Michael Moore's New Movie "Sicko"

[anticonspiracy911]

According to the Loose Changers, Moore's new movie sounds more in sync with Loose Change. Now Alex Jones and Michael Moore can team together to create the ultimate delusional conspiracy movie! Wow, can you imagine how delusional the theaters would be seeing this movie plus Loose Change The Final Cut? I don't want lies at the movies, I want entertainment god dammit! Thoughts?

[jhunter1163]

Like most of Moore's work, "Sicko" is one-sided in the extreme and contains a great deal of opinion and speculation masquerading as fact.

That being said, I would say that socialized medicine in the US is inevitable. Employers will simply not be able to afford to provide health insurance at some point, and the federal (and likely state) governments will have to step in. I would say that by 2020, Medicare will be universal and more inclusive than it now is. We (we being the taxpaying public) won't like this at all, but there'll be no other option.

Randi can send me the million on January 1, 2020.

[TheDoLittle]

Randi can send me the million on January 1, 2020.

You do realize that $999,999.98 will have to go to the new government's socialized medical insurance program?


They leave you enough to give them your 2 cents worth...

[jhunter1163]

You do realize that $999,999.98 will have to go to the new government's socialized medical insurance program?


They leave you enough to give them your 2 cents worth...

Well, with inflation, by that time a Big Mac will probably cost eleven hundred dollars or so. A million bucks would maybe pay my phone bill for the month or something like that. I'd still take it though.

[Stellafane]

According to the Loose Changers, Moore's new movie sounds more in sync with Loose Change...

Perhaps. But according to Loose Changers, Kevin Smith and the South Park guys really like LC. So I'll personally reserve judgement until I can see for myself.

[Rolfe]

You do realize that $999,999.98 will have to go to the new government's socialized medical insurance program?
Why?

I know the NHS ain't perfect, but it delivers a helluva lot, and nobody has to fear bankruptcy because of medical bills.

And I still get to take home a nice slice of my gross salary, thankyouverymuch.

Rolfe.

[VanillaCone]

Perhaps. But according to Loose Changers, Kevin Smith and the South Park guys really like LC. So I'll personally reserve judgement until I can see for myself.


I could see Parker and Stone hanging out with Jones and Avery in order to surreptitiously record their voices for the inevitable South Park Loose Change parody. My plot prediction: Cartman sees how much attention Loose Change is getting on the Web, so he decides to make his own 9/11 conspiracy film complete with shocking (yet bogus) revelations. The title: "Loose Jews," in which he accuses Kyle and his parents of masterminding the attacks in order to turn American weapons on Islam. His "smoking gun" is a portrait of Bin Laden with Kyle and his parents crudely Photoshopped in to appear as if they are handing him a wad of money, a burning American flag, a picture of Jesus with the word "douchebag" written over it, and a naked JonBenet Ramsey. Kyle and the other kids laugh and ridicule Cartman for being so stupid as to include Ramsey, who had been dead for five years by Sept. 11, 2001, but Cartman gets the last laugh when Jones and Avery happily offer him $10,000 for the exclusive rights to his "courageous and important documentary." But then Jones and Avery hire a hitman to kill Cartman and take the money as payment. Cartman escapes death by using Kenny as a human shield, but the hitman absconds with the money, andthe close call teaches him an important lesson about the dangers of producing apocryphal conspiracy theory videos. The closing shot takes place six months in the future, when Jones and Avery are shown winning the Palm d'Or at Cannes for Cartman's movie.

[Oliver]

Like most of Moore's work, "Sicko" is one-sided in the extreme and contains a great deal of opinion and speculation masquerading as fact.

That being said, I would say that socialized medicine in the US is inevitable. Employers will simply not be able to afford to provide health insurance at some point, and the federal (and likely state) governments will have to step in. I would say that by 2020, Medicare will be universal and more inclusive than it now is. We (we being the taxpaying public) won't like this at all, but there'll be no other option.

Randi can send me the million on January 1, 2020.


I wonder if you actually saw the movie because "Single-Sided" is pretty far fetched if you consider the "Foreign" Systems he introduced - I guess to purposefully attack the arguments made by the critics of universal healthcare.

Now I agree that he didn't point out the weak points - but as he said: "Let's pick the best things from other universal health-care systems and built an American HCS based on these".

However - even if I'm not that familiar with the Canadian, the Cuban or the UHS/UK system, I didn't find any flaws concerning the French coverage. Nor do I have the impression that he lied at any point - in which case he would shoot into his own foot anyway.

So I have a hard time to consider "Sicko" as anything like a conspiracy theory. Quite the opposite - even if the German system is struggling since the reunion, I never would like to miss universal health care and I highly doubt anyone who lives in a UHC-System would state the opposite.

So what's the fuss about in the US? The Lobbies.
What's the single-sided coverage about? The Lobbies.

Here's the newest highlight of this undemocratic "Lobbying Fair and Balanced 'Public opinion building' ":

2c-JEx-Kfvc

[Brainache]

I haven't seen Sicko. I liked Bowling For Columbine. I haven't seen Farenheit 911.

What I don't understand is why people would object to universal health care. It might mean slightly higher taxes, but if it means saving lives, what's a few dollars?

I live in a country that has universal health care. Our right wing government seems hellbent on starving it of funds for purely ideological reasons, which to my way of thinking is just criminal.

The amount of money I paid towards health care while being single and earning over $60,000/year, was (roughly, from memory) about $600/year. Hardly enough to send me broke. That $600 means that if I fall over and break my leg, or have a heart attack, I will be treated at a public hospital and not be presented with a huge bill afterwards. It also means that my sick pensioner mother can get subsidised medicine etc etc. It is by no means a perfect system and sometimes people rip it off, but I prefer it to being at the mercy of private health insurers.

Can someone explain to me the advantages of the private system that the US is currently using? Because all I ever hear is horror stories.

[VanillaCone]

I haven't seen Sicko. I liked Bowling For Columbine. I haven't seen Farenheit 911.

What I don't understand is why people would object to universal health care. It might mean slightly higher taxes, but if it means saving lives, what's a few dollars?

I live in a country that has universal health care. Our right wing government seems hellbent on starving it of funds for purely ideological reasons, which to my way of thinking is just criminal.

The amount of money I paid towards health care while being single and earning over $60,000/year, was (roughly, from memory) about $600/year. Hardly enough to send me broke. That $600 means that if I fall over and break my leg, or have a heart attack, I will be treated at a public hospital and not be presented with a huge bill afterwards. It also means that my sick pensioner mother can get subsidised medicine etc etc. It is by no means a perfect system and sometimes people rip it off, but I prefer it to being at the mercy of private health insurers.

Can someone explain to me the advantages of the private system that the US is currently using? Because all I ever hear is horror stories.

Yikes. I am single, I work full-time at a white-collar job in the U.S, and I pay about $1,200 a year for health insurance with a $500 annual deductible and lots of co-pays, coverage limits, etc. The only hope I have is to never become seriously ill.

[boloboffin]

I could see Parker and Stone hanging out with Jones and Avery in order to surreptitiously record their voices for the inevitable South Park Loose Change parody. My plot prediction: Cartman sees how much attention Loose Change is getting on the Web, so he decides to make his own 9/11 conspiracy film complete with shocking (yet bogus) revelations. The title: "Loose Jews," in which he accuses Kyle and his parents of masterminding the attacks in order to turn American weapons on Islam. His "smoking gun" is a portrait of Bin Laden with Kyle and his parents crudely Photoshopped in to appear as if they are handing him a wad of money, a burning American flag, a picture of Jesus with the word "douchebag" written over it, and a naked JonBenet Ramsey. Kyle and the other kids laugh and ridicule Cartman for being so stupid as to include Ramsey, who had been dead for five years by Sept. 11, 2001, but Cartman gets the last laugh when Jones and Avery happily offer him $10,000 for the exclusive rights to his "courageous and important documentary." But then Jones and Avery hire a hitman to kill Cartman and take the money as payment. Cartman escapes death by using Kenny as a human shield, but the hitman absconds with the money, andthe close call teaches him an important lesson about the dangers of producing apocryphal conspiracy theory videos. The closing shot takes place six months in the future, when Jones and Avery are shown winning the Palm d'Or at Cannes for Cartman's movie.

They've already done it, and remarkably, your idea about Cartman blaming Kyle in a class presentation is right on. But then it morphs into a Hardly Boy episode.

[Brainache]

Yikes. I am single, I work full-time at a white-collar job in the U.S, and I pay about $1,200 a year for health insurance with a $500 annual deductible and lots of co-pays, coverage limits, etc. The only hope I have is to never become seriously ill.

That's what I don't get. Here we still have private health insurance and a lot of people go for it, but when they get sick they still end up paying extra.

A friend of mine had a baby using the private system and all went well. Afterwards she was presented with a bill for thousands of dollars. So next time she had a baby she decided to use the public system. She had the same doctor, same hospital and even the same room and level of care, but what she didn't get was a bill for thousands of dollars. It is totally baffling to me.

[VanillaCone]

They've already done it, and remarkably, your idea about Cartman blaming Kyle in a class presentation is right on. But then it morphs into a Hardly Boy episode.

I guess the blaming it on Kyle element was a no-brainer, huh? I'll have to keep an eye out for that episode.

[VanillaCone]

That's what I don't get. Here we still have private health insurance and a lot of people go for it, but when they get sick they still end up paying extra.

A friend of mine had a baby using the private system and all went well. Afterwards she was presented with a bill for thousands of dollars. So next time she had a baby she decided to use the public system. She had the same doctor, same hospital and even the same room and level of care, but what she didn't get was a bill for thousands of dollars. It is totally baffling to me.


Well, here in America we do still have one available option if we really want free health care. We can all join the military! :eek:

[Brainache]

I guess the blaming it on Kyle element was a no-brainer, huh? I'll have to keep an eye out for that episode.

It's called "The Mystery Of The Urinal Deuce" and it is very funny.

[Gurdur]

You do realize that $999,999.98 will have to go to the new government's socialized medical insurance program?
They leave you enough to give them your 2 cents worth...
You DO realise that socialized healthcare systems of the UK, Canada, most Western European countries, Australia, New Zealand etc. all provide around the same level of medical expertise as in the USA, but they cover their whole populations and not just less than 90% as in the USA, and most importantly, they do healthcare far cheaper than in the USA (http://www.heathen-hangout.com/forum1/showthread.php?t=7475)?

Hey, this is a skeptics' board, time to look at the facts (http://www.heathen-hangout.com/forum1/showthread.php?t=7475).

[SezMe]

Like most of Moore's work, "Sicko" is one-sided in the extreme and contains a great deal of opinion and speculation masquerading as fact.
Sure it was one-sided. He was presenting the issue from his perspective. What did you expect?

Can you remember any of the "great deal of opinion and speculation masquerading as fact" well enough to give some examples?

[Brainache]

Well, here in America we do still have one available option if we really want free health care. We can all join the military! :eek:

OMG! I knew there was a conspiracy in this thread somewhere. So the Gubmint wants everyone in the army so they can be ordered around and not protest. An entire population trained to kill and getting free health care is exactly what the evil NWO need to carry out their dastardly plans!!1!!!1!1!







Or something.

[Oliver]

I live in a country that has universal health care. Our right wing government seems hellbent on starving it of funds for purely ideological reasons, which to my way of thinking is just criminal.

The amount of money I paid towards health care while being single and earning over $60,000/year, was (roughly, from memory) about $600/year. Hardly enough to send me broke. That $600 means that if I fall over and break my leg, or have a heart attack, I will be treated at a public hospital and not be presented with a huge bill afterwards. It also means that my sick pensioner mother can get subsidised medicine etc etc. It is by no means a perfect system and sometimes people rip it off, but I prefer it to being at the mercy of private health insurers.

Can someone explain to me the advantages of the private system that the US is currently using? Because all I ever hear is horror stories.


There is no advantage. That's what many (non-sponsored) critics don't get within the issue. You really should take a look into the movie for an basic introduction how some "conditions" are "over there" - and in France, Canada, Cuba and the UK. And it's very entertaining to see the reactions of Americans - actually living in France - about the French system, or the heart-breaking reactions of the free health care for the 9/11 workers they receive in Cuba, for example.

I don't know about you, but I consider Universal Health Care and Universal Welfare as basic rights of my democracy.

I never would like to abolish them because you got that feeling of safety on your Hand if everything went wrong or something unforeseeable happens. This alone makes me wonder how fearful it must be to have no health care at all in the US. :covereyes

Do you feel the same about your UHC-System?

[Brainache]

There is no advantage. That's what many (non-sponsored) critics don't get within the issue. You really should take a look into the movie for an basic introduction how some "conditions" are "over there" - and in France, Canada, Cuba and the UK. And it's very entertaining to see the reactions of Americans - actually living in France - about the French system, or the heart-breaking reactions of the free health care for the 9/11 workers they receive in Cuba, for example.

I don't know about you, but I consider Universal Health Care and Universal Welfare as basic rights of my democracy.

I never would like to abolish them because you got that feeling of safety on your Hand if everything went wrong or something unforeseeable happens. This alone makes me wonder how fearful it must be to have no health care at all in the US. :covereyes

Do you feel the same about your UHC-System?

Yes I do Oliver. Which is why I have a big problem with the Howard government's attempts to cripple it.

Not just for myself, but for people less fortunate like the chronicly ill.

[Oliver]

Yes I do Oliver. Which is why I have a big problem with the Howard government's attempts to cripple it.

Not just for myself, but for people less fortunate like the chronicly ill.


Well, I noticed some "who gives a **** about those people, they should care for themselves, not me" -Attitude in the US, and I can't blame them because they have no idea and didn't grew up with UHC.

What are the reactions to these plans? I assume there is a huge outcry and makes the Howard government pretty unpopular, doesn't it?

[Brainache]

Well, I noticed some "who gives a **** about those people, they should care for themselves, not me" -Attitude in the US, and I can't blame them because they have no idea and didn't grew up with UHC.

What are the reactions to these plans? I assume there is a huge outcry and makes the Howard government pretty unpopular, doesn't it?

The Howard govt. is not overtly dismantling the system, they are just providing "incentives" for people to join private health funds and spending less money on the public system than they could be.

People from my side of politics (ie: The left) make a bit of noise about it, but people like my brother (ie:The right) have that "Every man for himself" type attitude.

There are as usual a lot of grey areas and no matter what happens not everyone will be happy. It's not the biggest issue here at the moment, people are yelling more about Howard's Industrial Relations policy and his sychophantic attitude towards GWB than anything else.

[MarkyX]

You DO realise that socialized healthcare systems of the UK, Canada, most Western European countries, Australia, New Zealand etc. all provide around the same level of medical expertise as in the USA, but they cover their whole populations and not just less than 90% as in the USA, and most importantly, they do healthcare far cheaper than in the USA (http://www.heathen-hangout.com/forum1/showthread.php?t=7475)?

Hey, this is a skeptics' board, time to look at the facts (http://www.heathen-hangout.com/forum1/showthread.php?t=7475).

Being a Canadian, I can politely point out the many flaws about universal healthcare in the great white north. It's a great system for those of us who hardly use the system, but people who need critical operations are often put in a waiting list, such as several weeks to even months, life-saving or not. I've read way too many stories on how elderly canadians who needed a surgery and decided to go down south to get it immediately instead of several months with a good chance of death. Also, if you have a rare disease or need a cure that is not authorized by the Ontario government, you will get screwed over in the end. If you want to get even a bit more political, our previous Prime Minister Paul Martin even went to a private doctor instead of a public one :eek:

I'm not sure how Universal Healthcare works in other countries, but it's crap up here.

[Oliver]

The Howard govt. is not overtly dismantling the system, they are just providing "incentives" for people to join private health funds and spending less money on the public system than they could be.

People from my side of politics (ie: The left) make a bit of noise about it, but people like my brother (ie:The right) have that "Every man for himself" type attitude.

There are as usual a lot of grey areas and no matter what happens not everyone will be happy. It's not the biggest issue here at the moment, people are yelling more about Howard's Industrial Relations policy and his sychophantic attitude towards GWB than anything else.


Then your political spectrum looks far more divided on this issue as I would have initially assumed. Probably the ones who change to the private health funds may support this system - but why should other people support it?

Over here we have limitations to change into a private health insurance, such as checking your pre-conditions and an income limit.

But all in all - according to your description, it looks like "The Prime Minister and his crowd" aren't very popular anyway. :D

[A W Smith]

health care in the US is broken. I pay $890 a month for an open market plan that was en extension of the cobra plan my wife had. My wife deals with all the fine print and argues with the insurance and docs about the needed referrals and in network health providers. I must tell you I consider myself very lucky to have this coverage because now at my age I am seeing many specialists to deal with the various problems I have had over the course of many years without coverage. I have not yet seen sicko but i did see Moore make the rounds on the talk shows and listened intently. One obvious and important point he made was that in countries with universal health care the population generally will go see a doctor for any sort of immediate symptom they may have and get checked out and if needed treated. In this country. The under insured and uninsured and even those with deductibles will avoid seeing a doctor unless they become very ill or their symptoms become unbearable. Which is what I did. Now I am generating monthly doctor, prescription and specialists bills that far exceed my monthly insurance bill. Just last week I got a CPAP machine for a COPD problem that was diagnosed during a sleep study I took last month. then theres the heart thing and all that but i wont go into it at the moment. Or the sinus polyps i had for 12 years that were so bad i became a mouth breather till two years ago. I believe had I had an affordable plan of universal coverage back years ago I wouldn't have these problems today. The health care system broke down beginning Feb 7, 1971 when John Erlichman suggests to then president Nixon a new for profit HMO system. (http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Moores_new_movie_traces_healthcare_crisis_0619.htm l) The fewer doctors patients see the more profit for the HMO and insurance industry. Since then the general populace had been brainwashed with the meme "socialized medicine" like its some bad evil empire thing.
from the World Health Organization (WHO) world health report in 2000: (http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/index.html)

The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18th. Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.

[SezMe]

I've read way too many stories on how elderly canadians who needed a surgery and decided to go down south to get it immediately instead of several months with a good chance of death.

But, MarkyX, that is one of the principle complaints about our system. If you've got the wherewithal to pay for it, you can get good care. If not, well then good care is a remote dream. Those Canucks who can afford to travel and stay here AND pay for the health care are not, IMO, the ones a good health care system should be designed for.

[Gurdur]

Being a Canadian, I can politely point out the many flaws about universal healthcare in the great white north. ...I'm not sure how Universal Healthcare works in other countries, but it's crap up here.
Perhaps. However on the stats Canada out-performs the USA.

In any case, I live somewhere where I simply cannot complain about the coverage itself, and never had problems with waiting lists.

BTW, on the subject of waiting lists, and myths associated with that, please see the thread I linked to before.

[MarkyX]

Perhaps. However on the stats Canada out-performs the USA.

In any case, I live somewhere where I simply cannot complain about the coverage itself, and never had problems with waiting lists.

BTW, on the subject of waiting lists, and myths associated with that, please see the thread I linked to before.

I'm not saying the concept of Universal Healthcare is a flop. I'm saying don't use Canada as some Utopia example of it.

[Rahne Everson]

Knowing how well the welfare system worked in the US, I'm really skeptical about a universal healthcare system actually working. However I'm willing to be wrong and the system certainly needs reform. All we need is a little imagination and proper motivation, and maybe we can crank out something that works with the society.

[gmanontario]

My brother-in-law in the US of A pays a lot per month for HMO coverage (Not sure how much) and he injured himself at work. He had a sliver of metal fly off a chisel and slash the side of his nose.

It wound up costing him about $1900 US out of his own pocket.

Now me here in Ontario, I injured myself at work by nearly breaking my spine falling off a truck (Don't ask!!). It cost me the grand total of nothing out of my pocket for surgery and a 4 month stay in the hospital. Plus I got the surgery 2 weeks after the accident.

Several years later I had cancer surgery and the only expense I had to pay was for an upgrade to a private room.

We calculated that if I was in the US the procedures would have been well over 150k out of my pocket on his plan.

I'll grant that the system ain't perfect, but you can get seriously ill or injured witout having to mortgage your kids to get care....

As far as I'm concerned, universal health care is a right for each and every citizen despite the tax load. The US system sucks.

ETA: Forgot to add I haven't seen Sicko yet, but I will when I can get the time.

[Brainache]

...

But all in all - according to your description, it looks like "The Prime Minister and his crowd" aren't very popular anyway. :D

Well he isn't doing too well in the popularity polls at the moment. He has been in office since 1996 and IMO has done more harm than good in those 11 years, but a lot of people keep voting for him. Why? I have NFI.

[Corsair 115]

Being a Canadian, I can politely point out the many flaws about universal healthcare in the great white north. It's a great system for those of us who hardly use the system, but people who need critical operations are often put in a waiting list, such as several weeks to even months, life-saving or not. I've read way too many stories on how elderly canadians who needed a surgery and decided to go down south to get it immediately instead of several months with a good chance of death. Also, if you have a rare disease or need a cure that is not authorized by the Ontario government, you will get screwed over in the end.Part of the cause behind those stories may be bureaucracy, red tape, and no one in the system having the wherewithal to initiate potential solutions.

There was a story on the CTV news tonight on that very subject. You can read it here (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070705/obesity_surgery_070705/20070707?hub=TopStories). The short version is that the Ontario government is sending patients needing bariatric surgery to the U.S. because there is a lack of facilities here to do the surgeries. But here's the kicker: it's cost the province $21 million over the last four years to send 439 patients to the U.S. - while at the same time the province has allotted a mere $4 million to increase the availability of facilities here.

One doctor cited in the news report mentioned he's been ready to open a bariatric surgery clinic for over a year, and would be able to treat patients at an average cost of $18,000 each (as compared to the nearly $48,000 it's costing to send them to the U.S.), but has heard nothing back from the government about his proposal or making funds available for it.

If such a story is even remotely typical, then the system is not running as efficiently as it should and resources are being needlessly squandered.

Now me here in Ontario, I injured myself at work by nearly breaking my spine falling off a truck (Don't ask!!). It cost me the grand total of nothing out of my pocket for surgery and a 4 month stay in the hospital. Plus I got the surgery 2 weeks after the accident.

Several years later I had cancer surgery and the only expense I had to pay was for an upgrade to a private room.My story is similar. I crashed my bicycle back in 1994. I flew over the handle bars, bounced off my head, and landed on my back, fracturing my collar bone in the process (no head injuries though due to wearing a bike helmet - wear your bike helmet when riding your bike folks!!!). I got a couple of x-rays and spent the night in the emergency room as they were a bit concerned over the possibility of a concussion.

In the end, the whole event only cost me $40 for the ambulance ride to the hospital.

I consider than an excellent bargain, and well worth whatever portion of my tax dollars had gone towards supporting the health care system.

[Furcifer]

I'm not saying the concept of Universal Healthcare is a flop. I'm saying don't use Canada as some Utopia example of it.

Yah, not a Utopia, but still way better than private for the average person. We have our wait issues that's for sure. I remember reading that Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit has more CAT scanners than Canada (or ridiculously close ). While I am sure this has changed since then, it does say a lot about our system. As the Boomers age this will only get worse. I can see us moving towards a more privatized system in the future, as a majority of the population begins to rely on this social system for their well being.

[Alareth]

I guess the blaming it on Kyle element was a no-brainer, huh? I'll have to keep an eye out for that episode.

Cartman's slide showing the image of Kyle in the smoke of WTC 2 is fabulous.

[SezMe]

In the end, the whole event only cost me $40 for the ambulance ride to the hospital.

When my artificial hip popped out, the ambulance ride to the hospital (~3 miles) was $900 - all out of pocket.

[gumboot]

I just want to work out that the New Zealand health system should probably not be looked at either, unless you also take into account ACC, which is a big part of it.

Healthcare is never going to be perfect, especially not in an ageing population with increasing medical knowledge.

-Gumboot

[NeoRicen]

I've watched SiCKO and thought it was pretty good (well made, can't deny THAT). In terms of inaccuracies I can't really see where most of them would be. The Cuba thing was probably a show put on by the Cubans to make em look good, and some numbers might be wrong but the core thing about it doesn't really have room to be wrong, it's mostly testimonials and footage, the testimonials of course could be poorly edited but they must've been strange interviews if what's in the movie was cut out of an interview from someone who didn't actually have the opinion presented.

The biggest problem BY FAR I have with people who criticize the point of the movie is the whole BS thing about waiting lists. Sure there's waiting lists but at least some of the people on the lists are getting care, or are going to get it, unlike the US where they wouldn't get ANY care whatsoever.

It's not like UHC outlaws private healthcare. The people in the US with health insurance don't stand to lose anything but the millions who can't afford it at least get SOME form of care.

It would require a raise in taxes but I don't care. In Australia we have UHC and I'm happy to pitch in just a little bit of my pay to help the healthcare system so those unfortunate enough to need it can get it and in exchange if I need it I can get it.

You could criticize the movie all you want, legitimately and not, but the arguments against Universal Health Care are just plain DUMB. We have it in Australia, and we're doing just fine thankyou very much (for now at least, it's obvious the Howard Government is trying to undermine our public health system), I certainly don't want to live in the US (from a Healthcare perspective).

PS: Any UHC would have to be done well and funded decently obviously.

[I Am He]

gmanontario
My brother-in-law in the US of A pays a lot per month for HMO coverage (Not sure how much) and he injured himself at work. He had a sliver of metal fly off a chisel and slash the side of his nose.

It wound up costing him about $1900 US out of his own pocket.

I can't see how he paid $1,900 Dollars? He said that his injury was due to an accident that happened at work, and if it happened at work Workman's Compensation would of covered all of his medical expenses. He would also be compensated for up to three quarters of his salary, and also could wind up with a nice little settlement. But the settlement depends on the seriousness of the injury though.

[Damien Evans]

Well he isn't doing too well in the popularity polls at the moment. He has been in office since 1996 and IMO has done more harm than good in those 11 years, but a lot of people keep voting for him. Why? I have NFI.

It's cause he's the master of political spin, plus he cleverly plays on peoples economic fears by squealing that labor couldn't run the economy and we'd have a recession if he, the great leader, wasn't there to stop it.

I have to give him credit, he's an excellent politician, but it's time for him to go

[Gurdur]

When my artificial hip popped out, the ambulance ride to the hospital (~3 miles) was $900 - all out of pocket.
OUCH! Wishing you best of luck and that it doesn't happen again.

If I may ask, in what country / state are you?

To compare: I've done 3 ambulance rides as a patient of around 3 miles each myself here, in a period of 15 years, and one ambulance ride in Britain.

The most I was ever charged was something like $20, by recollection. At least 2 were completely uncharged, and I have "only" the basic public health cover, which covering pretty much everything needed as well as dental, means it probably isn't so "basic" in comparison to where you live.

AFAIK, here, if you negligently call an ambulance, i.e. it's not actually needed at all, you may well be up for hefty charges; I suppose if you do call one, just make sure it's needed, by bopping yourself or someone else with a bat just in case.
;)

[ChristineR]

Being a Canadian, I can politely point out the many flaws about universal healthcare in the great white north. It's a great system for those of us who hardly use the system, but people who need critical operations are often put in a waiting list, such as several weeks to even months, life-saving or not. I've read way too many stories on how elderly canadians who needed a surgery and decided to go down south to get it immediately instead of several months with a good chance of death. Also, if you have a rare disease or need a cure that is not authorized by the Ontario government, you will get screwed over in the end. If you want to get even a bit more political, our previous Prime Minister Paul Martin even went to a private doctor instead of a public one :eek:

I'm not sure how Universal Healthcare works in other countries, but it's crap up here.

Are you sure about this one? I live on the south side of the border and the one I hear about all the time is heart bypass surgeries. But heart bypass surgeries are NOT life-saving. They don't extend the life expectancy one bit. What they do is improve the quality of life. On the other hand, a strict diet and exercise program extends the life expectancy AND the quality of life. Forcing people to wait makes perfect sense to me. If after six months of suffering they're still eating badly, well, let them have the operation.

A similar argument can be made for gastric bypasses. Those really do save lives, but they have horrible side effects. Those who truly cannot control their eating any other way can consider them, but the government should do everything possible to give people an incentive to do it right.

Finally the point about the rare disease and experimental treatments applies here just as well. Many people die because their insurance will only pay for the least common denominator treatment.

On the other hand, I have NO DOUBT that lives have been saved by the cross-border traffic in prescription drugs.

[SezMe]

If I may ask, in what country / state are you?
USA, California, southern, Santa Barbara.

[gmanontario]

I can't see how he paid $1,900 Dollars? He said that his injury was due to an accident that happened at work, and if it happened at work Workman's Compensation would of covered all of his medical expenses. He would also be compensated for up to three quarters of his salary, and also could wind up with a nice little settlement. But the settlement depends on the seriousness of the injury though.
Sorry should have mentioned he is a self-employed stationary engineer and does not qualify for compensation in the state where he lives.

He only works part-time and does not have any employees.

[AZCat]

Sorry should have mentioned he is a self-employed stationary engineer and does not qualify for compensation in the state where he lives.

He only works part-time and does not have any employees.

What is a "stationary engineer"? I'm not trying to be snarky - I'm genuinely curious.

[gmanontario]

What is a "stationary engineer"? I'm not trying to be snarky - I'm genuinely curious.
Well the standard joke is that he sits around on his big butt all day doing nothing..:D

But the reality is that he is an engineer that installs and maintains extremely high-pressure industrial sized boilers. It's a very hard-to-get certification and highly prized and desired by large industries and oil well drilling companies. He writes his own employment contracts. The employer either takes it or leaves it, no other options and no negotiations. He's had this certification for about 25 years in both the US and Canada and has a world of experience. Literally he's been all over the world performing and teaching the trade's duties. From the Arctic to Thailand and almost everywhere in between.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos228.htm for a USA dept of labor description.

The guy has earned everything that he gets now. Plus he did all this while being a lifelong sufferer of Chrohn's disease, ilieitis and colitis.

Thing is he refuses to retire until he's incapable of doing the job..:jaw-dropp

[FactCheck]

How is the American system NOT a socialized system now? Why not make them pay upfront in a taxes?

No system is perfect, but the American system is BARBARIC. I was one of those people who was between jobs and refused to go to the hospital because I couldn't afford it. At the time I didn't know I could walk into any hospital and let someone else flip the bill. My mother came at my wifes request and said she would pay the bill. I fought the idea but at the end they ganged up on me and I went. Had I not gone I could have died. I had a simple infection. This should never have happened. In any other industrialized country I would have never thought twice about going to the hospital. What's even crazier is my wife works in the healthcare field. Had I waited much longer I may have needed surgery or even die. At a minimum I would have needed a long hospital stay. I was worried that my wife made enough money that I would have had to pay the bill but I was already behind and didn't want to go bankrupt. Another option which would have made someone else flip the bill... I say again, how is that not socialized? You're forced to pay other peoples medical bills instead of forcing them to pay into the system. You KNOW people aren't going to get health insurance if they aren't forced. Some CAN'T afford it anyway.

I saw the study that said 18,000 people a year died because they didn't have healthcare. I remember thinking how close I was to being part of that.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_hea_car_fun_tot_per_cap-care-funding-total-per-capita

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_lif_exp_at_bir_tot_pop-life-expectancy-birth-total-population

The canadian system is not that bad, it's just a whole lot cheaper...

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82M0022XIE/82M0022XIE2003001.htm#6

As you can see the American system is great if you have money. It's a killer if you don't.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/healthcare/2002-05-22-insurance-deaths.htm

But I wouldn't model a government healthcare system by canada anyway. The suggestion that if America adopts a government healthcare system there will automatically be long lines is a scare tactic. If America wants a system with no lines then we can design one.

People are attacking the way Moore says things just to take the focus away from the real issue. Just as they attacked Hillary and anyone else who tried to do SOMETHING. At this point I don't care what they do. Just do SOMETHING and we'll change it if it doesn't work. A novel idea...

[AZCat]

Well the standard joke is that he sits around on his big butt all day doing nothing..:D

But the reality is that he is an engineer that installs and maintains extremely high-pressure industrial sized boilers. It's a very hard-to-get certification and highly prized and desired by large industries and oil well drilling companies. He writes his own employment contracts. The employer either takes it or leaves it, no other options and no negotiations. He's had this certification for about 25 years in both the US and Canada and has a world of experience. Literally he's been all over the world performing and teaching the trade's duties. From the Arctic to Thailand and almost everywhere in between.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos228.htm for a USA dept of labor description.

The guy has earned everything that he gets now. Plus he did all this while being a lifelong sufferer of Chrohn's disease, ilieitis and colitis.

Thing is he refuses to retire until he's incapable of doing the job..:jaw-dropp

Crohn's is nasty - a good friend of mine has it.

Thanks for the explanation.

[Caper]

I live in Canada... I believe our system is better then the sytem in the US.... But a couple of points.

I have no idea how a socialized medical system will be able to handle the thousands of new and amazing treatments that can be expected over the next few decades and forever after...

Second I think litigation really adds to the price down south.

Can't individual states have different health care plans?

Don't other countries ride off the coat tails of alot of the research done within the US system?

[Rolfe]

Who was the guy who made Supersize Me?

He made another film where he and his fiancee tried to live for a month on the minimum wage. It was tough, but I think they would have coped if it hadn't been for getting sick. He had some problem brought on by the work he was doing, and she had a bad attack of cystitis and needed antibiotics. They tried to access free or low-cost care but it wasn't easy, and the bottom line was that it was the cost of the medical care that completely nixed their budget. I think they'd have managed OK in a country where the routine sort of healthcare they needed was "free at point of need".

Rolfe.

[Damien Evans]

Who was the guy who made Supersize Me?

He made another film where he and his fiancee tried to live for a month on the minimum wage. It was tough, but I think they would have coped if it hadn't been for getting sick. He had some problem brought on by the work he was doing, and she had a bad attack of cystitis and needed antibiotics. They tried to access free or low-cost care but it wasn't easy, and the bottom line was that it was the cost of the medical care that completely nixed their budget. I think they'd have managed OK in a country where the routine sort of healthcare they needed was "free at point of need".

Rolfe.

Wasn't his name Morgan Spueler or something like that?

[8den]

Wasn't his name Morgan Spueler or something like that?

Morgan Spurlock. And the documentary he made was called 30 days, and was part of series where someone would have to live 30 days as something. For example, a fundamental christian, lives with Muslims for 30 days. A pro choice feminist lives with devout christians for 30 days.

The minimum wage one was tough. I cannot understand the system in the US. The UK is bad enough when someone is down on their luck, but the US you just cannot catch a break.

[Oliver]

I just want to work out that the New Zealand health system should probably not be looked at either, unless you also take into account ACC, which is a big part of it.

Healthcare is never going to be perfect, especially not in an ageing population with increasing medical knowledge.

-Gumboot


But you wouldn't abolish it to replace it with the "Everyone is on his own"-System, would you?

And may I ask: If you are born into this system - would you consider it as a basic right for everyone in your democracy? :confused:

[RBG]

My Canadian experience:

Beyond real waits for emergency service - like 3 - 8 hours - unless you are close to death or bleeding pretty bad. This usually means a trip to a private clinic instead (10-15 minute waits). (Don't exactly know how these can operate.)

That's one extreme, the other being:

Having a 2 1/2 month premature baby requiring 24 hour, expert attention... probably all in, about a million dollars worth of care... I hardly remember having to sign a form let alone paying as much as a nickle.

RBG

[Gord_in_Toronto]

My Canadian experience:

Beyond real waits for emergency service - like 3 - 8 hours - unless you are close to death or bleeding pretty bad. This usually means a trip to a private clinic instead (10-15 minute waits). (Don't exactly know how these can operate.)

That's one extreme, the other being:

Having a 2 1/2 month premature baby requiring 24 hour, expert attention... probably all in, about a million dollars worth of care... I hardly remember having to sign a form let alone paying as much as a nickle.

RBG

What private clinics?

[FactCheck]

I live in Canada... I believe our system is better then the sytem in the US.... But a couple of points.

I have no idea how a socialized medical system will be able to handle the thousands of new and amazing treatments that can be expected over the next few decades and forever after...

Second I think litigation really adds to the price down south.

Can't individual states have different health care plans?

Don't other countries ride off the coat tails of alot of the research done within the US system?I'll give you one guess as to where the MRI was invented...

Research and development will be alive and well when we fund research in universities.

[Oliver]

*snip* Can't individual states have different health care plans?

Don't other countries ride off the coat tails of alot of the research done within the US system?


A: Once a federal law is established concerning Universal Health Care, it surly could include liberties concerning the handling in individual states. It's just a matter of wording in the UHC-Law.

B: I have no Idea what you meant. This question doesn't seem to be related to the health care system in any way because:

Research is Science.
UHC is Politics.

[mortimer]

A: Once a federal law is established concerning Universal Health Care, is surly could include liberties concerning the handling in individual states. It's just a matter of wording of the UHC-Law.

B: I have no Idea what you meant. This question doesn't seem to be related to the health care system in any way because:

Research is Science.
UHC is Politics.

I don't know if this is true or not, and my Google-Fu is already asleep, but the general perception is that prescription drug prices are much higher here in the States than they are anywhere else in the world, and that Americans generally foot a disproportionate amount of the bill for R&D for not only drugs, but for medical equipment, as well as subsidizing the cost for poorer countries. Not that I necessarily have a problem with the latter, but there it is.

[TOHMS]

I was still in HS when Moore's last 2 movies came out.

I thought he was really cool and made great points. Then it got to the point in Farenheit 9/11 and I was like, this guy is an *******. It was the part where he mentions the coalition of the willing, and he leaves out England. I know it was supposed to be a stab at how little international support we had, but if you want to make a movie that criticizes Bush (who I do not approve of at all), at least get your facts right. Otherwise call your documentary a comedy.

[Peephole]

I've heard pretty good things about Sicko, from people who hated Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.

[T.A.M.]

Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Michael Moore are going to be on Larry King Live, tonight at 9PM EST. They are going to review some of the facts that CNN disputes wrt "Sicko"...should be good.

TAM:)

[Belz...]

You do realize that $999,999.98 will have to go to the new government's socialized medical insurance program?


They leave you enough to give them your 2 cents worth...

It isn't that bad. We do have it in Canada.

[Belz...]

That's what I don't get. Here we still have private health insurance and a lot of people go for it, but when they get sick they still end up paying extra.

A friend of mine had a baby using the private system and all went well. Afterwards she was presented with a bill for thousands of dollars. So next time she had a baby she decided to use the public system. She had the same doctor, same hospital and even the same room and level of care, but what she didn't get was a bill for thousands of dollars. It is totally baffling to me.

Well, the only problem in Canada with the public health system, or at least in Québec, is that you get HUGE waiting lists because really good doctors go to places that pay better (the US, for example), leaving us with too few doctors for the population.

[Belz...]

The minimum wage one was tough. I cannot understand the system in the US. The UK is bad enough when someone is down on their luck, but the US you just cannot catch a break.

What's the minimum wage in the US ?

[Segnosaur]

The fewer doctors patients see the more profit for the HMO and insurance industry. Since then the general populace had been brainwashed with the meme "socialized medicine" like its some bad evil empire thing.
from the World Health Organization (WHO) world health report in 2000: (http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/index.html)

The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18th. Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.


Ok, a few things to consider when you look at those WHO health care rankings...

The rankings themselves are based on several factors; the actual quality of health care is only one factor, while costs are another. Because of that, the WHO ranking isn't really a ranking of how good the medical services are so much as its a ranking of how well the money is spent. (In theory, a country which cures 100% of the diseases its citizens gets but costs thousands per citizen could rank lower than a country where half the citizens don't get cured, but the costs are very low.)

When you look at the more detailed stats, you see that the U.S. actually ranks fairly high (and in some cases #1) in some of the areas of actual patient care and treatment; it just costs a sh*tload of money to get them to that point.

[anticonspiracy911]

What's the minimum wage in the US ?

It was raised from $7/hr to $7.15/hr at the beginning of 2007. Big freakin doo.

[Belz...]

Well, up here it's CDN 8.00. Considering the 1.05 conversion rate, the US minimum wage seems a bit low.

[Segnosaur]

I haven't seen Sicko. I liked Bowling For Columbine. I haven't seen Farenheit 911.

What I don't understand is why people would object to universal health care. It might mean slightly higher taxes, but if it means saving lives, what's a few dollars?

The thing is, it may not necessarily save lives. While I'm sure some people in the U.S. do end up dying because they can't afford proper medical care, people also die in countries that have universal health care, through inefficiencies, bueareaucratic messes, or waiting lists. (Witness the deaths in france due to a heat wave.)


Can someone explain to me the advantages of the private system that the US is currently using? Because all I ever hear is horror stories.

I can think of several:
- In a public system, there is usually no incentive to innovate. (After all, prices and salaries are often fixed and controlled by the government.) So, some manager may have an idea to reduce wait times or provide better care, but with no possibility of financial reward they're less likely to make 'additional' efforts to make improvements. Lets face it, greed is a good motivator. Similarly, in a public system, poor service rarely gets punished.

- Decisions in a public system often get done for political or bureaucratic reasons, rather than what's 'best' for the patient. For example, a government may provide more funding for AIDS treatment, even though something like prostate cancer leads to more deaths overall. (Not that I don't think AIDS should be treated; its just a hypothetical situation.)

This doesn't mean that I think the U.S. system is 'better' than that of Canada or other 'socialized' countries. But then, it may not necessarily be any worse either. There is probably room for improvement in all systems.

[Belz...]

- Decisions in a public system often get done for political or bureaucratic reasons, rather than what's 'best' for the patient.

Mind you, in a private system, what's 'best' for the patient isn't necessarily more important.

[Segnosaur]

Mind you, in a private system, what's 'best' for the patient isn't necessarily more important.

More important than what? Not quite sure what you're trying to say.

If you're trying to say that people sometimes make 'bad' selections, then you're right, they do. But in a situation like that, its still the patient themselves who takes responsibility, and I have the belief that people will be more likely to make a better decision if they themselves have a hand in the outcome.

[jaydeehess]

My Canadian experience:

Beyond real waits for emergency service - like 3 - 8 hours - unless you are close to death or bleeding pretty bad. This usually means a trip to a private clinic instead (10-15 minute waits). (Don't exactly know how these can operate.)

That's one extreme, the other being:

Having a 2 1/2 month premature baby requiring 24 hour, expert attention... probably all in, about a million dollars worth of care... I hardly remember having to sign a form let alone paying as much as a nickle.

RBG

My turn.
I am Canadian living in Ontario.

Emergency visits can result in long waits. Its the nature of the beast. I have been to emerg a few times and I will use two examples.

1) I got a speck of dry paint in my eye that I simply could not get out on my own, I waited 1 1/2 hours and the doctor removed it in 15 minutes. I then waited another 45 minutes for a tetnus booster shot.
2) I went to emerg after having chest pains for two hours. I was taken in to see a doctor and givena chest x-ray and saw the doctor again all within an hour.

See the difference? Now if I that were two separtate people in emergency at the same time it would not matter if the guy with the object in his eye has been waiting for an hour when the guy with chest pain comes in. IT IS NOT fisrt come first served.

On another note. I also had colon cancer. I first went to my family doc in January and had the second of two surgeries on May 10th. In between were two colonoscopies, a referral from a general surgeon to a colo-rectal surgeon, and the first surgery. Following surgery were six months of chemo therapy during which I also got radiation therapy. I paid nothing at all for the doctor's visits, the surgeries or the chemo. OHIP paid that. I received partial cost coverage for the trips I had to make to another city for the radiation treatments(I live in a town of 15,000 people).

I missed several months of work and then was at work for 2 of every 4 weeks for a few more months. I received partial coverage for missed wages for a period of 10 weeks from Employment Insurance.

IF I had lived in the USA I would be absolutly broke. No, check that. I would be dead because I would rather have committed suicide rather than burden my family with $100,000 or more in debt.

The Ontario health system saved my life!

[Vincent Vega]

My wife had a rare form of Leukemia. She spent a month in a Boston hospital and six months of outpatient infusions at Dana Farber, one of the best Cancer clinics in the world. She was in a drug trial so given some very new (expensive) drugs. She was out of work for two months.

Our bill came to several hundred bucks over the course of several years (not including her normal employer deduction). Her health plan paid for everything except a small co-payment. Not sure why you think you would have had a $100,000 debt?

She also got paid SS disability payments.

She is currently in complete remission. I have no complaints so far.

[ChristineR]

There are plenty of long wait times in the U.S. People who favor the U.S. system will point to lower average emergency room wait times, but in large public hospitals who serve poorer patients the wait times are much longer.

People who favor the U.S. system will point to shorter wait times to see a specialist, but they will neglect the people who don't see a specialist at all because they can't afford it, or wait until they become so ill that they choose to enter bankruptcy after their short wait to get an appointment, or wait times of several years to see the one or two specialists that participate in Medicaid, Medicare, or your HMO.

[grmcdorman]

I'm in Ontario too.

The issue of emergency room waiting times in Canada is a problem. Part of the cause is that - historically, at least - people have been going to the ER for non-emergency problems.

As pointed out above, of course, the ER staff prioritize the incoming patients; it's called triage. People with trivial problems - a splinter, say - will wait (sometimes for hours).

In the larger cities, I believe this is starting to change; there are non-urgent care clinics (walk-in) widely available now. You will have to wait there, of course, but it's usually not too bad.

Our experience with medical care - both in ER and in general practise - has been quite positive. For example, I got fairly prompt treatment when I broke my foot; my son, likewise, got examined and diagnosed reasonably promptly when he had appendicitis. (We took him in around 1AM or so; before sunrise he was in the operating room.) In all cases, there were no out-of-pocket expenses.

Conversely, though, dental care is not covered by the government; one of our national newspapers - the Toronto Star - recently had a lead article about the problems unemployed/low income people had getting dental care.

[Belz...]

More important than what? Not quite sure what you're trying to say.

More important than in a public system.

[T.A.M.]

minimum wage varies province to province. It is not $8 where I live...it is around the US value actually.

TAM:)

[Gord_in_Toronto]

minimum wage varies province to province. It is not $8 where I live...it is around the US value actually.

TAM:)

US rates here:

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm

Canadian rates here:

http://canadaonline.about.com/library/bl/blminwage.htm

[boloboffin]

It was raised from $7/hr to $7.15/hr at the beginning of 2007. Big freakin doo.

That's not right. Minimum wage was $5.15/hr. It will be raised to $5.85 on the 24th of this month, $6.55 on 24 July 2008, and $7.25 on 24 July 2009.

Of course, you could be in a state that has raised the minimum wage apart from the federal government.

[ChristineR]

Minimum wage in the US is $5.15. It will rise to $5.85 on the 24th of this month. Many states have a higher minimum wage, but these often do not apply across the board.

[A W Smith]

Wow im feeling so old. I can remember when I was in high school working part time the minimum wage was $1:65 an hour. It all seems so recent to me. hell I can remember putting pallet rack up in new warehouses in 1976 for 30 bucks a day cash and it seemed like a big deal,

[jaydeehess]

My wife had a rare form of Leukemia. She spent a month in a Boston hospital and six months of outpatient infusions at Dana Farber, one of the best Cancer clinics in the world. She was in a drug trial so given some very new (expensive) drugs. She was out of work for two months.

Our bill came to several hundred bucks over the course of several years (not including her normal employer deduction). Her health plan paid for everything except a small co-payment. Not sure why you think you would have had a $100,000 debt?

She also got paid SS disability payments.

She is currently in complete remission. I have no complaints so far.

Because "Her health plan paid " says it all. Anyone without a health care plan, and that would include most people working at small businesses and all self employed persons. If one works for IBM or even Wal-Mart one has coverage. At the time I worked for a company that employed about 30 people. In the USA would such a co. neccessarily have coverage for their employees?

Just a colonoscopy in the USA costs between $500 and $1000

The co. I work for now has 18,000 employees.

[jaydeehess]

I should mention that I do NOT like Moore's other films and assuming he retains his penchance for hyperbole and strtching the truth, "Siccko" will be no better.

I saw him on CNN last night and he simply danced around the questions that Blitzer put to him. Blitzer had a hard time keeping him on topic.

[jaydeehess]

Wow im feeling so old. I can remember when I was in high school working part time the minimum wage was $1:65 an hour. It all seems so recent to me. hell I can remember putting pallet rack up in new warehouses in 1976 for 30 bucks a day cash and it seemed like a big deal,

I can recall $2.65 minimum wage for students back in 1972 (IIRC). I was very happy to land a job as a pump jockey because the owner paid $2.80/hr !!(at any rate he paid above min. in order to attract better people and IMHO it worked)

Working a few shifts weekday evenings and 2 weekend shifts got me gas money, smokes and more. Of course gas was $0.50/Imperial gallon and smokes were IIRC $0.75 for a pack of 25

By the time I was 18 I had saved $2000. I went on a ski trip with buddoes and blew most of it. Damn, if I had bought lakefront property with it I would be rich now.:D

[IXP]

Long waits in the ER are not restricted to countries with national health care or to poor people. I am not poor by any definition and I have great health insurance, but that did not prevent an inexcusable ER experience.

I hit my head while stacking firewood and was bleeding profusely. I went to the nearest hospital, which happens to be a teaching hospital for a medical school and the premier shock-trauma center in the area. The towel I was holding to my forehead was soaked with blood and I asked at the desk if they could give me something to hold over the cut. They said, no, they could not do that. I had to go to the bathroom and make do with a wad of toilet paper to hold on my bleeding head.

Three hours later I was finally seen and from that point on, everything was fine. But I still can't get over the fact they they could not give me some sterile pads to hold on my injury!

IXP

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I should mention that I do NOT like Moore's other films and assuming he retains his penchance for hyperbole and strtching the truth, "Siccko" will be no better.

I saw him on CNN last night and he simply danced around the questions that Blitzer put to him. Blitzer had a hard time keeping him on topic.

Don't know about the Blitzer appearance but he was just on Larry King responding to Sanjay Gupta's comments from a few days ago. Seems he did have an answer for every one. See:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article_10017.php

Enjoy. :D

[Corsair 115]

I can recall $2.65 minimum wage for students back in 1972 (IIRC). I was very happy to land a job as a pump jockey because the owner paid $2.80/hr !!(at any rate he paid above min. in order to attract better people and IMHO it worked)

Working a few shifts weekday evenings and 2 weekend shifts got me gas money, smokes and more. Of course gas was $0.50/Imperial gallon and smokes were IIRC $0.75 for a pack of 25 Fun with inflation correct to follow! :) Plugging in your figures into this (http://minneapolisfed.org/research/data/us/calc/) web site yielded the following:

$2.65 in 1972 would equal $13.03 in 2007.
$2.80 in 1972 would equal $13.77 in 2007.
$0.50 in 1972 would equal $2.46 in 2007.
$0.75 in 1972 would equal $3.69 in 2007.

[Oliver]

Don't know about the Blitzer appearance but he was just on Larry King responding to Sanjay Gupta's comments from a few days ago. Seems he did have an answer for every one. See:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article_10017.php

Enjoy. :D


The Argle-Bargle between Moore and Blitzer was quite funny, so here it is:


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6982108158579640457&q=sicko+blitzer&total=51&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5442268088667392664&q=sicko+blitzer&total=51&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1692986591436021045&q=sicko+blitzer&total=52&start=0&num=10&so=1&type=search&plindex=2

[PixyMisa]

Employers will simply not be able to afford to provide health insurance at some point, and the federal (and likely state) governments will have to step in.
That makes no sense.

Where is the government supposed to get the money from if neither individuals nor businesses can afford it?

[Oliver]

The Argle-Bargle between Moore and Blitzer was quite funny, so here it is in Follow-Up to the Wolf Blitzer Interview:


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6982108158579640457&q=sicko+blitzer&total=51&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5442268088667392664&q=sicko+blitzer&total=51&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1692986591436021045&q=sicko+blitzer&total=52&start=0&num=10&so=1&type=search&plindex=2


I hate to quote myself but I saw there was a "showdown" between Moore and Sanjay Gupta on Larry King Live:

Part 1:
http://video.google.com/url?docid=1313895612246707915&esrc=sr2&ev=v&q=michael%2Bmoore%2Blarry&srcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D EjvlGRfozss&vidurl=%2Fvideoplay%3Fdocid%3D1313895612246707915% 26q%3Dmichael%2Bmoore%2Blarry%26total%3D129%26star t%3D0%26num%3D10%26so%3D1%26type%3Dsearch%26plinde x%3D1&usg=AL29H23J8gk6oj73x3zmaFZwLJitw057bg

Part 2:
http://video.google.com/url?docid=3064895428388435415&esrc=sr1&ev=v&q=michael%2Bmoore%2Blarry&srcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D KoiyJ1LPtdc&vidurl=%2Fvideoplay%3Fdocid%3D3064895428388435415% 26q%3Dmichael%2Bmoore%2Blarry%26total%3D129%26star t%3D0%26num%3D10%26so%3D1%26type%3Dsearch%26plinde x%3D0&usg=AL29H22klR3qpejvm-ByxKjbUvfTLUVrEw

Part 3:
http://video.google.com/url?docid=-6437305754820355554&esrc=sr3&ev=v&q=michael%2Bmoore%2Blarry&srcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D pqoYhbVa2h4&vidurl=%2Fvideoplay%3Fdocid%3D-6437305754820355554%26q%3Dmichael%2Bmoore%2Blarry% 26total%3D129%26start%3D0%26num%3D10%26so%3D1%26ty pe%3Dsearch%26plindex%3D2&usg=AL29H217q5mEWham_Z3ltD2ZZlTIZCAkYA



@Admins: Imbedding Youtube videos [New Domain for them seems to be a Google.com Domain] doesn't work anymore, neither using the GV- nor the YT-Tags.

[Belz...]

Minimum wage in the US is $5.15. It will rise to $5.85 on the 24th of this month. Many states have a higher minimum wage, but these often do not apply across the board.

5.15 ?

How do you pay for an appartment with that kind of money ???

As mentionned, in Québec it's CDN 8.00 (7.60 USD).

[The Demon's Head]

People alike Michael Moore don't really care about the issue. They care enough to submit a film that carries some shock value.

[FactCheck]

That makes no sense.

Where is the government supposed to get the money from if neither individuals nor businesses can afford it?

The government will get the money from both business and individuals since they aren't paying for the higher cost of private insurance. The cost is now spread out over EVERYONE who pays taxes. That will lower insurance costs for all except the people who aren't paying now. Why shouldn't they be forced to pay into a system we know they will use? How is our system not a socialist system now? It's not car insurance. You wont die if you can't drive. You can't choose not to get cancer or even a simple infection.

Market competition hasn't kept health-care prices down. Large corporations gobble up small insurance companies as they begin to cut into corporate profits. They raise prices every time there is a down turn in the economy. Why? Because they play the stock market with your money. Stocks tank and they raise prices to cover the loss.

[Oliver]

People alike Michael Moore don't really care about the issue. They care enough to submit a film that carries some shock value.


Of course. :rolleyes:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/prehistoric/

[slingblade]

5.15 ?

How do you pay for an appartment with that kind of money ???



By yourself, and with one job, you don't. See "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich.

[robinson]

Well, the only problem in Canada with the public health system, or at least in Québec, is that you get HUGE waiting lists because really good doctors go to places that pay better (the US, for example), leaving us with too few doctors for the population.

What is considered a huge waiting list? In America, if you don't have insurance or a crapload of money, there is no waiting list. You just don't get treated at all.

[Calcas]

This guy is a piece of work...



An Open Letter to CNN from Michael Moore

7/14/07

Dear CNN,

Well, the week is over -- and still no apology, no retraction, no correction of your glaring mistakes.

I bet you thought my dust-up with Wolf Blitzer was just a cool ratings coup, that you really wouldn't have to correct the false statements you made about "Sicko." I bet you thought I was just going to go quietly away.

Think again. I'm about to become your worst nightmare. 'Cause I ain't ever going away. Not until you set the record straight, and apologize to your viewers. "The Most Trusted Name in News?" I think it's safe to say you can retire that slogan.

You have an occasional segment called "Keeping Them Honest." But who keeps you honest? After what the public saw with your report on "Sicko," and how many inaccuracies that report contained, how can anyone believe anything you say on your network? In the old days, before the Internet, you could get away with it. Your victims had no way to set the record straight, to show the viewers how you had misrepresented the truth. But now, we can post the truth -- and back it up with evidence and facts -- on the web, for all to see. And boy, judging from the mail both you and I have been receiving, the evidence I have posted on my site about your "Sicko" piece has led millions now to question your honesty.

I won't waste your time rehashing your errors. You know what they are. What I want to do is help you come clean. Admit you were wrong. What is the shame in that? We all make mistakes. I know it's hard to admit it when you've screwed up, but it's also liberating and cathartic. It not only makes you a better person, it helps prevent you from screwing up again. Imagine how many people will be drawn to a network that says, "We made a mistake. We're human. We're sorry. We will make mistakes in the future -- but we will always correct them so that you know you can trust us." Now, how hard would that really be?

As you know, I hold no personal animosity against you or any of your staff. You and your parent company have been very good to me over the years. You distributed my first film, "Roger & Me" and you published "Dude, Where's My Country?" Larry King has had me on twice in the last two weeks. I couldn't ask for better treatment.

That's why I was so stunned when you let a doctor who knows a lot about brain surgery -- but apparently very little about public policy -- do a "fact check" story, not on the medical issues in "Sicko," but rather on the economic and political information in the film. Is this why there has been a delay in your apology, because you are trying to get a DOCTOR to say he was wrong? Please tell him not to worry, no one is filing a malpractice claim against him. Dr. Gupta does excellent and compassionate stories on CNN about people's health and how we can take better care of ourselves. But when it came time to discuss universal health care, he rushed together a bunch of sloppy -- and old -- research. When his producer called us about his report the day before it aired, we sent to her, in an email, all the evidence so that he wouldn't make any mistakes on air. He chose to ignore ALL the evidence, and ran with all his falsehoods -- even though he had been given the facts a full day before! How could that happen? And now, for 5 days, I have posted on my website, for all to see, every mistake and error he made.

You, on the other hand, in the face of this overwhelming evidence and a huge public backlash, have chosen to remain silent, probably praying and hoping this will all go away.

Well it isn't. We are now going to start looking into the veracity of other reports you have aired on other topics. Nothing you say now can be believed. In 2002, the New York Times busted you for bringing celebrities on your shows and not telling your viewers they were paid spokespeople for the pharmaceutical companies. You promised never to do it again. But there you were, in 2005, talking to Joe Theismann, on air, as he pushed some drug company-sponsored website on prostate health. You said nothing about about his affiliation with GlaxoSmithKline.

Clearly, no one is keeping you honest, so I guess I'm going to have to do that job, too. $1.5 billion is spent each year by the drug companies on ads on CNN and the other four networks. I'm sure that has nothing to do with any of this. After all, if someone gave me $1.5 billion, I have to admit, I might say a kind word or two about them. Who wouldn't?!

I expect CNN to put this matter to rest. Say you're sorry and correct your story -- like any good journalist would.

Then we can get back to more important things. Like a REAL discussion about our broken health care system. Everything else is a distraction from what really matters.

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

P.S. If you also want to apologize for not doing your job at the start of the Iraq War, I'm sure most Americans would be very happy to accept your apology. You and the other networks were willing partners with Bush, flying flags all over the TV screens and never asking the hard questions that you should have asked. You might have prevented a war. You might have saved the lives of those 3,610 soldiers who are no longer with us. Instead, you blew air kisses at a commander in chief who clearly was making it all up. Millions of us knew that -- why didn't you? I think you did. And, in my opinion, that makes you responsible for this war. Instead of doing the job the founding fathers wanted you to do -- keeping those in power honest (that's why they made it the FIRST amendment) -- you and much of the media went on the attack against the few public figures like myself who dared to question the nightmare we were about to enter. You've never thanked me or the Dixie Chicks or Al Gore for doing your job for you. That's OK. Just tell the truth from this point on.

[Oliver]

This guy is a piece of work...




I wonder what's the fuss about. If this is about the CNN "Fahrenheit 9/11"-coverage, I would assume that this is an old issue anyway - after three years. Okay, CNN tried the same with Sicko, but the conversation on Larry King seemed to be very friendly - and Gupta confirmed it afterwards:

http://edition.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/

[fitzgibbon]

One thing I haven't noticed being discussed yet in this thread is whether people in the States who either don't have coverage at all or have limited coverage aren't getting small things attended to which over time balloon into much larger (and more expensive) things. By and large, that doesn't happen north of the border here.

However, as was pointed out earlier, the chief drawback to UHC is that people will misuse it for dinky treatments that they really should be going into walk-in clinics for (colds, sprained joints, etc.). The Hospital Emerge's are triaging so somebody who arrives with a broken leg is going to get attended to much more quickly than someone who arrived earlier with a colicy kid. Probably doesn't endear the hospital to the parent but they've got to realise the logic.

My experience with the system has been pretty positive, having had a mother who broke her hip and was operated on that night and I've had friends who've had parents in similar situations report the same speed of response.

Is it perfect? No but it's pretty good all in all but the real challenge will come from all the boomers reaching their senior years and busting things while still trying to Xtreme ski or what-have-you. They'll bellyache and whine and suddenly realise the myopia of demanding funding cuts for healthcare when they were in their prime earning years and then turn around and demand that money be poured out onto them (again).

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I wonder what's the fuss about. If this is about the CNN "Fahrenheit 9/11"-coverage, I would assume that this is an old issue anyway - after three years. Okay, CNN tried the same with Sicko, but the conversation on Larry King seemed to be very friendly - and Gupta confirmed it afterwards:

http://edition.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/

I think that anyone who calls Moore a "a piece of work", at least on this issue, should read the complaints he had about Gupta's anaylsis as I posted earlier:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10017

Neither Gupta or CNN have responded to the majority of his questions.

[robinson]

I saw him on FOX. He pointed out what a asswipe job the Media did on covering 911 and the Iraq war, and pointed out how they dissed his film, and his self personally, and asked for an apology. Then he pointed out how they were doing the same thing to "Sicko", and asked the question. When are people going to realize the Media is full of it and turn off the TV?

Great moment in Television History.

[kellyb]

I'm not a big Moore fan, but it wouldn't be hard to make a movie showing what a horseturd the American healthcare system is a lot of times. It's not a subject where one really needs to exaggerate or make up fake facts to have shock-value.

Like someone else pointed out, it basically is socialized already in a craptastic way, in that the insured pay outrageous bills to cover the people who end up at the ER without insurance via 48 dollar band-aids and other absurd charges. At this point it's totally snowballing out of control, where the price of insurance is escalating at something like 10% a year, leaving more people uninsured, making the hospital bills go up more, inflating insurance fees, so more people join the non-paying camp, etc. Repeat repeat repeat.

I suppose you could literally lock the uninsured out of the ER to die beside the "no smoking" sign outside and end the cycle?
That's the only alternative I can think of to universalizing healthcare.

[A W Smith]

Like someone else pointed out, it basically is socialized already in a craptastic way, in that the insured pay outrageous bills to cover the people who end up at the ER without insurance via 48 dollar band-aids and other absurd charges. think of to universalizing healthcare.


The uninsured who are above the income level for charity care and have assets pay even more. I can remember getting a hospital bill from Saint Peters university Hospital (http://www.saintpetersuh.com/index.asp) in new jersey and there was tacked onto that itemized bill what was called an "Uncompensated care fund charge" which added about sixty to seventy percent to my hospital bill. so I was in effect billed for my visit at a rate not negotiated or discounted by a group plan. And on top of that list price for services was tacked on the aforementioned obligatory UCF charge.


But in all honesty they did not bill me for the Nun visit to my room and her short prayer. She prayed under her breath so maybe she was praying that once discharged i would pay my bill.

[Belz...]

What is considered a huge waiting list? .

How about 4 months just go get 5 minutes with a doctor to get a runny vein in my nose cauterized ?

[ChristineR]

One thing I haven't noticed being discussed yet in this thread is whether people in the States who either don't have coverage at all or have limited coverage aren't getting small things attended to which over time balloon into much larger (and more expensive) things. By and large, that doesn't happen north of the border here.

However, as was pointed out earlier, the chief drawback to UHC is that people will misuse it for dinky treatments that they really should be going into walk-in clinics for (colds, sprained joints, etc.). The Hospital Emerge's are triaging so somebody who arrives with a broken leg is going to get attended to much more quickly than someone who arrived earlier with a colicy kid. Probably doesn't endear the hospital to the parent but they've got to realise the logic.

My experience with the system has been pretty positive, having had a mother who broke her hip and was operated on that night and I've had friends who've had parents in similar situations report the same speed of response.

Is it perfect? No but it's pretty good all in all but the real challenge will come from all the boomers reaching their senior years and busting things while still trying to Xtreme ski or what-have-you. They'll bellyache and whine and suddenly realise the myopia of demanding funding cuts for healthcare when they were in their prime earning years and then turn around and demand that money be poured out onto them (again).

This is not a drawback to UHC, it's far worse in the states. The reason being that the ER cannot turn away someone without insurance who shows up with her colicky kid, but the walk in clinics will force her to pay in advance.

The ER waits in the States are only shorter in the nicer hospitals that mainly take patients with insurance. Some have been known to send uninsured patients to the hospital across town, which is very controversial, but it happens, even when the patient is bleeding to death. In Canada there's no incentive for this sort of thing so the doctors tend to distribute themselves more evenly resulting in longer but more reasonable waits across the board.

[boloboffin]

I'm asking that this thread be moved into Politics and Social Issues, since that's what it really is. Conspiracy Theories shouldn't become a snarky way of slamming political views other than your own.

[Oliver]

This is not a drawback to UHC, it's far worse in the states. The reason being that the ER cannot turn away someone without insurance who shows up with her colicky kid, but the walk in clinics will force her to pay in advance.

The ER waits in the States are only shorter in the nicer hospitals that mainly take patients with insurance. Some have been known to send uninsured patients to the hospital across town, which is very controversial, but it happens, even when the patient is bleeding to death. In Canada there's no incentive for this sort of thing so the doctors tend to distribute themselves more evenly resulting in longer but more reasonable waits across the board.


I guess this is the main difference between the US and countries that do have UHC. Money doesn't play any role if there is an emergency - no matter if it's a bum or a billionaire, a foreigner or a citizen - they get the same first aid and necessary treatment, operations and medications in the first place, even if the Billionaire probably has a private health insurance anyway.

Also the discussion about "Wait-Times" seems to be absurd - if someone wants to get a private insurance for immediate treatment for every medical peanuts, he's free to do so. That's no counter-argument at all - especially since Germanies (UHC) has shorter wait-times than the "waiting-free", private US-HC. :boggled:

The conspiracy seems to be the influence of the lobbies and in interrelation to their influence, the negative coverage in the US-Media about other countries UHC. That's a farce on it's own in the so called "most-western" country in the world. That's one of the things why I tend to believe that the democratic (neutral) Media in the US is dead. http://www.freesmileys.org/emo/sick012.gif

[Dog Town]

The problem really is the pharm co's! The rest of the world should pay their share! The US carries the planet. STFU!


PS
Such a surprise... to see Olie, in the CT world, in a US bashing thread!

[jhunter1163]

That makes no sense.

Where is the government supposed to get the money from if neither individuals nor businesses can afford it?

I believe it's called "taxation". You may have heard of it. This is why such proposals are so vigorously opposed here in the US. No one wants to pay the additional taxes.

[Oliver]

I believe it's called "taxation". You may have heard of it. This is why such proposals are so vigorously opposed here in the US. No one wants to pay the additional taxes.


The concept in most UHC countries works this way:

* You pay taxes for your universal health-insurance -or- you change into a private insurance if you can afford it.
* If you cannot pay the taxes (too poor), the government will pay your universal health insurance.

But in any way: The costs are lower than in the US - from what I've learned so far. Plus: The poorest are insured, too.

[Gurdur]

The problem really is the pharm co's! The rest of the world should pay their share! The US carries the planet.
Totally wrong. (http://www.heathen-hangout.com/forum1/showthread.php?t=7475)
Of course, BTW, you have no evidence.
STFU!
Don't be silly.

[Gregoire]

People alike Michael Moore don't really care about the issue. They care enough to submit a film that carries some shock value.



I appreciate all the links people have provided to show how CNN has covered this. :)

However, I still personally think Moore is playing for shock value and not being careful to evaluate the data in a scientific way. And as has been mentioned already, you don't have to exaggerate to realize our healthcare system has a lot of problems. (But the same was true with his 911 film which you also didn't have to like to still oppose the Iraq war.)

As an example, Moore implies life span is a function of one's healthcare system despite the fact that diet and exercise are more important factors. Simply put, not eating at McDonalds all the time will have a much greater impact than having easy access to a heart cath in terms of overall life expectancy.

[ChristineR]

I appreciate all the links people have provided to show how CNN has covered this. :)

However, I still personally think Moore is playing for shock value and not being careful to evaluate the data in a scientific way. And as has been mentioned already, you don't have to exaggerate to realize our healthcare system has a lot of problems. (But the same was true with his 911 film which you also didn't have to like to still oppose the Iraq war.)

As an example, Moore implies life span is a function of one's healthcare system despite the fact that diet and exercise are more important factors. Simply put, not eating at McDonalds all the time will have a much greater impact than having easy access to a heart cath in terms of overall life expectancy.

Actually, Moore fact checks excessively. He's rarely if ever wrong, at least not technically wrong. Misleading and distorted, and shocking, and one-sided--absolutely.

But really, why should he present both sides of the story? The insurance companies have far more resources and they don't present both sides of the story. The commercial health care industry has far more resources and it doesn't present both sides of the story. The drug companies have far more resources and they don't present both sides of the story. The doctor's associations....

[FactCheck]

I appreciate all the links people have provided to show how CNN has covered this. :)

However, I still personally think Moore is playing for shock value and not being careful to evaluate the data in a scientific way. And as has been mentioned already, you don't have to exaggerate to realize our healthcare system has a lot of problems. (But the same was true with his 911 film which you also didn't have to like to still oppose the Iraq war.)

As an example, Moore implies life span is a function of one's healthcare system despite the fact that diet and exercise are more important factors. Simply put, not eating at McDonalds all the time will have a much greater impact than having easy access to a heart cath in terms of overall life expectancy.Moore isn't a scientist so I don't understand why he should be evaluating the data in a scientific way. He is doing what any normal person would do. He takes the data which was put together by REAL scientists and presents it to the people.

Moore makes clear in his interviews that he isn't giving the other side because that other side has been given by people like Gupta for years. I happen to agree with him here. I've been hearing how wonderful our system is for years and how a single payer system would keep me waiting years in a waiting room. And how outcomes are better in America. They never point out the disparity of class in those outcomes. So if you have money, your outcome is far better than if you don't.

I don't want one minute spent repeating AMA rhetoric. Having worked with physicians in America I can tell you they spend more time thinking of ways to make money and not on how to heal the sick. They're quick to get together and spend millions lobbying for lawsuit legislation but not to fight the insurance companies who force them to hire a battery of billing personal just to get paid. Because as long as they can pass along the cost to the patient there is no incentive to fix anything.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the physicians should be paid as much as they can. But I think the life of a single mother too poor to afford healthcare is more important to the child than the next Porsche is to the physician.

[New Ager]

(Brainache)

What I don't understand is why people would object to universal health care. It might mean slightly higher taxes, but if it means saving lives, what's a few dollars?

(New Ager)

Because it's socialism and it doesn't work. And who says it saves lives?

(Brainiac)

I live in a country that has universal health care. Our right wing government seems hellbent on starving it of funds for purely ideological reasons, which to my way of thinking is just criminal.

(New Ager)

Maybe they have seen the error of their ways.

(Brainiac)

The amount of money I paid towards health care while being single and earning over $60,000/year, was (roughly, from memory) about $600/year. Hardly enough to send me broke. That $600 means that if I fall over and break my leg, or have a heart attack, I will be treated at a public hospital and not be presented with a huge bill afterwards. It also means that my sick pensioner mother can get subsidised medicine etc etc. It is by no means a perfect system and sometimes people rip it off, but I prefer it to being at the mercy of private health insurers.

(New Ager)

I prefer to pick my doctors instead of the goverment picking them for me.

And I'm not at the mercy of anyone. When I'm sick, I go to the doctor.

(Brainiac)

Can someone explain to me the advantages of the private system that the US is currently using? Because all I ever hear is horror stories.

(New Ager)

Horror stories in a liberal country. Who would have guessed?

Good reasons are freedom of choice.

Best quality of medical care in the world is the US.

Competition compels excellence.

And who wants another big government bureaucracy?

In America, we look to the individual to solve their problems, not the government.

That's why.

[A W Smith]

(Brainache)

What I don't understand is why people would object to universal health care. It might mean slightly higher taxes, but if it means saving lives, what's a few dollars?

(New Ager)

Because it's socialism and it doesn't work. And who says it saves lives?
It has been proven it saves lives. The working poor and uninsured middle class are not forced to choose between medications or food. get your facts straight

(Brainiac)

I live in a country that has universal health care. Our right wing government seems hellbent on starving it of funds for purely ideological reasons, which to my way of thinking is just criminal.

(New Ager)

Maybe they have seen the error of their ways.maybe they have seen that theres a potential profit involved. hey let them eat cake.

(Brainiac)

The amount of money I paid towards health care while being single and earning over $60,000/year, was (roughly, from memory) about $600/year. Hardly enough to send me broke. That $600 means that if I fall over and break my leg, or have a heart attack, I will be treated at a public hospital and not be presented with a huge bill afterwards. It also means that my sick pensioner mother can get subsidised medicine etc etc. It is by no means a perfect system and sometimes people rip it off, but I prefer it to being at the mercy of private health insurers.

(New Ager)

I prefer to pick my doctors instead of the goverment picking them for me.

And I'm not at the mercy of anyone. When I'm sick, I go to the doctor. I get the distinct impression that you are very young and cared for as a government employee with heath care negotiated decades ago by a union. even most of the insured cannot pick their own doctors. they need a referral. What makes you think a government will choose a primary for you?

(Brainiac)

Can someone explain to me the advantages of the private system that the US is currently using? Because all I ever hear is horror stories.

(New Ager)

Horror stories in a liberal country. Who would have guessed?

Good reasons are freedom of choice.

Best quality of medical care in the world is the US.

Competition compels excellence.
And who wants another big government bureaucracy?

In America, we look to the individual to solve their problems, not the government.

That's why.
Myopic oversimplification. Listen I have lived this broken system for ages. I know the scorecard. I have posted just a few examples. I deal with the costs. why don't you come to NJ and pay my medical insurance which is just under $900 a month out of pocket? while your at it pay my copays and prescriptions which are over $350 a month. You don't Know WTF you are talking about.

[Gregoire]

Actually, Moore fact checks excessively. He's rarely if ever wrong, at least not technically wrong. Misleading and distorted, and shocking, and one-sided--absolutely.

But really, why should he present both sides of the story? The insurance companies have far more resources and they don't present both sides of the story. The commercial health care industry has far more resources and it doesn't present both sides of the story. The drug companies have far more resources and they don't present both sides of the story. The doctor's associations....


I can see your point, but to me it is all about credibility. If he is distorting facts I know about, then how can I trust him when he reports on what I don't as much?

As far as fact checking, I can tell you he was clearly wrong when he told Mr. Blitzer doctors prefer Medicare over private insurance. It is a fact that Medicare pays much less overall as compared to what private insurance pays. In fact, in some specialties, it pays around the same as Medicaid (a program for the poor). Now one could argue as Moore does that a different government would reimburse differently, but still, the statement he made was clearly incorrect.

[Gregoire]

Moore isn't a scientist so I don't understand why he should be evaluating the data in a scientific way. He is doing what any normal person would do. He takes the data which was put together by REAL scientists and presents it to the people.

Moore makes clear in his interviews that he isn't giving the other side because that other side has been given by people like Gupta for years. I happen to agree with him here. I've been hearing how wonderful our system is for years and how a single payer system would keep me waiting years in a waiting room. And how outcomes are better in America. They never point out the disparity of class in those outcomes. So if you have money, your outcome is far better than if you don't.

I don't want one minute spent repeating AMA rhetoric. Having worked with physicians in America I can tell you they spend more time thinking of ways to make money and not on how to heal the sick. They're quick to get together and spend millions lobbying for lawsuit legislation but not to fight the insurance companies who force them to hire a battery of billing personal just to get paid. Because as long as they can pass along the cost to the patient there is no incentive to fix anything.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the physicians should be paid as much as they can. But I think the life of a single mother too poor to afford healthcare is more important to the child than the next Porsche is to the physician.

I agree our healthcare system has a lot of problems. There clearly are people who don't have the means to pay for private insurance while still not qualifying for Medicaid. And Moore's point about how even people who are insured are still at risk should be taken to heart. (And yes I have met doctors who only care about increasing their income....just like many other Americans I know).

I just happen to like balance when it comes to educating myself about an issue. While I too am not a scientist per se, I still think having a scientific worldview is very important to figuring out reality. Using studies in a distorted fashion (such as picking the worst number you can find and only accepting it because it is the worst number) to me undermines all of his credibility.

[SoBitter]

I saw Sicko, and found it very interesting. Some of it was publicity stunts (taking a boat to Guantanamo Bay), but much of it was just testimonials.

I am an American who has no health insurance. Like Moore says in his movie, Sicko is not about Americans who have no insurance, it is about those who do, and got screwed somehow or another. Personally, I have the choice between remaining in debt and paying 500-1000 a month for health insurance, or paying off my debt and saving in case I have a medical emergency. I am betting on the fact that I remain healthy until I go back to school and am given student coverage. I have migraine headaches which I have managed to control now by taking birth control pills (having to research which one I should be on myself after the doctor changed my prescription and told me mine was discontinued, which it was not) and I pay for the visits and pills out of pocket. I badly need to visit a dentist as I know I have a few cavities, I need new eyeglasses and contact lenses, and I have a stress aggrivated form of eczema which I can not see a specialist for, because it would cost too much money.

If I have an accident or develop a serious health problem, I am SOL, I would have to declare bankruptcy if I even ran up a 5-10 thousand dollar bill. If I got pregnant, I would have no way to pay for doctor's visits or the delivery. I couldn't care less if national health care meant I had to wait hours to be seen or had to wait 3 months to see a specialist, at least I would be able to see one. I was playing volleyball last week for about 10 minutes, then had an image of myself getting hit in the face and breaking my nose with no insurance, so I went and sat down.

On the upside, I found out that I am an Irish citizen since my mom was born there, so perhaps I can get health care over there.

[Oliver]

I saw Sicko, and found it very interesting. Some of it was publicity stunts (taking a boat to Guantanamo Bay), but much of it was just testimonials.

I am an American who has no health insurance. Like Moore says in his movie, Sicko is not about Americans who have no insurance, it is about those who do, and got screwed somehow or another. Personally, I have the choice between remaining in debt and paying 500-1000 a month for health insurance, or paying off my debt and saving in case I have a medical emergency. I am betting on the fact that I remain healthy until I go back to school and am given student coverage. I have migraine headaches which I have managed to control now by taking birth control pills (having to research which one I should be on myself after the doctor changed my prescription and told me mine was discontinued, which it was not) and I pay for the visits and pills out of pocket. I badly need to visit a dentist as I know I have a few cavities, I need new eyeglasses and contact lenses, and I have a stress aggrivated form of eczema which I can not see a specialist for, because it would cost too much money.

If I have an accident or develop a serious health problem, I am SOL, I would have to declare bankruptcy if I even ran up a 5-10 thousand dollar bill. If I got pregnant, I would have no way to pay for doctor's visits or the delivery. I couldn't care less if national health care meant I had to wait hours to be seen or had to wait 3 months to see a specialist, at least I would be able to see one. I was playing volleyball last week for about 10 minutes, then had an image of myself getting hit in the face and breaking my nose with no insurance, so I went and sat down.

On the upside, I found out that I am an Irish citizen since my mom was born there, so perhaps I can get health care over there.


While it's a sad - and even harder to imagine - situation you're in, the Idea to get care in Ireland might not be too far-fetched. Did you ever informed yourself about this probability? I know about the "http://www.hookacanuck.com/"-Site, but I have no Idea if it would work for you the same way like the french guy who grew up in the US and traveled back to france to get health-care.

[SoBitter]

Well, I am going to be in Ireland in 2 weeks. I am going to be applying for a passport, but I imagine that I would have to prove residency in order to receive health care. That would be difficult since it would be obvious from my passport that I had just arrived. Who knows, it might be possible since I do have extended family that live there.

[jimtron]

Like most of Moore's work, "Sicko" is one-sided in the extreme and contains a great deal of opinion and speculation masquerading as fact.

Could you give a couple examples from Sicko where Moore presented opinion or speculation as fact?

[Oliver]

Well, I am going to be in Ireland in 2 weeks. I am going to be applying for a passport, but I imagine that I would have to prove residency in order to receive health care. That would be difficult since it would be obvious from my passport that I had just arrived. Who knows, it might be possible since I do have extended family that live there.


You may ask your family members over there if you need some kind of identity card to get health care. Here in Germany you need such a Card - but I don't know about Ireland.

Could you give a couple examples from Sicko where Moore presented opinion or speculation as fact?


I doubt that Jhunter will show up in "politics" - he prefers to tweak the conspiracy theorists noses instead. (The thread was moved from CT to Politics)

[luchog]

I'm not saying the concept of Universal Healthcare is a flop. I'm saying don't use Canada as some Utopia example of it.

I have a grandmother who was nearly killed by the Canadian healthcare system (half my family is Canadian and resides in BC) because she was "too old" and not worth expending the resources on when there were younger and more "worthwhile" people who needed the bedspace and attention. They were simply going to send her home to die, rather than perform a rather simple surgery because they were overbooked and backed up. Thus, I'm rather pained when people hold up the Canadian system as some paragon of universal healthcare. (Fortunately, a young, very new, and activist-minded intern threw a wobbler and threatened to call the local press.) From what I've heard from my relatives and a large number of other friends up there, such practices are not uncommon.

While I do believe the American system is seriously broken, I haven't seen a example of UHC that wasn't equally broken in it's own way.

Knowing how well the welfare system worked in the US, I'm really skeptical about a universal healthcare system actually working. However I'm willing to be wrong and the system certainly needs reform. All we need is a little imagination and proper motivation, and maybe we can crank out something that works with the society.

People who claim that there is no health care for anyone who isn't rich or supported by corporate insurance probably aren't really looking hard enough. Most, if not all, states have publicly-funded health insurance programs. In my state, it's Washington Basic Heath. (At my current income and family level, my monthly premiums would be under $40, about half of what I pay for my employer-provided healthcare). I have personal experience with both the Public Assistance(welfare)/Supplemental Security Income and the Basic Health system, having spent about a year and a half on both due to a (fortunately temporary) disability. An experience I would not recommend.

A number of years ago, I heard a comedian make the comment that if the US every institutes a UHC plan that "we'll finally have a healthcare system run with all the efficiency of the US Postal Service, and all the compassion of the IRS". My experiences witih publically-funded healthcare were not greatly different from that description.

[luchog]

What is considered a huge waiting list? In America, if you don't have insurance or a crapload of money, there is no waiting list. You just don't get treated at all.

That's complete crap. All hospitals that accept any public funding (which is pretty much all of them) are required by law to treat anyone who comes into the emergency room, regardless of ability to pay. There are typically staff members whose primary purpose is to assist indigent and low-income emergency room patients obtain government assistance with their resulting medical bills.

[ChristineR]

A number of years ago, I heard a comedian make the comment that if the US every institutes a UHC plan that "we'll finally have a healthcare system run with all the efficiency of the US Postal Service, and all the compassion of the IRS". My experiences witih publically-funded healthcare were not greatly different from that description.

Why do people pick on the Postal Service? They come to my house, pick up a letter, and 24 hours later it lands in a mailbox 60 miles away. It takes 48 hours to get to a mailbox 1000 miles away. They charge thirty-nine cents for this service! Private health insurance takes hundreds of hours of pointless phone calls, dozens of pointless letters and forms, and you probably have to sue them in the end anyhow! Oh, and they charge thousands of dollars for this service!

I'd be thrilled to see a health insurance system one tenth as efficient as the US Post Office!

I won't go into my personal experiences with the IRS, but they seem to be a hell of a lot more compassionate than the average US health insurer.

I'm very sorry about your grandmother, but the truth is that the press (Micheal Moore in particular) has done similar things to get treatment for people in the US many times. In the US the insurance company would probably just pretend to lose your grandmother's paperwork and hope she dies before she gets around to suing them.

[Rolfe]

I just checked my payslip, and I note that I get to keep 74% of my gross salary every month. The 26% I don't get to keep includes everything from my share of the NHS to my share of bloody Trident. The NHS gives me a pretty good deal. Virtually anything that goes wrong medically or surgically will be paid for, with the exceptions that I have to pay a fair whack of the dentist's bill and pay for my own glasses (the eye tests themselves are free). Oh yes and I pay a small contribution to prescription drugs, but that's because I don't live in Wales.

I never lose a wink of sleep over being bankrupted by medical bills. And maybe even more importantly I never lose a wink of sleep over anyone else, from the poorest widow-woman to my nearest and dearest, being bankrupted by medical bills.

There are a couple of minor concerns. I might get something the NHS has decided not to pay for - but these controversial things are few and far between, and controversial in that the evidence for their benefit is often not as strong as the we-want-it-now astroturf lobbies would have us believe. Or I might get something painful and disabling but not lifethreatening, and find myself disabled on a long waiting list.

There are ways round these concerns. First, I could choose to pay for medical insurance to cover them. I did have such insurance for a while (through my work) and it wasn't that expensive - when the insurance company isn't going to have to pay out for things its customers will have done on the NHS then the premiums are much more reasonable. Or I could actually choose to pay out of my own pocket. Yes, fancy that, on the percentage of my salary the State has let me keep over the years, I could actually do that, believe it or not.

If I have no top-up insurance and choose not to pay for my own care, well, even the longest waiting list gets you to the top in the end (and if you're in severe pain your GP will often get you shuffled nearer the top - my cousin only had to wait about 3 months for a hip replacement recently). The expensive drugs the NHS has decided not to fund may be a bummer, but only a tiny, tiny fraction of the population is affected by this.

Yes, I may moan, I may bitch, and my doctor friends make a hobby of carping on about the inefficiencies and inanities of their employer. But you know what? I'm pretty happy with the situation, and I wouldn't be a US citizen if only for this one reason for all the tea in China.

How much of your gross monthly salary do you get to keep, US-types, and would you really be in such a bad way on only 74% of that salary that the benefits I'm seeing don't look good to you?

Rolfe.

PS. What I do lose sleep over is the potential cost of long-term care for the elderly, especially the demented eldery. Despite the fact that I do live in Scotland! Anyone care to open that can of worms?

[Belz...]

Why do people pick on the Postal Service?

I have no idea. Works fine for me.

[robinson]

That's complete crap. All hospitals that accept any public funding (which is pretty much all of them) are required by law to treat anyone who comes into the emergency room, regardless of ability to pay.

No, they are required to treat emergencies, not everyone who walks in the door. And if you need non-emergency treatment, surgery, chemo, a transplant or other expensive non-emergency medical treatment, you will not get it. Certainly not in an emergency room. Don't be absurd.

Do you even live in the US? Have you ever actually gone to an emergency room? Try going to one, to get a minor medical problem treated. Get back to us on how that went. Make sure you tell them you have no insurance.

[luchog]

Why do people pick on the Postal Service? They come to my house, pick up a letter, and 24 hours later it lands in a mailbox 60 miles away.
The service has improved dramatically since it was required to be self-sufficient and compete effectively with private couriers like UPS, DHL, and FedEx. However, it can still have serious problems. In the last three years, I've had two packages lost completely with no trace, two misrouted, one seriously damaged, and an uncounted number simply stuck in transit somewhere
Private health insurance takes hundreds of hours of pointless phone calls, dozens of pointless letters and forms, and you probably have to sue them in the end anyhow! Oh, and they charge thousands of dollars for this service!
You think a government-run healthcare system would be any better? I have been in a government-run system. Right now, I could switch to a purely government-run healthcare insurance system and pay half of what I'm paying for my employer-provided insurance. And I would be lucky if I got even a quarter as good service. I know for a fact that at least one of my medications would not be available at all, because it's too new, and will be for at least another 5 years in the US. One of my recent tests could not have been done, or rather, might have been available if I had spent about a year going through all the alternative, and much cheaper, treatments, and possibly screwed myself up badly on one of them.

My SO is currently on the government-run insurance, because she's on disability, and isn't able to get a lot of her treatment, or has to be on a huge waiting list, and can only get the bare minimum to survive. Same for her dental and vision. (As far as dental, she needs several broken teeth fixed, but public health insurance won't cover crowns, only pulling them completely). There're two medications that she cannot get through her public insurance, again because they're too new and anything that is not available in a generic form isn't covered. One of them isn't a huge issue, since there's a different one that's moderately effective. It works, just not as well. The other, however, is an NSAID that is the only one she's been able to try (thanks to her MD father providing a few free samples) that effectively relieves her arthritis symptoms without destroying her stomach lining. Technically, she could get it by specially requesting an exception, but she'd have to go through a 9 month program of testing every other currently available NSAID in order to do so. Since that would be worse for her than simply enduring the arthritis, she's pretty much SOL.

Thanks, but I'll stick with my "horribly expensive" private insurance (which I'll be able to extend to her fairly soon, fortunately).

I'm very sorry about your grandmother, but the truth is that the press (Micheal Moore in particular) has done similar things to get treatment for people in the US many times. In the US the insurance company would probably just pretend to lose your grandmother's paperwork and hope she dies before she gets around to suing them.
Hasn't been my experience. In my experience, government-run programs like Basic Health, Medicaid, and Medicare are far more likely to shunt you off somewhere to die so that they can save resources. I've had nothing but good experiences with private insurance. The fact that I have private insurance through my employer is a large part of my not having died from a ruptured appendix.

[luchog]

How much of your gross monthly salary do you get to keep, US-types, and would you really be in such a bad way on only 74% of that salary that the benefits I'm seeing don't look good to you?

I only keep 70-72% of my gross salary, and pay an additional 5% for private health insurance. I'm perfectly happy with my health insurance. If I had back the percentage of my gross salary that goes to public health, I'd be a lot happier. Especially since I'm one of those people that needs those expensive drugs that aren't funded by government programs.

[Blue Mountain]

(leading portion of post snipped for brevity)

Hasn't been my experience. In my experience, government-run programs like Basic Health, Medicaid, and Medicare are far more likely to shunt you off somewhere to die so that they can save resources. I've had nothing but good experiences with private insurance. The fact that I have private insurance through my employer is a large part of my not having died from a ruptured appendix.

There's the rub. What would have happened had your appendix ruptured while you were unemployed?

I'm in Canada. I was laid off from a good job in 2001, and it took me two years to find a decent job. The company that eventually hired me is very small (less than 10 employees) and has spent the last three years in a rebuilding mode. If this story took place in the States, I highly doubt I would have had insurance through my employer. Just over a year ago I spent five days in hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis, a complication of the type I diabetes I had developed. I shudder to think of what the bill would have been had the provincial government not picked up the tab.

It seems ludicrous to tie one's health insurance so closely to one's employment status. Lose your job (often through no fault of your own) and a few weeks later you also lose your health insurance. Get a crappy job, and you make too much to qualify for the state government program, and too little to pay for your own insurance. Or, if you're unlucky (like I was), you can't buy private health insurance at any price!

[kellyb]

The fact that I have private insurance through my employer is a large part of my not having died from a ruptured appendix.

What would you have done if you didn't have have insurance and only made about $25,000 a year? (thus not qualifying for any kind of public insurance?)

ETA: Dang! Beat to it. :D

[Gurdur]

I'm kind of really bloody weirded out that it should require private insurance to adequately deal with a ruptured appendix, as luchog asserts, where he lives.

I mean, that's fairly standard stuff (emergency surgery, peritonitis, germ-culture control etc.), and the fact that luchog finds it much better in such circumstances to have private insurance where he lives only makes me so much more glad to live where I live, which is definitely some place else.

What would you have done if you didn't have have insurance and only made about $25,000 a year? (thus not qualifying for any kind of public insurance?)


Well, I guess if you're living where luchog is, then instead of worrying about healthcare costs at that point you start worrying about funeral costs instead.

Interestingly enough, both luchog and I share the same dilemma; wanting medications very new (and in my case off-label) and therefore not incorporated into the standard med schedules; luchog finds his private insurance pays for it there, here where I live no private insurer would touch it with a barge-pole, but I do have a reasonable chance under the normal "non-private" insurance for getting them to allow it. Odd how different systems work out.

[Rolfe]

I'm one of those people that needs those expensive drugs that aren't funded by government programs.


If you don't mind my asking, what is it you need? I'm just curious to find out whether it's something the NHS would fund.

Rolfe.

[Random]

It seems ludicrous to tie one's health insurance so closely to one's employment status. Lose your job (often through no fault of your own) and a few weeks later you also lose your health insurance. Get a crappy job, and you make too much to qualify for the state government program, and too little to pay for your own insurance. Or, if you're unlucky (like I was), you can't buy private health insurance at any price!

Moore touches on this in his movie. He basically tells us that "they" want to have health care be a privilege so employers can use it as a tool to keep control of workers. If your employer has health insurance and you or someone in your family comes down with some sort of chronic condition, your employer basically owns you. If you change jobs, you lose your health insurance, and good luck getting insurance with a pre-existing condition.

It sounds like a paranoid rant, and it probably is. I don’t think there really is any secret conspiracy to keep healthcare away from us to keep us in line, its just that there are a bunch of people who are making obscene amounts of money off the current system, and they can afford to buy the necessary senators and congressmen.

[Gregoire]

Moore touches on this in his movie. He basically tells us that "they" want to have health care be a privilege so employers can use it as a tool to keep control of workers. If your employer has health insurance and you or someone in your family comes down with some sort of chronic condition, your employer basically owns you. If you change jobs, you lose your health insurance, and good luck getting insurance with a pre-existing condition.

It sounds like a paranoid rant, and it probably is. I don’t think there really is any secret conspiracy to keep healthcare away from us to keep us in line, its just that there are a bunch of people who are making obscene amounts of money off the current system, and they can afford to buy the necessary senators and congressmen.

Thanks for being up front about this issue. :) It is very easy on a lot of issues to feel that there is a conspiracy involved and alot of documentaries really play this up. (One of the reasons I joined this Skeptic forum is to do a better job critically evaluating such claims.)

While I believe there are a lot of factors involved, I agree with you that the most likely answer is the profit motive of those who do well with the status quo. Then add in our culture where many people have an inherent mistrust of government.

Since your profile says you are from Massachusetts, I wanted to ask you about what you thought of that state's plan which just went into effect on July 1st.

[skeptifem]

Moore touches on this in his movie. He basically tells us that "they" want to have health care be a privilege so employers can use it as a tool to keep control of workers. If your employer has health insurance and you or someone in your family comes down with some sort of chronic condition, your employer basically owns you. If you change jobs, you lose your health insurance, and good luck getting insurance with a pre-existing condition.



did he talk about COBRA? thats exactly what cobra is for and why its required to be available.

[JoeEllison]

did he talk about COBRA? thats exactly what cobra is for and why its required to be available.
Yeah, well... that's nice if you can afford the premiums.

[Random]

did he talk about COBRA? thats exactly what cobra is for and why its required to be available.

I don't recall if he mentioned COBRA, but with COBRA you end up paying the insurance premiums yourself. You still get the company rate, which is probably lower than individual insurance would be, but you would be paying for it entirely out of your pocket, without the company you worked for shelling out a nickel.

Even if you can make the premiums, you are still out of luck if the company cancels its health insurance program entirely. And you will be thrown off COBRA in 18 months regardless, in which case you still either need individual coverage or to find a job with health insurance that will accept you and your pre-existing condition.

[Random]

Thanks for being up front about this issue. :) It is very easy on a lot of issues to feel that there is a conspiracy involved and alot of documentaries really play this up. (One of the reasons I joined this Skeptic forum is to do a better job critically evaluating such claims.)

While I believe there are a lot of factors involved, I agree with you that the most likely answer is the profit motive of those who do well with the status quo. Then add in our culture where many people have an inherent mistrust of government.

Since your profile says you are from Massachusetts, I wanted to ask you about what you thought of that state's plan which just went into effect on July 1st.
They don’t affect me much since I am a State employee and already have health insurance, but it just seems to be a fundamentally flawed plan. If people can’t afford insurance, we are going to force them to buy it? Insurance companies will offer super cheap plans to the poor with deductibles so high as to render the insurance effectively useless.

Everyone will end up with something called “health insurance”, but the quality of the plans will vary wildly. It seems to have most of the problems of the current insurance system, only spread around more.

It does help cut down on insurance company “cherry-picking”, as an insurance company has to offer “something” to people looking for health insurance, but I still think single payer is the way to go overall.

Still, the employer insurance trap is real. My father has diabetes and had insurance through his employer. He had kind of been trying to quit for a while since the company had been purchased by a bean-counting corporation who had no idea what they were doing when it came to running an engineering firm. If he changed jobs however, he would lose his employer paid health insurance, and getting a new policy for an insulin-dependant diabetic is expensive. For this and other reasons, he stuck around about a year longer than he should have until he got a job offer that had insurance.

[boooeee]

I don't recall if he mentioned COBRA, but with COBRA you end up paying the insurance premiums yourself. You still get the company rate, which is probably lower than individual insurance would be, but you would be paying for it entirely out of your pocket, without the company you worked for shelling out a nickel.

Even if you can make the premiums, you are still out of luck if the company cancels its health insurance program entirely. And you will be thrown off COBRA in 18 months regardless, in which case you still either need individual coverage or to find a job with health insurance that will accept you and your pre-existing condition.

Even after COBRA is exhausted, most states have what is usually referred to as a HIPAA option in which you can purchase insurance through a private carrier, regardless of pre-existing condition. The rules vary from state to state and the premiums can still be quite expensive. However, if you have a serious pre-existing condition, paying the premiums will most likely be cheaper than paying your medical bills out of pocket.

[luchog]

Do you even live in the US? Have you ever actually gone to an emergency room? Try going to one, to get a minor medical problem treated. Get back to us on how that went. Make sure you tell them you have no insurance.

Yes, fairly recently actually (acute appendicitis). About midnight, and it was filled with people with minor medical problems, and drug-seekers. A number of non-emergency cases were treated before I was, because I did not appear to be in an emergency situation.*

My father in law is a doctor, and I have several friends who are nurses, and they have all commented on the number of indigent individuals, particularly the homeless, who fill up their emergency rooms with minor problems; or even no problems at all, just attention- or drug-seeking. They are required to treat all of them, and typically do, in order of medical necessity; with the exception that the more problematic ones sometimes sent across town to different hospitals if they are too busy with real emergencies, or if the patients are too unpleasant (eg, loud, obnoxious regular drug-seekers).

In fact, the after-hours voicemail for many local clinics directs patients to the emergency room of a local large hospital for non-emergency treatment.

Look up the EMTALA. According to the AMA, emergency physicians annually provide and average, close to $140,000 of unpaid medical care. While Federal law does not always require non-emergency treatment (depending on how the specific medical issue is classified in the rating system), it does require a full diagnosis, and diagnosing a condition can frequently require expensive testing, which is one of the biggest expenses in medical care. And the Federal definition of what constitutes applicable emergency treatment is fairly broad.

Many states, mine included, require hospitals to treat all patients, regardless of emergency status; as resources permit. IE. non-emergency patients are prioritized below emergency patients, but must still be treated as per the applicable sections of the RCW chapter 70 and WAC Chapter 388 section 500. Indeed, this has become such a drain on the resources of the emergency system that a proposal was made to require a nominal co-pay for non-emergency use of an emergency facility. I don't recall if this passed.

*In fact, my appendicitis was so unusual (i tend to be close to the extreme ends of "natural variation" in a lot of ways), it required a CAT scan to even determine that I had it, and that I was less than 24 hours from a rupture. The doc was ready to send me home with bottles of antibiotics and painkillers, because he was sure it wasn't acute; but did the CAT just to be safe, because of the amount of pain I appeared to be in. Had I been on a socialized medical program, where resources like that are much less likely to be available, I'd probaby be dead from a ruptured appendix. I ended up having to pay a big chunk out of pocket for it; but I'd rather be alive and in debt, than the alternative.

[jimtron]

Like most of Moore's work, "Sicko" is one-sided in the extreme and contains a great deal of opinion and speculation masquerading as fact.


Could you give a couple examples from Sicko where Moore presented opinion or speculation as fact?

PM from JHunter:Jim:

Sorry, I hadn't followed this thread closely, and not at all after it got moved to Politics. I rarely venture there.

To be quite honest, my post was poorly phrased. I can't really point to one single element and say "that isn't true". However, some of the personal anecdotes are certainly extreme examples. And, as a medical biller I can't help but wonder what is being left out (i. e., the insurance carriers' side of the story).

That being said, I see (somewhat) less egregious examples of what Moore describes every day. I see chemotherapy patients denied lifesaving tratments on the nebulous grounds of "medical necessity". I see patients with $400,000 medical bills being abandoned by insurers. It's really quite discouraging work.

So, in summary, I can't specifically state that anything Moore said is wrong; however, I would say that his examples are extreme cases. If you would like me to retract publicly, I'll do so. Permission to post this PM is granted if you so choose.

Cheers, John

[luchog]

There's the rub. What would have happened had your appendix ruptured while you were unemployed?
[QUOTE=kellyb;2774519]What would you have done if you didn't have have insurance and only made about $25,000 a year? (thus not qualifying for any kind of public insurance?)

Okay, I have to admit that that was a bit of an exaggeration.

However, it's clear that neither of you bothered to read my posts in their entirety, just looked for something you could spew a knee-jerk reaction to. In my state, I would qualify for public insurance regardless of my income level, as long as I'm below $20,000 per year for a single individual, or, in my case, $34,000 per year for a family of three, gross income. Washington Basic Health, which is a perfect example of the sort of universal healthcare system one could expect in the US; it's certainly better than Federal Medicaid/Medicare programs. Incidentally, the average starting salary for entry-level jobs here is between $20,000 and $23,000 gross; and nearly all employers, full-time employers and temp agencies, offer some form of insurance; even for employees making less than that; so obtaining insurance isn't a big deal, here.

It's the quality of the insurance that's the problem. See my reply to Robinson for details of my appendicitis experience.

How many apparently non-acute appendicitis cases would have been given an expensive "just in case" CAT scan in a Canadian or UK health-care system?

[luchog]

If you don't mind my asking, what is it you need? I'm just curious to find out whether it's something the NHS would fund.

It's really not something I feel comfortable discussing. I have asked friends and family in Canada about it, and I know that I would have similar problems there. No idea bout NHS, though.

[luchog]

Moore touches on this in his movie. He basically tells us that "they" want to have health care be a privilege so employers can use it as a tool to keep control of workers. If your employer has health insurance and you or someone in your family comes down with some sort of chronic condition, your employer basically owns you. If you change jobs, you lose your health insurance, and good luck getting insurance with a pre-existing condition.

It sounds like a paranoid rant, and it probably is. I don’t think there really is any secret conspiracy to keep healthcare away from us to keep us in line, its just that there are a bunch of people who are making obscene amounts of money off the current system, and they can afford to buy the necessary senators and congressmen.

It is a paranoid rant. In fact, it's complete crap. Employers offer health insurance because it's a way to offer an attractive compensation package to potential employee without having to endure the higher payroll taxes that a direct salary increase would entail. I believe employers even get a tax credit for offering medical insurance. The same reason many companies offer compensation in the form of stock/option grants, rather than monetary bonuses or higher raises. Taxes on income from stock sales are classed as capital gains, not salary, and are therefore paid by the employee, rather than the employer. Plus, the typical staggered vesting schedules are a strong inducement for employees to remaining at the company, rather than seeking higher salaries elsewhere once they obtain sufficient work training and experience (hence the reason they were given the epithet "golden handcuffs" during the dotcom bubble).

Oh, and my current insurance package does not have a pre-existing condition codicil of any sort. The package I had with my previous two employers also covered pre-existing conditions, but with a 30 or 90 day waiting period.

[Gurdur]

Okay, I have to admit that that was a bit of an exaggeration...How many apparently non-acute appendicitis cases would have been given an expensive "just in case" CAT scan in a Canadian or UK health-care system?

1) luchog, your story does not make much sense.

Was the doctor who referred you for a CAT scan the hospital doc, and did you see him because you had no insurance at the time?

Or was it a completely private doc?

2) You were told by another poster to try getting treatment without insurance. You claimed you did. Did you or didn't you?

The story just doesn't make much sense scattered across several posts as it is; you appear to be claiming contradictory things.

3) And BTW, I had TWO very expensive "just-in-case" MRT (MRI) scans two months ago, one for lower and one for middle abdomen, one with contrast IV and one without, part of an overall general diagnosis that mainly relied simply on differentially trying to preclude as much as possible, rather than relying on finding an easy thing to diagnose (long story as to why).

Neither cost me an extra cent. Both under the general state public kind of healthcare here. Germany here.

[Blue Mountain]

There's the rub. What would have happened had your appendix ruptured while you were unemployed?
However, it's clear that neither of you bothered to read my posts in their entirety, just looked for something you could spew a knee-jerk reaction to.

Please don't assume things ("it's clear that ...") I did read your entire post. IIRC, that was your first post in this thread.

The first part of it was a good endorsement of the benefits of competition in a space where there is a commodity need (moving letters and packages around) that can be filled by multiple providers. That model does not necessarily apply to healthcare, which is a space where there are hundreds of niches. If I have a heart condition, I need a cardiologist. A neurologist, urologist, psychiatrist, or endocrinologist is only of limited use there.

The second part made the assumption that because your state has a crappy government-run system for low income earners, all government run programs are crappy. As has been pointed out multiple times in this thread, many people living in countries where there is a single-payer system are very happy with their insurance provider, and the outcomes are better--especially given the fantastic amount the US spends on healthcare every year.

In my state, I would qualify for public insurance regardless of my income level, as long as I'm below $20,000 per year for a single individual, or, in my case, $34,000 per year for a family of three, gross income. Washington Basic Health, which is a perfect example of the sort of universal healthcare system one could expect in the US; it's certainly better than Federal Medicaid/Medicare programs. Incidentally, the average starting salary for entry-level jobs here is between $20,000 and $23,000 gross; and nearly all employers, full-time employers and temp agencies, offer some form of insurance; even for employees making less than that; so obtaining insurance isn't a big deal, here.

That's good to know. But there are some caveats there:
1. You're talking about Washington. I have no idea if they are the exception or the rule when it comes to state-run public healthcare insurance.

2. Washington's coverage stops when you start making over $20,000/year.

3. Your level and quality of medical insurance varies from job to job. And although it's against the law, I'm quite sure companies pass over certain potential employees when it becomes apparent they have a chronic medical condition. Ask Ducky if you want details.

It's the quality of the insurance that's the problem. See my reply to Robinson for details of my appendicitis experience.
And there's another problem! Different things are covered by different providers. A nationally funded program gives the same level of service across the board.

How many apparently non-acute appendicitis cases would have been given an expensive "just in case" CAT scan in a Canadian or UK health-care system?
Good question. I'm not employed in a hospital, so I can't say. I do know when I ended up in hospital with DKA, I was also suffering from a persistent boil (probably a local staph infection) and the hospital did a CAT scan on it.

[Gregoire]

They don’t affect me much since I am a State employee and already have health insurance, but it just seems to be a fundamentally flawed plan. If people can’t afford insurance, we are going to force them to buy it? Insurance companies will offer super cheap plans to the poor with deductibles so high as to render the insurance effectively useless.

Everyone will end up with something called “health insurance”, but the quality of the plans will vary wildly. It seems to have most of the problems of the current insurance system, only spread around more.

It does help cut down on insurance company “cherry-picking”, as an insurance company has to offer “something” to people looking for health insurance, but I still think single payer is the way to go overall.

Still, the employer insurance trap is real. My father has diabetes and had insurance through his employer. He had kind of been trying to quit for a while since the company had been purchased by a bean-counting corporation who had no idea what they were doing when it came to running an engineering firm. If he changed jobs however, he would lose his employer paid health insurance, and getting a new policy for an insulin-dependant diabetic is expensive. For this and other reasons, he stuck around about a year longer than he should have until he got a job offer that had insurance.

Thank you for your analysis of the situation in Massachusetts.

I have always wondered exactly how they were going to mandate coverage, especially when insurance companies do exactly what you describe: They offer "low cost" plans with very high deductibles, making the plan not very valuable afterall.

[boooeee]

Thank you for your analysis of the situation in Massachusetts.

I have always wondered exactly how they were going to mandate coverage, especially when insurance companies do exactly what you describe: They offer "low cost" plans with very high deductibles, making the plan not very valuable afterall.

Part of the reform includes standards for what is called "minimum creditable coverage" in which maximums are set for deductibles and out of pocket. The maximum deductible appears to be $2,000 (although that may still be up in the air).

Ah-nuld's proposal for California includes a similar provision (with a higher proposed maximum deductible).

Here's a summary of the Massachusetts plan: Link (http://www.bcbsmafoundation.org/foundationroot/en_US/documents/MassHCReformLawSummary.pdf)

[quixotecoyote]

I happen to have my Cobra Paperwork in front of me. Lets see.

<reads paper> (for real, even)

Yup, you can continue coverage up to 18 months. If I had a spouse, she'd be covered for 36.???

Anyway, the rate is the full amount of insurance cost under the previous plan, not just the amount I was previously responsible for. Don't have the exact number on that, but it was a fairly hefty chuck of change I was paying and that was the smaller part. I'm going to have to check tomorrow, but I doubt I'll be able to afford this.

[Random]

Part of the reform includes standards for what is called "minimum creditable coverage" in which maximums are set for deductibles and out of pocket. The maximum deductible appears to be $2,000 (although that may still be up in the air).

Ah-nuld's proposal for California includes a similar provision (with a higher proposed maximum deductible).

Here's a summary of the Massachusetts plan: Link (http://www.bcbsmafoundation.org/foundationroot/en_US/documents/MassHCReformLawSummary.pdf)

It doesn't really matter. COBRA, HIPAA, the California nd Massachusetts heath insurance schemes, health savings accounts, they are all just patches on the basic problem which is that we have an adversarial, for-profit healthcare system. Mixed in with the hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmysists, etc, we have a collection of groups and individuals who stand to personally profit if you are denied healthcare or if they can shift the financial burdens of that healthcare onto you.

[Rolfe]

In fact, my appendicitis was so unusual .... it required a CAT scan to even determine that I had it, and that I was less than 24 hours from a rupture. The doc was ready to send me home with bottles of antibiotics and painkillers, because he was sure it wasn't acute; but did the CAT just to be safe, because of the amount of pain I appeared to be in. Had I been on a socialized medical program, where resources like that are much less likely to be available, I'd probaby be dead from a ruptured appendix. I ended up having to pay a big chunk out of pocket for it; but I'd rather be alive and in debt, than the alternative.


As another poster noted, you seem to be assuming that any "socialised medical programme" will be inferior. I can well imagine that where you are, the socialised medical programme is indeed inferior. However, when everybody is in such a programme, and it is the standard care for everyone, this is not so. It certainly isn't so in the NHS.

If you'd presented at an NHS A&E as you described, you'd have got what was needed to diagnose you. If someone had dropped his rifle so badly as to let you go home with a ruptured appendix (and no system can be free of any errors at all), the subsequent fallout would have been phenomenal. You (or your heirs!) would probably walk away with a six-figure damages settlement. With an acute presentation like this, it wouldn't matter a toss whether or not you were insured. As a British citizen you'd be covered by the NHS regardless and the NHS would spring into action. Your insurance company, if you had one, wouldn't even hear about it till later - probably when you asked them to pay for a private room for your recovery.

Not only that, if you were a foreign tourist who presented in that way, you'd get the identical treatment. Some bean-counter might try to make someone pay after the event, with questionable success I suspect, but that wouldn't impact on quality of care.

I think you're so used to a two-tier system, with "socialised medicine" as the poor relation, that you haven't quite taken on board that a completely "socialised" system will not necessarily level everyone down to these poor standards, and that in fact experience in other countries demonstrates that the opposite happens.

Rolfe.

[boooeee]

It doesn't really matter. COBRA, HIPAA, the California nd Massachusetts heath insurance schemes, health savings accounts, they are all just patches on the basic problem which is that we have an adversarial, for-profit healthcare system. Mixed in with the hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmysists, etc, we have a collection of groups and individuals who stand to personally profit if you are denied healthcare or if they can shift the financial burdens of that healthcare onto you.

Yet many European countries (Germany and Switzerland, for example) have for-profit healthcare. Similar to the Massachusetts and California proposals, health insurance is mandatory and health insurance companies cannot deny you for pre-existing conditions (or dump you if you get sick).

I agree that the current system needs fixed, I'm just not convinced that removing for-profit healthcare is the only way to fix it.

[epepke]

Please see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19748368 It is excellent and accurate comedy.

Moore consistently uses terrible, ignorant, and unscientific arguments, which people who agree with him should find embarrassing, if they could reason.

[boooeee]

Please see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19748368 It is excellent and accurate comedy.

Moore consistently uses terrible, ignorant, and unscientific arguments, which people who agree with him should find embarrassing, if they could reason.

I was just about to post that article. I do think that there were some good points in Sicko. The example of the woman whose husband was denied a bone marrow transplant, however, was not one of the them.

From the article:

Pierce implies in the movie that her insurance company and the group that runs it — the board of directors of the hospital where she works — refused to pay for the treatment because she is white and her husband was black. Of course, we know nothing of the insurance company or board's motives. In the movie, neither speaks.

Almost any insurance plan would have turned down the request for an experimental treatment, with no proven value, costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is critical to note that the national health plans in Canada, Great Britain, France and Cuba that are featured in "Sicko" would also have turned down such treatment. No matter where he was getting his care, Tracy Pierce almost certainly would have died at a young age.


Also:

A horrifying example of what happens when treatments are based on anecdotes rather than science occurred in the 1980s. A few oncologists became convinced, on the basis of a handful of cases, that the best treatment for advanced breast cancer was a combination of bone marrow transplants and very high doses of chemotherapy. Insurance companies at first refused to pay, saying correctly that the treatment was experimental, unproven. As a result, the oncologists encouraged their patients to sue.

What jury could say no to a woman, often a young mother, when a doctor would testify that the treatment costing tens of thousands of dollars was her best chance for life?

When clinical trials of the bone marrow procedure were ultimately completed a decade later, they proved the procedure was actually killing the women faster than the breast cancer. More than 100,000 women underwent the marrow transplants involving untold suffering and billions of dollars in expenditures — money that could have been put to so many truly life-saving uses.

[FFed]

I can't really say anything bad about the Canadian system. I know many people have had problems with it but my experiences have been good.
Right now I am actually very grateful to our system. My mother had another heart attack a few weeks ago, and the system looked after her very well. No delays, they just took care of business. She had angioplasty done and a stent put in. She had her first heart attack 14 years ago requiring angioplasty then too, and everything went smooth with no problems or delays.

My only problem now is trying to find a family doctor for myself, since I have moved and none here are taking new patients.

[Segnosaur]

I can't really say anything bad about the Canadian system. I know many people have had problems with it but my experiences have been good. ...

My only problem now is trying to find a family doctor for myself, since I have moved and none here are taking new patients.

But isn't the inability to find a family doctor something 'bad' about the Candian system?

[Unabogie]

Here is Julie Pierce's account of the situation. It wasn't just the bone marrow that was denied. I was a routine occurrence that whatever her doctor prescribed, the Board denied (http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=9938).

Tracy Pierce died on January 18, 2006, at home after a courageous battle with kidney cancer. Tracy was a 37-year-old African American man from Mission, Kansas, a Journeyman Carpenter with Local #61 in Kansas City . He was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma in 2004. The cancer eventually spread to his liver, lungs, lymph nodes, adrenal gland, renal cavity and his brain. Tracy Pierce was the father of a 15-year-old boy, a brother, a son, a friend and he was my husband. On April 10, 2004, one day before his 36th birthday, Tracy was sent to the emergency room for an MRI after an appointment with our family physician. Our worst fears began that day and the nightmare only got worse. The MRI showed a massive mass on his left kidney which needed to be surgically removed immediately. Five days later, Tracy had surgery that was followed by complications that kept him in the hospital until May 12.

We found an excellent oncologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Dr. Peter Van Veldhuizen. We were fully insured through my employer, St. Joseph Medical Center which is part of Carondelet Health and a member of Ascension Health, so we felt certain that the road to recovery could be promising along with additional treatments and therapy aiding in prolonging his life.... so we thought. We thought wrong.

Drug after drug, treatment after treatment that our doctor sought for him was denied. Despite the fact that our doctor provided detailed scientific evidence for these treatment options, our insurer deemed them not medically necessary or experimental. We, along with our doctors appealed again and again, spelling out that my husband would die without care. The only treatment approved - two rounds of Interleukin infusions in September 2004, months after Tracy’s diagnosis - were not successful.

Our doctor recommended a bone marrow transplant. Tracy and his two brothers got a bone marrow work-up, and his youngest brother came back a perfect match. But then, the insurer denied that, putting my husband through false hopes by sending him and his brothers for this testing. How heartless and ruthless is this?

We found out that the responsibility for these denials rested with the Board of Trustees of my employer, the hospital where I continue to work. On April 25, 2005, our doctor appealed the bone marrow denial, noting “research-based evidence” supporting this necessary treatment. And then, I demanded a meeting.

We met with this Board, face to face, begging for approval, submitting the 27-page appeal letter from the bone marrow physician who pleaded with them to approve necessary treatment. It did no good. Within months, Tracy was dead.

We fought a long and hard battle for Tracy's right to receive the treatments that his physician had ordered, and his right to live. Tracy deserved every opportunity to receive those treatments as prescribed or ordered by his physician.

I promised Tracy that after he was gone I would continue to fight. That is why I was honored to be able to tell Tracy’s story in Michael Moore’s movie, Sicko, and why I am here today. We need to change this insurance system so that people like Tracy get the chance to live the life that they deserve. Thank you.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

As another poster noted, you seem to be assuming that any "socialised medical programme" will be inferior. I can well imagine that where you are, the socialised medical programme is indeed inferior. However, when everybody is in such a programme, and it is the standard care for everyone, this is not so. It certainly isn't so in the NHS.

If you'd presented at an NHS A&E as you described, you'd have got what was needed to diagnose you. If someone had dropped his rifle so badly as to let you go home with a ruptured appendix (and no system can be free of any errors at all), the subsequent fallout would have been phenomenal. You (or your heirs!) would probably walk away with a six-figure damages settlement. With an acute presentation like this, it wouldn't matter a toss whether or not you were insured. As a British citizen you'd be covered by the NHS regardless and the NHS would spring into action. Your insurance company, if you had one, wouldn't even hear about it till later - probably when you asked them to pay for a private room for your recovery.

Not only that, if you were a foreign tourist who presented in that way, you'd get the identical treatment. Some bean-counter might try to make someone pay after the event, with questionable success I suspect, but that wouldn't impact on quality of care.

I think you're so used to a two-tier system, with "socialised medicine" as the poor relation, that you haven't quite taken on board that a completely "socialised" system will not necessarily level everyone down to these poor standards, and that in fact experience in other countries demonstrates that the opposite happens.

Rolfe.

I actually went to an emergency room in Quebec City on a Friday night two years ago with similar symptoms. It was a slow night and, in the two hours I spent there, there were never more than 5 people in the waiting room. Other than the time I spent trying out my French on another older couple (I actually managed to make a joke that they both laughed at) time passsed slowly. The diagnosis was simple constipation but I got x-rayed just to make sure. The claim was made directly to my Ontario Health Plan and I got some medicine and a prescription to carry away with me.

[RBG]

What private clinics?

These ones, for example:

go to:

carepoint
.ca/

They're private walk-in clincs, no appointment necessary. But still running under the Canadian socialized medicine - they don't charge extra. And usually it's very timely service - few waits in my experience. Unfortunately not 24 hours, in which case you're back to long waits at Hospital Emergency if you're not high priority.

You have to ask, how can the private ones do it with few waits but the hospitals can't with long waits? If it's profitable for the private clinics to employ doctors, why not the hospitals?

RBG

[RBG]

Funny how us new guys aren't able to post web links.

RBG

[casebro]

One point worth bringing up is: who pay now, vs who would pay for the mandated plans.

Now, with employers doing the paying, the costs are part of the employers overhead, and are passed on to the consumer. This puts the US businesses at a disadvantage in the world market. But make health coverage mandatory, and paid from payroll taxes on the employee, and we would gain advantage.

Hmm, you do know that health coverage goes back to the price fixing days of WWII. That it was a way for employers to give the employees more 'pay' legally. Perhaps things would be different if it was taxed today as regular pay. At least the gov would be making more money.... hmm, with the Social Security, through Medicare, actually paying 60% of all the medical bills in America, perhaps it's the politicians behind these plans for mandatory coverage? If somebody beside SS pays for health care, the SS funds can continue to be used for general fund liabilities. Is that what Hillary is really after- in effect, a tax raise? With employers/employees buying more health coverage, do you really think that our SS taxes will come down?

[Gord_in_Toronto]

These ones, for example:

go to:

carepoint
.ca/

They're private walk-in clincs, no appointment necessary. But still running under the Canadian socialized medicine - they don't charge extra. And usually it's very timely service - few waits in my experience. Unfortunately not 24 hours, in which case you're back to long waits at Hospital Emergency if you're not high priority.

You have to ask, how can the private ones do it with few waits but the hospitals can't with long waits? If it's profitable for the private clinics to employ doctors, why not the hospitals?

RBG

Two points:

"Private walk-in clincs" are fully part of the "Canadian socialized medicine" model. Doctors are not (in general) salaried employees of the government; they are paid fees for their services. Carepoint seems to provide management and office services for doctors who are paid by the provincial goverment the same as usual.

Hospital emeergency rooms are full of people who should be at walk in clinics. The overhead for a hospital emergency room is much higher than for a walk in clinic.

[Elentar]

I saw Sicko last night, and I was impressed. I generally liked Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 911, but found myself correcting them to my wife on multiple points. I watched Sicko and never felt the need to correct it.

Although most of the movie consists of anecdotal stories about people who get screwed by their HMO's, Moore presents plenty of evidence that this is a systematic practice, not an occasional accident. The Nixon tape is a matter of public record, and demonstrates the cynical machinations that brought the system to this point. The stunt of going to Guantanamo was classic Moore, and although Cuba was obviously treating the American patients as a propaganda coup against America, what matters is that Moore got them the treatment they needed. Furthermore, for all its talk about the heroes of 9/11, you would think the Bush administration would have given these people similar care for the same propaganda motive. That the government didn't makes the administration richly deserving of the black eye that Moore gave it.

A few points regarding comments on the Canadian system. I suspect that Canadian politicians at the provincial level may be skimming the system and diverting funds to other projects, and some may even have a vested interest (lobby groups and funding) to try to cripple it. The insistence of the Alberta government that they go to a two-tier system, while handing their people checks at the end of the tax year--essentially, bribes to re-elect the current government--is highly suspect. Alberta, by the way, is the most sympathetic consitutuency to the Bush Republicans, even now when they are in utter disrepute. Having met some of these people, it is no exaggeration to say that they are as dumb as a sack of hammers, to borrow a phrase from someone who now lives in Alberta and deals with these people every day.

As it is, Canadian hospitals practice triage. If you have a minor ailment, you wait. If you need immediate treatment, you go straight in. In any case, minor ailments are supposed to go to local clinics, not hospitals. My main complaint is that GP's in Canada have a hard time earning enough money, so the payment system needs to be revisited. Yet according to the doctor in Sicko testifying before congress, she was making only a few hundred a week before she began to deny people treatment. The average Canadian doctor still does better than this.

The main point that must be understood is that the HMO's represent an enormous financial drain on the health system. This is a vast labyrinthine bureacracy whose main objective is to try to deny care to their customers, and which is therefore structured to that end. This means that much of the cost is not even dedicated to health care, but to bean counting. When Tommy Douglas brought the universal health care system into effect in Saskatchewan, they were able to dramatically lower the cost of health care overall and still show a profit, because of the economies of scale, and because they were able to cut most of the middle men. Rubber stamping your form at the admission desk takes a lot less bureaucracy than haggling over payment. In short, you will probably pay less for your health care, be guaranteed to get treatment, your company will not be saddled with huge health care costs (and will be able to pay you more), and you will not be left to die if you find yourself without insurance.

By the way, one of the reasons that Canada is more attractive to foreign companies--including American companies--than America is that they don't have to carry the onerous cost of health care. This will remain a competitive edge even when the Canadian dollar overtakes the American (way to go, George.) Universal health care makes you a lot more competitive.

As for research, that is done at Universities, not hospitals, but that is now being savagely cut by conservative administrations in Canada and the U.S. Private enterprise is not interested in science or pure research, which does not yield immediate or predictable results, but in technology or applied research. Applied research is very limited and will quickly run dry without scientific research, particularly in biology, which is actually a very young science. The next miracle cure will not come from a pharmaceutical company unless a scientist tells them where to look. And new surgical techniques are as likely to arise in publicly funded systems as in privately funded systems--the doctors are just as good, and there is a decent chance that doctors in publicly funded systems are actually motivated by healing their patients, rather than making more money.

[Beerina]

Like most of Moore's work, "Sicko" is one-sided in the extreme and contains a great deal of opinion and speculation masquerading as fact.

That being said, I would say that socialized medicine in the US is inevitable. Employers will simply not be able to afford to provide health insurance at some point, and the federal (and likely state) governments will have to step in. I would say that by 2020, Medicare will be universal and more inclusive than it now is. We (we being the taxpaying public) won't like this at all, but there'll be no other option.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. By reducing the profit motive, you might very well slow medical technological development 10% (if you're lucky). After a century, that translates into tens of millions of needless deaths, if not more. An engineering analysis of the process shows simple statistics that socialized medicine thus duplicates the effects of a plague -- all the way to 98% of the population giving it thunderous applause.

Remember: A whining person in distress in front of the camera now is worth millions of deaths due to slowed technology, politically. "You died because the tech hasn't been invented yet" is quite nebulous and ineffectual compared to the vigorous catharsis of a feeling of power that passing laws now gives you.

I'm still waiting for one pro-socialized medicine person to tell me why "socialized video game and computer development" wouldn't also be a good idea. Automobiles? Beuller? Anyone? Beuller?

[Beerina]

Perhaps. But according to Loose Changers, Kevin Smith and the South Park guys really like LC. So I'll personally reserve judgement until I can see for myself.

"Like", perhaps in the sense it's an awesome source of comedy. South Park did a whole conspiracy 9/11 episode that wasn't too flattering to troofer-type thought.

[Gurdur]

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. By reducing the profit motive, you might very well slow medical technological development 10% (if you're lucky).
Oh look, more empty assertions from Beerina. *yawn*

An engineering analysis of the process shows simple statistics that socialized medicine thus duplicates the effects of a plague -- all the way to 98% of the population giving it thunderous applause.
This is full of crap. You invent some imaginary figures, give them a so-called analysis and then claim it as an argument? What total codswallop.
Remember: A whining person
Remember: a whining Libertarian is a twat.
I'm still waiting for one pro-socialized medicine person to tell me why "socialized video game and computer development" wouldn't also be a good idea. Automobiles? Beuller? Anyone? Beuller?
You're going off the deep end on this one, Beerina; you're no longer even making any semblance of sense.

[Upchurch]

I'm still waiting for one pro-socialized medicine person to tell me why "socialized video game and computer development" wouldn't also be a good idea. Automobiles? Beuller? Anyone? Beuller?
um, okay.

Socialized computer development, better known as "open source", is also a good idea. Firefox, OpenOffice, Eclipse builds, and Linix are all as good as they are because they are "socialized", so to speak. In many ways, they are better than their completely commercialized counterparts.

eta: on a whim, I googled "open source video game", since I was unaware of any, and got this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games). I can not speak to their quality compared to their commercial variants.

[Upchurch]

Oh, and if by "socialized" you mean "free" (which is what socialized medicine is going to be since Joe Schmoe off the street isn't likely to make medical breakthroughs), you also have Google's suite of services, AVG's free personal anti-virus software, and Lavasoft's free anti-spyware. All excellent products

Of course, all of these have pay versions for those who want extra features and services, but then nothing in socialized health care would prevent you from buying additional health care.

[Segnosaur]

um, okay.

Socialized computer development, better known as "open source", is also a good idea. Firefox, OpenOffice, Eclipse builds, and Linix are all as good as they are because they are "socialized", so to speak. In many ways, they are better than their completely commercialized counterparts.


Ummmm... not that open source software doesn't have some good qualities, but the anology of comparing it to 'socialized medicine' doesn't exactly fit, for a number of reasons:

- The nature of computer software lends itself to "social" development... a person can actually use existing code to build new projects; thus, resources are reused. Not so with medicine... If I give an X-ray to one person, that does not mean that the next person who shows up gets the X-rays for free.

- Open source software development involves choice. You can choose to use it, or not. Even if you chose to use open source, you can pick and choose what you want, or you can choose which projects to contribute to. With socialized medicine, much of that choice is taken away. In some countries (e.g. Canada), you often don't have a choice to go outside the government-run programs. And even when you are in a country where you have the option of using public or private, and decide to use the private system, you STILL have to contribute to the public system. (You don't see Microsoft having to contribute to Firefox now...)

[quixotecoyote]

You do realize Upchurch was responding to a challenge by Beerina to produce evidence of 'socialized' video game development being a good idea, not claiming it as an analogy?

[Segnosaur]

A few points regarding comments on the Canadian system. I suspect that Canadian politicians at the provincial level may be skimming the system and diverting funds to other projects, and some may even have a vested interest (lobby groups and funding) to try to cripple it. The insistence of the Alberta government that they go to a two-tier system, while handing their people checks at the end of the tax year--essentially, bribes to re-elect the current government--is highly suspect. Alberta, by the way, is the most sympathetic consitutuency to the Bush Republicans, even now when they are in utter disrepute. Having met some of these people, it is no exaggeration to say that they are as dumb as a sack of hammers, to borrow a phrase from someone who now lives in Alberta and deals with these people every day.

Why exactly the attack on Alberta and it's plans to bring in two-teir health care? After all, Quebec has been engaging in two tier medicine for a while now. (It seems like there's a set of double standards... what brings condemnation in places like Alberta is quietly accepted when it happens in Quebec.)


Yet according to the doctor in Sicko testifying before congress, she was making only a few hundred a week before she began to deny people treatment. The average Canadian doctor still does better than this.

Did you ever think that peraps some doctors may actually want to take fewer patients so they can give better quality to each patient?


The main point that must be understood is that the HMO's represent an enormous financial drain on the health system. This is a vast labyrinthine bureacracy whose main objective is to try to deny care to their customers, and which is therefore structured to that end. This means that much of the cost is not even dedicated to health care, but to bean counting.

Yes, there is bureacracy involved with HMOs. But guess what? There is also Bureacracy involved in government-run systems.

The difference is, corporations do have a motive for streamlining their bureacracy... profit. On the other hand, in Canada there is no such motive. There is no incentive for managers to cut costs, or even give better care.

In short, you will probably pay less for your health care, be guaranteed to get treatment, your company will not be saddled with huge health care costs (and will be able to pay you more), and you will not be left to die if you find yourself without insurance.

Yes, a publically run system can guarantee people pay less... but at a sacrifice of quality. Even in the U.N. rankings of health care, the U.S. scores low only because of the cost of their health care. If you look at some of the indivicual measures of quality (such as responsiveness) they actually score at the top.

[Segnosaur]

You do realize Upchurch was responding to a challenge by Beerina to produce evidence of 'socialized' video game development being a good idea, not claiming it as an analogy?

Yeah I know. But it still requires some sort of equivalency. The equivalent of "socialized video game development" (when compared to medicine) would involve many government-employed programmers writing games that would be given away freely to people. Were he government to do that, we'd probably still be stuck playing Pong.

[mumblethrax]

Comparing video game development to healthcare distribution is a lousy analogy to begin with.

A better analogy would be to imagine that the state, rather than enforcing intellectual property laws (men with guns using force to infringe upon our FREEEEEDOMS), created an independent clearinghouse which provided free (at the point of use) software download services and then rewarded commercial software developers out of a general fund in proportion to unique downloads: nationalized distribution and payment, private/public R&D, similar to healthcare systems in liberal democracies. Leaving aside the matter of practical problems with this arrangement (it is, after all, hypothetical), would we expect software developers to innovate less under these terms? The incentives for development houses would be similar to what they are today.

That's all kind of tangential, and only answers the hanging implication in Beerina's question (that public goods and services are necessarily of lower quality than private). The more obvious answer is that healthcare is a vital service, that I'm more interested in receiving necessary medical treatment than in playing BioShock, and that my desire to continue living trumps profit motives. We don't pay this kind of attention to video games because they do not matter to nearly the same extent, and equitable distribution of video game resources is not a similarly compelling state interest.

[Upchurch]

I think it is a rather apt analogy when comparing commercial vs. social services. At the very least, it is a good counter example to the claim that socialization = no progress/quality/service. Yes, if you get too detail specific, all analogies break down. An analogy is saying something is like something else, not that it is something else. Let's not forget the context in which Beerina proposed the analogy.

- Open source software development involves choice. You can choose to use it, or not. Even if you chose to use open source, you can pick and choose what you want, or you can choose which projects to contribute to. With socialized medicine, much of that choice is taken away. In some countries (e.g. Canada), you often don't have a choice to go outside the government-run programs.
Just because it is that way in some places, it doesn't have to be that way does it?


And even when you are in a country where you have the option of using public or private, and decide to use the private system, you STILL have to contribute to the public system. (You don't see Microsoft having to contribute to Firefox now...)
Two different arguments here:

We technically don't have socialized medicine now, and Americans already contribute to other people's health care. Only now it is done via a back door system that is vastly inefficient and cannot be improved as is because it is not codified.
Perhaps you are unaware with that there is a move to force Microsoft to support OpenDocument format, by the market no less, which would make it more natively compatible with OpenOffice? Or United States vs. Microsoft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft) which did, actually, mean that Microsfot had to contribute to FireFox's distribution.

[Upchurch]

Perhaps a better socialization analogy would be the police and fire departments? They provide lifesaving services to the public and are administrated and regulated by the government.

Would you say that the police and fire fighters do a bad job?

[mumblethrax]

That gets at another important point: the difference in motivations across industries. Not many people get into software development because they want to help people.

[Ohmer]

By reducing the profit motive, you might very well slow medical technological development 10% (if you're lucky).

Can you tell me how a socialized military has produced some of the most advanced technology in the world? Would we have the internet and GPS if a socialized military had not gotten the ball rolling? Do companies go broke providing goods and services to the socialized military? We all know how much Lockeed is suffering selling multi-million dollar planes to the millitary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor
By the time all 183 jets have been purchased, $34 billion will be spent on actually procuring the aircraft. This will result in a cost of about $339 million per aircraft based on total program costs. The incremental cost for one additional F-22 is around $120 million. If the Air Force were to buy 100 more F-22s today, each plane would be less than $117 million and would continue to drop with additional aircraft purchases.

The socialized military has funded the development of one of the most advanced aircraft ever built.

It's really a matter of priorities. If we as tax payers are willing pay companies billions to develop new ways of saving lives, there will be plenty of profit in health care. My father recently had a stroke and racked up a $400,000 hospital bill. It seams like a lot of money until you think of it in terms of what is routinely spent by our government to break things and kill people.

I'm pro-military. It's important that we have a strong one. It's also a fine example of a government funded organization that has produced huge technological advances and pumped massive amounts of money into the private sector that supports it. Health care could be this way if we wanted it to be.

[plumjam]

Can you tell me how a socialized military has produced some of the most advanced technology in the world? Would we have the internet and GPS if a socialized military had not gotten the ball rolling? Do companies go broke providing goods and services to the socialized military? We all know how much Lockeed is suffering selling multi-million dollar planes to the millitary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor


The socialized military has funded the development of one of the most advanced aircraft ever built.

It's really a matter of priorities. If we as tax payers are willing pay companies billions to develop new ways of saving lives, there will be plenty of profit in health care. My father recently had a stroke and racked up a $400,000 hospital bill. It seams like a lot of money until you think of it in terms of what is routinely spent by our government to break things and kill people.

I'm pro-military. It's important that we have a strong one. It's also a fine example of a government funded organization that has produced huge technological advances and pumped massive amounts of money into the private sector that supports it. Health care could be this way if we wanted it to be.

You're right.
It would be interesting to know how many of man's greatest achievements have come from socialised endeavour, and how many from private enterprise endeavour.
If it had been left to the private sector would man have gone to the moon yet? Would radio telescopes exist? Hubble? particle physics? computers? would we know about DNA yet? etc... etc..

[Upchurch]

I think like most things in life, you have to find the right balance. Both socialize and commercialized systems have generated new science and technologies. Having universal health care doesn't mean we can't also have private health care just as having public transportation doesn't mean we can't own our own cars. Those who can afford it and want a little something more will get it.

[Beerina]

Can you tell me how a socialized military has produced some of the most advanced technology in the world? Would we have the internet and GPS if a socialized military had not gotten the ball rolling? Do companies go broke providing goods and services to the socialized military? We all know how much Lockeed is suffering selling multi-million dollar planes to the millitary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor


The socialized military has funded the development of one of the most advanced aircraft ever built.

It's really a matter of priorities. If we as tax payers are willing pay companies billions to develop new ways of saving lives, there will be plenty of profit in health care. My father recently had a stroke and racked up a $400,000 hospital bill. It seams like a lot of money until you think of it in terms of what is routinely spent by our government to break things and kill people.

Yes, that's fine, but it's:

1. Just a drop in the bucket vs. commercial

2. Government-directed, which would not necessarily result in good paths of attack, but rather paths that are oriented around sucking more money from the government.

3. Not as well-motivated as pure profit, which involves not just the immediate paycheck, but a promise of flabulous riches for good discoveries.

4. Don't you want both government and private industry going full steam ahead on this?


For every B1-B, there'll be dozens of Trabbys. In health care, I don't want angry people with guns telling me I have to have a Trabant. That's not a free country.

[Gurdur]

...In health care, I don't want angry people with guns telling me I have to have a Trabant.

You're getting as lucid, analytical and deep as Oliver.

[LibraryLady]

Civility, people. No name calling. Civility.

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

Want to bring down health care costs in the US? Tort reform. Start cracking down on these crackpot ambulance chasing lawyers who love to sue doctors and hospitals for everything.

[JoeEllison]

Want to bring down health care costs in the US? Tort reform. Start cracking down on these crackpot ambulance chasing lawyers who love to sue doctors and hospitals for everything.

Wrong. Lawsuits aren't responsible for higher healthcare costs.

http://www.braytonlaw.com/news/legalnews/042905_medical_malpractice.htm

[Segnosaur]

Wrong. Lawsuits aren't responsible for higher healthcare costs.

http://www.braytonlaw.com/news/legalnews/042905_medical_malpractice.htm

Not that I've had the time to sit down and analyze that particular link; however, I should point out that it references a study done by a group called Public Citizen, a group founded by Ralph Nader.

Given the general political orientation of Nader, I'd take any analysis they do with a grain of salt.

[JoeEllison]

Nice character assassination there. :rolleyes:

[Random]

Not that I've had the time to sit down and analyze that particular link; however, I should point out that it references a study done by a group called Public Citizen, a group founded by Ralph Nader.

Given the general political orientation of Nader, I'd take any analysis they do with a grain of salt.

If you have any studies that show that medical malpractice suits are responsible for skyrocketing medical insurance premiums, please be so kind as to point them out to us. I have been looking for one since 1996.

[OnlyTellsTruths]

I think like most things in life, you have to find the right balance. Both socialize and commercialized systems have generated new science and technologies. Having universal health care doesn't mean we can't also have private health care just as having public transportation doesn't mean we can't own our own cars. Those who can afford it and want a little something more will get it.

This obviously makes too much sense for people to respond to. :)

[Dominic Harr]

I just wanted to say that Open Source software is the exact *opposite* of socialized software.

Private individuals making their own decisions about what they want to produce. It would be anarchized private software, really.

And finally, the idea I see bandied about here that in the socialized systems you folks didn't have to pay for your surgeries, etc, is a flat-out lie. You paid up front, with your taxes.

I personally would like to suggest that's what makes America, and Americans, different. A large number of us know enough about the govt system to recognize that lie.

Govt-provided perks are not "free".

Many politicians get elected by promising to take money away from other people, and give it to you for "free". And in the end, it always ends up costing you. That's the difference between folks who believe in a 'liberal' use of govt power, and those who believe in a 'conservative' use of govt power.

[Gurdur]

...And finally, the idea I see bandied about here that in the socialized systems you folks didn't have to pay for your surgeries, etc, is a flat-out lie. You paid up front, with your taxes.
This is a very stupid strawman.
No-one has said that taxes are not used to pay for health-care. How about you actually address what people say instead of inventing things?
I personally would like to suggest that's what makes America, and Americans, different.
Yes, the difference is that the average American tax-payer pays twice as much as the average Danish, Swedish, Dutch or German tax-payer for health-care in total, and gets a far, far more crappy system with worse longevity and morbidity rates in return. Congratulations.

[fls]

And finally, the idea I see bandied about here that in the socialized systems you folks didn't have to pay for your surgeries, etc, is a flat-out lie. You paid up front, with your taxes.

I personally would like to suggest that's what makes America, and Americans, different. A large number of us know enough about the govt system to recognize that lie.

Govt-provided perks are not "free".

Many politicians get elected by promising to take money away from other people, and give it to you for "free". And in the end, it always ends up costing you. That's the difference between folks who believe in a 'liberal' use of govt power, and those who believe in a 'conservative' use of govt power.

Are you serious?

The calculated costs for health care includes money paid as taxes. What kind of moron thinks government perks are "free"?

Linda

[Dominic Harr]

This is a very stupid strawman.
No-one has said that taxes are not used to pay for health-care.

People have, indeed, said as much. In this thread.

The idea that the system in other countries is cheaper for better care is simply not credible. You can't get something for nothing. To arrive at those stats, they include the bureaucracy costs for the private HMOs, etc, but not the associated govt bureaucracy costs of the govt provided system. The cost of collecting the taxes, for example.

If you include the costs of the HMO CEOs salaries and expenses, then you have to include the costs of the politicians who propose, pass and monitor the govt health-care system.

And on, and on.

I would just suggest you question the idea that there is a way to get something for nothing.

[Dominic Harr]

If 20% of the taxes raised by a govt go to health care, then 20% of the costs of raising taxes must be attributed to health care.

They don't do that in their stats. The books are cooked.

I'm an American. When someone promises me something for nothing, spend less and get more, I am a skeptic.

[Gurdur]

People have, indeed, said as much. In this thread.
Where? Come off it; give direct quotes or admit you're wrong.

The idea that the system in other countries is cheaper for better care is simply not credible.
Obviously you don't want to look at the actual evidence. (http://www.heathen-hangout.com/forum1/showthread.php?t=7475)
You can't get something for nothing. To arrive at those stats, they include the bureaucracy costs for the private HMOs, etc, but not the associated govt bureaucracy costs of the govt provided system. The cost of collecting the taxes, for example.
Wrong. Obviously you don't know what you're talking about.

If you include the costs of the HMO CEOs salaries and expenses, then you have to include the costs of the politicians who propose, pass and monitor the govt health-care system.
Wrong. You must include all bureaucracy linked to health-care --- but politicians do OTHER things as well, or hadn't you realised that?
I would just suggest you question the idea that there is a way to get something for nothing.
I suggest you get a grip on reality and stop inventing flatulent strawmen.

[JoeEllison]

People have, indeed, said as much. In this thread.

The idea that the system in other countries is cheaper for better care is simply not credible. You can't get something for nothing. To arrive at those stats, they include the bureaucracy costs for the private HMOs, etc, but not the associated govt bureaucracy costs of the govt provided system. The cost of collecting the taxes, for example.

If you include the costs of the HMO CEOs salaries and expenses, then you have to include the costs of the politicians who propose, pass and monitor the govt health-care system.

And on, and on.

I would just suggest you question the idea that there is a way to get something for nothing.
Your claims are nonsense, plain and simple. Why would you count the cost of politicians into the health care numbers, except in order to dishonestly pump up the numbers? Why would you ignore that government bureaucratic costs for health care are much lower than costs in the private sector, unless you are trying to avoid reality?

The fact is that other countries are getting better care for less money. That's a fact. Why don't you want better care for less money?

[Dominic Harr]

Hi, Gurder:

Wrong. You must include all bureaucracy linked to health-care --- but politicians do OTHER things as well, or hadn't you realised that?

If Hilly is elected Prez, and she and her staff and a few hundred other Congresspeople and their staffs work on and pass a health-care system, then that time must be directly attributed to the cost of the healthcare system. And then every time those congresspeople and their staffs make changes to the system must be directly attributed to the cost of the healthcare system.

Their statistics do not include those numbers, yet they *do* include the numbers for private managers like CEOs and such.

Therefore the stats are clearly bogus.

I find it fascinating that you're arguing it is possible to get something for nothing.

:-)

[JoeEllison]

If 20% of the taxes raised by a govt go to health care, then 20% of the costs of raising taxes must be attributed to health care.

They don't do that in their stats. The books are cooked.

How much does it cost to "raise taxes 20%"? I'm guessing it costs as close to nothing as you can get without actually being nothing.

[Dominic Harr]

Hi, Joe Ellison:

The fact is that other countries are getting better care for less money. That's a fact. Why don't you want better care for less money?

If you're including the costs of a private company billing it's customers, which we do, then you have to include the costs of the govt collecting the % of taxes that go to pay for healthcare . . . or else you're engaging in fraud.

[JoeEllison]

Hi, Joe Ellison:



If you're including the costs of a private company billing it's customers, which we do, then you have to include the costs of the govt collecting the % of taxes that go to pay for healthcare . . . or else you're engaging in fraud.

No, the only fraud going on is from whoever is feeding you your information.

Since taxes are being collected anyways, you wouldn't pretend that the cost of tax collection should be placed on the healthcare aspect of it. If there were a separate agency set up just to collect taxes, you would have a point. Since taxes are already being collected, you would have to show that raising the tax rate somehow raises the cost of collecting taxes.

I'd like for you to demonstrate that increase in the cost of collecting taxes, and show how it would be directly attributable to how it is spent.

[Gurdur]

...I find it fascinating that you're arguing it is possible to get something for nothing.

I find it facsinating you are making such dishonest claims, since I am not arguing that at all.

The other thing I find fascinating is how you try arguing about the stats -- even though you don't have the slightest clue about what the stats are, or about the methodology used in their collection and analysis.

Says it all, I guess.

[fls]

People have, indeed, said as much. In this thread.

The idea that the system in other countries is cheaper for better care is simply not credible. You can't get something for nothing. To arrive at those stats, they include the bureaucracy costs for the private HMOs, etc, but not the associated govt bureaucracy costs of the govt provided system. The cost of collecting the taxes, for example.

That's not true, either. The adminstration costs (i.e. gov't bureaucracy) are included in the total.

If you include the costs of the HMO CEOs salaries and expenses, then you have to include the costs of the politicians who propose, pass and monitor the govt health-care system.

I agree. But the marginal costs are likely to be tiny.

Linda

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:

Since taxes are being collected anyways, you wouldn't pretend that the cost of tax collection should be placed on the healthcare aspect of it.

That is incorrect. You must amortize costs to what generates those costs.

If 20% of all taxes raised goes to healthcare, then you must attribute 20% of the cost of raising all taxes to healthcare. That is the way it works.

BTW, no one is 'feeding me' anything. I don't think I've ever heard these points raised by anyone, anywhere. I'm just some guy, here at work, stealing some time for myself and chatting about things on the web. I'm a very successful software architect, so I tend to believe I have some skill at analyzing and understanding complex systems, so when I come here I am speaking my own analysis (for better or worse).

I know I could be wrong (just ask my wife, she can probably list off every stupid thing I've ever said to her!).

[Dominic Harr]

Hi, fls:
The adminstration costs (i.e. gov't bureaucracy) are included in the total.

No, not all of them, as I understand it. They give the #s for the department of healthcare, but never amortize the time spent by the legislature, President/PM, etc. Those costs are very significant, and are the equivalent of CEOs at a private company.

And the costs of raising taxes, going after delinquent payers, etc, is considerable.

[JoeEllison]

Joe:



That is incorrect. You must amortize costs to what generates those costs.

If 20% of all taxes raised goes to healthcare, then you must attribute 20% of the cost of raising all taxes to healthcare. That is the way it works.
No, that isn't the way it works. It is clearly not the way it works.

Are you claiming that if they cut out healthcare entirely, the costs of collecting taxes would decrease by the exact amount that they are currently spending? If they increased it by 100%, would the actual money spent to collect taxes increase 100% as well?

You need to seriously consider your position.

[fls]

Hi, fls:


No, not all of them, as I understand it. They give the #s for the department of healthcare, but never amortize the time spent by the legislature, President/PM, etc. Those costs are very significant, and are the equivalent of CEOs at a private company.

No, they are not. They are miniscule in comparison. Much less than 1 percent of the total cost.

And the costs of raising taxes, going after delinquent payers, etc, is considerable.

And what would those costs be in the absence of universal health care? More or less, considering that there would be fewer reasons for people to be deliquent if bankruptcy over health care expenditures was taken out of the picture?

Linda

[JoeEllison]

Hi, fls:


No, not all of them, as I understand it. They give the #s for the department of healthcare, but never amortize the time spent by the legislature, President/PM, etc. Those costs are very significant, and are the equivalent of CEOs at a private company.

And the costs of raising taxes, going after delinquent payers, etc, is considerable.Again, complete nonsense.

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:
Are you claiming that if they cut out healthcare entirely, the costs of collecting taxes would decrease by the exact amount that they are currently spending?

To be more specific, you have both fixed costs and variable costs. Both are significant. You would have to directly attribute the % of the variable costs to the costs of the healthcare system

Similarly, you'd have to add the costs of the time and staff spent on making, changing and overseeing the laws that create and govern the health care system.

Am I somehow missing something?

It seems like a direct requirement, one they currently don't do, therefore their stats are cooked. Which shouldn't surprise anyone who's familiar with govt statistics . . . they pretty much are *all* cooked.

When someone in govt claims they can give you something for nothing, I would suggest it's always wise to dig into the specifics of what they claim.

[Dominic Harr]

fls:

No, they are not. They are miniscule in comparison. Much less than 1 percent of the total cost.Are you claiming that if they cut out healthcare entirely, the costs of collecting taxes would decrease by the exact amount that they are currently spending?

I would suggest that the costs of writing, proposing, passing and monitoring compliance of any law is far greater than you might realize.

And the costs of writing, proposing, passing and monitoring laws to create a giant system like healthcare funding are massive.

Here in the states, you'd need at least 60 senators and something around 250 reps to agree to anything. Their staffs will have to spend lots of time on it.

Very, very expensive.

[fls]

That is incorrect. You must amortize costs to what generates those costs.

If 20% of all taxes raised goes to healthcare, then you must attribute 20% of the cost of raising all taxes to healthcare. That is the way it works.

But we're not really interested in the cost per department, in this situation. We are interested in the additional cost of expanding this department - i.e. we are interested in flexible, rather than fixed costs.

Linda

[fls]

I would suggest that the costs of writing, proposing, passing and monitoring compliance of any law is far greater than you might realize.

And the costs of writing, proposing, passing and monitoring laws to create a giant system like healthcare funding are massive.

Here in the states, you'd need at least 60 senators and something around 250 reps to agree to anything. Their staffs will have to spend lots of time on it.

Very, very expensive.

I would suggest that the costs of law-making can hardly be larger than the adminstration of those laws.

Linda

[JoeEllison]

fls:



I would suggest that the costs of writing, proposing, passing and monitoring compliance of any law is far greater than you might realize.

And the costs of writing, proposing, passing and monitoring laws to create a giant system like healthcare funding are massive.

Here in the states, you'd need at least 60 senators and something around 250 reps to agree to anything. Their staffs will have to spend lots of time on it.

Very, very expensive.

As compared to what? That's your problem... you're trying to claim these as absolute costs, attributable to health care alone. All of those people get paid exactly the same amount whether there is no change in healthcare, an increase in healthcare, or a decrease in healthcare.

Here's a question: if you live alone and own your home, and you have someone move in, does it become twice as expensive to live there?

[Dominic Harr]

fls:

I would suggest that the costs of law-making can hardly be larger than the adminstration of those laws.

Here in the US, the ratio is that on average if you raise $1 in taxes only 25 cents gets to the end source.

So I think you're mistaken.

[JoeEllison]

fls:



Here in the US, the ratio is that on average if you raise $1 in taxes only 25 cents gets to the end source.

So I think you're mistaken.

Can we get a link, please? Because, frankly, that sounds like a lie/misrepresentation that matches just about everything else you've posted.

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:
Here's a question: if you live alone and own your home, and you have someone move in, does it become twice as expensive to live there?

Opportunity costs alone, might be more than twice! :-)

I believe in a conservative use of federal power, so I would say that if we did away with this kind of thing then those staffs would be much smaller. So yes, it would be cheaper. Significantly.

[JoeEllison]

Joe:


Opportunity costs alone, might be more than twice! :-)

I believe in a conservative use of federal power, so I would say that if we did away with this kind of thing then those staffs would be much smaller. So yes, it would be cheaper. Significantly.

So, you avoid answering the question, because it proves you wrong. Then, you switch gears and say that you're just against government programs... clearly, because we all know you can't defend your position.

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:

Can we get a link, please?

I don't really believe in posting dueling links, I'm afraid.

That's from an article I read in Time magazine, about 2-3 years ago. Take it for what it's worth. If it makes you feel better to call me a liar, then I'm okay with that. I'd prefer you were funny when you insult me, but if you aren't able to manage it sometimes then a simple insult is just fine.

:-D

[JoeEllison]

Joe:



I don't really believe in posting dueling links, I'm afraid.

That's from an article I read in Time magazine, about 2-3 years ago. Take it for what it's worth. If it makes you feel better to call me a liar, then I'm okay with that. I'd prefer you were funny when you insult me, but if you aren't able to manage it sometimes then a simple insult is just fine.

:-DHey, you could always just be quoting a liar... YOU could just be really gullible...:cool:

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:

I do wonder why you'd react so defensively when someone like myself just disagrees with you, I must say.

But to each their own!

I'm simply bringing up points I know for certain haven't been raised before. I'm not anybody of import, so my silly little analysis here won't change anything, and won't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. It might be worth your time to be a little more careful in who/when/why you flame folks.

Unless, of course, you're just flaming for fun. If so, in that case, like I said, let's plz seek to make the flames a *bit* more entertaining!

:-D

[JoeEllison]

Joe:

I do wonder why you'd react so defensively when someone like myself just disagrees with you, I must say.

But to each their own!

I'm simply bringing up points I know for certain haven't been raised before. I'm not anybody of import, so my silly little analysis here won't change anything, and won't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. It might be worth your time to be a little more careful in who/when/why you flame folks.

Unless, of course, you're just flaming for fun. If so, in that case, like I said, let's plz seek to make the flames a *bit* more entertaining!

:-D
I'm not defensive at all... but when I ask a question that spells out why you're wrong, and you completely avoid it, YOU look defensive.

And, for the record, I've not flamed you once.

[Dominic Harr]

All:

I'm afraid I have to run, I have meetings all afternoon.

Twas fun, and we'll do this again!

Ciao, for now.

[fls]

Here in the US, the ratio is that on average if you raise $1 in taxes only 25 cents gets to the end source.

So I think you're mistaken.

What has that to do with estimating the portion that would go to health-care lawmaking?

You seem to know nothing of the details of this issue. Why enter the conversation?

Linda

[fls]

I'm simply bringing up points I know for certain haven't been raised before.

They hadn't been raised before because they were wrong.

Linda

[Dominic Harr]

fls:

Well, from where I sit, it looks like I've raised 2 kinds of healthcare spending in a socialized system that are not accounted for in their numbers, which means it looks to me like I've raised legitimate concerns.

If they're including the costs for billing and management with the private system they have not included with the socialized system, wouldn't that affect the validity of their numbers?

Of course, YMMV . . .

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:

And, for the record, I've not flamed you once.

Oh -- name calling is just your way of being friendly and charming?

;-)

I'll have to remember that!

[JoeEllison]

Joe:



Oh -- name calling is just your way of being friendly and charming?

;-)

I'll have to remember that!

I didn't call you any names at all. Why is it that you are claiming that I did?

It matches the rest of your posts, though... and your need to change the subject AGAIN away from your position, which is about as solid as soggy tissue.

Now, answer my question: if you live alone and own your home, and you have someone move in, does it become twice as expensive to live there?

[fls]

Well, from where I sit, it looks like I've raised 2 kinds of healthcare spending in a socialized system that are not accounted for in their numbers, which means it looks to me like I've raised legitimate concerns.

If they're including the costs for billing and management with the private system they have not included with the socialized system, wouldn't that affect the validity of their numbers?

I already told you. The costs for billing and management for the universal payer system are included in the numbers.

The two kinds of healthcare spending you mentioned are not accounted for in the private insurers numbers, either.

Linda

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:
Now, answer my question: if you live alone and own your home, and you have someone move in, does it become twice as expensive to live there?

You're paying the same amount for 1/2 the space, yes?

There are always costs. Including opportunity cost. You're going to have to produce some extraordinary evidence to argue that there is a case where there are no costs, where you can get something for nothing.

As I just pointed out -- I've so far shown that there are management and collection costs that the stats don't include for socialized care that they *do* include for private care. This alone proves that their numbers are bogus.

The cost of all those politicians and their staffs who make the rules that run the healthcare system are not counted in the stats. To make an apples to apples comparison, they *must* be.

The cost of collecting the money from customers via the tax system isn't included, and it *must* be.

So as far as I can tell, altho you've put some fascinating words together here and managed to label me a liar, etc, you've not yet gotten around to actually addressing the point I'm making.

Or am I missing something?

[Dominic Harr]

fls:

Again, they only include the costs of the department of health, they do *not* include the costs of all the politicians and their staffs who make the rules and do the mid-level management tasks. For example here in the states, assuming Hillary becomes prez, she and her staff will prepare a giant bill, then they will present it to congress and then 535 memebers of Congress and their staffs will all spend a gazillion man-hours to hammer out and pass the bill. They'll work out bills to say who gets covered for how much etc, etc. Then regularly those politicians and staffs will review, and alter the rules as needed. That is very expensive, and it's part of the cost of managing a system.

Those numbers and that work *are* included in the figures for private health care.

Likewise the costs of collecting the 'premiums'. There are costs involved with having the IRS collect the money. They are real. Those costs are included in the numbers for private health care, so since they are missing from the socialized numbers again we have a problem.

[JoeEllison]

Joe:


You're paying the same amount for 1/2 the space, yes?She's your girlfriend. No, you have exactly as much space as before. Do you have to pay double mortgage? Do you have to purchase a second refrigerator, stove, microwave? Do you have to pay double the cable bill, double the electric bill?

There are always costs. Including opportunity cost. You're going to have to produce some extraordinary evidence to argue that there is a case where there are no costs, where you can get something for nothing.

As I just pointed out -- I've so far shown that there are management and collection costs that the stats don't include for socialized care that they *do* include for private care. This alone proves that their numbers are bogus.

The cost of all those politicians and their staffs who make the rules that run the healthcare system are not counted in the stats. To make an apples to apples comparison, they *must* be.

The cost of collecting the money from customers via the tax system isn't included, and it *must* be.

So as far as I can tell, altho you've put some fascinating words together here and managed to label me a liar, etc, you've not yet gotten around to actually addressing the point I'm making.

Or am I missing something?You're missing reality, over and over... and you owe me an apology for accusing me of name-calling when I did no such thing.

The "cost of collecting the money from customers via the tax system" doesn't need to be counted, because those costs exist whether or not the healthcare system uses the money. The ONLY THING you would count would be the difference in cost between the system without the money going towards healthcare, and the system with the money going towards healthcare. You wouldn't count the cost of the politicians, because they get paid the same salary whether or not they do anything to do with healthcare.

You're trying to artificially increase the cost, incorrectly and illogically, in order to avoid the very clear reality that other countries get more for much less.

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:

If you increase the tax level 20% (or whatever), you are going to have increased costs to bring in that money. Period. It is not free.

And these politicians and their staff are *already* busy, in fact they're woefully overburdened with things they need to handle but don't. They will have to take on additional staff to deal with healthcare, and it will need to be staff with healthcare experience and knowledge, certainly something they certainly don't currently have.

I guess this circular argument can go on as long as you'd like. I see costs. They must be counted. You say there's a free lunch here.

And that's what makes the world a fun place.

This discussion would be a lot more fun over a few adult beverages!

:-)

[JoeEllison]

Joe:

If you increase the tax level 20% (or whatever), you are going to have increased costs to bring in that money. Period. It is not free.

Not a significant cost. Hardly any cost at all. If I am cashing a check from you for $100, how does it create a bigger expense for me to cash a check for $120?

Increasing the tax level from a lower number to a higher number doesn't create any more work or any more cost. If they are already collecting a tax from a certain number of people, collecting more doesn't cost any more.

We can go around again, but you're still wrong.

[fls]

You are grossly exaggerating the role of the lawmakers in the management details. The activities that you describe, other than the formation of the laws that provide the framework (which is not an ongoing cost) are accounted for in the administrative costs of those countries with universal health care. And you are ignoring the the costs of regulating the private system. Considering the efforts that are already made with respect to health care, and the cost savings as some efforts will no longer be necessary, the difference would be, at best, a trivial portion of the total. Same with the tax collection.

Linda

[Dominic Harr]

Hi, fls:

You are grossly underestimating the role of lawmakers in the management details. The activities I describe are not included in the costs of the department of health budget. The costs of administering the private companies are 100% on their balance sheet, and included in the numbers. And anyone who wants to claim that letting the govt manage it will *save* money is fighting a tidal wave of evidence.

Am I mistaken, or are we starting to go around in circles?

[Dominic Harr]

Joe:
Not a significant cost. Hardly any cost at all.

My govt can spend $600 buying a toilet seat.

There is no free lunch.

G'nite my friend. I'm flying manana, maybe tomorrow night I'll check back in.

[JoeEllison]

You are grossly exaggerating the role of the lawmakers in the management details. The activities that you describe, other than the formation of the laws that provide the framework (which is not an ongoing cost) are accounted for in the administrative costs of those countries with universal health care. And you are ignoring the the costs of regulating the private system. Considering the efforts that are already made with respect to health care, and the cost savings as some efforts will no longer be necessary, the difference would be, at best, a trivial portion of the total. Same with the tax collection.

Linda

Somehow, we're supposed to believe that a single bureaucracy, at government wages, is supposed to cost more than dozens of bureaucracies in the private sector, each one having executives making millions of dollars a year. It is a complete crock, and I can't imagine ever being so gullible as to believe it.

[pipelineaudio]

um, okay.

Socialized computer development, better known as "open source", is also a good idea. Firefox, OpenOffice, Eclipse builds, and Linix are all as good as they are because they are "socialized", so to speak. In many ways, they are better than their completely commercialized counterparts.

Compare full on payware like Vegas, or PhilanthropyWare like REAPER, to opensourceware like Ardour

If THAT is what socialized medicine would bring us, I'd be WAY better off with homeopathy

[Gurdur]

Compare full on payware like Vegas, or PhilanthropyWare like REAPER, to opensourceware like Ardour

If THAT is what socialized medicine would bring us, I'd be WAY better off with homeopathy

Because health-care is just software. Yes. Right. My oh my ...........

[fls]

Hi, fls:

You are grossly underestimating the role of lawmakers in the management details. The activities I describe are not included in the costs of the department of health budget. The costs of administering the private companies are 100% on their balance sheet, and included in the numbers. And anyone who wants to claim that letting the govt manage it will *save* money is fighting a tidal wave of evidence.

Am I mistaken,

Yes. You seemed to jump into this without knowing any details, so it doesn't surprise me that you are unfamiliar with how it works and the information that's available from other countries.

or are we starting to go around in circles?

I don't see how you could avoid doing otherwise.

Linda

[Gurdur]

Yes. You seemed to jump into this without knowing any details, so it doesn't surprise me that you are unfamiliar with how it works and the information that's available from other countries.


Doesn't worry me that much. Follow the money. I pay far less in taxes for a far better health-care* than Dominic Harr does, assuming of course Dominic Harr actually is out there in the grown-up world and paying taxes. Given the reality, it's kind of immaterial how much he flames.
________

* which includes excellent dental care. Excuse me while I grin smugly. :D

[3point14]

Erm, I hesitate to mention this, but wouldn't publicly funded healthcare be potentially cheaper soleley because less of the money would be going to shareholders in dividends?

Not really something for nothing, but close.


Carry on.

[JoeEllison]

Erm, I hesitate to mention this, but wouldn't publicly funded healthcare be potentially cheaper soleley because less of the money would be going to shareholders in dividends?

Not really something for nothing, but close.


Carry on.

Of course... and people who work for the government make less than executives in the private sector. And, lower expenses on advertising. Lots and lots of ways that a universal, publicly-funded healthcare system is cheaper.

[pipelineaudio]

Because health-care is just software. Yes. Right. My oh my ...........

Upchurch was comparing it to software, if you have a problem, take it up with him...my response was dead on target, sorry it does not help your views comrade

[fls]

Upchurch was comparing it to software, if you have a problem, take it up with him...my response was dead on target, sorry it does not help your views comrade

That started me thinking about the health care system in the former Soviet Union. I remember attending a lecture by a visiting Russian physician (before the collapse of the USSR) when I was in medical school. All I recall from the lecture was that his slides were of incredibly poor quality (like a text that had been photocopied multiple times and then transferred, crookedly, onto a transparency), and that the medical information he covered was horridly out-dated. The overwhelming reaction of the audience was sympathy.

So I just finished reading various articles describing the health care in Russia before and after the collapse of the USSR. It was interesting to compare the descriptions of the conditions before 1991 in articles written before 1991 and in articles written after 1991.

One tidbit (don't know what it means) - pre-collapse, homeopathy was popular, but chiropracty had not caught on.

Sorry for the digression. I've always particularly enjoyed the comrade designation.

Linda

[Gord_in_Toronto]

That started me thinking about the health care system in the former Soviet Union. I remember attending a lecture by a visiting Russian physician (before the collapse of the USSR) when I was in medical school. All I recall from the lecture was that his slides were of incredibly poor quality (like a text that had been photocopied multiple times and then transferred, crookedly, onto a transparency), and that the medical information he covered was horridly out-dated. The overwhelming reaction of the audience was sympathy.

So I just finished reading various articles describing the health care in Russia before and after the collapse of the USSR. It was interesting to compare the descriptions of the conditions before 1991 in articles written before 1991 and in articles written after 1991.

One tidbit (don't know what it means) - pre-collapse, homeopathy was popular, but chiropracty had not caught on.

Sorry for the digression. I've always particularly enjoyed the comrade designation.

Linda


I give up. Is it better now or worse?

[fls]

I give up. Is it better now or worse?

I can't tell. The descriptions of the pre-1991 conditions vary depending upon whether the authors want to illustrate that the system is better now or worse. And they don't quite match descriptions written pre-1991.

Linda

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I can't tell. The descriptions of the pre-1991 conditions vary depending upon whether the authors want to illustrate that the system is better now or worse. And they don't quite match descriptions written pre-1991.

Linda

Fair enough. I was just wondering if the change from statism to capitalism had any lessons re health care for this group.
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[fls]

Fair enough. I was just wondering if the change from statism to capitalism had any lessons re health care for this group.
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

I could certainly cherrypick facts to make any case I wanted. For example, the life expectancy for men has fallen by five years to 59. Or, they have more hospitals, physicians and health care workers than almost any other country in the world.

Don't know what their software is like, though.

Linda

[Ohmer]

I think like most things in life, you have to find the right balance. Both socialize and commercialized systems have generated new science and technologies. Having universal health care doesn't mean we can't also have private health care just as having public transportation doesn't mean we can't own our own cars. Those who can afford it and want a little something more will get it.

I know I am a week behind, but I just wanted to say I'm with you 100%. Balance is the key. My dad lives in a town that probably only exists because it is next to an air force base that provides enough civilian employment to make people want to live there.

Last time I was there I got to see some practice low level bombing runs. It was awesome and I swelled with "boot in your ass" pride. Then I realized the cost of that practice run would probably have covered my dad's medical bills many times over. Balance is key. Perhaps we could forgo a few bombs and use that money to pay the people that saved my fathers life.