Obama is determined to socialize our hospitals .But to what avail ? My great aunt from Canada goes down to the U.S. every time she needs surgery.Doctors don't work good for less .And what about plastic surgery ?!!!

Germany is a socializes medicine system and after talking with my wife's family the care is going down hill for them. They are not happy about the state of affairs there.

My folks live in a "retirement" community that has residents from a wide range of nationalities. Of those who come from countries with "socialized medicine", none have anything good to say. Their neighbor was placed on a waiting list in his country (I won't mention which one...this isn't about starting a feud!) of over 18 months for heart surgery even though the doctors gave him less than 2 months to live without it. Luckily for him, he could afford to come to the U.S. and get it done in a matter of weeks.

Our nation's leaders need to talk to the common people who actually have to live and die by those health plans rather than the politicians from those countries who aren't restricted by the rules anyway. If one doesn't have to follow them, any rules are just fine.

Michale Moore will tell you Social Medicine is the only system that works and USA is the Great Satan. Cuz that's what they do and say in Canada, France and Cuba.

Right.



Ok, that said:

This latest ploy by the Obama Super-pals is step two in undermining the private sector and put's his Team on the fast track for the big "power-grab" and is the second nail in the coffin for the death of the private sector.

If this stuff gets passed, and it will cost trillions of your money by the way, you can kiss your insuarance- car, home and life- goodbye for good.

I kid you not....private insurance carriers will not underwrite a policy in this country when they have to compete with the Gov.

You can take that to the bank. If it aint Fed Owned by then.

Who the hell is smart enough in our Gov. to run a federal health care system when they can't even pay their taxes?
Or build a fence on the southern border to keep out illegals casually strolling in?
Or- allow failing car makers to get 50 billlion just BEFORE they go BK?

Are you kidding me?

The 'idiot factor' just got kicked up two big notches with this plan.

Short and sweet...The only thing that needs "reform" is our government. If left alone everything else will correct itself...

Bushmaster wrote:

Short and sweet..

You have a habit of cutting to the chase...yet again. (accurate and consistent...... )

Name one single US federal program that is run properly and in the black. You can not do so because there isn't one, nada. All are broke and all are in the red.

O'BS is a moron as are his sidekicks Pelosi, Reed and Franks. Not one has ever held a job, ran a company, owned a business or made a payroll. So they feel very qualified to run huge businesses and programs. Hell fire, a total moron could run a business with a key to the United States Treasury and no woah to the run away wagon hauling money.

Do you work? Do you pay taxes? This is all about taking your money that you worked for, and giving it to thoes that have not and will not lift a finger to support themselves. And the "give me" folks now outnumber the "I work for it" folks in this country.

Healthcare:
Mark this......Any government sponsered health care plan is doomed from the start. The basic reason that all do not have health insurance is cost or inability to qualify. Forget cost, concentrate on the inability to qualify. How much will care cost for a person that is terminally ill and if you start care, then determine the program is not viable, when do you turn off the care to little Johnny? You can't It is a runaway freight train.

Florida's universal health care system went under in three months. We in Florida are covered up with folks from Canada that can not get care at home, every single year. We also see the "tourists" from Germany and England every single year who come for health care while on "vacation." If their damned health system was so good we would be going there !!!! Come on, give me a break, just an ounce of common sense.
Best,
Ed

For example, in Canada, the average wait for a 65-year-old man to get a hip replacement is six months, according to the Freedom Works Foundation.

The average wait time in a Canadian emergency room is 16 hours and 18 minutes. Also, “the average cancer test and radiation treatment cycles vary between 6 to 8 weeks,” the foundation reported.I don't to die Obama ....On the other hand with socialized medicine-he might!!!

Think about what the real motivation is to socialize medicine. It's money. The federal government would like to pay less to fund Medicare and the States would like to pay less to fund Medicaid (a.k.a., Welfare). Also, the Democrats would like to ingratiate themselves with all those who have no insurance by giving them a freebee by taking from those who have jobs. If it was just private insurance companies forking over the money, then there would be no talk about socializing medicine.

Why does medical care cost so much? One thing is medications. Drugs in the U.S.A. cost quite a bit more than they do in Canada and Mexico. Big Pharma profits are huge. It's technically illegal to import any type of medication from a foreign country into the U.S.A. allegedly for safety reasons. At the same time, U.S.A. drug companies have companies on foreign countries make components for their drugs since it's cheaper to do out of the country; what a crock of feces. I would be quite happy taking a drug made by a Canadian or Mexican drug company any day if I was saving a substantial sum doing so.

Another reason for high medical costs, is the sense of entitlement everyone has. If someone is paying for their medical care themselves, they exercise some prudence in visiting an emergency room, etc. They have no qualms about asking for an MRI when a plain CAT scan will do. If they have "the medical card" and are paying nothing, they have absolutely no motivation to stay away from an emergency room for trivial reasons rather than seeing a physician in a private office where care would be cheaper. The amount Medicaid pays for an emergency room visit is so little that prices for paying patients have to be raised to balance the books. In other words, everyone with private insurance or anyone who pays for their own care is subsidizing the care of Medicaid and Medicare patients right now.

Our Federal Government has also mandated that in just a few years, hospitals, offices, etc. will have to have electronic medical records. Why is this so? It's for THEIR convenience. It does nothing to improve patient care and actually increases costs and slows the delivery of care in many cases.

Then there is the malpractice issue. If you want to be absolutely sure that there is NO missed diagnosis, you have to run more tests. It's kind of like a net. A net for big fish has bigger holes in it so smaller fish get out. If you don't want any of the smaller fish to get away, the net has to have smaller holes. The reason socialized medicine is cheaper in Canada, etc. is because the government has decided that the net can have bigger holes, i.e., some diagnosis can be missed and if care is delayed long enough, the person needing the care will die and then not need care. A BIG malpractice award in Canada or England would probably run up to $500,000 and that kind of award happens infrequently. In the U.S.A., awards in the millions aren't rare.

What I think is the solution to the health care crises is this. Do like they do in Mexico. Let anyone get any medication they like as long as they know the name of it and it isn't a sedative or narcotic and providing they have money to pay for it. Also let ANYONE practice medicine; the only stipulation would be that they would have to truthfully disclose the level of their education be it grade school, high school, college, or medical school. Those that appreciated good health care would seek the true professionals and the others would die happy doing what they really wanted to do.

Had socialised healthcare here for longer than I've been alive.
In general. it's cheaper than a private insurance based system BUT providing treatment is generally slower & many procedures have long waiting lists despite their obvious benefit to both State AND patient (cataracts, hip replacement, certain cancer treatments).
Those of us who can afford it have private insurance too, to cover for when the State run system fails to deliver in a timely manner - still works out cheaper than a wholly private system.
Germany's system is actually based on private provision but with a mandatory contribution to State provided services for those who cannot afford insurance.
With healthcare insurance running at $4,000 pa for a single person & close to $10,000 for a family policy, many people in the US quite simply cannot afford comprehensive cover & THAT is a big problem for those incapable of earning considerably more than the minimum wage.

YES the system needs reform BUT the proposals coming from Obama's administration don't add up.

whittling wrote:

For example, in Canada, the average wait for a 65-year-old man to get a hip replacement is six months

We seem to have a tiered system with respect with age, I have know people 65 and over getting quoted MUCH longer wait times for the same thing some young guy or girl needs to get done to get back to work.

whittling wrote:

The average wait time in a Canadian emergency room is 16 hours and 18 minutes.

I'd buy that number if it was between 4 to 10 hours which are the shortest and longest I've waited myself.

English Mike,

Seems to be a 2 tiered system here in Greece from what I've gathered so far while visiting here.

As for cost of health insurance, per Oregon's lack of sales tax, only income tax I'd owe $2,680 in taxes at the end of the year making the same income I made last year. In Ontario I have $4,770 in income taxes and I get taxed 13% sales tax on everything I buy, I get taxed heavily on Alcohol (so called "sin" taxes) which makes the 14$ case of beer in Oregon cost me 40$ here, and a national average of 20% of the gas pump price in taxes in the US verses the 35% of the price in taxes in Canada.

Some reason I am thinking with the difference in taxes, I can afford to pay for Private Insurance instead of dealing with our "great" socialized medicine considering the tax difference.

Dimitri

Oops...That's 18 cents state and 18 cents federal equaling 36 cents on a gallon of gasoling here in America. Not 20 cents

Was up in Canada a few years back... about had a heart attack finding out how much a 6-pack was.

Almost tried out that free medical they've got......I'm bettin' Vince would've!

Bushy,

I was listing the average percentage of tax on gas not the actual amount.

Dimitri

Oops...Missed the % sign. Sorry....