Paul – Sounds great, but why no mention of our costs associated with medical malpractice insurance? How are the ambulance chasers handled in other countries?
In regard to the WP article posted by Richard. I think this article does a good job of making a case for the fact that there IS no perfect system and in every system both happy and unhappy people can be found. Those aren’t “myths” those are just twisted and misrepresented facts.
Paul “the WASHINGTON POST” nuff said its a uber liberal rag what do you expect ,come on Paul you can do better than that,I have never said the health care system was perfect but the Government will fu*k it all up just like they do everything else …when you cant get any health care dont blame me for it I tried to tell you
You know what’s even funnier? The caduceus isn’t even a medical symbol. It has been used incorrectly for so long, people start to forget that the actual symbol is the (somewhat similar) rod of Asclepius.
And yes, our healthcare system IS being screwed over quite badly by Obama right now. Thanks for sharing.
Well, it was an interesting article. Additionally, it’s easy to cherry pick information and try to make a case, so I guess it’s my turn. I believe on the last lengthy diatribe on this subject, I outlined some of the major changes I believe that could be done to improve the system that are not included in anything I’ve heard within the proposal. Tort reform, improvements to the records systems (which inherently reduces administrative overhead), clear conscience agreements to protect medical facilities from performing procedures that are against their fundamental beliefs (cherry pick the word fundamental if you wish), and a clear plan on how to take best practice improvements from knowledgeable professionals are the first steps. Assigning a commission to evaluate the good and bad from various practices is required. (cont. in next post)
Sorry, my laptop battery was low…
Next, let’s try to compare apples to apples. Our population is 307M. The next closest in the article is Japan at 127M, Germany at 84M, and France at 64M and UK at 61M. Ok…so, if we take all 4 countries and combine them, they’re at 336M compared to our 307M. But…independently, they don’t match our size. So, we don’t have a model that scales to our size. Ok, how about population dispersal? Japan is slightly smaller than California. Germany is smaller than Montana, France is smaller than Texas, and UK is smaller than Oregon. So, the entire population of 4 countries lives in the equivalent of 4 our our states. Population dispersal alone makes the concept of medical equivalency difficult to quantify.
What about infant mortality rates as a guide? Well, it’s true many countries have a lower mortality rate than the US. By the same token, we don’t play on a level playing ground here. The common definition of a preemie is a baby born before 37 weeks. The US mortality rate is approximately 6.3/1000. Yes, Japan is at 2.9/1000 and other countries also rate well. However, other countries don’t count babies that are below a certain gestation period. Babies born before 26 weeks are discounted. Our survival rates include all live births.
Quality of service? Well, I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had minimal medical issues so far, but any time I have, I’ve been very impressed with the quality of care and concern I’ve had with all members of the medical staff. Additionally, with a son that spent 3 1/2 years on life support in a neonatal intensive care unit in Louisville and 3 1/2 years on life support at home, I believe I do have some slight exposure to the advanced medical techniques necessary to provide a certain quality of life. And yes, the insurance was a blessing and a curse. When I dealt with one agent, she mentioned that the coverage was never intended for “someone that was going to be sick a long time,” I asked where that was in the advertising and contract (e.g. don’t get real sick or we won’t continue to cover you). With a minimal amount of headaches and heartache, they came through and paid most of the bills.
Conspicuously absent from this article are some of the bad things we hear about all of the other countries. In the UK, the ambulances stack up for hours outside the emergency rooms because patients are only allowed by law to be in the ER for x amount of time. So, instead, they sit and wait.
In France, something I hadn’t heard until the other day, ambulances have physicians on board. They triage and treat on-site compared to our method of triage and transport. Good? Bad? I can’t really say except we don’t have enough physicians to ride around the US 24X7. The article I read mentioned Lady Di was 4 miles from a hospital but didn’t make it to the hospital for 1 1/2 hours. In this instance, it probably made no difference, however, it’s still a consideration.
This article made a great point about being able to get in to a GP the following day. Great. Glad to hear it. Then why do cancer patients, heart patients, and other folks travel to the Great USA for treatment? Because it’s timely.
Now, the good news Paul. I think there are some great ideas to take from the other companies. I wish we would examine what’s going on in Japan. Culturally, they have been leading edge in efficiencies and economies and have some great ideas. After all, just through the work of W. Edward Deming, their manufacturing environment thrived. Ummm…wait…Deming was an American…that looked at existing systems and suggested incremental modifications and changes to improve services, not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Not throwing a whole bunch of money at something without having any idea of what the end result might be.
Jonco and Paul in Boca: I think revrick315 sums up some of the problems that were existent before Obama came to the national scene, but those issues are also not covered by the useless bills going through Congress now.
That article Paul in Boca linked to was interesting, but one thing I noticed it mentioned but not point out is that many countries with socialist medicine are going to private health care, while we here in the US are working on ditching private healthcare and go socialist.
I don’t know if socialized medicine is the right answer but I do believe that many people are going to be priced out of private insurance if they haven’t been already.
(Jonco, is it too late to set up a ‘Bits of Healthcare’ page so these don’t go on forever…every time the topic pops up, I say “stay off, Rev, stay off”…then 1000 words later, I hit Submit)
P in B – Sounds like the article kind of picked a few good things from a few countries. Until the problems of tort reform and being able to purchase health insurance from more than a select few providers in most states (in some states only two) are addressed, I’m not convinced about anyone’s motives anymore. You yourself said it a few days ago…you said something like there’s the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Money Party. Or maybe you said there’s two…the Republicandemocratic Party and the Money Party. Either way, the Money Party is in power, as evidenced by former Dem head Howard Dean when he publicly admitted last week that the reason tort reform isn’t in any of the bills is because Congress is in the trial lawyer’s pockets.
I’m the first to admit I’m no expert in this area at all, but it just doesn’t pass the smell test. I don’t like the big push to ram this down our throats…something this huge should be done carefully and correctly rather than in a mad rush. Joe#2 said he’s just been screwed by an ins. co….well a lot of us self-employed and small-business people feel we’ve been getting screwed by the government all our careers. You said it yourself just a few days ago…our vets in the VA hospitals have been mistreated and forgotten for years–decades–at the hands of Congress. Congress could have passed bills addressing these issues anytime they wanted, for years and years. But they never wanted to. Think Howard Dean’s statement again.
Revrick has put into words alot of the things I feel. He’s had other posts just as thoughtful as this one, and I hafta go with his ideas. He says what I wish I could say, but with more experience and eloquence. In following his comments on this issue, I proudly defer to him anytime.
I imagine each side can find articles to make their desired point. Here’s mine (all from Canada):
DJ,
What I said was we have one party in the US, the Money Party, and it’s comprised of people who call themselves “Democrats” and “Republicans”. Since every Senator and a great deal of Congresspeople are millionaires, they are first and foremost concerned with keeping and expanding theirs. And that is happening at the expense of you and me.
Were you OK with Bush ramming the Patriots Act down our throats in October of 2001? How about the initial financial bailout jammed down our throats, that one also by B & B. You know, we gotta give these guys money this week or else the whole economy is going to go down the tubes.
I agree that we shouldn’t pass something simply for the sake of passing a bill, but if some of us here can figure things out, why can’t the a**holes in Congress do the same?
The tort reform puzzles me. If I go into a hospital to have a kidney stone removed and instead, they amputate my legs, shouldn’t I be able to sue? Again, I’mn sure that for egregious acts like that we can work out the details.
Jonco, what IS it with you and healthcare lately? You used to be very…well it seemed like the type who would oppose socialism, and yet suddenly you seem to be posting this crap left and right. Did you have a bad experience with a hospital recently? Lose your insurance?
Our healthcare most assuredly was not screwed up before Obama ever came on the scene. Insurance companies were screwing up the payment by taking advantage of, and bullying both the patient and the physician, but that’s a separate issue from the healthCARE.
Hey, this is your site and for your opinions, it just doesn’t seem like something I’d think you’d be for under normal conditions.
As for Rev, he made some excellent points. While a lot of people will throw around meaningless statistics such as US mortality vs. Japan mortality, they need to actually look at all contributing factors. First, Japanese have longer life expectancies even here in the US, with the same healthcare as the rest of us. Genetics plays a role. Similarly the US has a higher incidence of gun/violent crime than Japan, which also contributes. Then there’s the larger population which allows for more things like epidemics to occur, and so on. These statistics are NOT a valid way to judge any kind of care. There’s no argument against us having the absolutely BEST healthcare in the world, and that comes from looking at the actual facts: Which country leads in medical research and discovery? Yes, as mentioned in the article not 100% of advances come from the US, you can find a handful from other countries, but then compare that to what was found here and it just becomes obvious. Similarly, when someone in another country needs a procedure done, where do they go? And I mean the princes/kings, etc. They come to the US. That speaks to the quality of physician, professionalism, and technology here. Then there are the people who just don’t want to pay. Those who legitimately can’t pay for an important procedure have a case…and for them we have free clinics and medicare/medicaid. Some people, however, don’t want to part with the money they saved up for that nice new TV, because apparently something as valuable and important as their life isn’t worth as much as that TV, and they want it for free. Doctors are just doing a job like anyone else in the world, and certainly don’t owe it to you to fix what you screwed up free of charge, nor should doctors have to live in poverty because some idiots are selfish.
It really all comes down to personal accountability, which people just don’t seem to care about these days.
JD,
As I’ve said before I was self-employed and I had to purchased health insurance for my wife and myself. We got a good po0licy with decent coverage and it cost us about $400 a month. Within several years it just kept escalating in cost to over $1300 a month when I could no longer afford it. I then bought catastrophic insurance for more than I paid for the original coverage a few years back. But it was of little use to me as I had no catastrophic events (luckily). Routine medical care was very expensive and we had no coverage for prescriptions.
Now, fortunately for me, but not for a lot of people out there, my wife has decent coverage with her work that is affordable because of a group policy. Healthcare isn’t the problem is being able to pay for it that is the problem.
I don’t know why you’d think I would be “the type” to oppose socialism. I like to look at both sides of an issue. When I saw the image above I thought it could be used to depict the healthcare situation even before Obama was elected. Very few things are black or white. The Democrats and their supporters are not always right nor or the Republicans and their supporters.
You read too much into some things I post. I either find them funny or just interesting.
Someone once told me that I was predictably unpredictable. I guess I still am … and I like that.
Like Jonco, we’ve just been priced out of insurance at the company I work for.
An increased of 29.5% from Aetna – many of us, myself included can’t afford to pay.
Those of you who can still pay for it don’t want change – but you will be paying for those who can’t one way or another.
Nope, I’m quite happy with my healthcare. That is an interesting play on the caduceus though. Would that be a cascrewsus?
OK, from the Washington Post: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778.html
Rev, DJ, Infi, et. al., please read this article and comment…I look forward to your responses.
Paul – Sounds great, but why no mention of our costs associated with medical malpractice insurance? How are the ambulance chasers handled in other countries?
Absolutely the BEST logo idea I have ever seen for Obamacare!
In regard to the WP article posted by Richard. I think this article does a good job of making a case for the fact that there IS no perfect system and in every system both happy and unhappy people can be found. Those aren’t “myths” those are just twisted and misrepresented facts.
Oops, that link was posted by Paul not Richard sorry, Paul was the one starting to make sense.
Paul “the WASHINGTON POST” nuff said its a uber liberal rag what do you expect ,come on Paul you can do better than that,I have never said the health care system was perfect but the Government will fu*k it all up just like they do everything else …when you cant get any health care dont blame me for it I tried to tell you
Many of us just got screwed by Aetna – that’s not a myth..
You know what’s even funnier? The caduceus isn’t even a medical symbol. It has been used incorrectly for so long, people start to forget that the actual symbol is the (somewhat similar) rod of Asclepius.
And yes, our healthcare system IS being screwed over quite badly by Obama right now. Thanks for sharing.
One might also look at it that it was screwed up before Obama was ever on the scene.
That’s weird…the picture I attached didn’t show up. Either way, I’ll just link to it then:
Well, it was an interesting article. Additionally, it’s easy to cherry pick information and try to make a case, so I guess it’s my turn. I believe on the last lengthy diatribe on this subject, I outlined some of the major changes I believe that could be done to improve the system that are not included in anything I’ve heard within the proposal. Tort reform, improvements to the records systems (which inherently reduces administrative overhead), clear conscience agreements to protect medical facilities from performing procedures that are against their fundamental beliefs (cherry pick the word fundamental if you wish), and a clear plan on how to take best practice improvements from knowledgeable professionals are the first steps. Assigning a commission to evaluate the good and bad from various practices is required. (cont. in next post)
Sorry, my laptop battery was low…
Next, let’s try to compare apples to apples. Our population is 307M. The next closest in the article is Japan at 127M, Germany at 84M, and France at 64M and UK at 61M. Ok…so, if we take all 4 countries and combine them, they’re at 336M compared to our 307M. But…independently, they don’t match our size. So, we don’t have a model that scales to our size. Ok, how about population dispersal? Japan is slightly smaller than California. Germany is smaller than Montana, France is smaller than Texas, and UK is smaller than Oregon. So, the entire population of 4 countries lives in the equivalent of 4 our our states. Population dispersal alone makes the concept of medical equivalency difficult to quantify.
What about infant mortality rates as a guide? Well, it’s true many countries have a lower mortality rate than the US. By the same token, we don’t play on a level playing ground here. The common definition of a preemie is a baby born before 37 weeks. The US mortality rate is approximately 6.3/1000. Yes, Japan is at 2.9/1000 and other countries also rate well. However, other countries don’t count babies that are below a certain gestation period. Babies born before 26 weeks are discounted. Our survival rates include all live births.
Quality of service? Well, I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had minimal medical issues so far, but any time I have, I’ve been very impressed with the quality of care and concern I’ve had with all members of the medical staff. Additionally, with a son that spent 3 1/2 years on life support in a neonatal intensive care unit in Louisville and 3 1/2 years on life support at home, I believe I do have some slight exposure to the advanced medical techniques necessary to provide a certain quality of life. And yes, the insurance was a blessing and a curse. When I dealt with one agent, she mentioned that the coverage was never intended for “someone that was going to be sick a long time,” I asked where that was in the advertising and contract (e.g. don’t get real sick or we won’t continue to cover you). With a minimal amount of headaches and heartache, they came through and paid most of the bills.
Conspicuously absent from this article are some of the bad things we hear about all of the other countries. In the UK, the ambulances stack up for hours outside the emergency rooms because patients are only allowed by law to be in the ER for x amount of time. So, instead, they sit and wait.
In France, something I hadn’t heard until the other day, ambulances have physicians on board. They triage and treat on-site compared to our method of triage and transport. Good? Bad? I can’t really say except we don’t have enough physicians to ride around the US 24X7. The article I read mentioned Lady Di was 4 miles from a hospital but didn’t make it to the hospital for 1 1/2 hours. In this instance, it probably made no difference, however, it’s still a consideration.
This article made a great point about being able to get in to a GP the following day. Great. Glad to hear it. Then why do cancer patients, heart patients, and other folks travel to the Great USA for treatment? Because it’s timely.
Now, the good news Paul. I think there are some great ideas to take from the other companies. I wish we would examine what’s going on in Japan. Culturally, they have been leading edge in efficiencies and economies and have some great ideas. After all, just through the work of W. Edward Deming, their manufacturing environment thrived. Ummm…wait…Deming was an American…that looked at existing systems and suggested incremental modifications and changes to improve services, not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Not throwing a whole bunch of money at something without having any idea of what the end result might be.
Jonco and Paul in Boca: I think revrick315 sums up some of the problems that were existent before Obama came to the national scene, but those issues are also not covered by the useless bills going through Congress now.
That article Paul in Boca linked to was interesting, but one thing I noticed it mentioned but not point out is that many countries with socialist medicine are going to private health care, while we here in the US are working on ditching private healthcare and go socialist.
I don’t know if socialized medicine is the right answer but I do believe that many people are going to be priced out of private insurance if they haven’t been already.
(Jonco, is it too late to set up a ‘Bits of Healthcare’ page so these don’t go on forever…every time the topic pops up, I say “stay off, Rev, stay off”…then 1000 words later, I hit Submit)
Great picture! I think this will be my new avatar when I go into the liberal den to spread facts! Thanks BNP!
P in B – Sounds like the article kind of picked a few good things from a few countries. Until the problems of tort reform and being able to purchase health insurance from more than a select few providers in most states (in some states only two) are addressed, I’m not convinced about anyone’s motives anymore. You yourself said it a few days ago…you said something like there’s the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Money Party. Or maybe you said there’s two…the Republicandemocratic Party and the Money Party. Either way, the Money Party is in power, as evidenced by former Dem head Howard Dean when he publicly admitted last week that the reason tort reform isn’t in any of the bills is because Congress is in the trial lawyer’s pockets.
I’m the first to admit I’m no expert in this area at all, but it just doesn’t pass the smell test. I don’t like the big push to ram this down our throats…something this huge should be done carefully and correctly rather than in a mad rush. Joe#2 said he’s just been screwed by an ins. co….well a lot of us self-employed and small-business people feel we’ve been getting screwed by the government all our careers. You said it yourself just a few days ago…our vets in the VA hospitals have been mistreated and forgotten for years–decades–at the hands of Congress. Congress could have passed bills addressing these issues anytime they wanted, for years and years. But they never wanted to. Think Howard Dean’s statement again.
Revrick has put into words alot of the things I feel. He’s had other posts just as thoughtful as this one, and I hafta go with his ideas. He says what I wish I could say, but with more experience and eloquence. In following his comments on this issue, I proudly defer to him anytime.
I imagine each side can find articles to make their desired point. Here’s mine (all from Canada):
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1902983
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jbjzPEY0Y3bvRD335rGu_Z3KXoQw
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1904496
DJ,
What I said was we have one party in the US, the Money Party, and it’s comprised of people who call themselves “Democrats” and “Republicans”. Since every Senator and a great deal of Congresspeople are millionaires, they are first and foremost concerned with keeping and expanding theirs. And that is happening at the expense of you and me.
Were you OK with Bush ramming the Patriots Act down our throats in October of 2001? How about the initial financial bailout jammed down our throats, that one also by B & B. You know, we gotta give these guys money this week or else the whole economy is going to go down the tubes.
I agree that we shouldn’t pass something simply for the sake of passing a bill, but if some of us here can figure things out, why can’t the a**holes in Congress do the same?
The tort reform puzzles me. If I go into a hospital to have a kidney stone removed and instead, they amputate my legs, shouldn’t I be able to sue? Again, I’mn sure that for egregious acts like that we can work out the details.
Jonco, what IS it with you and healthcare lately? You used to be very…well it seemed like the type who would oppose socialism, and yet suddenly you seem to be posting this crap left and right. Did you have a bad experience with a hospital recently? Lose your insurance?
Our healthcare most assuredly was not screwed up before Obama ever came on the scene. Insurance companies were screwing up the payment by taking advantage of, and bullying both the patient and the physician, but that’s a separate issue from the healthCARE.
Hey, this is your site and for your opinions, it just doesn’t seem like something I’d think you’d be for under normal conditions.
As for Rev, he made some excellent points. While a lot of people will throw around meaningless statistics such as US mortality vs. Japan mortality, they need to actually look at all contributing factors. First, Japanese have longer life expectancies even here in the US, with the same healthcare as the rest of us. Genetics plays a role. Similarly the US has a higher incidence of gun/violent crime than Japan, which also contributes. Then there’s the larger population which allows for more things like epidemics to occur, and so on. These statistics are NOT a valid way to judge any kind of care. There’s no argument against us having the absolutely BEST healthcare in the world, and that comes from looking at the actual facts: Which country leads in medical research and discovery? Yes, as mentioned in the article not 100% of advances come from the US, you can find a handful from other countries, but then compare that to what was found here and it just becomes obvious. Similarly, when someone in another country needs a procedure done, where do they go? And I mean the princes/kings, etc. They come to the US. That speaks to the quality of physician, professionalism, and technology here. Then there are the people who just don’t want to pay. Those who legitimately can’t pay for an important procedure have a case…and for them we have free clinics and medicare/medicaid. Some people, however, don’t want to part with the money they saved up for that nice new TV, because apparently something as valuable and important as their life isn’t worth as much as that TV, and they want it for free. Doctors are just doing a job like anyone else in the world, and certainly don’t owe it to you to fix what you screwed up free of charge, nor should doctors have to live in poverty because some idiots are selfish.
It really all comes down to personal accountability, which people just don’t seem to care about these days.
JD,
As I’ve said before I was self-employed and I had to purchased health insurance for my wife and myself. We got a good po0licy with decent coverage and it cost us about $400 a month. Within several years it just kept escalating in cost to over $1300 a month when I could no longer afford it. I then bought catastrophic insurance for more than I paid for the original coverage a few years back. But it was of little use to me as I had no catastrophic events (luckily). Routine medical care was very expensive and we had no coverage for prescriptions.
Now, fortunately for me, but not for a lot of people out there, my wife has decent coverage with her work that is affordable because of a group policy. Healthcare isn’t the problem is being able to pay for it that is the problem.
I don’t know why you’d think I would be “the type” to oppose socialism. I like to look at both sides of an issue. When I saw the image above I thought it could be used to depict the healthcare situation even before Obama was elected. Very few things are black or white. The Democrats and their supporters are not always right nor or the Republicans and their supporters.
You read too much into some things I post. I either find them funny or just interesting.
Someone once told me that I was predictably unpredictable. I guess I still am … and I like that.
Patriot Act votes: In the House: Yes 357 / No 66
In the Senate: Yes 98 / No 1
Like Jonco, we’ve just been priced out of insurance at the company I work for.
An increased of 29.5% from Aetna – many of us, myself included can’t afford to pay.
Those of you who can still pay for it don’t want change – but you will be paying for those who can’t one way or another.
Junco?
Yeah, I fixed his Junco. I assume he meant Jonco.
Sorry and thanks!