Government Run Healthcare

[ba-ram-you]

Let me tell you all a little story. This spring my dad went for a cardiac catheterization because he had some EKG changes assosciated with a syncopal episode he experienced. He was found to have almost a complete blockage of a major coronary artery. He was immediately admitted to a nearby medical center ( in Fla.) and scheduled for a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft, an open heart surgical procedure. I had to scramble to get an airline ticket and get down there in time to literally see him wheeled into the O.R.
When he came back to the ICU from the PACU it was truly a blessing. The surgeon came by to check on him and was very encouraged. My Dad had been in his room for a few hours when they brought another patient back from surgery to the next room. I could tell he was in bad shape as I recognized the sound of ballon pump ( a heart assist device) and I overheard the surgeons talking in the nursing station. I did meet this man's family and they filled me in. This man was a Canadian vacationing in Florida who had had a cardiac cath done SIX MONTHS prior to this. He was found to have several blocked arteries and was placed on a WAITING LIST and had been on it for the previous SIX MONTHS.
He decided to take a vacation to sunny Florida and while there suffered a massive heart attack. His outcome was guarded and his post operative prognosis was poor. This man was in his sixties. My Dad is in his eighties. Let me tell you if my Dad was a Canadian he would still be waiting for surgery if he was approved for it in the first place and I doubt that he would still be alive.
Now you can tell me all you want that health care will not be rationed like this under the Obama plan and I am going to tell you that you are mistaken. You can tell me that no government commitee is not going to determine if and when you are to receive certain types of expensive or scarce medical procedures and I'm going to tell you that you are mistaken. You may tell me that yes you can keep your present health care coverage and I'm going to tell you that there is no way that Blue Cross/Blue Shield is going to be able to compete against the government. And do you truly think that employers are going to contribute to employee health care plans if they don't have to. Lets just for one minute suppose that BC/BS does miraculously survive, I can tell you that you are going to be paying a lot more for the same or less coverage that you receive now.
I love how the Dems are focusing on the methods of universal health care coverage opponents rather than the substance of their opposition. There are many questions that remain unanswered about this program. My question is why are there so few answers?
By the way my dad is home, attending cardiac rehab regularly and doing well. The Canadian didn't make it back to the border. If you think this is an aberrance or an isolated event associated with the model that many in the government are using to pattern our new health care system then you aren't asking the right questions.

Canada is single payer(ie, the government is the only provider of insurance and pays fees directly to private physicians). That is not what is being proposed.

You say that there's no way that BC&BS could compete against a non-profit, government run public insurance option. This is incontrovertibly false. There is zero empirical evidence that this is even a possibility. BC&BS actually started as a non-profit (and in some areas continues to operate as such) but transitioned to a for-profit model in most of the country because it was a growth sector for making money. Please provide me with reasons why a public insurance option would eliminate the multi-billion dollar private insurance industry? You can start by telling me how when you attended VCU, a government funded University, you were forced out of choosing to go across town and sign up for classes at UofR. Or how when you want to use FedEx you can't because USPS drove them out of business.

Quick question: how did your 80 something father get treatment(glad he's doing ok, by the way)? There are two ways: either he was on Medicare, a government insurance option, or he's wildly independently wealthy and paid for care out of pocket. Either way, he'd have the freedom to access either of these were a public option established.

 

[ViCtorioUs]

1. I don't care if Canada's committees are comprised of M.D.'s, Rhodes Scholars, clairvoyants or Mother Teresas. This is taking the decision making about your health care out of the hands of you and your physician and placing it in the hands of someone who does not know you personally, your past medical history (other than what is included in the papers sent to it), your lifestyle, your take on life or the myriad of details that you and your doctor take into account when making a decision about persuing a medical course of action. This is big goverment at its intrusive, impersonal and implacable best (or worst). Obviously the government committee that made the decision to place the Canadian man on a waiting list for what was an obvious emergent procedure made the wrong decision. Now as to whether that was because of the scarcity of resources or the wrong information in making their decision the result was ultimately the wrong one.

2. If one thinks that third party payers are going to remain the same after implementation of a national healthcare plan then I respectfully beg to differ. I am of the firm belief that your private medical insurance is going to cost you more and in turn give you less.

3. One of the biggest flaws in our medical system is the litigious nature of settling malpractice disputes. The party of John Edwards seems not to notice that this has caused physicians and surgeons in this country to pay billions in malpractice insurance, caused doctors to leave certain specialties like obstetrics in droves, and created a subspecies of ambulance chasers that utilize the class action suit to line their fat pockets while giving the truly injured a pittance. This has driven the cost of health care in this country to astronomical proportions. It has caused hospitals and doctors to order repetitive tests, useless procedures and implement nonsensical policies that eat up finite resources. All this in the guise of CYA.

4. As a member of the health care system in this country I can see plenty that needs fixing, but I see a lot that makes our health care second to none in this world. Lets fix what is wrong and keep what is right. This sweeping change is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[ba-ram-you]

1. I don't care if Canada's committees are comprised of M.D.'s, Rhodes Scholars, clairvoyants or Mother Teresas. This is taking the decision making about your health care out of the hands of you and your physician and placing it in the hands of someone who does not know you personally, your past medical history (other than what is included in the papers sent to it), your lifestyle, your take on life or the myriad of details that you and your doctor take into account when making a decision about persuing a medical course of action. This is big goverment at its intrusive, impersonal and implacable best (or worst). Obviously the government committee that made the decision to place the Canadian man on a waiting list for what was an obvious emergent procedure made the wrong decision. Now as to whether that was because of the scarcity of resources or the wrong information in making their decision the result was ultimately the wrong one.

2. If one thinks that third party payers are going to remain the same after implementation of a national healthcare plan then I respectfully beg to differ. I am of the firm belief that your private medical insurance is going to cost you more and in turn give you less.

3. One of the biggest flaws in our medical system is the litigious nature of settling malpractice disputes. The party of John Edwards seems not to notice that this has caused physicians and surgeons in this country to pay billions in malpractice insurance, caused doctors to leave certain specialties like obstetrics in droves, and created a subspecies of ambulance chasers that utilize the class action suit to line their fat pockets while giving the truly injured a pittance. This has driven the cost of health care in this country to astronomical proportions. It has caused hospitals and doctors to order repetitive tests, useless procedures and implement nonsensical policies that eat up finite resources. All this in the guise of CYA.

4. As a member of the health care system in this country I can see plenty that needs fixing, but I see a lot that makes our health care second to none in this world. Lets fix what is wrong and keep what is right. This sweeping change is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

1. Can we stop talking about the Canadian health care system? It's a strawman. No one is proposing single payer in the U.S. and further more I don't even know what "committees" you're talking about; if your doctor approves a procedure in Canada, you get it. In the case of the Canadian who received care in Canada similar to that provided your father in the U.S. by a government run insurance plan, the fault lies with the Canadian's physician. Not Canadian "death panels."

2. First of all, it's a national health coverage plan. That's strictly provision of insurance. You're obfuscating intentionally if you insist on continuing to refer to it as a government run "health care." Your firm beliefs are you firm beliefs. Again explain to me how public university's prevented you from attending a private university or how USPS has run DHL/FedEx/UPS out of business or how the existence of the U.S. military kept Blackwater from forming and running a profit. There is zero evidence that what you're talking about is a possible reality. I understand the theory that public investment can crowd out market access and private capital investments. Do you not understand the fact that the target demographic for the public option are those who are currently uninsured, i.e. non-consumers of current private industry plans?

3. Being partisan and blaming others isn't really going to get us anywhere is it? I don't think anyone else brought up the politics of the proposed policies. Anyway, so you're saying we need malpractice insurance reform but health insurance reform with the inclusion of an insurance option like the one that saved your father's life is "big gubmint"? I'm sure you'd be shocked to learn that the actual number of malpractice suits has not gone up commensurate to the huge increases in malpractice insurance premiums. Sound familiar?

4. What sweeping change with regards to actual health care? Please, again, explain to me how in your mind the government will be dictating anything to anyone outside of people who chose to buy into a public insurance option because it meets their needs; then explain to me how that's any different from how private insurance plans, not physicians, currently dictate care?

 

[RAMROD]

1. I don't care if Canada's committees are comprised of M.D.'s, Rhodes Scholars, clairvoyants or Mother Teresas. This is taking the decision making about your health care out of the hands of you and your physician and placing it in the hands of someone who does not know you personally, your past medical history (other than what is included in the papers sent to it), your lifestyle, your take on life or the myriad of details that you and your doctor take into account when making a decision about persuing a medical course of action. This is big goverment at its intrusive, impersonal and implacable best (or worst). Obviously the government committee that made the decision to place the Canadian man on a waiting list for what was an obvious emergent procedure made the wrong decision. Now as to whether that was because of the scarcity of resources or the wrong information in making their decision the result was ultimately the wrong one.

2. If one thinks that third party payers are going to remain the same after implementation of a national healthcare plan then I respectfully beg to differ. I am of the firm belief that your private medical insurance is going to cost you more and in turn give you less.

3. One of the biggest flaws in our medical system is the litigious nature of settling malpractice disputes. The party of John Edwards seems not to notice that this has caused physicians and surgeons in this country to pay billions in malpractice insurance, caused doctors to leave certain specialties like obstetrics in droves, and created a subspecies of ambulance chasers that utilize the class action suit to line their fat pockets while giving the truly injured a pittance. This has driven the cost of health care in this country to astronomical proportions. It has caused hospitals and doctors to order repetitive tests, useless procedures and implement nonsensical policies that eat up finite resources. All this in the guise of CYA.

4. As a member of the health care system in this country I can see plenty that needs fixing, but I see a lot that makes our health care second to none in this world. Lets fix what is wrong and keep what is right. This sweeping change is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

AMEN brother!