or Toronto. This includes airfare, hotel, meals and, most exciting, a representative from their fine universal health care system who will give you a personal tour so you can see how they treat their fellow citizens. You'll meet people who pay nothing for college and citizens who are in the fourth week of their six-week paid vacation. Oh, and you'll have time to see the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben or whatever they have in Toronto that is old and tall. (If you don't have a passport, we'll pay for that, too!)

Canadians who are reading this -- you're probably thinking, "Hey, what about us? Where do we get to go?" Quit complaining! You're already there! But just to make it up to you -- and to prove we don't hold it against you for smugly walking out of a hospital with the same amount of money in your wallet that you went in with -- we'll let you participate in the drawing, too.

Thanks again to everyone who has gone to see "Sicko." Take a friend or two this weekend and celebrate "'Sicko' Night in America."

Yours,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

[Shepherd 2]

Yes, the American medical system has problems. But it is still a great system. Many us have and want to exercise choices that are available to us daily and would not be in most of the world.

My daughter-in-law is a Physician's Assistant, and her work in medicine is very interesting,. We have some wonderfully gifted workers. Sadly though, some people fall through the cracks of the care and especially insurance coverage for a number of reasons. We do have a lot of hard work to do. Hopefully we will do it.:grrr:

[gsdx]

Sadly though, some people fall through the cracks of the care and especially insurance coverage for a number of reasons.

I don't think people are 'falling through the cracks' as much as the insurance agencies are opening chasms beneath them. I've heard insurance horror stories and read some of them here. I can't imagine paying into an insurance policy for years, suffering a tragedy, only to have the claim denied and the policy cancelled.

[metta]

Yes, the American medical system has problems. But it is still a great system. Many us have and want to exercise choices that are available to us daily and would not be in most of the world.

My daughter-in-law is a Physician's Assistant, and her work in medicine is very interesting,. We have some wonderfully gifted workers. Sadly though, some people fall through the cracks of the care and especially insurance coverage for a number of reasons. We do have a lot of hard work to do. Hopefully we will do it.:grrr:

Please go see the movie. The whole American system is designed wrong. It needs to be changed NOW. dkonfrost has only been a student nurse for a few weeks and he has already seen the pain and suffering people go through because of the private insurance system. People should not have to fight for basic care. Please go see the movie.

[ComNavFdgPk]

This has been a very interesting and civil forum, thus far. Hopefully, my addition won't change that! :badgrin:

There is one facet of this debate that I haven't seen mentioned here, yet. By law, the HMOs are required to show a profit. While it would be nice if all the medical procedures deemed necessary by MDs were automatically covered, I think that would pretty much throw profit out the window. We need a system where private industry is not involved and the goal is proper care, NOT profit!

[metta]

This has been a very interesting and civil forum, thus far. Hopefully, my addition won't change that! :badgrin:

There is one facet of this debate that I haven't seen mentioned here, yet. By law, the HMOs are required to show a profit. While it would be nice if all the medical procedures deemed necessary by MDs were automatically covered, I think that would pretty much throw profit out the window. We need a system where private industry is not involved and the goal is proper care, NOT profit!


I totally agree with you. That is one of the critical parts of the issue. The profit must be taken out of the equation. It is unethical for it to be there.

[gsdx]

There is one facet of this debate that I haven't seen mentioned here, yet. By law, the HMOs are required to show a profit.

I've not heard this before. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, who made up that law?

[metta]

I've not heard this before. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, who made up that law?

I was not aware of that law either. That explains why I was not able to find any non-profit health care companies when I was looking for them a few weeks ago. I bet ya it is the HMO lobby groups that pushed for that...just a guess. But who else would want such a stupid law.

[ComNavFdgPk]

I've not heard this before. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, who made up that law?

I'm not exactly certain where I got that information. It has something to do with some federal law about health insurance companies that accept Medicare as partial payment for services. I'll scrounge around and see if I can find the exact citation.

[metta]

Interview with Dr. Terry Bennett - Durham NH


3Z55IHRsMQs

[drhladnjak]

Not for profit HMOs not only definitely can exist, but there are quite a few of them around. The largest and best known is Kaiser-Permanente (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente).

For profit HMOs generally do have a legal obligation to make money in so far as publicly held companies have a duty to their shareholders to earn as much profit as legally possible. Technically, if the leadership of the corporation does something which is not in its best interest financially, the leadership can be sued by the shareholders. In practice, they have to do something pretty egregious for that to happen though.

[metta]

Not for profit HMOs not only definitely can exist, but there are quite a few of them around. The largest and best known is Kaiser-Permanente (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente).

For profit HMOs generally do have a legal obligation to make money in so far as publicly held companies have a duty to their shareholders to earn as much profit as legally possible. Technically, if the leadership of the corporation does something which is not in its best interest financially, the leadership can be sued by the shareholders. In practice, they have to do something pretty egregious for that to happen though.

I did not realize that Kaiser was non-profit. That company is not acceptable either. I guess we just need to push for Universal care. If you have Kaiser and are taken to a hospital that is not Kaiser, you will not be taken care of until you get transfered to their hospital. In the mean time, the patient can just lay there in agony. They have just as much beauracracy as the private companies. Dkonfrost heard a pacient screaming in pain and no one would do anything because the insurance company, I think that it was Kaiser, would not cover that hospital.

[Ram]

Interesting discussion. I was just wondering have you all managed to find the google link to the Sicko movie? I can't seem to locate it. Thx.. I don't wish waste 8 bucks. ;)

[Kennyworth]

I saw the movie in Seattle last week,and found it both interesting and disturbing.

Luck O' the Irish , hit it right on the head on many points in his post , and MM drove it home in the movie...

I think it 's disgusting that anyone should go without decent healthcare in this country..We're the ONLY industrialized nation that doesn't have a national health plan for all it's citizens..

I think the movie also presents a pretty damn good case for the need for campaign finance reform..

As long as the insurance companies have the politicians in their pockets...bought and paid for, it's unlikely that they will ever get past lip service when it comes to addressing the health care crisis this country is now in..

I won't hijack the thread with my views on publicly funded elections , but I will say this ...Follow the money..

It can be traced back to almost all our societal ill's , from the energy crisis, the shameful state of healthcare,education,our military entanglements abroad..

As long as corporations are allowed to write the legislation , the interests of the average citizen will always take a back seat ,while lawmakers tend to the needs of those who finance their campaigns...

[metta]

I saw the movie in Seattle last week,and found it both interesting and disturbing.

Luck O' the Irish , hit it right on the head on many points in his post , and MM drove it home in the movie...

I think it 's disgusting that anyone should go without decent healthcare in this country..We're the ONLY industrialized nation that doesn't have a national health plan for all it's citizens..

I think the movie also presents a pretty damn good case for the need for campaign finance reform..

As long as the insurance companies have the politicians in their pockets...bought and paid for, it's unlikely that they will ever get past lip service when it comes to addressing the health care crisis this country is now in..

I won't hijack the thread with my views on publicly funded elections , but I will say this ...Follow the money..

It can be traced back to almost all our societal ill's , from the energy crisis, the shameful state of healthcare,education,our military entanglements abroad..

As long as corporations are allowed to write the legislation , the interests of the average citizen will always take a back seat ,while lawmakers tend to the needs of those who finance their campaigns...

Feel free to hijack! It is all realated. I agree with every point that you made. :)




Breaking: Michael Moore will Live Chat on C&L Sunday 4-5PM ET (http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/21/breaking-michael-moore-will-live-chat-on-cl-sunday-4-5pm-et/)
By: John Amato on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 7:14 PM - PDT digg_url = 'http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/21/breaking-michael-moore-will-live-chat-on-cl-sunday-4-5pm-et/'; digg_title = 'Breaking: Michael Moore will Live Chat on C&L Sunday 4-5PM ET'; digg_skin = "compact";

http://static.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/michaelmoore.jpg (http://static.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/michaelmoore.jpg)Michael Moore will be joining C&L for a Sunday afternoon chat about his new movie “Sicko (http://michaelmoore.com/)” and whatever else comes up in the comment thread. The movie has opened in about 500 new (http://michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=218) cities across the country this weekend and is the # 5 grossin (http://blogs.nypost.com/movies/archives/2007/07/sicko_healthier.html)g documentary (http://blogs.nypost.com/movies/archives/2007/07/sicko_healthier.html) of all time so far……
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/21/breaking-michael-moore-will-live-chat-on-cl-sunday-4-5pm-et/

[ComNavFdgPk]

Not for profit HMOs not only definitely can exist, but there are quite a few of them around. The largest and best known is Kaiser-Permanente (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente).

For profit HMOs generally do have a legal obligation to make money in so far as publicly held companies have a duty to their shareholders to earn as much profit as legally possible. Technically, if the leadership of the corporation does something which is not in its best interest financially, the leadership can be sued by the shareholders. In practice, they have to do something pretty egregious for that to happen though.

Maybe I was thinking about insurance companies, not specifically health-insurance companies! !oops!

[metta]

Steelworker ignites Healthcare Debate - Must See!
Category: News and Politics


In response to a question about Edwards and the other candidates on healthcare Steve said they are "all talking the talk but not walking the walk." He doesn't like the answer of letting private corporations continue to take care of our healthcare and went on to say that one democratic candidate (referring to Obama) made the statement we have to invite health insurance companies to the table. As Steve points out they have already been at the table for the past 35 years and eating our lunch.

Hardball: Interview with Steve Skvara
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5SSyS5n6U4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5SSyS5n6U4)

C5SSyS5n6U4



Original footage followed by John Edward's response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUzdDORJwu4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUzdDORJwu4)

bUzdDORJwu4



When Edwards and others say they are for Universal Healthcare but then don't support the solution (SINGLE PAYER) to remove the insurance industry it's nothing more than an empty campaign slogan. Steve wants action from them but knows it's up to US to make it happen.

[Matthew-]

As a Canadian, I will say that our system is really, really bad, yet Moore seems to say in the movie its all good...:confused:

[Mikami]

As a Canadian, I will say that our system is really, really bad, yet Moore seems to say in the movie its all good...:confused:

It's just all to make the points he is making seem more right.

[Matthew-]

You are right, mikami.

[PreTTy PeTe]

As a Canadian, I will say that our system is really, really bad, yet Moore seems to say in the movie its all good...:confused:

rather then make a blanket statement about the canadian health care

tell us why you think its "really really bad"
I'm curious

btw i think canadian health is fantastic it saved my life
and i didn't pay a dime for it

i think i cost them over a million dollars
but now i'm proud to pay my taxes i am
every canadian is worth the care we get

every canadian

[Matthew-]

Pretty Pete, I know a Canadian who was injured in the USA. He needed an operation. The USA were ready to operate him on the spot, but he ask to come back to Canada (province of Quebec) to be with his family. His wish was granted, but in Canada, he had to wait one week before he was able to be attended to. He spent all that time on a stretcher in the geriatric section. The worst part is that every day, they were saying they would operate him on that day, only to have the operation push back from day to day... Anyway, he and his family were not impressed. Maybe I got influenced from their comments, but it looked really bad the way they explained it...

[PreTTy PeTe]

^your friend is a fool

he should have been operated in the usa
it's not a third world country you know




don't blame the canadian health care for this idiots problems

[backpacker]

Of course the health system is no where near as bad as the movie makes it looks. The movie is a propaganda piece, so take it for what it's worth. The reality is that most people without health insurance can afford it, but choose not to buy it. Sure they complain they can't afford it, but drive new cars and keep Starbucks in business. I pay less than $5 per day for health insurance. About the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Given that most people who don't have health care are far younger then me, they would pay even less. For people in their 20's, it would probably be around $3 per day. This assumes that they take out insurance while they are healthy. If they wait until they have a major problem, the rates will be much higher and the major problem probably won't be covered at all.

With all that said, I think our health care system needs a major overhaul. We have great quality of care, but we do pay far too much for it. The shear administrative cost of insurance is ridiculous. I'm a big supporter of universal health care. I would like to see everyone have complete access to preventative health care (if you're sick, you can already get health care even if you can't afford it). The problem right now is that people who can actually afford health and don't buy insurance, can often lose everything they have if a major illness occurs. These people are gambling; some will be winners and some losers.

I have a friend who went without health insurance for a long time. He and his wife could afford it, but just thought it was too expensive. His wife finally decided that they had to have it and they obtained insurance. Not two months later he became ill and had to have surgery. Without the insurance, they would be in debt for years to come or be forces to sell their house.

[PreTTy PeTe]

health care is a right.
people should not die because they can''t afford heath care.

[backpacker]

^your friend is a fool

he should have been operated in the usa
it's not a third world country you know




don't blame the canadian health care for this idiots problems

Would the Canadian health care have covered the surgery in the US? Does it cover emergency situations when traveling outside Canada? This obviously wasn't an emergency if it could wait a week. My guess is that the cost may have had something to do with his decision to return to Canada as well. I do know that rich Canadians often come to the US for health care due to the high quality of care, so I doubt he was really worried about the quality of care.

My family is from Canada. The complaints my relatives relay about the Canadian system leaves a lot to be desired. The kind of stuff that would result in lawsuits in the US. I'm all for universal health care, but I sure don't want it to work like the Canadian system.

[PreTTy PeTe]

Would the Canadian health care have covered the surgery in the US? Does it cover emergency situations when traveling outside Canada? This obviously wasn't an emergency if it could wait a week. My guess is that the cost may have had something to do with his decision to return to Canada as well. I do know that rich Canadians often come to the US for health care due to the high quality of care, so I doubt he was really worried about the quality of care.

My family is from Canada. The complaints my relatives relay about the Canadian system leaves a lot to be desired. The kind of stuff that would result in lawsuits in the US. I'm all for universal health care, but I sure don't want it to work like the Canadian system.

you don't get it do you

i can walk into a doctors office and not pay a thing
and we have best doctors in north america

my doctor be fantastic
he is

whatever he does for me i don't pay a thing....

[ronboy]

you don't get it do you

i can walk into a doctors office and not pay a thing
and we have best doctors in north america

my doctor be fantastic
he is

whatever he does for me i don't pay a thing....

Sir Ron ponders to himself.....

hmmmmmm.....If I marry PeTe, and move to TO, I get free health care too. Cool! :D

PeTe...marry me!!! (hehehehe!)

:jk: you be a free spirit...Sir Ron can't tie you down...that's why he loves PreTTy PeTe a lot!!!!! (and I'll grudgingly continue to pay for my own health insurance)

[Qixote]

The health care "system" if it can be called that, works just fine for those who (a) have a job with benefits or (b) can afford it.
Even then it has enough problems. Having insurance doesn't guarantee anything. I've read enough stories about people with good jobs and insurance that still go bankrupt with medical expenses.

I've watched Sicko. Very well presented, although none of it was news to me. I definitely favor a national healthcare plan. Even though I am at odds with my brother who works for a large insurance company and he thinks he is an expert about everything.

I'm one of those who sees national healthcare as something that should be just another civil service such as fire and police protection. If people think this is socialism, then they would be surprised to know that the U.S. has been socialistic since the first firehouse was started.

[ryankeith]

Many excellent comments on this thread, but I think Riverrick nails an important point here.

Yes there is a price...he is right...despite how much health care costs in America...there is this idea that the more you pay the better care you get...we all know thats bullshit. Just because you pay more doesn't mean you get a better, more quality outcome.

In Hospital Deaths from Medical Errors at 195,000 per Year USA

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/11856.php

[backpacker]

you don't get it do you

i can walk into a doctors office and not pay a thing
and we have best doctors in north america

my doctor be fantastic
he is

whatever he does for me i don't pay a thing....

I'm glad you are very happy with your doctor, but many Canadians are not. The experts also beg to differ with you on Canada having the best doctors. The best doctors are in the US where they can make a lot more money.

My grandmother had been in good health until she was 90. She developed a problem that they wouldn't do surgery on because she was 90 and the system decided 90 year olds shouldn't get that type of surgery. They said if she was 80, they would do the surgery. There were no issues with her health being a risk factor. The doctors flat out told us that if she lived in the US, she would get the surgery. The failure to treat that problem let to complications and shortened her life and her quality of life. The Canadian health care system is notorious for denying benefits to senior citizens. When that happens, the people who can afford it come to the US for treatment. There have been many investigative reports on it.

I'm all for the US putting a universal health care system in place, but it has to provide at least the level of care we get right now. The Canadian system exceeds that in some areas, but falls miserably short in many important areas. I want to know that if there is a surgery I need, I'll get it.

I'm sure I'm going to convince you of the pitfalls of the Canadian system and you're not going to convince me that it is a great system. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

[metta]

Message to Barack Obama
lLNTB-4t4Ns

Message to Hillary Clinton
bz9cm613Ox8

Message to John Edwards
XNJTxRf6x3Q

[Matthew-]

^your friend is a fool

he should have been operated in the usa
it's not a third world country you know



Personnally, I would have chosen to be operated in the USA also... But I guess it was his decision... This being said, he may have took a bad decision there, but hes not a fool. He just make one mistake, like we all do.

[drhladnjak]

No healthcare system is perfect, including the Canadian system. However, the results of the American system (life expectancy, infant mortality and other measures of health outcomes) are really not that great for how much we pay. Canadians or Britons may be on waiting lists for certain kinds of surgeries, but they live longer and pay less for healthcare.

[metta]

Personnally, I would have chosen to be operated in the USA also... But I guess it was his decision... This being said, he may have took a bad decision there, but hes not a fool. He just make one mistake, like we all do.

The problem with that is that it may have bankrupted them having care in the US while they don't have to pay anything else in their own country. There have been studies done in the US which show that millions of american go without basic care because of the costs of it. It is the most common reason to go bankrupt. People lose their life assets. The idea of retirement in the US is a joke if you ever get sick and don't have at least $5-20 million in assets, or a government health care plan. This results in people getting treated later, more serious, and more expensive than need be. The health care companies like it this way. It saves them money.

[PreTTy PeTe]

My grandmother had been in good health until she was 90. She developed a problem that they wouldn't do surgery on because she was 90 and the system decided 90 year olds shouldn't get that type of surgery. They said if she was 80, they would do the surgery. There were no issues with her health being a risk factor. The doctors flat out told us that if she lived in the US, she would get the surgery. The failure to treat that problem let to complications and shortened her life and her quality of life. The Canadian health care system is notorious for denying benefits to senior citizens. When that happens, the people who can afford it come to the US for treatment. There have been many investigative reports on it.


ok and thinking a ninety year old should have an operation is stupid
really stupid
shortened her life??
not being mean here but being realistic..............
how long did you expect her too live


i signed DNRs for both my parents
hardest thing i ever did
it was
but i was being realistic

now why would anybody from Atlanta complain of the canadian health care system.

it works
it works
it fucking works

[metta]

Civil Disobedience For Universal Healthcare!!
i5G8Re49EOw



http://groups.myspace.com/TrueUniversalHealthCare4ALL




Keep it up Pretty! Go Pretty! Go Pretty! Go! (!)(!)(!)

[Finn]

Yes, the American medical system has problems. But it is still a great system. :grrr:


Any system that allows human beings to die because they lack the proper insurance could hardly be called great.

[frankfrank]

Wow, did I get lucky last night or what? SICKO is, like, the one really "big movie" that I wanted to be sure I'd see this year. Where I live, I'm sure that it wasn't screened within fifty miles of me (Galesburg would be closest), so I knew I'd have to travel to see it. I was sure it would be hard to "find" by now. I strongly preferred to see it on a public screen.

I'm passing through Minneapolis-Saint Paul on my way to places far more distant. I was having a hard time making any plans for Monday night come together, so I was cruising Lake Street looking for a copy of City Pages (the local entertainment weekly freebie), having no luck. Eventually I found a bank of about 15 newspaper boxes and STILL none were City Pages, then I noticed this place I was walking by had newspapers in the window, and I went in. I noticed this place was a theater. I look at what's playing, and one of then was SICKO. Starting right now. I got my ticket, and as I walked in, the studio logo and movie started even before I sat down.

So I finally got to watch SICKO! Certainly something that will give one pause, even if Michael Moore's presentation DOES have an "agenda" - it's certainly very much based on prevailing facts.

I caught up with a contact immediately after the movie ended, and I spent $870 with him on stock (inventory) that I can use.

I had originally hoped to again meet up with a JUB'er while here, but he's literally right in the epicenter of moving. Not good timing for that, but it's remarkable how perfectly the "replacement plans" came together.

Yeah, even the fact that I've given as much as a THOUGHT of possibly leaving the U.S., shows how serious the repurcussions of our health-care system could be. Leaving the U.S. would hurt tremendously, but who knows that I might be forced to do so as a health care refugee? Many countries, even if I pay everything out of my own pocket, a major/chronic problem could cost $10,000's OR MORE below what it would cost in the U.S. (because of all the deductibles and denials on my poor insurance).

Healthcare should be a HUMAN RIGHT. End of story.

[metta]

Bush Administration push for privatization may have helped create Walter Reed ’disaster’
Category: News and Politics (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.viewCategory&FriendID=144312962&BlogCategoryID=17)

http://rawstory.com/images/other/rawsmaller2.gif (http://rawstory.com/)
Bush Administration push for privatization may have helped create Walter Reed 'disaster'

03/03/2007 @ 1:23 pm

Filed by Ron Brynaert
The Bush Administration's drive for privatization may be responsible for the "deplorable" outpatient care for soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, according to a top Democratic Congressman investigating the scandal, which has already led to the resignation of the Secretary of the US Army.
A five-year, $120 million contract awarded to a firm run by a former executive from Halliburton – a multi-national corporation where Vice President Dick Cheney once served as CEO – will be probed at a Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs hearing scheduled for Monday.
A letter (http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070302131606-66371.pdf) sent by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to Major General George W. Weightman, the former commander at Walter Reed, asks him to "address the implications of a memorandum from Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi sent through you to Colonel Daryl Spencer, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Resource Management with the U.S. Army Medical Command" in order to better prepare himself for his testimony at the hearing.
"This memorandum, which we understand was written in September 2006, describes how the Army's decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was causing an exodus of 'highly skilled and experienced personnel,'" Waxman's letter continues. "As a result, according to the memorandum, 'WRAMC Base Operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure.'"
Waxman's letter states that "several sources have corroborated key portions of the memorandum."
"We have learned that in January 2006, Walter Reed awarded a five-year $120 million contract to a company called IAP Worldwide Services for base operations support services, including facilities management," Waxman continues. "IAP is one of the companies that experienced problems delivering ice during the response to Hurricane Katrina."
Waxman notes that IAP "is led by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official who testified before our Committee in July 2004 in defense of Halliburton's exorbitant charges for fuel delivery and troop support in Iraq."
Before the contract, over 300 federal employees provided facilities management services at Walter Reed, according to the memorandum, but that number dropped to less than 60 the day before IAP took over.
"Yet instead of hiring additional personnel, IAP apparently replaced the remaining 60 federal employees with only 50 IAP personnel," Waxman writes.
Waxman adds that "the conditions that have been described are disgraceful," and that the Oversight Committee will "investigate what led to the breakdown in services."
"It would be reprehensible if the deplorable conditions were caused or aggravated by an ideological committment to privatized government services regardless of the costs to taxpayers and the consequences for wounded soldier," Waxman writes, alluding to the Bush Administration's push for privatization.
A year ago, the Government Accountability Office "dismissed a protest filed on behalf of employees at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center, ruling that the employee group had no standing to challenge the outcome of a public-private job competition initiated prior to January 2005," GovExec.com reported (http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33462&ref=rellink).
"The American Federation of Government Employees, which provided funding to back the protest, said the impetus to appeal came from Walter Reed managers who were disappointed to see how the competition process played out," Jenny Mandel reported in February of 2006. "While the initial employee bid was $7 million less than that of IAP Worldwide Services, a mid-stream solicitation change resulted in a recalculation of the bids by all parties and in IAP's bid coming in $7 million lower, said John Threlkeld, a lobbyist for AFGE."
The article continues, "Threlkeld said the process for recalculating the employee bid was flawed, resulting in the inflation of the estimate that rendered it uncompetitive with IAP's bid."
On Saturday, the Army Times (http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/Weightmansubpoena/) revealed that the Garibaldi memorandum cited by Waxman states that "the push to privatize support services there accelerated under President Bush's 'competitive sourcing' initiative, which was launched in 2002."
Excerpts from Army Times article:


The letter said the Defense Department "systemically" tried to replace federal workers at Walter Reed with private companies for facilities management, patient care and guard duty – a process that began in 2000.
"But the push to privatize support services there accelerated under President Bush's 'competitive sourcing' initiative, which was launched in 2002," the letter states.
During the year between awarding the contract to IAP and when the company started, "skilled government workers apparently began leaving Walter Reed in droves," the letter states. "The memorandum also indicates that officials at the highest levels of Walter Reed and the U.S. Army Medical Command were informed about the dangers of privatization, but appeared to do little to prevent them."
The memo signed by Garibaldi requests more federal employees because the hospital mission had grown "significantly" during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It states that medical command did not concur with their request for more people.
"Without favorable consideration of these requests," Garibaldi wrote, "[Walter Reed Army Medical Center] Base Operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure."

[metta]

FULL ARMY TIMES ARTICLE CAN BE READ AT THIS LINK (http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/Weightmansubpoena/)
Army Times


Army Times
Committee subpoenas former Walter Reed chief

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 3, 2007
Top of Form
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has subpoenaed Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who was fired as head of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, after Army officials refused to allow him to testify before the committee Monday.
Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and subcommittee Chairman John Tierney asked Weightman to testify about an internal memo that showed privatization of services at Walter Reed could put "patient care services… at risk of mission failure."
But Army officials refused to allow Weightman to appear before the committee after he was relieved of command.
"The Army was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the decision to prevent General Weightman from testifying," committee members said in a statement today.
The committee wants to learn more about a letter written in September by Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi to Weightman.
The memorandum "describes how the Army's decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was causing an exodus of 'highly skilled and experienced personnel,'" the committee's letter states. "According to multiple sources, the decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed led to a precipitous drop in support personnel at Walter Reed."
The letter said Walter Reed also awarded a five-year, $120-million contract to IAP Worldwide Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official.
They also found that more than 300 federal employees providing facilities management services at Walter Reed had drooped to fewer than 60 by Feb. 3, 2007, the day before IAP took over facilities management. IAP replaced the remaining 60 employees with only 50 private workers.
"The conditions that have been described at Walter Reed are disgraceful," the letter states. "Part of our mission on the Oversight Committee is to investigate what led to the breakdown in services. It would be reprehensible if the deplorable conditions were caused or aggravated by an ideological commitment to privatize government services regardless of the costs to taxpayers and the consequences for wounded soldiers."
The letter said the Defense Department "systemically" tried to replace federal workers at Walter Reed with private companies for facilities management, patient care and guard duty – a process that began in 2000.
"But the push to privatize support services there accelerated under President Bush's 'competitive sourcing' initiative, which was launched in 2002," the letter states.
During the year between awarding the contract to IAP and when the company started, "skilled government workers apparently began leaving Walter Reed in droves," the letter states. "The memorandum also indicates that officials at the highest levels of Walter Reed and the U.S. Army Medical Command were informed about the dangers of privatization, but appeared to do little to prevent them."
The memo signed by Garibaldi requests more federal employees because the hospital mission had grown "significantly" during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It states that medical command did not concur with their request for more people.
"Without favorable consideration of these requests," Garibaldi wrote, "[Walter Reed Army Medical Center] Base Operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure."

[metta]

Health Insurance Executive favors a Single-Payer system (Medicare and systems in other countries) and explains why private insurance doesn't work for healthcare.

We All Need Healthcare; Who Needs "Insurance"?
By Georganne Chapin, JD, MPhil, President and CEO, Hudson Health Plan

I am a health insurance and managed care executive so you may find
this editorial a bit strange. I believe that the way to fix our
healthcare system is to stop relying on insurance and focus instead
on healthcare.

So, what's wrong with health insurance?

Well, first, it's temporary. This may work for auto policies, but not
for human health.

Second, health insurance is mostly contingent on where you live and
whom you work for. It's easy to transfer car insurance, but not
health insurance.

Finally, insurance companies make more money by minimizing pay-outs
than by keeping people healthy. Human beings -- who need preventive
care, who have babies, who may lack living wages and job security,
and who get older--find the house rules stacked against them.

Plans in Massachusetts, California, and soon New York propose to
strew the same old red tape over even more people. Members of the
same family could end up with separate policies, with different
benefits and different expiration dates. This will make it even
harder for doctors and hospitals to figure out whom to bill, which
services are covered, and - worst of all - whether coverage will last
long enough to complete treatment for a sick patient.

Other developed nations have universal healthcare, not "insurance."
They give healthcare to everybody, they spend less, and they are
healthier for it.

But, we have an example of success in this country, too. It's called
Medicare. And while flawed, Medicare meets the most important
criteria for a universal healthcare system: it's permanent, it's
portable, and it's simple and inexpensive to administer.

The health insurance model is flawed because it depends on people
falling between the cracks after they pay their premiums and before
they collect their "benefits." Rather than insurance, providing
healthcare to everyone would cost less and deliver more in the long run.

http://medgenmed.medscape.com/viewarticle/559758 (http://medgenmed.medscape.com/viewarticle/559758)

[metta]

Uninsured Swells 2.2 Million to 47 Million - 15,000 Doctors say Single-Payer is only solution.

Category: News and Politics (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.viewCategory&FriendID=144312962&BlogCategoryID=17)


Today, the Census Bureau released the latest data on the number of Americans without health insurance: in 2006, the number of uninsured rose to 47 million. The ranks of the uninsured have grown 8.6 million since 2000--an increase of 22 percent.

The number of uninsured children rose to 8.7 million. If not for coverage through Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), even more children would be without coverage. Nearly all uninsured adults are employed, and are increasingly likely to be in middle-class families.


Middle-Class Americans Join Ranks of Uninsured in 2006 as Private Coverage Shrinks

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 28, 2007
Contacts:
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D. (617) 312-2766
Quentin Young, MD (312) 782-6006
Don McCanne, M.D. (949) 493-3714
Number of Uninsured Swells 2.2 Million to 47 Million

15,000 Doctors: "Single Payer National Health Insurance is the Only Solution"

CHICAGO — The U.S. Census Bureau released data today showing that the number of uninsured Americans jumped by 2.2 million in 2006 to 47.0 million people, with nearly all the increase (2.03 million) concentrated among middle-class Americans earning over $50,000 per year, according to an analysis by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). Strikingly, 1.4 million of the newly uninsured were in families making over $75,000 per year. An additional 600,000 were in families earning $50,000 to $75,000 per year. (The median household income in 2006 was $48,200).
"Middle income Americans are now experiencing the human suffering that comes with being uninsured. It makes any illness a potential economic and social catastrophe," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Physicians for a National Health Program also noted the following:

1- The 2.18 million rise in the number of uninsured is the biggest jump reported by the Census Bureau since 1992.

2 - There are now more uninsured in the U.S. — 47.0 million — than at any time since passage of Medicare/Medicaid in the mid-1960's.

3 - 93% of the increase is among middle and high income families:

Of the 2.18 million increase:

1.398 million (64% of the increase) was in >$75k family income
An additional 633,000 (29% of the increase) was among $50-$75k group

Among full time workers, the number of uninsured increased by 1.230 million (56.4% of the increase). 4 - In Massachusetts, often cited as a model for health reform, the number of uninsured increased from 583,000 in 2005 (9.2 percent) to 657,000 in 2006 (10.4 percent of the population).

5 - The divergence between poverty and uninsurance is relatively new and striking. Until recently, as poverty went down uninsurance fell. That has changed.
6 - The number of uninsured children has fallen only 17 percent since SCHIP was enacted in 1997 from 10.74 million (adjusted to be comparable to current figures) to 8.66 million. The number of uninsured children rose by 611,000 between 2005 and 2006.
The doctors' group said that the only solution to the rising number of uninsured and underinsured is a single-payer national health insurance program, publicly financed but delivered by private doctors and hospitals. Such a program could save more than $400 billion annually in administrative waste, enough to provide high-quality coverage to all and halt the erosion of the current private system.
"We can no longer afford the waste and inefficiency, the high overhead and outrageous executive salaries of the private insurance industry" said Dr. Don McCanne, senior health policy fellow for PNHP. "Only reforms that end our reliance on defective private coverage and assure guaranteed coverage for all will work."
"The experience of other industrialized nations teaches us that high-quality, comprehensive care can be provided to all our citizens," said Dr. Quentin Young, National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program. "A single-payer national health insurance system has emerged as only solution to the nation's health system debacle."


http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0828-06.htm

[frankfrank]

http://www.justusboys.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=187212

[jdb2001]

My family is finding out just how inhumane and cold the health care system is. My aunt has been in and out of the hospital for the last six months because she needs a liver transplant. She had appointments with the Cleveland Clinic to start testing and other misc things that they do to prepare for a transplant. Her insurance company found out about this, called the Cleveland Clinic, and canceled ALL her appointments. They called her husband at his job and told him that they do not cover ANYTHING related to organ transplants. So she's been in and out of the hospital with infections due to her liver not functioning, and this last time I thought she was going to die. They admit her and keep her for a week or two, get the infections cleared up, and send her home and a week or two later shes right back in the hospital. The insurance company also told them that once they spend $250,000 on her, she will be dropped from the insurance. My mom called the Cleveland Clinic to see if there was any help or assistance out there that they could recommend, and they lady on the phone told her that "if the insurance company doesn't cover it, tell her to go get on welfare" and hung up on her. She has applied for social security disability to get the health coverage, but was denied. We are at our wit's end. She has basically been told that they don't care, just suffer and die. It's really sad to see a family member suffer and not be able to do anything about it. I guess all we can do it take it one day at a time and hope and pray for a miracle.

[metta]

Private health plans work for people who do not and never will need health care. But what if medical needs arise? How well do they work?

Are you really covered?

Why 4 in 10 Americans can't depend on their health insurance

Consumer Reports
September 2007
You might think that you don't have to worry about paying for medical care if you have health insurance. But you would be wrong.
From escalating medical debt to postponed retirement, our exclusive national survey of working-age adults shows the depth of jitters even for those lucky enough to have insurance through their jobs or families:

29 percent of people who had health insurance were "underinsured," with coverage so meager they often postponed medical care because of costs.
49 percent overall, and 43 percent of people with insurance, said they were "somewhat" to "completely" unprepared to cope with a costly medical emergency over the coming year.
20 percent of people said they were so disappointed with their HMO or PPO that they wanted to switch plans.
16 percent had no health plan at all, including many working respondents whose jobs didn't offer insurance, or who couldn't afford the premiums or deductibles of the available plan.Insured but not covered
Our survey found evidence of the increasing frailty of our system of health insurance almost everywhere we looked.

Between 2001 and 2005, the percentage of middle-income families - those who earn between $40,000 and $80,000 for a family of four - who had job-based health coverage dropped by 4 percentage points. Half lost benefits because their employers dropped health insurance altogether or quit offering dependent coverage. But 15 percent gave up their employer-based insurance because they could no longer afford the premiums.
But even those who have managed to hang on to insurance have found it more difficult to pay their medical bills.

In our survey, the median household income of respondents who were underinsured was $58,950, well above the U.S. median; 22 percent lived in households making more than $100,000 per year.

An explanation isn't difficult to find: Health plans are offloading more and more expenses onto consumers. Co-pays and deductibles have risen steadily in the past several years.

This combination of deductibles and co-pays can quickly add up to serious bills in the case of a major illness. A 2006 study found that 10 percent of insured patients with cancer had out-of-pocket expenses of more than $18,500.

How to pay?
Consumers faced with higher health costs have to find the money somewhere, and many in our survey found that tough to do. Overall, 37 percent said their health insurance and checking accounts together weren't enough to pay for their medical expenses over the previous year. But 59 percent of underinsured respondents fell in that category. They had to raid their retirement accounts, run up credit-card balances, and borrow from friends and family to pay their medical bills. Twenty-seven percent said they were still in debt to doctors and hospitals, and 3 percent said medical bills had forced them to declare bankruptcy.

Almost 4 in 10 underinsured respondents deferred needed auto or home repairs. Almost 3 in 10 said they made decisions such as changing jobs, postponing retirement, or changing their marital status mainly to preserve access to health insurance.

But the most worrisome result of underinsurance is reduced access the health care itself. Forty-three percent of underinsured respondents said they had postponed going to the doctor because they couldn't afford it, and 28 percent had put off filling prescriptions.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm) (subscription required)
Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD
Private health plans work for people who do not and never will need health care. But what if medical needs arise? How well do they work?
Thirty-seven percent of privately-insured consumers with higher health costs found that their insurance plus their checking accounts were not enough to pay for their medical expenses over the previous year. And for the underinsured, that rose to fifty-nine percent.
Yet most of our politicians want to build on private insurance plans to provide coverage for everyone, but they do recognize that premiums are no longer affordable for average-income individuals. So what do they recommend? Let's make premiums affordable by reducing further the coverage provided by the private plans.
What will happen then? Health care will remain affordable for those with insurance plus very large balances in their checking accounts. The rest of us with insurance will have to "raid our retirement accounts, run up credit-card balances, and borrow from friends and family."

[metta]

As predicted - this is a classic example of why, it if it's not Single Payer, it's not true universal health coverage. Private insurance and their profit motive must be removed. There is simply no place at the table for private insurance in any REAL reform. Single Payer is simple common sense.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0406-35.htm
Published on Thursday, April 6, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Massachusetts Health Reform Bill: A False Promise of Universal Coverage

by Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H. and David U. Himmelstein, M.D.
It's a stirring scene. The Governor, legislative leaders and leaders of Health Care For All standing in the State House Rotunda declaring victory in the fight for universal health coverage. Unfortunately, this week's tableau merely repeats one from 20 years ago when Governor Dukakis was celebrating passage of his universal healthcare bill. That plan imploded within two years, and today about 250,000 more people are uninsured in Massachusetts than the day it was signed. Unfortunately, Massachusetts' new health reform legislation looks set to repeat that disaster.

What's in the New Bill?
The new bill includes three key provisions meant to expand coverage. First, it would modestly expand Medicaid eligibility. Second, it would offer subsidies for the purchase of private coverage to low-income individuals and families, though the size of the subsidies has yet to be determined. Finally, those making more than three times the poverty income (about $30,000 for a single person) would have to buy their own coverage or pay a fine.
To help make coverage more affordable, a new state agency will connect people with the private insurance plans that sell the coverage, and allow people to use pre-tax dollars to purchase coverage (a tax break that mostly helps affluent tax payers who are in high tax brackets). This new agency is also supposed to help design affordable plans.
Businesses that employ more than 10 people and fail to provide health insurance will be assessed a fee (not more than $295) to help subsidize care. Additionally, hospitals won a rate hike assuring them better payments from state programs, and several provisions were included that are meant to attract additional Federal funding to help pay for the Medicaid expansion.
What's Wrong With This Picture?
First, the politicians assumed that only about 500,000 people in Massachusetts are uninsured. The Census Bureau says that 748,000 are uninsured. Why the difference? The 500,000 figure comes from a phone survey conducted in English and Spanish. Anyone without a phone or who speaks another language is counted as insured. The 748,000 figure comes from a door-to-door survey carried out in many languages (including Portuguese and Haitian Creole, common languages in Massachusetts). In sum, the reform plan wishes away 248,000 uninsured people who don't have phones or don't speak English or Spanish. It provides no funding or means to get them coverage.
Second, the linchpin of the plan is the false assumption that uninsured people will be able to find affordable health plans. A typical group policy in Massachusetts costs about $4500 annually for an individual and more than $11,000 for family coverage. A wealthy uninsured person could afford that – but few of the uninsured are wealthy. A 25 year old fitness instructor can find a cheaper plan. But few of the uninsured are young and healthy. According to Census Bureau figures, only 12.4% of the 748,000 uninsured in Massachusetts are both young enough to qualify for low-premium plans (under age 35) and affluent enough (incomes greater than 499% of poverty) to readily afford them. Yet even this 12.4% figure may be too high if insurers are allowed to charge higher premiums for persons with health problems; only half of uninsured persons in those age and income categories report that they are in "excellent health".
The legislation promises that the uninsured will be offered comprehensive, affordable private health plans. But that's like promising chocolate chip cookies with no fat, sugar or calories. The only way to get cheaper plans is to strip down the coverage – boost copayments, deductibles, uncovered services etc.
Hence, the requirement that most of the uninsured purchase coverage will either require them to pay money they don't have, or buy nearly worthless stripped down policies that represent coverage in name only.
Third, the legislation will do nothing to contain the skyrocketing costs of care in Massachusetts – already the highest in the world. Indeed, it gives new infusions of cash to hospitals and private insurers. Predictably, rising costs will force more and more employers to drop coverage, while state coffers will be drained by the continuing cost increases in Medicaid. Moreover, when the next recession hits, tax revenues will fall just as a flood of newly unemployed people join the Medicaid program or apply for the insurance subsidies promised in the reform legislation. The program is simply not sustainable over the long – or even medium – term.
What Are the Alternatives?
The legislation offers empty promises and ignores real – and popular - solutions.
A single payer universal coverage plan could cut costs by streamlining health care paperwork, making health care affordable. Massachusetts Blue Cross spends only 86% of premiums paying for care. It spends the rest - more than $700 million last year - on billing, marketing and other administrative costs. Harvard Pilgrim and Tufts Health Plan – our other big insurers - are little better; each took in about $300 million more than it paid out. That's ten times as much overhead per enrollee as Canada's national health insurance program. And our hospitals and doctors spent billions more fighting with insurers over payments for each bandaid and aspirin tablet.
Overall, Massachusetts residents will spend $13.3 billion on health care bureaucracy this year – nearly one third of our total health bill. If we cut bureaucracy to Canada's levels we could save $9.4 billion annually, enough to cover all of the 748,000 uninsured in Massachusetts and to improve coverage for the rest of us.
Study after study – by the Congressional Budget Office, the General Accounting Office and even the Massachusetts Medical Society - have confirmed that single payer is the only route to affordable universal coverage.
And single payer is popular. The Massachusetts Nurses Association supports it along with dozens of other labor, seniors and consumer groups; so do 62% of Massachusetts physicians according to a recent survey. National polls find that almost two-thirds of Americans favor a tax-funded plan like Medicare that would cover all Americans.
But single payer national health insurance threatens the multi-million dollar paychecks of insurance executives, and the outrageous profits of drug companies and medical entrepreneurs.
It's time for politicians to stand up to the insurance and drug industries and pass health reform that can work. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein are primary care physicians at Cambridge Hospital and Associate Professors at Harvard Medical School. They co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.pnhp.org/). They can be reached via info@pnhp.org (info@pnhp.org)

[metta]

Presidential & Congressional candidates health care watchdogs
Category: News and Politics (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.viewCategory&FriendID=144312962&BlogCategoryID=17)


Does your favorite presidential candidate REALLY support Universal Healthcare? Probably not and here's why.

NOTE: This post will stay in topics until after the elections for those of you who want to continue to get updates - hopefully with news that your favorite candidate has come out in favor of Single-Payer and is finally ready to stand up to the insurance industry. Please comment and let's keep this blog active so more will find it.

Report to us the information you find about Congressional candidates health care positions.

Informed citizens are crucial for any real health care reform when taking on an industry as powerful as private insurance and the millions they are spending to stop Single-Payer reform. Some say we can never defeat the insurance companies. They said the same ting about the tobacco companies. We won that, plus things like Civil Rights and votes for women against huge odds.

Insurance companies are behind the phony reform plans which keep them in the mix so they can continue to make billions in profit while 47 million Americans go without health insurance and many who have insurance are not really covered when they need it. They give millions in campaign contributions to presidential candidates to keep them "at the table" in any "reform" they offer. So, thus far, NONE of the presidential candidate is offering REAL reform except the one who has not taken contributions from the insurance lobby – Dennis Kucinich. That's right folks and it is imperative that you know this and tell others so we can change it!


The term "Universal Healthcare" has lost its meaning. Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Richardson, Gravel, Biden, Dodd and all the Republican candidates claim to support "Universal Healthcare" but continue to appease the insurance companies. These candidates all fail to support the best solution (Single-Payer) because they don't want to ruffle the insurance industry's feathers. YOU can change that by demanding that they do if they want your vote. Spread the word!

Don't let candidates offer incremental or piecemeal "reforms" that all retain the private insurance industry and keeps them in control of our healthcare and standing between you and your doctor. These plans always fail because it is impossible to control costs when you retain the very problem (private insurance and their 30-40% administrative costs that do NOT go to healthcare but into the pockets of middlemen) that has led us to where we are today. (read here about Massachusetts' failed plan) For-profit health insurance retains the profit incentive that must reduce or deny care for profit. Private insurance must always answer to shareholder's profit before care and that won't change because it is the law. Using tax dollars to subsidize private insurance plans for the poor and/or forcing everyone to to buy insurance only feeds the beast the kills us in the end. John Edwards' plan pits private insurance companies against a public plan which could never hope to be properly funded and will surely be undermined by the private insurance industry as we have already seen with the partial privatization of Medicare. (please read this and read this to find out more.)

Demand your candidates support a publicly funded and administered national INSURANCE system that will operate far more efficiently to cover everyone to choose any PRIVATE doctor or hospital. Let them know that you know this can be done by removing the fat middleman (their friend who writes them those big campaign checks) and redirecting the billions saved into funding a single, "not for profit" risk pool which can further save by negotiating lower drug prices. (In case you wonder why the pharmaceutical industry is so against Single-Payer and also pouring millions into PR campaigns to stop it, this is why.)

Single-Payer Insurance will give us better coverage for everyone, for life, and for LESS than what we pay today. And it will stimulate competition where it belongs - between private doctors and hospitals for quality of care instead of between the fat middlemen for market share - and even help address the shortage of primary care doctors (see interview with doctor) and other problems that are the direct result of the inefficient, fragmented and profit driven system we have today.

[PreTTy PeTe]

a new link
for the movie

http://freemoviemania.blogspot.com/2007/06/sicko-2007.html

[metta]

Clinton, Obama, Edwards on "the same page" on health-care reform: "the Wrong Page," says Kucinich

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the issue of health care, the three leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are all on the same page: the wrong page, the Democratic candidate and Ohio Congressman said today.

“There isn’t one iota’s difference between the plans put forward by Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, and former Senator Edwards, because they all keep the for-profit health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies in control of the health-care system,” Kucinich said. “The only thing ‘universal’ about their plans is that they universally fail to address the real reason 47 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are under-insured: For-profit insurance companies get rich by gouging people and by not paying for health care.”

Kucinich is the co-author and co-sponsor of a bill (HR 676) that would establish a national, not-for-profit health-insurance system that would guarantee coverage to all Americans, including medical, dental, vision, mental health, long-term care, early child care, and preventative health services. Under the Kucinich plan, there would be no premiums, no deductibles, no co-pays, and no denials of services. The legislation has been endorsed by the 14,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program, the California Nurses Association, labor union locals, and award-winning film-maker Michael Moore, whose “SiCKO” documentary is a scathing indictment of the for-profit health-care industry in the U.S.

“If you don’t have the courage to take on the insurance and pharmaceutical industries,” Kucinich said of the other Democratic candidates, “don’t try to fool the American people by pretending to offer real reform. The Clinton, Obama, and Edwards plans will ensure that for-profit companies remain in control, and they will be rewarded and enriched with federal subsidies to reduce the prices they charge. Instead of gouging the consumers, they’ll be gouging the taxpayers.”

Kucinich also objected to the “mandates” proposed in the three plans. “These candidates want to force individual citizens and employers to buy health insurance, using the promise of tax credits to make the coercion more palatable. We shouldn’t be mandating that people buy private coverage, we should be guaranteeing coverage for our citizens like other enlightened industrialized nations do.”

Kucinich noted that Americans spend more than $2 trillion a year on health care, and upwards of $600 billion covers costs that have nothing to do with care: profits, dividends, exorbitant salaries, executive compensation, stock options, advertising, paperwork, and coordination and duplication of services among the many private companies.

“Take that money out of the pockets of the for-profit companies and put it into providing a national health-care plan that covers everyone for everything,” Kucinich said. Comparing and contrasting the differences among the Clinton, Obama, and Edwards plans “is a phony debate,” he charged. “If they’re afraid of offending their campaign contributors from the for-profit health-care industry, or they’re concerned about whatever personal investments they have in that industry, they should be honest about it and just say so.”

He continued, “I can’t be bought, and I can’t be bossed, and that’s why I’m the only candidate willing and eager to challenge the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. The sooner we get the profit out of the system, the sooner every American can have access to comprehensive health care. It’s a right, and this nation has a moral and social responsibility to provide it.”

[seven_sins]

I am fortunate to have full coverage. But I believe that basic health care should be a right and not a privilege. However, everyone should pay equally into the system.

[metta]

Michael Moore on Oprah Today

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

Michael Moore will be appearing again on Oprah today, Thursday, September 27th. Oprah has received thousands of letters from viewers since Mike's appearance in June -- viewers who wanted to share their own health care horror stories. So she invited a number of them to come on today's show, which will feature not only Mike but the head of the health insurance lobby in D.C.

The theme of the show is, 'It Can Happen to You.' And, unfortunately, it can. Joining Oprah and Michael on the show will be Steve Skvara, the steelworker who famously popped the health care question at the Democratic presidential debate in August, and Civia Katz, a Pennsylvania woman who saw 'SiCKO' and decided to send her health care story to MichaelMoore.com.

Tune in today (Thursday) or set your TiVo. Check local listings for show times.

[frankfrank]

^ Oh shit! I missed it.

I didn't see this until the midnight automatic subscription update...

[HowardRoark]

I think you should see the other side's point of view too;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf3MtjMBWx4

I've seen them both, and I know that even though I do live in a country with socialized healthcare I would rather have a private one.

[metta]

I think you should see the other side's point of view too;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf3MtjMBWx4

I've seen them both, and I know that even though I do live in a country with socialized healthcare I would rather have a private one.

I don't know what country you live in. Maybe the plan in your country is not very good. But the system in the US is horrible. People are losing their life savings, their homes, filing bankruptcy, they are not getting their care because health care workers that make the decisions are paid more to give you less care or even deny care.

That clip does not show another side. I'm sure that episode did more than show people that did not have any insurance.

However, I will say that I don't respect John Stosell as a reporter. I have not for sevearl years because of the dirty way he does reporting. He is such an asshole. He knows how to twist facts and not give the full details in order to push his own agenda. He does not know how to report fairly. All that he cares about his pushng up his ratings at any cost. Shame on him.

Even if people have insurance, the health care workers are paid extra to give you less care and to deny you care. It is just unethical to have health care in the hands of for profit companies. Profit should not be the main motivator of health care.






Response to John Stossel, 20/20 and ABC
The 20/20 program of September 14th did not contribute to a solution for our broken health care system. It is a disservice to the use of our airwaves and to the lives of Americans to use half truths, quarter truths, and outright lies, which trivialize this serious problem. Government, patients and providers are working to build a health care system that will work, and the 20/20 program instead created more misinformation and confusion about the issues.


An example of the program's use of unethical misinformation was its conclusion that Canadians are flocking to the U.S. to get timely, quality healthcare services. This is not true. According to statistically based reports published in leading American scientific research journals, waiting times for EQUIVALENT hospital procedures are approximately the same in Canada and the U.S. However, in Western European countries with single payer insurance systems such as Germany and Holland, these waiting times are much shorter!

The program also created misinformation by treating Canadian and other single payer insurance systems in which the government does not provide the medical service the same as Britain's government health service system. These approaches are radically different, and should not be confused.

A different segment of the program created misinformation about the behavior of healthcare consumers. It trivialized the situation of people without insurance by suggesting they would behave like grocery shoppers who had "grocery insurance," buying large quantities of expensive meat, etc. What nonsense! Public health scientists know that many segments of the public avoid NECESSARY preventive care until they become acutely ill. Then their heart disease, cancers, and diabetes become very expensive for the system to treat.

In a number of segments, the program used a faculty member of the Harvard BUSINESS school to make the case for general price competition between all medical providers. It is a very large stretch to design a working healthcare system in which most doctor and hospital performance could be easily compared by the public with their fees in order for true price competition to take place. Healthcare providers are not like bars of soap, or automobiles for consumer comparison. Why didn't the producers go to Harvard Medical School and interview physicians such as Steffie Woolhandler or Don McCanne from Physicians for a National Health Plan?
Other segments of ABC's 20/20 broadcast on 9/14 were equally biased against most reform solutions suggested by Republicans as well as Democrats in recent years. Rather than help viewers better understand this difficult set of issues, the program created a smoke screen for status quo. Instead, viewers should go to www.pnhp.org (http://blog.myspace.com/www.pnhp.org) for a real solution and stay tuned to this page.


Dan Braunstein, Ph.D. Professor of Management, Emeritus, Director, HCA Carolyn Negrete and Sally Hampton, Health Care for All - California and OneCareU.S.

[frankfrank]

My experiences with health care in the United States:

(1) For the first time, I've scheduled a colonoscopy. It's next week, but I began the effort to schedule it back in JUNE! Whoever says there's no waiting time in the U.S. is "full of it."

(2) More than likely the health insurance, which I am paying about $6000 per year for, will not pay for this test. The ONLY way that the insurance will pay for this test, is IF the colonoscopy discloses something which requires hospitalization or surgery. In other words, if it doesn't disclose something LIKE cancer, etc., I'll have to cover the cost on my own, and I believe it's around $2000 or more.

(3) If anything results in a prescription drug, it is not covered unless it's administered in a hospital.

(4) In 2003, when I had surgery, the total was around $25,000 and I had to pay far more than $10,000 of it by myself DESPITE my expensive insurance.

(5) As far as I can tell, no clinic visits are covered, for any reason. Not EVER.

What a totally fucked-up system! I can't believe how many people still think that our system beats the pants off the rest of the world. I would feel safer and more secure with healthcare in Cuba, Costa Rica, Argentina, Colombia, just about any European country (even Macedonia and Belarus?), etc.

[Xenrai]

I think you should see the other side's point of view too;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf3MtjMBWx4

I've seen them both, and I know that even though I do live in a country with socialized healthcare I would rather have a private one.

That was a great series of videos. Thanks for posting.

[Shepherd 2]

Should be required watching for the Congress
and the Senate as well as the President and Cabinet.
Shep+

[metta]

On Oprah: Should healthcare be a right or a luxury?


Do you believe that the child of a gas station attendant and the child of an investment banker deserve the same healthcare? That was a question raised on our healthcare show with Michael Moore and we want to hear from you! Should healthcare be a right or a luxury in our country?

What was your reaction to our healthcare show and the questions posed? Did the show make you think about the issue of healthcare differently? What realizations (if any) did you have about healthcare in our country?

Do you believe everyone in the country should have equal access to healthcare? Does the thought of a total overhaul of the American health care system seem overwhelming, unrealistic, or exciting? Are you ready to make changes so that everyone can become insured in our country? What are you willing to sacrifice personally for healthcare to become a right for every citizen?

The Oprah Show wants to you hear from you! Please write only if you are willing to appear on national television.


https://www.oprah.com/plugger/templates/BeOnTheShow.jhtml?action=respond&plugId=290100001



Health Care Crisis: http://www.oprah.com/world/health/slide/20070927/health_284_101.jhtml

Discussion on Oprah's Message Board: http://www.oprah.com/community/thread/3145

[metta]

The Wørd on Health Care
Stephen Colbert urges President Bush to veto the SCHIP bill, for the good of the children.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/28/the-wørd-on-health-care/




If we really care for our kids, we should deny them health insurance now to immunize them against expecting it as adults. If we don’t, when they grow up, who knows what other unrealistic things they’re going to expect? You know, if we fund Head Start now, later, they’ll expect education. If we fund school lunches now, later, they’ll expect food.



A00_d3UuJpM

[PreTTy PeTe]

for anyone who hasn't seen the movie
here's another link

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v622815CmZqt6aR

you have to download as they only give you the first five minutes
as a preview

[Shepherd 2]

i just watched "Sicko"
a question to americans is the health system in the USA as much as a mess that this movie makes it out to be.
just asking

PreTTyPeTe, It is worse than even the movie has portrayed it.
Michael Moorre looks like a choirboy now that people have seen
the movie.
Shep+

[metta]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-insure9nov09,0,3065397,full.story?coll=la-home-center (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-insure9nov09,0,3065397,full.story?coll=la-home-center)
Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders

By Lisa Girion
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 9, 2007

One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved.

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

The revelation that the health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized.

These cancellations have been the recent focus of intense scrutiny by lawmakers, state regulators and consumer advocates. Although these "rescissions" are only a small portion of the companies' overall business, they typically leave sick patients with crushing medical bills and no way to obtain needed treatment.

Most of the state's major insurers have cancellation departments or individuals assigned to review coverage applications. They typically pull a policyholder's records after major medical claims are made to ensure that the client qualified for coverage at the outset.

The companies' internal procedures for reviewing and canceling coverage have not been publicly disclosed. Health Net's disclosures Thursday provided an unprecedented peek at a company's internal operations and marked the first time an insurer had revealed how it linked cancellations to employee performance goals and to its bottom line.

The bonuses were disclosed at an arbitration hearing in a lawsuit brought by Patsy Bates, a Gardena hairdresser whose coverage was rescinded by Health Net in the middle of chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer. She is seeking $6 million in compensation, plus damages.

Insurers maintain that cancellations are necessary to root out fraud and keep premiums affordable. Individual coverage is issued to only the healthiest applicants, who must disclose preexisting conditions.

Other suits have been settled out of court or through arbitration, out of public view. Until now, none had gone to a public trial.

Health Net had sought to keep the documents secret even after it was forced to produce them for the hearing, arguing that they contained proprietary information and could embarrass the company. But the arbitrator in the case, former Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Cianchetti, granted a motion by lawyers for The Times, opening the hearing to reporters and making public all documents produced for it.

At a hearing on the motion, the judge said, "This clearly involves very significant public interest, and my view is the arbitration proceedings should not be confidential."

The documents show that in 2002, the company's goal for Barbara Fowler, Health Net's senior analyst in charge of rescission reviews, was 15 cancellations a month. She exceeded that, rescinding 275 policies that year -- a monthly average of 22.9.

More recently, her goals were expressed in financial terms. Her supervisor described 2003 as a "banner year" for Fowler because the company avoided about "$6 million in unnecessary health care expenses" through her rescission of 301 policies -- one more than her performance goal.

In 2005, her goal was to save Health Net at least $6.5 million. Through nearly 300 rescissions, Fowler ended up saving an estimated $7 million, prompting her supervisor to write: "Barbara's successful execution of her job responsibilities have been vital to the profitability" of individual and family policies.

State law forbids insurance companies from tying any compensation for claims reviewers to their claims decisions.

But Health Net's lawyer, William Helvestine, told the arbitrator in his opening argument Thursday that the law did not apply to the insurer in the case because Fowler was an underwriter -- not a claims reviewer.

Helvestine acknowledged that the company tied some of Fowler's compensation to policy cancellations, including Bates'. But he maintained that the bonuses were based on the overall performance of Fowler and the company. He also said that meeting the cancellation target was only a small factor.

The documents showed that Fowler's annual bonuses ranged from $1,654 to $6,310. But Helvestine said that no more than $276 in any year was connected to cancellations.

He said Fowler's supervisor, Mark Ludwig, set goals that were reasonable based on the prior year's experience.

"I think it is insulting to those individuals to make this the focal point of this case," Helvestine said.

Bates' lawyer, William Shernoff, said Health Net's behavior was "reprehensible."

He said the cancellation goals and financial rewards showed that the company canceled policies in bad faith and just to save money. After all, he told the arbitrator, canceling policies was Fowler's primary job.

"For management to set goals in advance to achieve a certain number of rescissions and target savings in the millions of dollars at the expense of seriously ill patients is cruel and reprehensible by any standards of law or decency," Shernoff said.

The company declined requests to make Fowler available to discuss the reviews.

Cianchetti, the arbitrator, earlier ruled the rescission invalid because Health Net had mishandled the way it sent Bates the policy when it issued coverage. At the end of the hearing, it will be up to Cianchetti to determine whether Health Net acted in bad faith and owes Bates any damages.

The disclosures surprised regulators. A spokesman said state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner was troubled by the allegations.

"Commissioner Poizner has made it clear he will not tolerate illegal rescissions," spokesman Byron Tucker said. "We are going to take a hard and close look at this case."

In recent months, the state's health and insurance regulators have teamed to develop rules aimed at curbing rescissions and to more closely monitor the industry's cancellation policies.

Other insurers that have rescission operations, including Blue Cross of California and Blue Shield of California, said they had no similar policies linking employee performance reviews to rescission levels. Blue Cross said it conducted audits to ensure that claims reviewers were not given any "carrots" for canceling coverage.

Bates, who filed the suit against Health Net, owns a hair salon in a Gardena mini-mall between a liquor store and a doughnut shop. She said she was left with nearly $200,000 in medical bills and stranded in the midst of chemotherapy when Health Net canceled her coverage in January 2004.

Bates, 51, said the first notice she had that something was awry with her coverage came while she was in the hospital preparing for lump-removal surgery.

She said an administrator came to her room and told her the surgery, scheduled for early the next day, had been canceled because the hospital learned she had insurance problems. Health Net allowed the surgery to go forward only after Bates' daughter authorized the insurance company to charge three months of premiums in advance to her debit card, Bates alleged. Her coverage was canceled after she began post-surgical chemotherapy threatments.

"I've got cancer, and I could die," she said in a recent interview. Health Net "walked away from the agreement. They don't care."

Health Net contended that Bates failed to disclose a heart problem and shaved about 35 pounds off her weight on her application. Had it known her true weight or that she had been screened for a heart condition related to her use of the diet drug combination known as fen-phen, it would not have covered her in the first place, the company said.

"The case was rescinded based on inaccurate information on the individual's application," Health Net spokesman Brad Kieffer said.

Bates said she already had insurance when a broker came by her shop in the summer of 2003, and said she now regretted letting him in the door. She agreed to apply to Health Net when the broker told her he could save her money, Bates said.

She added that she never intended to mislead the company. Bates said the broker filled out the application, asking questions about her medical history as she styled a client's hair in her busy shop and he talked to another client waiting for an appointment at the counter. She maintained that she answered his questions as best she could and did not know whether he asked every question on the application.

Bates' chemotherapy was delayed for four months until it was funded through a program for charity cases. Three years later, she can't afford the tests she needs to determine whether the cancer is gone.

So she is left to worry. She is also left with a catheter embedded in her chest where the chemotherapy drugs were injected into her bloodstream. Bates said she found a physician willing to remove it without charge, but he won't do it without a clear prognosis. That remains uncertain.

Shernoff, Bates' lawyer, claimed that the performance goals for Fowler showed that Health Net was bent on finding any excuse to cancel the coverage of people like Bates to save money.

"I haven't seen this kind of thing for years," Shernoff said. "It doesn't get much worse."

lisa.girion@latimes.com (lisa.girion@latimes.com)

[frankfrank]

^ This shit pisses me off all to hell.

Dropping people because they're sick should be totally illegal, with hard prison time for all the people involved.

In my mind, this is tantamount to premeditated MURDER (or conspiracy to commit murder or grievous bodily harm, if the person survives).

[metta]

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee187/onecareus/healthadd.gif (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vcHJvZmlsZS5teXNwYWNlLmNvbS9pbmRleC5jZm 0/ZnVzZWFjdGlvbj11c2VyLnZpZXdwcm9maWxlJmZyaWVuZGlkPT E0NDMxMjk2Mg==)

[Lube]

We just saw Sicko on DVD.

Unbelievable.*

Un-fuckin'-believable.

The things people will do for money. Not even a lot of money, as metta's posting shows (the woman who got a few hundred extra $$ a year for cancelling millions of dollars of policies).

Where is the humanity in this? Why aren't people complaining?

*--Obviously, not "unbelievable" as in "I don't believe Michael Moore" but rather "unbelievable" as in "I can't believe what insurers and hospitals are getting away with."

[ilovegaysex]

You guys ACTUALLY watched Sicko?? EEEKK..Micheal Moore is too crazy for me. His documentaries are so "out to lunch...." to use the polite term.

[Lube]

You guys ACTUALLY watched Sicko?? EEEKK..Micheal Moore is too crazy for me. His documentaries are so "out to lunch...." to use the polite term.

In what way?

He actually donated (anonymously, initially) the money for his worst critic to pay for his critic's wife's medical bills so the critic could continue criticizing him.

That's a man who believes in what he says. He's not pandering to anybody.

(I'm not saying that everything he says is 100% true or that there may not be another side to some of his statements, but he's certainly not "out to lunch".)

[KennyD]

The problem is that there are not enough Michael Moores out in this world .
Most of the world goes around believeing that as long as they get out of bed and do whatever it is they do during the day ..or night ... that all is well with the world ...
It is time to get our heads out of the sand and realize that there is a hell of a lot wrong and wrongdoing going on in the world and it really takes balls like Mike Moores to point it out to the rest of us ....

[schiggi]

I saw the film yesterday and I am very happy to live in Germany with an nearly perfect health care system! What there is going on in the USA reminds me on the Middle Ages where only the royals get medicine and the poor people have to trust in their immune system or make the operation on their own (like at the beginning of the movie)! That is so dingy of your government that they look how people die because they can't pay the bills of the hospital or why an health insurance company doesn't approve the operation! I hope that the situation in your country will be improved. (Sorry for my english, I know it's not perfect)

[whatatime]

Then again helping the guy who says bad things about him is kind of a plot i think. I love Micheal Moore but I don't think he gave him that money just to "help" but it was still a great thing no matter what he wanted

[metta]

So what do the numbers have to be to finally be considered to be inhumane and unacceptable?



Report: 1 in 5 can't afford health care
December 4, 2007
One in five American adults can't afford needed health care, including prescribed medication, eyeglasses and dental care, a report said yesterday.
More than 40 million people older than 18 didn't get needed services because of the cost in 2005, the year studied in a report released by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About the same number of people younger than 65 said they were uninsured for at least part of the 12 months before being interviewed.
About 19 million Americans didn't fill needed prescriptions because of the cost, 15 million didn't get glasses and 25 million didn't get dental care. Adults between 18 and 24 years old had the least access to health care services, with about 30 percent uninsured and 30 percent lacking a regular source of health care, the CDC said. The percentage of Americans who couldn't afford health care and drugs has increased from 1997.
Bloomberg News

[metta]

American College of Physicians Endorses Single-Payer


Yesterday the prestigious American College of Physicians (ACP), the nation's second largest medical association (124,000 members), endorsed single payer national health insurance as "one pathway" to universal coverage. This is the first time the group has endorsed single payer and represents a huge step forward in the movement for fundamental health care reform.
The ACP's decision followed a careful evaluation of lessons from other nations' health systems. The central lesson, they said in an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, is the need for the United States to provide universal health insurance coverage. While the ACP's own proposal is based on a "pluralistic" model, they urged lawmakers to seriously consider a single payer system as one way to provide universal access to health care. They noted that single payer systems have the advantage of being "more equitable, have lower administrative costs, have lower per capita health care expenditures, have higher levels of patient satisfaction, and have higher performance on measures of quality and access than systems using private health insurance."
In our estimation, this development changes the terms of engagement within the medical profession and in the larger public debate. The steady "legitimation" of our single payer national health insurance alternative takes a giant step forward with this declaration from the ACP. It is incumbent on PNHP to make this heartening development part of the public discourse as soon and as loudly as possible!

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=144312962&blogID=335286329

[metta]

Just because you have insurance, doesn't mean you'll get the care you need

In a stunning turn around, insurance giant CIGNA has capitulated to community demands (and protests that the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee helped to generate) and agreed to a critically needed liver transplant for Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old girl in the intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Center. Unfortunately, Nataline passed away yesterday just after six o'clock on the same day of the massive protest.

RN's Statement on Death of Nataline Sarkisyan: 'CIGNA Should Have Listened to Her Doctors And Approved the Transplant a Week Ago'
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee today blasted insurance giant CIGNA for failing to approve a liver transplant one week earlier for 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, who tragically died last night just hours after CIGNA relented and agreed to the procedure following a massive national outcry.

On Dec. 11, four leading physicians, including the surgical director of the Pediatric Liver Transplant Program at UCLA, wrote to CIGNA urging the company to reverse its denial. The physicians said that Nataline "currently meets criteria to be listed as Status 1A" for a transplant. They also challenged CIGNA's denial which the company said occurred because their benefit plan "does not cover experimental, investigational and unproven services," to which the doctors replied, "Nataline's case is in fact none of the above."

"So what happened between December 11, when CIGNA denied the transplant, and December 20 when they approved? A huge outpouring of protest and CIGNA's public humiliation. Why didn't they just listen to the medical professionals at the bedside in the first place?" asked Geri Jenkins, RN, a member of the CNA/NNOC Council of Presidents who works in a transplant unit at the University of California San Diego Medical Center.

On Thursday, CIGNA was bombarded with phone calls to its offices across the country while a rally sponsored by CNA/NNOC, with the substantial help of the local Armenian community, drew 150 people to the Glendale offices of CIGNA – all of which produced the turnaround by CIGNA to finally reverse its prior denial of care.

CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro called the final outcome "a horrific tragedy that demonstrates what is so fundamentally wrong with our health care system today. Insurance companies have a stranglehold on our health. Their first priority is to make profits for their shareholders – and the way they do that is by denying care."

"It is simply not possible to organize major protests every time a multi-billion corporation like CIGNA denies care that has been recommended by a physician," DeMoro said. "Having insurance is not the same as receiving needed care. We need a fundamental change in our healthcare system that takes control away from the insurance giants and places it where it belongs – in the hands of the medical professionals, the patients, and their families."




http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=144312962&blogID=340269412

[PreTTy PeTe]

just a bump

i can't post links to the movie sorry

[metta]

Thank you Pretty...ya know that word just does not do ya justice. How about...BeyondPreTTy :)

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez2jan02,1,156338.column?coll=la-headlines-california




Take a deep breath, and read
January 2, 2008


I was on my way to the Encino home of a 10-year-old boy named Preston, but I could have gone in any direction for the same kind of story.

Ever since I wrote a few years ago about a San Gabriel Valley woman who had breast cancer and couldn't get health insurance (her family resorted to a yard sale to pay her medical bills), I've gotten a steady trickle of similar tales. Last week, I had one involving an oncologist whose cancer treatment is not being covered because his health insurance company says his illness is a pre-existing condition.

Preston doesn't have cancer, but he was born with cystic fibrosis. And the cost of the medicine that keeps him breathing just shot up like a rocket, thanks to an insurance company decision I'm still trying to decipher.

I'll get to the details in a moment, but first, some political context.

The last place to expect a workable healthcare reform proposal is in a presidential campaign, and this one will be no exception in the end. There's way too much money riding on keeping things as they are.

Here in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez would have you believe they stepped into the leadership void with last month's health insurance-for-all proposal.

But all they've done is come up with a shaky idea to require nearly everyone to buy medical insurance from the same companies we've all become so fed up with. Employers and hospitals would have to pick up part of the tab, and there might be a new tax on cigarettes to provide some support. But even if the vague and dubious funding proposals come to pass, there would be little or nothing in the way of additional controls on insurance companies in terms of what they cover or what they charge.

State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, one of the legislature's strongest advocates of healthcare reform, eviscerated the Schwarzenegger-Nuñez package in a Dec. 17 analysis you can read on her website ( www.dist23.casen.). She said if it came to pass, and insurance companies were forced to take on everyone who is now uninsured, premiums for the rest of us would balloon.

"And it seems to me that they will probably have to resort to more and more denials of care," said Kuehl. Her single-payer proposal would take insurance companies and their profit machines out of the equation, but it has languished for all the predictable reasons, including the huge influence of the insurance lobby.

I began telling Kuehl about Preston and his family's issues with their insurer, but halfway through I stopped myself, figuring she's heard hundreds of similar stories.

"No," she said. "It's in the thousands."

Preston, a cute, curly-haired lad with bright blue eyes, leads a relatively normal life, albeit with strict dietary restrictions and 20 pills a day. He showed me how he straps on a percussive vest twice daily. The vest is attached to a pump, and forced air makes it vibrate roughly, loosening the congestion in his lungs. That and an inhaled medication called Pulmozyme keep him breathing.

But last month, the cost of that Pulmozyme blasted through the ozone.

It had been running them $30 a month.

Suddenly it was $784.

"They never called," Marla, who takes care of Preston and 5-year-old Tyler, said of Blue Cross.

"They never talked to our doctor," said Jeff, a self-employed financial investor.

With no warning, the insurance company decided to pick up less of the cost, leaving Preston's family to come up with an extra $9,000 a year for his medicine.

If a cheaper generic were available, they'd gladly switch. But they said there is no substitute for Pulmozyme, an enzyme-based medication that controls mucus secretions and was developed specifically for cystic fibrosis patients. Their doctor confirmed this.

"It was a big surprise," Eithne Maclaughlin, of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, said of the sudden price inflation. "And it's very upsetting."

[PreTTy PeTe]

i'll post it


http://www.megavideo.com/ep_gr.swf?v=6GLO6VSV

let it buffer a bit

[metta]

Our health care system is failing.

It denies care to many in need and often leaves families - even those with coverage - in financial ruin.

Huge administrative costs and profits divert resources from care to bureaucrats and investors.

Insurers' dictates and the pressures of competition and profit threaten medicine's most sacred values.


DNHNCScYpX8

[metta]

Real People Denied Health Care
Bonnie Drew
b4kEvdyIcBk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4kEvdyIcBk&feature=related

Nathan Wilkes
DNHNCScYpX8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNHNCScYpX8&feature=related

Cynthia Campbell
2peGqRrjXek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2peGqRrjXek&feature=related

David Welch
XYedy10iUyQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYedy10iUyQ&feature=related

Janet Stephens
DKXEiGjNCME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKXEiGjNCME&feature=related

Nataline Sarkisyan
McGm00Mvakc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McGm00Mvakc&feature=related

Emily Cannon
Wh0mgiwXzGM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh0mgiwXzGM

[Corkles]

For some reason,people love to give Michael Moore grief for his films,but as a healthcare professional,I know how fucked up 'health care' in America is...

We are far too rich a country to have the half-assed medical care that people are offered here.

For the record,I know that healthcare in France and Canada is not perfect but at the very least people don't have to worry about going to a doctor for fear of paying off a hospital bill for the rest of their life.

There is truly something wrong with our system and I don't know what if anything can be done to fix it.

[Atomw7]

Something is wrong when people have to die because they cannot afford healthcare.

I myself don't have any healthcare whatsoever right now. (Or for the past year, or the near future that I can see). Am I scare shitless something will pop up wrong with me? Yep!

At least I'm in good health and young, so right now I'm not too worried, but it's either car insurance or health care. I can get into legal trouble when I don't have car insurance, but not health care. Guess my car is more important than I am! :rolleyes:

Also they make you pay for the ambulance too. So if something were to happen to me, I would second guess calling 911 because if it was just a temporary thing, I would/could not pay for the ambulance. Gotta love the US of A! Oh how I so want to leave. :(

[Atomw7]

The reality is that most people without health insurance can afford it, but choose not to buy it. Sure they complain they can't afford it, but drive new cars and keep Starbucks in business.

I'm sorry, but I find that statement very offensive. Try living extremely under poverty level and having to get loans from relatives to fix a money draining car ($700 8 months ago, $1150 a month ago... timing belt and other loads of crap) that you cannot afford to have, yet not afford to not have. Unless you are in their/my situation, or have been, you have no right to make that claim. Not only that, but there is a lot like that which I do not wish to discuss here.



The problem right now is that people who can actually afford health and don't buy insurance, can often lose everything they have if a major illness occurs. These people are gambling; some will be winners and some losers.

I don't see how that's a problem when you have nothing it lose. :)

[metta]

PLEASE NOTE:

Even if you have health insurance,
please do not assume that you will be able to get the care you need when you need it. Please do not assume that your insurance will pay.

Why do we continue pay for insurance that will not necessarily cover us properly when we need it? For those of us that are fortunate enough to have health insurance, we are paying money to insurance companies that will kill us off if it is cheaper to do so.

These asshole insurance companies need to be kicked out of the government.

[metta]

So I was at dinner this evening with some friends. One of them has a boyfriend that works at a county hospital in los angeles. His boyfriend has told him that the system is just falling apart right now. There are no beds available. People with serious heart problems are having to wait over a day just to get an xray.

They are currently having meetings to try and determine what to do. The most popular thought right now is to not accept people without insurance. Even if they do that they do not have enough beds.

We are talking about a county hospital not a private hospital. This would mean that people without insurance would not get care.

It is just so inhumane! At what point are we going to say this is not ok? What is it going to take?

:help:

:(

[frankfrank]

I keep waiting for the life expectancy in the U.S. to begin plummeting. Sick people are becoming disposable trash in this country. Didn't one healthcare CEO just get paid something like $1.7 BILLION last year?

None of that money goes where it's really needed.

[backpacker]

Here's a video that illustrates my points in earlier posts about the flaws in the Canadian health care system. My family has suffered similar problems with the decline in health care availability since they went to universal health care.

H4u5x9XAsAs

I want universal health care in the U.S., but we have to be sure to have a system that is better than what is in place in Canada. We need checks and balances to be sure the system is accountable for providing a high standard of care.

[metta]

Here's a video that illustrates my points in earlier posts about the flaws in the Canadian health care system. My family has suffered similar problems with the decline in health care availability since they went to universal health care.

H4u5x9XAsAs

I want universal health care in the U.S., but we have to be sure to have a system that is better than what is in place in Canada. We need checks and balances to be sure the system is accountable for providing a high standard of care.

I agree that long waiting periods are unacceptable. There must be something put into the policies to ensure that people are seen quickly, especially in critical situations.

The quality of the management team is vital to good health care. And maximizing profits must be pulled out of the equation. Maximizing profits has nothing to do with making sure that people get good care.

[metta]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-klein24feb24,0,7095134.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-klein24feb24,0,7095134.story)



From the Los Angeles Times
Not-their-fault insurers

Giving you a raw deal on healthcare is what those firms are supposed to do.
By Ezra Klein

February 24, 2008

'The state's largest for-profit health insurer is asking California physicians to look for conditions it can use to cancel their new patients' medical coverage," said the first line of an expose in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month. The subject was Blue Cross' practice of enlisting doctors to help them deny the claims of sick individuals.

What's strange, however, is that everyone acted like the insurer was doing something wrong. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger accused them of asking doctors to "rat out the patients." Hillary Clinton gave the company a similar lashing, in the same tone of moral outrage used by most of those quoted in the article. Within a few days, the policy was ended.

But Blue Cross officials weren't doing anything wrong. They were doing exactly what we've asked them to do: They were following the incentives of the modern insurance market.

It's a common complaint that health insurers don't actually offer "insurance." As generally defined, insurance is a form of risk management that individuals use to protect themselves against unpredictable loss -- a car accident, say, or a house fire. Health insurance, by contrast, is a form of risk pooling that individuals use to smooth out lifetime healthcare costs. Heath insurance does not insure us against risks so much as it insulates us against costs. We pay regular premiums so we don't have to directly pay for irregular care.

Not all of us, however, make this deal with insurers. About 50 million Americans are uninsured, and tens of millions more are underinsured. There's no law that says we all must have insurance or that insurance companies must agree to cover us. Given that, it's natural that insurers -- which are, after all, for-profit companies, not government agencies or public trusts -- turn their attention to making deals with the most profitable among us and avoiding deals (or finding ways to break contracts) with the least profitable.

That's exactly what we would expect them to do. We are using them to minimize our risk, and they are selective about us to minimize theirs. So is it any surprise that they compete over which of them can be the most sophisticated about cherry-picking the healthy from the unhealthy (stories abound of insurers in offices with a "broken elevator," so only those who can walk 10 flights of stairs can apply) and which is the most adept at canceling policies once they become unprofitable?

This is the competition within our insurance industry, and it is not good for us. That can be a bit counterintuitive in a country like ours, where all competition is thought to benefit the consumer. But just as competition among drug dealers does not aid the neighborhood, competition among insurers does not aid the ill. It might if they were competing to deliver better care to the sick, rather than trying to figure out how to avoid delivering any care to the sick at all. But they're not.

Indeed, their inattention to actual care is startling. For instance, the U.S., for all its technological advancement, has among the lowest adoption of cost-saving, care-improving health information technology in the world. That is the fault, in part, of our insurers, who have not forced its adoption among care providers.

In the current system, insurance companies add negative value -- which is to say, they make healthcare worse, not better. And here's why: It is actually against their interest for insurers to compete on giving us the best care. It's not simply that they're not doing it, but given the structure of the marketplace, they shouldn't do it.

Imagine that Insurer X works with its providers to develop the best diabetes protocols in the country. And it begins advertising this fact. What happens on Day Two? It's flooded with individuals suffering from diabetes, or individuals who fear they will one day be suffering from diabetes. These people, in the current system, are a bad deal. Not only is it nearly impossible to insure them at a profit, but pooling their costs (which is what insurers do, after all) raises premiums for all the insurer's other customers.

Over time, that encourages healthy folks contracting with that insurer to quit the pool and go find a cheaper deal with an insurer that caters to healthier individuals, which forces the insurer to raise premiums yet again, driving out more healthy folks, which forces it to raise premiums again, which drives out more healthy folks, and so on. It's what industry experts call an insurance death spiral, and it ends with the collapse of the insurer.

Given those incentives, insurers cannot be expected to compete on the basis of better care, because if they encouraged better care, all that would happen is they would attract worse deals. Which is why, in the current system, insurers make things worse.

But it doesn't have to be that way. If insurers existed in a market in which they had to compete on delivering better care, rather than competing on developing better techniques to deny care, we'd be far better off.

Here are the principles such a market would require:

1) Universality: Insurers cannot compete effectively unless everyone is in the pool. If the healthy can leave -- if they can decide insurance is a bad deal until they get a little sicker and a little older -- then insurers simply will have to compete to attract the healthiest, which means offering the lowest costs, which means insuring the fewest sick people. The system has to be universal.

2) An end to cherry-picking: Insurers cannot be allowed, before offering insurance, to use demographic sub-slicing to cherry-pick the market. That means no more judging individuals based on preexisting histories, no more use of complex formulas around age and income and race and region in an effort to identify those who might someday get sick. Insurers should have to offer insurance to anyone who wants it for the same price. No exceptions.

3) Risk adjustment: Merely having everyone in the system won't be enough, nor will forcing insurers to do away with their most delicate cherry-picking tools. Insurers will just become sophisticated at advertising on G4 Tech TV, in snowboarding magazines and in Whole Foods -- in places, in other words, where the young and the healthy gather. So on top of the universal system and the community rating, you need risk adjustment, which means either that insurers are reimbursed more for taking on sicker patients, or (my preferred method, and the one used in Germany) insurers with particularly healthy pools pay into a central fund that redistributes to insurers with less healthy pools. At the end of the day, it has to be as profitable for an insurer to insure a sick person as a healthy one.

4) Benefit floors: There has to be a minimum level of comprehensiveness below which insurance plans cannot dip. Otherwise, they'll just sell the healthy on plans that don't cover anything and so are very cheap. That's just another way of pulling in the healthy and keeping out the sick. Creating a floor ends their ability to segment the market by offering less value.

5) Information transparency: Quick: If you wanted to buy some health insurance, where would you go? How would you compare plans? There needs to be a single place, or a set of them, where individuals can shop for insurance. This is hard stuff to find and harder yet to understand, and real effort needs to go into constructing an easily accessible marketplace that customers can effectively navigate. And within that space, it needs to be easy for individuals to compare insurers on plan comprehensiveness, price, outcomes, etc.

That means we need a marketplace where folks can go to shop for insurers, and they need to have standardized comparisons or nonpartisan rating authorities providing information they can use.

It's not impossible to imagine a scenario in which insurers actually compete to offer better service; in which the marketplace really does work to the consumers' benefit. That could take a million different forms, from personalized care coordinators to electronic records to online access to your health information to negotiated discounts on gym memberships.

But none of this will happen as long as insurers operate in a perverse market in which their incentives are to make the system, and our care, worse.

Reform is necessary, not just for our sakes but so the insurers actually can be better, rather than continuing to act as whipping boys for frustrated politicians.

Ezra Klein is a staff writer at the American Prospect. He blogs at EzraKlein.com.

[Atomw7]

^^^ Here's an interesting point from that I never thought of:

Imagine that Insurer X works with its providers to develop the best diabetes protocols in the country. And it begins advertising this fact. What happens on Day Two? It's flooded with individuals suffering from diabetes, or individuals who fear they will one day be suffering from diabetes. These people, in the current system, are a bad deal. Not only is it nearly impossible to insure them at a profit, but pooling their costs (which is what insurers do, after all) raises premiums for all the insurer's other customers.

Over time, that encourages healthy folks contracting with that insurer to quit the pool and go find a cheaper deal with an insurer that caters to healthier individuals, which forces the insurer to raise premiums yet again, driving out more healthy folks, which forces it to raise premiums again, which drives out more healthy folks, and so on. It's what industry experts call an insurance death spiral, and it ends with the collapse of the insurer.

Given those incentives, insurers cannot be expected to compete on the basis of better care, because if they encouraged better care, all that would happen is they would attract worse deals. Which is why, in the current system, insurers make things worse.

[mark1111]

I just got around to watching the movie and it got me upset. We americans have been lied to about so many things: we are the best country in the world, have the best bla, bla, bla...

I think the best part of the movie was when Michael was in the UK and talking to, I think a former member of parliament and was told that educated members of society vote more and demand more. It was in governments best interest to keep its members ignorant thus making them more pliable and sheep like, ultimately asking less from its government.

Grrr!

[metta]

I keep waiting for the life expectancy in the U.S. to begin plummeting. Sick people are becoming disposable trash in this country. Didn't one healthcare CEO just get paid something like $1.7 BILLION last year?

None of that money goes where it's really needed.

Actually, the latest studies are showing that the next generation will be the first generation where they will not live as long as their parents. In addition to the problems with health care, schools (especially high schools) have been eliminating physical education requirements and they are not eating heathy either.

[frankfrank]

Another example of the "scarcity" of health care in this country. I have a dentist appointment on 26 March. I made this appointment in JANUARY. It was the very earliest appointment that I could possibly find. About two weeks ago I was having some toothaches which I was afraid might develop into an emergency, but thankfully the aching went away after about a week, but all my urgent begging could do was to get my appointment moved from 08 April to its current date.

I previously posted in here how it took me, similarly, MONTHS to wait until I could get in for my colonoscopy which I finally had in October.

People in this country are DYING while waiting for their appointments which are often five weeks to four months in the future.

Those who want the status quo (so that the insurance companies can profit at will, and pay their CEO's INSANE amounts of compensation especially if they figure out how to drop hundreds or thousands of riskier clients, etc.) disparagingly say that in foreign countries you have to wait a long time, but in the U.S. you can see a doctor right away.

Can somebody show me, please? That's not MY experience.

[metta]

What are the Presidential Candidates Talking About? A Brief Dictionary of Health Policy Terms



As the presidential debates heat up and health issues assume a higher political profile, candidates are coming up with strategies to reform the current health care system. Some of these fundamentally redesign the way in which care is financed and paid for; most, however, tinker with the system, providing only partial solutions to lower the number of uninsured, control costs, and increase accountability. These proposals are likely to be subjected to much debate, and some phrases or concepts will be over-used and abused. We are therefore providing our readers with a basic dictionary of the current health policy vocabulary.

Choice: is as American as apple pie. In the health policy arena, however, the word is usually a code for the provision of a variety of options, some of which offer skimpy services or deceptively low premiums. Although appropriate and timely information is essential to true choice, many plans violate this basic tenet. They are confusing, complicated, and jargon-ridden; as a result, patients often have problems finding out what is covered and under what circumstances.

At the policy level, an insistence on "choice" often serves as the rationale for avoiding a uniform service package and universal coverage. It is also the entry point for strengthening health savings accounts (https://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=73health_savings_accounts).

Attempts to privatize Medicare also parade under the banner of "choice." This accounts for the creation of Medicare Advantage Private Fee-for-Services plans. These cover extra benefits and cost more than traditional Medicare. Indeed, Medicare pays an average of 12 percent more for those who enroll in Medicare Advantage plans than it pays for beneficiaries who are covered under traditional Medicare. These plans have been beset by aggressive, inappropriate marketing activities. After many senior advocates complained that some beneficiaries were inadvertently finding themselves in plans in which they did not want to enroll, whose coverage they did not understand, seven insurance companies agreed to stop marketing private Medicare plans temporarily. Nevertheless, there is still much confusion disguised as "choice."

Consumer "buy-in": This phrase, used to justify greater cost-sharing, assumes that paying out-of-pocket will make consumers more aware of the costs of health care, thereby making them more prudent consumers. Additionally, "buying in" is intended to reinforce their role as stakeholders in the delivery of care. The problem is that this makes consumers responsible for deciding their spending priorities (most often with limited information), distinguishing between needed and unneeded care, and unbundling complementary services that work only as a package.
Cost-sharing has more of an adverse effect on those in poor health. It promotes delays or decreases in health care, resulting in adverse health outcomes. A 1999 study on the burden of Medicaid drug copayments found that elderly and disabled Medicaid recipients who resided in states which required copays had significantly lower rates of drug use than their counterparts in states without copayments. The main effect of the copay was to reduce the likelihood that Medicaid recipients would fill any prescription during the year, and the burden fell disproportionately on the ill. A more recent compilation of studies on cost-sharing and use of prescription drugs found that cost-sharing is associated with lower rates of drug treatment, lower adherence rates, and more frequent discontinuation of therapy. Moreover, for patients with certain conditions (e.g., congestive heart failure, diabetes, schizophrenia), higher cost-sharing ultimately results in more use of medical services, thereby offsetting any savings accrued from lower drug expenditures.
Cost-sharing also affects providers who serve low-income patients. Providers are placed in the uncomfortable position of charging those they know cannot afford to pay, or assuming a financial loss for care to the poor.

Consumer-driven health care: This term characterizes health schemes that give greater responsibility to patients for the costs of their health care. Usually, this takes the form of higher co-pays or deductibles, which are intended to make the consumer more cost-conscious. These high-deductible plans are often paired with health savings accounts (https://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=73health_savings_accounts).
High-deductible plans have a number of perverse effects. Because they pay for high-ticket items rather than for more basic services (e.g., amputations rather than visits to podiatrists), they distort the supply and demand of care. In addition, cost-sharing can raise barriers to care, which in turn lead to late or no services (see also Health savings accounts (https://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=73health_savings_accounts)). Moreover, high deductibles tend to have a differential impact on women, who have a greater need for preventive services, not all of which may be covered. A recent study compared out-of-pocket expenditures for maternity care under five different plans, four of which had high deductibles. The researchers found "tremendous variation" in the financial burdens the plans impose, and concluded that "women and families could be left with thousands of dollars of expenses from maternity care even with an uncomplicated birth, resulting from the high deductibles and cost sharing requirements in these plans."
Cost containment: Because many politicians, researchers, and analysts agree that much medical care is ineffectual or inappropriate, cries for cost containment come from a variety of sectors and result in strange bedfellows. Conservatives favor cost-containment measures as a way of shrinking the public sector and unleashing market forces. More politically progressive segments of the population consider cost containment a tool to better monitor health care, avoid unnecessary services, and free up resources that can then be used to cover more persons or broaden the scope of services provided. Because many disparate and even conflicting measures fall under the rubric of "cost-containment," it is best to ask Cui bono? (To whose benefit?) when assessing these strategies.
Cost-containment strategies also differ in terms of their target: some are aimed at consumers, others at providers. Those that seek to seek to modify consumer behavior try to reduce consumption of services (see Consumer-driven care (https://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=73consumer_driven)). Others address physician behavior by reimbursing them for certain outcomes rather than the number of services they provide. At present, for example, Medicare is carrying out an experiment which rewards doctors "for the quality of care they deliver rather than how many tests and procedures they perform." The idea is to provide financial incentives to encourage doctors to help patients avoid costly hospital stays or emergency care through more timely monitoring of conditions and better coordination of services. Of 10 physician groups taking part in the experiment, which is still in process, all improved care for patients during the first year, but only two earned bonus payments because of monies saved. It is therefore unclear if the financial incentives work or not. Remaining issues include the fact that physicians were uncertain as to what they had done to generate savings, and rewards went to organizations rather than to the individual doctors.
Disease management: Under most health systems, a small fraction of those covered account for a large share of all costs. Thus, for example, 4 percent of Medicaid enrollees consume half of all Medicaid expenditures. Similarly, a survey among a group of large employers found that 72 percent of workers and their families accounted for only 11 percent of employer health-care expenditures annually, while the top 4 percent of users represented 49 percent of total employer costs. Program administrators are therefore eager to make a dent in the demand from those "high users" in order to reduce their disproportionate expenditures on this fraction of their enrollees. "Disease management" has been proposed as a tool to do this, and many providers are experimenting with ways to manage those with specific diagnoses or who are frail or have multiple chronic conditions. The aim is to improve health and prevent disability as well as to keep costs in check.
Because of its potential, disease management has become somewhat of a growth industry, and established plans have incorporated disease-management efforts within their offerings. At the same time, for-profit companies have sprung up to sell their services to employers and health plans who want to keep their employees healthy and their medical costs down. As self-contained entities separate from health care, these companies promote patient education and more effective self-management through phone calls and the internet. In 2005, two-thirds of employers with staffs of 200 or more offered disease management as part of their job-based insurance plans; more than 20 states have some kind of disease management for their Medicaid enrollees.
There is growing interest in assessing the efficiency and efficacy of these programs, and several studies have focused on whether or not they improve health and lower costs. Studies looking at disease-management initiatives in the Group Health Cooperative in Seattle and in the Kaiser Permanente program in Northern California found that quality of care improved, but there were no cost savings. A current, ongoing study by Mathematica Policy Research is testing whether disease management can lower costs and improve patient outcomes and well-being in the Medicare fee-for-service population. To date, the researchers have found that, while both patients and physicians are very satisfied with the efforts, few programs have had any detectable effects on patients' behavior or the use of Medicare services. Only one program had statistically significant reductions in hospitalization, and none reduced costs. The available data therefore suggest that, whatever the benefits of disease management on patients' health, they do not necessarily translate into savings.
Electronic health records, other IT Technology: Digital patient records provide a way to store a person's medical history, including chronic conditions, test results, prescriptions, contraindications, diagnoses, procedures, and physicians' comments. Some "smart cards" can hold the equivalent of 30 pages of medical records. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has called this technology "the most important thing happening in health care." EHRs have also received the blessing of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and former Republican leaders Bill Frist and Newt Gingrich. What is it about EHRs that unites otherwise political opponents? Undoubtedly, the promise of easily portable, complete information that can be shared, searched, and analyzed is appealing to researchers and decision-makers alike.
Nevertheless, the changing dynamics triggered by this technology could have unexpected costs. While a RAND Corporation study found that EHRs could reduce errors and save about $80 million a year, other experts caution against overstating the cost-saving aspects of the electronic record. As economist David Cutler has pointed out, "there is money to be saved, but it is not going to be cheap." Even cost-saving products require an upfront investment, and EHRs will achieve their payoff only over the long-term, if at all. Physicians in solo practice or in small groups may find it prohibitive to shift to EHRs without passing on the costs to consumers. While efficiency may be seen as socially desirable, many individual providers will lack the financial motivation to streamline and upgrade their practices. Another potential inflationary effect of the electronic technology is that better information may lead to more care for more people, and create a demand for given drugs in small markets.
Moreover, some experts feel that too much emphasis is being put on the "technological fix" that EHRs and other health-related IT represent, and that we should not be lulled into thinking that that is a substitute for real reform in how care is delivered and paid for. In short, while health information technology has the potential to improve quality; reduce the costs associated with inappropriate care and medical errors; and boost administrative efficiency, information-sharing, and decision support, it is not a panacea for the system overall.
Health savings accounts (HSAs): This mechanism, ostensibly aimed at encouraging the uninsured to acquire coverage, allows those who buy high-deductible plans to deposit money, tax-free, into savings accounts that can be used to pay medical bills. If you don't spend the money in the account, you get to keep it. This 'solution' has been touted by the Bush administration as a tool to address the dwindling number of persons who have employer-sponsored health coverage. This proposal was best described by Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central: "It's so simple. Most people who can't afford health insurance also are too poor to owe taxes. But if you give them a deduction from the taxes they don't owe, they can use the money they're not getting back from what they haven't given to buy the health care they can't afford."
These accounts benefit mainly the more affluent segments of the population, who have more to gain from tax breaks. Moreover, HSAs encourage the healthy and the wealthy to drop out of company health plans, further undermining the weakened system of job-related coverage by depriving the insured pool of those who are at less risk for illness and high-cost care.
Incrementalism: This refers to any policy that proceeds gradually in stages, usually by covering a growing group of people or an expanding array of services.
Many national health plans began as incremental efforts: some covered only workers in certain occupations, gradually expanding coverage to cover the entire labor force and then the rest of the population. When the US enacted Medicare and Medicaid, some expected that this would be the first step in achieving universal coverage. And when Medicare was extended to cover those with end-stage renal disease in 1972, there was some discussion concerning whether the US would be the first country to provide universal coverage on a disease-by-disease basis.
Incremental change has been hailed as "the American way" of addressing health care. Some have proposed covering children first and having them age into an expanding system. Others have suggested that progress is more likely to proceed on a state-by-state basis. In addition to creating a patchwork of systems that stop at state boundaries, the latter option will exacerbate existing geographical disparities. Moreover, state programs are relatively impotent to make the changes that are necessary to cover everyone and control costs. Only a national program will have the leverage to do this, and only a national program will give meaning to the concepts of "one nation," equal opportunity, and equal protection.

Individual mandate: This refers to a state requirement that all residents buy health coverage or face financial penalties, and is similar to the requirement that all licensed drivers have car insurance. In 2006 Massachusetts became the first state enacting legislation mandating such coverage. Other states, however, are considering similar legislation. Passed with surprising bipartisan support, the Massachusetts law requires all uninsured persons within the state to buy coverage by July 1, 2007. [All businesses with more than 10 employees that do not provide insurance are also mandated to contribute up to $295 per employee per year to the state (see Pay or play (https://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=73pay_or_play))]. The legislation stipulates that individuals who do not comply with the insurance requirement lose their personal tax exemption; furthermore, they face fines for each month that they are uninsured. There is one loophole, however: no one is compelled to buy insurance if he or she cannot find affordable coverage. Initially, the state did not define what "affordable" meant. But subsequent research has defined the upper bound of affordability at 8.5 percent of income, which is what middle-income people pay for health insurance, including cost sharing. This loophole in effect exempts a sizeable fraction of the uninsured – 20 percent – from the mandate, thereby excluding them from coverage. At present, enrollment of those previously uninsured has been lagging. Because almost half of the uninsured in Massachusetts are single males, the state has enlisted the Boston Red Sox in its publicity campaign, thereby stressing the need for Massachusetts' residents to "get in the game."

Market-driven solutions: These solutions seek to transfer to consumers the monies now spent on their behalf for the purchase of health care. Those who favor this approach argue that the health sector has much to learn from other sectors of the economy, and that following the lead of other manufacturing and service industries will produce the "quick, courteous, consistent, low-cost service" that has made the US globally competitive in other markets. Yet, even some who are pro-market concede that health care is the part of the public sector where market forces have had the most limited success, largely because of distorted incentives and information failures. In addition, most often it is doctors rather than patients that decide what care is needed, and how much of it. Indeed, it is estimated that physicians control over 80 percent of health care spending on hospital care, prescriptions, nursing home, testing, and their own services.
Paul Krugman has succinctly pointed out that the health care insurance market does not work because of three things: risk, selection, and social justice. "Risk" refers to the fact that, in any given year, only a small part of the population will incur major medical costs. Those who happen to be at high risk need good insurance if they are not to go bankrupt. But the insurance business is market-driven to cover only the healthy, pay out as little as possible for health care, and raise prices for the unhealthy. It therefore selects the "better risks" that will place fewer demands on the health system and cost less. "Social justice" refers to the widely held value that no one should be denied care because they can't afford it. So government subsidizes a growing proportion of health care, although the US does this imperfectly, in a far-from-transparent way, and, most often, grudgingly.
Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele describe the problem as follows:
The market functions wonderfully when we want to sell more cereals, cosmetics, cars, computers, or any other consumer product. Unfortunately, it does not work in health care, where the goal should hardly be selling more heart bypass operations. Instead, the goal should be to prevent disease and illness. But the money is in the treatment – not prevention – so the market and good care are at odds.
Medicare-for-all: describes a national health system which covers everyone through single-payer financing. This proposal builds on the foundations of the program enacted 42 years ago and therefore capitalizes on the familiarity and popularity of the current Medicare. Moreover, Medicare is run much more efficiently than private insurance plans: it operates with less than 5 percent overhead, compared with the 15-30 percent dedicated to administration and profits in commercial health insurance plans. This would fundamentally change the way in which care is provided and paid for by getting businesses out of health care altogether. As Ezekiel Emanuel and Victor Fuchs have stated in their support of this option, "Health care is not part of core competencies but something they use as part of their labor relations. It creates job lock and distorts employers' hiring and firing decisions."
Our hesitation about Medicare-for-all – and the reason we prefer a single-payer program (see Single payer (https://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=73single_payer)) – is that Medicare has now started moving toward the inclusion of for-profit HMO's as one option for patients, diluting the single-payer effect.

[B]"Pay or play": refers to proposals adopted or under consideration by states that require businesses to provide workers health insurance ('play'), or pay into a government fund that will do it for them. The latter is most often called a Fair Share Health Care Fund. In some states, the legislation has been limited to very large employers (e.g., those with 10,000 employees or more); but other states (e.g., Massachusetts) have cast a broader net in an attempt to cover more of the uninsured. The proposal has elicited a variety of responses from different interests, and there are conflicting opinions even within the business community. While some employers regard "pay or play" as an ideologically offensive mandate, others see it as a way to protect their own interests. The latter are those who cover their employees but are undercut by competitors who have lower labor costs because they do not provide health insurance to their workers.

Single payer: describes a financial system in which one entity acts as single administrator, collecting all health bills and paying out all health care costs. This would streamline administration, eliminating the complexity of having thousands of intermediaries with different billing systems, forms, and requirements. A single-non-profit plan is based on the original concept of insurance: creating a large buying pool to spread the financial risk of sickness so that no one faces a crisis when a health need strikes. The public agency would negotiate and pay the bills, exerting the leverage provided by being a powerful buyer to control costs and insure quality control. It would not employ providers or own health care facilities. At present, both traditional Medicare and the Veterans Health Administration operate as single payers, thereby cutting their administrative expenses. Single payer systems have been praised not only for their managerial simplicity but also for serving as "the ideal vehicle for implementing an egalitarian social ethic."

Universal coverage: means that everyone is covered. Few proposals accomplish this. But calling plans "near universal" or "quasi-universal" is a contradiction in terms.





http://www.worstpills.org

[PreTTy PeTe]

Here's a video that illustrates my points in earlier posts about the flaws in the Canadian health care system. My family has suffered similar problems with the decline in health care availability since they went to universal health care.
I want universal health care in the U.S., but we have to be sure to have a system that is better than what is in place in Canada. We need checks and balances to be sure the system is accountable for providing a high standard of care.

to everyone who complains about our system, i just have to tell you to relax because the canadian health care system works.

i just spent 15 days in the hospital because of a seizure, a brain bleed and a fall.
everything i needed was given to me including an MRI that i got in 5 days. and other tests that were needed. no charge

now that i'm home they sent me an occupational therapist everyday for 2 weeks. no charge.

the only bill i got was for the ambulance which is $240 but the i pay only $45 .

the second time the system was a life saver for me

[metta]

to everyone who complains about our system, i just have to tell you to relax because the canadian health care system works.

i just spent 15 days in the hospital because of a seizure, a brain bleed and a fall.
everything i needed was given to me including an MRI that i got in 5 days. and other tests that were needed. no charge

now that i'm home they sent me an occupational therapist everyday for 2 weeks. no charge.

the only bill i got was for the ambulance which is $240 but the i pay only $45 .

the second time the system was a life saver for me

:eek: I'm so glad that your ok PreTTy PeTe (*8*):kiss:

[Kulindahr]

[begin:soapbox:]
First, no private insurance company is large enough or powerful enough to command a more reasonable cost for treatment. The only "insurance" that comes close to it is Medicare/Medicaid - government programs. They can and DO dictate to ALL providers what charges will be. And providers sqeal like a pig under a gate about it.


Sorry, but quite a number of private companies are large and powerful enough to command a "reasonable cost for treatment". Blue Cross is one, Aetna is one, and there are others. My recent accident that almost cost me a thumb ran up a hospital bill, from ER to follow-up, around $12,000. My insurance slashed that to just under $10,000, applying its "maximum allowable" figures to almost everything on the list.
Who's my insurance company? Concordia Health Plan. How can they have such clout? Easy: the plan is administered through Blue Cross, which applies its clout on behalf of all the smaller plans which choose to be administered through it.


Fourth, those opposed to the single-payer system say that if you take away the profit motive for development of new treatments, such developments will stop and new treatments won't be found. I don't agree. There are plenty of scientists and researchers who do their job for the thrill of the hunt and the sense of personal satisfaction that comes with discovery. I don't think Thomas Edison was sitting in his lab in New Jersey imagining how rich he'd be when he developed the light bulb, or the phonograph; nor Alexander Graham Bell when he developed the telephone, nor Louis Pasteur when he developed the process that bears his name. Besides, take all the researchers who work for private companies and put them to work at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and public universities - which BTW is where MOST medical research is done now anyway.


Thomas Edison didn't needed hundreds of millions in funding to develop his inventions. Sure, there are scientists who will do the research -- but who will fund them?


Finally, there is a moral contradiction, IMO, with considering healthcare as a marketable commodity. Isn't withholding treatment from a sick or dying person somewhere up there with battery and murder? Instead of sins of COmmission, these are sins of Omission. Our system turns its back on the sick and suffering every day for no sin greater than being poor. Instead we choose to throw good money after bad into frivolous and despicably wasteful things like "The Bridge to Nowhere" and Iraq.


There's another moral contradiction: when does it become morally acceptable to point a gun at someone and require them to pay for someone else's care? That's what's going on when the system is funded by taxes.
I don't deny the faults of a system that penalizes the poor for being poor -- I suffer for being poor on a regular basis. But coercion is immoral whether by a meth addict in an alley or a man in a government office.


all it's going to take to defeat that, or any other bill like it in this country, is to make a few commercials about how "illegal aliens" are going to jump across the border to take advantage of the new system.

Well, that's a valid complaint. It's too bad we can't bill the Mexican government for services to their citizens invading us.

Yes things are as bad as they seem. It is time to overhaul the system.

Things both are and aren't as bad. A lot of it depends on who's running the hospital. A friend here had a work injury, and no insurance, and discovered that anyone with an income under 150% of the federal poverty level can basically get free care. How? Because it's a church-run hospital.

[Boogerqueesha]

Hey guys.

Some of us here use facts to support our opinions... that's not the right way to do things, though. Please, make an effort to construct your opinions AFTER you look at the facts, rather than finding facts to bolster your opinion. The former will lead you to truth, whereas even the most petty of simpletons can do the latter.

Patriotism in its pure form is debatably acceptable, but blind patriotism is just plain sad. Here's a lovely free documentaries site, with sicko in it. Watch some, and if you appreciate what they're doing, donate!

http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=133

Sometimes, you have to be wrong in order to be right ;)

[andysayshi]

Thomas Edison didn't needed hundreds of millions in funding to develop his inventions. Sure, there are scientists who will do the research -- but who will fund them?

Universal Health Care doesn't negate the incentive for R&D by private companies. Pharmaceutical companies still develop and sell their drugs, the payment just travels a different route. Instead of

Sick Person -> Insurance Co. -> Pharmaceutical Co,

it's Sick Person -> Government NHS -> Pharmaceutical Co.

One way or the other, the community still pays for the medicine, and companies will continue to make those medicines.



There's another moral contradiction: when does it become morally acceptable to point a gun at someone and require them to pay for someone else's care? That's what's going on when the system is funded by taxes.
I don't deny the faults of a system that penalizes the poor for being poor -- I suffer for being poor on a regular basis. But coercion is immoral whether by a meth addict in an alley or a man in a government office.


What you call "pointing a gun" I call social responsibility. We are all human beings. We all have an ethical and moral responsibility to ensure ALL human beings are treated with the same dignity and respect that we would hope for ourselves. In Australia, a flat percentage of everyone's wage is taken to fund our health system, and I don't resent it in the slightest.



Well, that's a valid complaint. It's too bad we can't bill the Mexican government for services to their citizens invading us.

Perhaps Canada could just bill Mexico, to compensate them for the US citizens who travel to Canada for healthcare.


Things both are and aren't as bad. A lot of it depends on who's running the hospital. A friend here had a work injury, and no insurance, and discovered that anyone with an income under 150% of the federal poverty level can basically get free care. How? Because it's a church-run hospital.

And, of course, churches are funded by their own communities. Why not expand the system to a National community-funded Health Service?

[Kulindahr]

I know someone who had a premature baby and had she not had good insurance she would have had to pay nearly a million dollars by the time she was able to take her baby home.

:cry:
I was a member of Lutherans for Life once upon a time. A gal in the neighborhood was facing a premature delivery and leaning toward abortion 'cause she couldn't afford it.
Between our dollars and the pastor's persuasion, she got to have her kid and the hospital settled for a good deal less than the billed amounts.

I totally agree with you. That is one of the critical parts of the issue. The profit must be taken out of the equation. It is unethical for it to be there.

Unfortunately, profit is a motive that gets hospitals built. It's a motive that gets medical research, and medical equipment research, done.
You'd do better to require 1/3 of profits to go into an endowment fund, with proceeds used to cover people who can't pay.

health care is a right.
people should not die because they can''t afford heath care.

I'd be willing to grant that health care is a right if your affliction is something you couldn't possibly have avoided -- say, genetic.
It's too bad insurance coverage doesn't take responsibility into account, asking if a person took all sensible precautions.

Yes there is a price...he is right...despite how much health care costs in America...there is this idea that the more you pay the better care you get...we all know thats bullshit. Just because you pay more doesn't mean you get a better, more quality outcome.

In Hospital Deaths from Medical Errors at 195,000 per Year USA

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/11856.php

Good point -- the doctors who treated me when I almost lost my thumb didn't know whether I was a 'paying customer' or a charity case... and didn't care.

That medical error death rate just keeps climbing!
Worth noting: you're more likely to die of a medical error once you go to a hospital than you are from a gun shot if you encounter someone who's armed.

[Kulindahr]

No healthcare system is perfect, including the Canadian system. However, the results of the American system (life expectancy, infant mortality and other measures of health outcomes) are really not that great for how much we pay. Canadians or Britons may be on waiting lists for certain kinds of surgeries, but they live longer and pay less for healthcare.

I think the key there is that everyone can get basic healthcare without a problem. A friend who's a doctor and my doc also says that if everyone could just get basic care without worrying about cost, most of what comes into the office... wouldn't. And I know that if everyone got an annual physical, health care costs would plummet, since problems would be caught earlier.

My experiences with health care in the United States:

(1) For the first time, I've scheduled a colonoscopy. It's next week, but I began the effort to schedule it back in JUNE! Whoever says there's no waiting time in the U.S. is "full of it."

(2) More than likely the health insurance, which I am paying about $6000 per year for, will not pay for this test. The ONLY way that the insurance will pay for this test, is IF the colonoscopy discloses something which requires hospitalization or surgery. In other words, if it doesn't disclose something LIKE cancer, etc., I'll have to cover the cost on my own, and I believe it's around $2000 or more.

(3) If anything results in a prescription drug, it is not covered unless it's administered in a hospital.

(4) In 2003, when I had surgery, the total was around $25,000 and I had to pay far more than $10,000 of it by myself DESPITE my expensive insurance.

(5) As far as I can tell, no clinic visits are covered, for any reason. Not EVER.

What a totally fucked-up system! I can't believe how many people still think that our system beats the pants off the rest of the world. I would feel safer and more secure with healthcare in Cuba, Costa Rica, Argentina, Colombia, just about any European country (even Macedonia and Belarus?), etc.

Whoa.
My insurance doesn't cost that much, and my coverage is a LOT better! :eek:

[Kulindahr]

^ This shit pisses me off all to hell.

Dropping people because they're sick should be totally illegal, with hard prison time for all the people involved.

In my mind, this is tantamount to premeditated MURDER (or conspiracy to commit murder or grievous bodily harm, if the person survives).

I have a suggestion for situations like this:

The indemnity against the company in a case like this should go into a National Healthcare Endowment; principal would just sit there, income would go to provide basic healthcare to those of low incomes.

And bar the individuals involved from ever working in any career even resembling the position they held... ever. If they're convicted of crimes, make them register just like sex offenders.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=144312962&blogID=340269412

It amazes me how many people don't check to see what they're covered for -- and not just for, but how long. My actual insurance company farms things out, and every time they change provider companies I check all over again. Right now I hope they don't change again, because they're contracting to Blue Cross for the best level of coverage, and since I'm with them and not Blue Cross directly, I can't be cut.

The reality is that most people without health insurance can afford it, but choose not to buy it. Sure they complain they can't afford it, but drive new cars and keep Starbucks in business. I pay less than $5 per day for health insurance. About the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Given that most people who don't have health care are far younger then me, they would pay even less. For people in their 20's, it would probably be around $3 per day. This assumes that they take out insurance while they are healthy. If they wait until they have a major problem, the rates will be much higher and the major problem probably won't be covered at all.


I read a piece that said that most people without health care smoke. Between giving up smoking -- a smart thing, anyway -- and drinking water instead of pop or beer, I believe that most of those people could afford health insurance -- so you're probably right: they can afford it.


And, of course, churches are funded by their own communities. Why not expand the system to a National community-funded Health Service?

Sure -- if it's a choice.
See, in a free country, people get to choose to support such things. So if you want to make a flat-rate system to cover everyone who joins, go for it.

But your claim that "churches are funded by their own communities" is misleading: churches are funded by those who choose to fund them. I was going to say, "by their members", but not all members give, and sometimes those who aren't members give.

[Kulindahr]

One of the biggest problems with plans to provide health care is that people want to cover every thing at once.

It would be simple enough to provide one free physical and two free doctors visits per year to everyone. That alone would cut care costs immensely by catching things ealry, and covering small things before they become big things.

Yet there's a problem: if everyone could go to the doctor twice a year free, where are the doctors going to come from? We don't have that many!

And that points to an aspect of the problem almost never mentioned: healthcare in the United States is effectively a government-sponsored monopoly. Don't believe me? Think about this: how does one become a doctor? Well, a person goes to medical school. Which medical school? The answer to that is simple: one certified by the American Medical Association.
See, if you want to be a doctor in the U.S., you have to go to a school with the imprimatur of the American Medical Association, and earn your own imprimatur. What that means at root is that the AMA decides how many doctors we'll have, because not only do they approve only so many medical schools, they tell those schools how many students they can take.
If we're going to overhaul the healthcare system, busting that monopoly would be a good place to start.

[Boogerqueesha]

:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::help::help::help:

My dad has to turn off the television set every time health care debates show up on American television. Doctors can only take so much of this horrible dynamic, you know- the ugliness of business infecting one of the most caring, giving professions in existence.

My grandfather, also a doctor, lives in Canada. He, thankfully, doesn't have that insanity to deal with. With their health failing, my grandparents don't DARE visit us here in the USA. Not because they can't afford health care here, but because they're rightfully fearful of our ailing system.

Governments should provide two things, and two things only.

LIFE..|..|..|..|..| through health care, first and foremost.
and Liberty, by stopping bigots from harming you (and you from harming them).

It's shocking, how we Americans, previously the most independent of peoples, have fallen to having the tiniest aspects our lives dictated by government... a government that fails in its duty to PRESERVE OUR LIVES.

Kulindahr, sometimes it seems to me as if you develop your opinions with the sole purpose of being contrary to those of us latte liberals. Issue after issue, sheesh! So outspoken, too. Out of the most benevolent of curiosities, might you be one of them log cabin republicans?

[metta]

:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::help::help::help:

My dad has to turn off the television set every time health care debates show up on American television. Doctors can only take so much of this horrible dynamic, you know- the ugliness of business infecting one of the most caring, giving professions in existence.



Yes, I come from a long line of doctors in my family and my father did not encourage me to become one for this very reason. He has been gone for more than 20 years now, but he told me when I was a teenager, that he saw things changing and the focus was not on quality care. It was more about the money. And, at least to my family, that is not what makes health care a rewarding career. I find it very sad to hear how some doctors today, even if it is a minority of them, go into it just because of the money.

[metta]

An Open Letter To The Candidates
On Single Payer Health Reform

America's health care system is failing. It denies care to many in need and is expensive, error-prone, and increasingly bureaucratic. The misfortune of illness is often amplified by financial ruin. Despite abundant medical resources, care is often inadequate because of the irrationality of our insurance system. Yet our political leaders seem intent on reprising failed schemes from the past, rejecting the single payer national health insurance model that is the sole hope for affordable, comprehensive coverage.

Leading Republicans propose tax incentives to encourage the uninsured to buy coverage, but these subsidies fall far short of the cost of adequate insurance. For cost control, they suggest high co-payments and deductibles. Yet these selectively burden the sick and poor, discourage preventive and primary care, and have little effect on costs, since seriously ill patients - who account for most health spending - quickly exceed their deductibles and are in no position to forego expensive care.
The incremental changes suggested by most Democrats cannot solve our problems; further pursuit of market-based strategies, as advocated by Republicans, will exacerbate them. What needs to be changed is the system itself.

Most leading Democrats offer a mandate model for reform. Under this model, the government would require people (or their employers) to buy private coverage, while offering an expanded Medicaid-like program for the poor and near-poor.

Variants of the mandate model, first proposed by Richard Nixon, were passed with great fanfare in Massachusetts (1988), Oregon (1989) and Washington State (1993). All died quiet deaths. As costs soared, legislators backed off from enforcing the mandates or funding new coverage for the poor. Massachusetts' recent reform, which largely excuses employers from the mandate but imposes steep fines on the uninsured, appears poised to follow a similar path. Of the middle-income uninsured who are required to pay the full premium for coverage, few have signed up. Meanwhile, the state has already announced a $147 million shortfall in funding for subsidies for the poor.

Mandates and tax incentives can add coverage only by increasing costs. They augment the role (and profits) of private insurers, whose overhead is four times Medicare's, and whose efforts to avoid payment impose a costly paperwork burden on doctors and hospitals. The cost cutting measures often appended to such reforms - computerization, care management and medical prevention - have repeatedly failed to yield savings.

In contrast, single payer reform could realize administrative savings of more than $300 billion annually - enough to cover the uninsured, and to eliminate co-payments and deductibles for all Americans. It would also slow cost increases by fostering coordination and planning.

Political calculus favors mandates or tax incentives, which accommodate insurers, drug firms and other medical entrepreneurs. But such reforms are economically wasteful and medically dangerous. The incremental changes suggested by most Democrats cannot solve our problems; further pursuit of market-based strategies, as advocated by Republicans, will exacerbate them. What needs to be changed is the system itself.

We urge our political leaders to stand up for the health of the American people and implement a non-profit, single payer national health insurance system.

Yours truly,
Quentin Young, M.D.
PNHP National Coordinator



http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=144312962&blogID=362512617

[metta]

I think that this explains why the US health care system is the way that it is...

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/256.0/popup/index.php?cl=7112628 (http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/256.0/popup/index.php?cl=7112628)


:(

[frankfrank]

When the medical system rations diagnostic tests: (altered to reflect gay content LOL)

The phone rings and a man answers, "Hello."

"Mr. Mason, please."

"Speaking."

"This is Doctor Jones at the Medical Testing Laboratory.
When your doctor sent your mate's biopsy to the lab yesterday, a biopsy
from another Mr. Ward arrived as well, and we are now uncertain which one is
your mate's. Frankly the results are either bad or terrible."

"What do you mean?" the man asks nervously.

"Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the other
one tested positive for AIDS. We can't tell which are your mate's."
"That's dreadful! Can't you do the test again?" questioned Mr. Mason.

"Normally we can, but Medicare will only pay for these expensive tests one
time. The people at Medicare recommend that you drop your mate off
somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with
him."

[metta]

Lifeline (javascript:void(window.open('http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/ynews?ch=4227541&cl=7612301&lang=en','playerWindow','width=793,height=608,scro llbars=no'));)

Forty-seven million Americans have no health insurance. Millions more are underinsured, unable to pay their deductibles or get access to dental care. Here's the story of Remote Area Medical, a charity founded by Stan Brock that was originally designed to bring doctors and medicine into the jungles of the Amazon. But these days RAM finds itself doing much of its business in the U.S. Scott Pelley spent a weekend in Knoxville, Tennessee taking a look at RAM in action.


http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/163/lifeline

[marleyisalegend]

an ex-boyfriend punched me in my left eye a few years back and knocked a plate out of place. since i can't afford surgey to fix it i'm probably going to be blind by 35. i think america is overcome with a sick sense of i-want-everything-and-i-want-it-now. our expectations are sky-high because we're spoiled. at the same time, look at medical accomplishments of yesteryear compared to now. with limited means and limited resources, old-school scientists discovered bacteria, the solar system, countless vaccines and cures, yet if you watch medical news in more recent years the breakthroughs seem to be fewer and fewer. are you telling me that as far as we've come with technology we can't fix anything?? call me a conspiricist or whatever but i believe scientists are spending less time looking for a cure for aids because there's too much money made on drugs that just get you by, make you comfortable numb. i'm not just talking about aids, i'm talking about any condition. an obvious angle is that more money is made on medicine, LOTS of money is lost on cures, if we cure everything, how are the doctors and insurance agents going to afford their million dollar mortages and how will they pay for their children's future years in private school?? the problem in the US is there is a widening gap in class. soon there will be no middle class, simply lower class VS. millionaires. guess who's gonna get the best coverage

[frankfrank]

BUMP, as promised.

Similarly, the thread What's the point of a 'free' health system... is worth reading...

[metta]

Survey Shows Nearly 1 in 4 Gay Americans Lack Health Insurance

The study also revealed that gays and lesbians are almost twice as likely to have no health insurance coverage as their heterosexual counterparts.

http://www.realjock.com/article/1120

[metta]

Paying More, Getting Less

How much is the sick U.S. health care system costing you?

By Joel A. Harrison
http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2008/0508harrison.html (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZG9sbGFyc2FuZHNlbnNlLm9yZy9hcmNoaXZlcy 8yMDA4LzA1MDhoYXJyaXNvbi5odG1s)

By any measure, the United States spends an enormous amount of money on health care. Here are a few of those measures. Last year, U.S. health care spending exceeded 16% of the nation's GDP. To put U.S. spending into perspective: the United States spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in 2004, while Canada spent 9.9%, France 10.7%, Germany 10.9%, Sweden 9.1%, and the United Kingdom 8.7%. Or consider per capita spending: the United States spent $6,037 per person in 2004, compared to Canada at $3,161, France at $3,191, Germany at $3,169, and the U.K. at $2,560.



more than 60% of the $2 trillion annual U.S. health care bill is paid through taxes

All told, then, tax dollars already pay for at least $1.2 trillion in annual U.S. health care expenses. Since federal, state, and local governments collect about $3.48 trillion annually in taxes of all kinds—income, sales, property, corporate—that means that more than one third (34.4%) of the aggregate tax revenues collected in the United States go to pay for health care.

a family with an annual income of $50,000 that has no health insurance nonetheless contributes nearly 10% of its income to health care merely by paying typical income, payroll, sales, excise, and other taxes. A person who earns about $25,000 a year and has no health coverage already contributes over $2,400 a year to the system—enough for a healthy young adult to purchase a year's worth of health insurance.


Americans spend more than anyone else in the world on health care. Each health insurer adds its bureaucracy, profits, high corporate salaries, advertising, and sales commissions to the actual cost of providing care. Not only is this money lost to health care, but it pays for a system that often makes it more difficult and complicated to receive the care we've already paid for. Shareholders are the primary clients of for-profit insurance companies, not patients. Moreover, households' actual costs as a percentage of their incomes are far higher today than most imagine. Even families with no health insurance contribute substantially to our health care system through taxes. Recognizing these hidden costs that U.S. households pay for health care today makes it far easier to see how a universal single-payer system—with all of its obvious advantages—can cost most Americans less than the one we have today.

[Unclean]

The American economy is an economy of leeches.
For every American who actually does productive work, designing or building a product or delivering it to people who need it, there are a host of leeches who don't produce any tangible good in the society, they just live off the work of others.
And the leeches have their own leeches. Even the leeches' leeches have leeches.

[drhladnjak]

A few years ago, I saw a talk where the speaker noted that the amount of money spent in California by the health insurance industry on advertising equaled the cost of the premiums for people in California who were currently uninsured.

Similarly, Medicare shoulders a surprisingly large chunk of the cost of healthcare in this country, mainly because the elderly need a lot more care than everybody else already. It's kind of ridiculous how shrill the debate about a single payer government backed healthcare system is considering how we're quite close to that already with Medicare and Medicaid.

[metta]

Paying More, Getting Less

How much is the sick U.S. health care system costing you?

By Joel A. Harrison
(http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZG9sbGFyc2FuZHNlbnNlLm9yZy9hcmNoaXZlcy 8yMDA4LzA1MDhoYXJyaXNvbi5odG1s)



forgot the link...here it is...

http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2008/0508harrison.html (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZG9sbGFyc2FuZHNlbnNlLm9yZy9hcmNoaXZlcy 8yMDA4LzA1MDhoYXJyaXNvbi5odG1s)

[metta]

Coalition to lobby for health-care reform

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080708/pl_nm/healthcare_usa_dc;_ylt=Ant8wtqSF33ifNf4KocQ7o1Z.3Q A



A coalition of unions, think tanks and other groups launched an advertising campaign on Tuesday saying they want to ensure that health-care reform tops the U.S. political agenda after the November elections.



The new group says it wants to keep the best of what already exists, without moving to a fully nationalized system.

"Americans can keep the private insurance they have, join a new private insurance plan, or choose a public health insurance plan," the group said in a statement.

"The campaign also calls for a government role in setting and enforcing rules on the insurance industry which consistently charges whatever it wants, sets high deductibles, denies coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and drops coverage when people get sick."

[metta]

U.S. still flunks healthcare test, group says


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080717/ts_nm/healthcare_usa_dc;_ylt=AiL2XFRAVLP7eTnyo_Ygt6lZ.3Q A





The United States fails on most measures of health care quality, with Americans waiting longer to see doctors and more likely to die of preventable or treatable illnesses than people in other industrialized countries, a report released on Thursday said.
Americans squander money on wasteful administrative costs, illnesses caused by medical error and inefficient use of time, the report from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund concluded.
"We lead the world in spending. We should be expecting much more in return," Commonwealth Fund senior vice president Cathy Schoen told reporters.



Some 47 million Americans have no health insurance and another 28 million are underinsured.

[metta]

79 Million Americans Struggle to Pay Medical Bills



In 2007, 41 percent of working-age Americans -- 72 million people -- reported having medical bill problems or trouble paying off medical debts, up from 34 percent in 2005.

Another 7 million adults over 65 had similar problems, bringing the total to 79 million adults struggling to pay health-care bills, according to a new study from The Commonwealth Fund, Losing Ground: How the Loss of Adequate Health Insurance Is Burdening Working Families.






In 2007, nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults under 65 (116 million people) reported having problems with medical bills or debt, having put off needed care due to cost, or being uninsured or underinsured and consequently having high out-of-pocket medical costs relative to their income.
Although such problems were seen across the board, they were particularly pronounced among low- and moderate-income families. More than half of adults earning less than $40,000 annually reported problems paying medical bills or being in debt as a result of health care expenses.
Thirty-nine percent of people with mounting bills or debts said they had depleted their savings to pay off bills; 29 percent were having problems paying for food, heat, rent and other basic necessities; and 30 percent had accumulated credit card debt.
Many are also foregoing medical care, including medications: 45 percent of adults reported problems getting care because of rising costs (up from 29 percent in 2001).
One-third of respondents reported spending 10 percent or more of their income on medical costs, including premiums, in 2007, up from 21 percent in 2001.
About one-quarter of working-age adults with medical debt owe $4,000 or more while 12 percent owe $8,000 or more in medical expenses.
Twenty-eight percent of working-age U.S. adults (about 50 million people) were uninsured for at least part of 2007, up from 24 percent in 2001.
Fourteen percent of working-age adults (25 million people) were underinsured, up from 9 percent in 2003.
Sixty-one percent of those with medical bill problems or accumulated medical debt were insured at the time care was provided. "Even adults with insurance reported problems in getting needed care," Collins noted.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/79millionamericansstruggletopaymedicalbills;_ylt=A mmVXo7DK34OpovVa47xASIDW7oF

[metta]

Study: Workers to pay more for health care
59 percent of companies intend to keep down rising health care costs in 2009 by raising workers' deductibles, copays or out-of-pocket spending limits.



Between 2003 and 2007, the average deductible for an individual grew from $250 to $400. For a family, it rose from $1,000 to $1,500, according to Mercer.



47 percent of companies are encouraging enrollment in plans with lower premiums and higher deductibles.




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_on_bi_ge/pricier_health_care;_ylt=Ah53xyaW7202eNzMu3bfucda2 4cA

[metta]

Fewer US med students choosing primary care



Only 2 percent of graduating medical students say they plan to work in primary care internal medicine, raising worries about a looming shortage of the first-stop doctors who used to be the backbone of the American medical system.


Paperwork, the demands of the chronically sick and the need to bring work home are among the factors pushing young doctors away from careers in primary care, the survey found.
"I didn't want to fight the insurance companies," said Dr. Jason Shipman, 36, a radiology resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., who is carrying $150,000 in student debt.




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080909/ap_on_he_me/med_fewer_docs;_ylt=AkyEVc7TvnlmgodKzDv2W74DW7oF

[metta]

U.S. trails other nations in chronic illness care


Chronically ill Americans are more likely to forgo medical care because of high costs or experience medical errors than patients in other affluent countries, according to a study released on Thursday.





In addition, 41 percent of the U.S. patients said they spent more than $1,000 over the past year on out-of-pocket medical costs. That compared to lows of 4 percent in Britain and 5 percent in France.
A third of U.S. patients said they were given the wrong medication or dosage, experienced a medical error, received incorrect test results or faced delays in hearing about test results, more than any of the other countries.




http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081113/us_nm/us_healthcare_comparison_3

[metta]

Many doctors plan to quit or cut back: survey

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081118/ts_nm/us_doctors_usa_survey;_ylt=AuPI5YVRLrSAIxVWDqVd_Id Z.3QA





Primary care doctors in the United States feel overworked and nearly half plan to either cut back on how many patients they see or quit medicine entirely, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

And 60 percent of 12,000 general practice physicians found they would not recommend medicine as a career.

"The whole thing has spun out of control. I plan to retire early even though I still love seeing patients. The process has just become too burdensome," the Physicians' Foundation




Seventy six percent of physicians said they are working at "full capacity" or "overextended and overworked".

[metta]

How one family's mortgage is linked to meltdown



Cynthia Goldrick's daughter is in and out of the hospital for brain surgery, her mother has Stage 4 lung cancer and her father has moved into a home for the elderly.




http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081229/bs_nm/us_financial_family;_ylt=Aqhe_52FbhPD2kb2G5HLy.RZ. 3QA

[Ninja108]

I'll simply say this, more people go bankrupt over the cost of health care than any other reason. That alone should tell you something

[metta]

Health spending takes rising share of U.S. economy




Health spending will hit $2.5 trillion this year, devouring 17.6 percent of the economy, as the White House and Congress consider major changes to the healthcare system, U.S. government economists said on Tuesday.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS, forecast that the share of the economy devoted to health spending will jump a full percentage point from 2008. That would mark the biggest one-year increase recorded since the government began tracking the data in 1960.


Thanks to the recession, public health spending in programs such as the Medicaid program for the poor is ballooning, while private health insurance spending is slowing as more people lose employer-provided coverage, CMS reported.


"We project that the health share of the economy will increase steadily through 2018





http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090224/ts_nm/us_usa_health_spending;_ylt=AgwA.8vsLno_djkmh9feZx lZ.3QA

[metta]

mpI2aYknKR0

FRONTLINE investigates the failures of America's health care system in "Sick Around America," airing Tues, March 31 at 9 pm on PBS. (check local listings)




----------------------------------------------



A link to a movie: Our Ailing Healthcare:

http://www.ourailinghealthcare.com/

[metta]

^

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundamerica/

[metta]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhpUG4apgrE&feature=player_embedded




http://media.economist.com/images/20090627/CBB677.gif


http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13899647 (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13899647)



http://www.project.org/images/graphs/Life_Expectancy_1.jpg

[chillyboi]

have yet to see it