The Damage

[Mel46]

Big medicine has its place. It is just when it tries to gobble up everyone that competes against them they overstep their boundary and take away other useful aspects that want to coexist with them...Like Walmart and the small town businesses that it puts out of business.

[Bash On!]

"Attorneys aren't cheap, but they can be priceless."

Bash On!, Esq.

[you you]

In Australia, we are fighting against a push by big medicine to go down the US path, mainly led by our Liberal "Open for Business" Government. Hopefully we, the public will win, if common sense prevails.

Hopefully so. Good luck with that one.

[Mel46]

No need for name calling. Sometimes large hospital organizations can attract some of the brightest and best surgeons. We had gotten a diagnosis from one hospital locally. They essentially said that if we didn't have insurance they couldn't do anything for us but splint it and send her home. We walked out and ended up going to Emory instead. They have some of the best surgeons around and worked around my wife's metal allergies by searching the medical community for another alternative before doing the surgery. They are working with us to try to set up a payment plan we can afford. The previous hospital expected payment in advance if we didn't have insurance.
Like I said, each has their place.

[tbln930]

I work for one of the four large health insurance companies in the US and have for 22 years so I am rudely familiar with the healthcare insurance industry here. I can tell you for a fact that what was done through Obamacare is much worse than the way the system was just before it despite the significant problems (increasing costs although very high quality) it already had and Obamacare DID NOT fix it in ANY fashion but set it on a path to destruction. It has made it much more expensive but more profitable for us (windfall profits for the last four years). There are just as many uninsured folks now as there was before it but a lot of different ones and the system is much more costly. Some hoped it will fail (which it is) and go to a single-payer system which is unlikely without a ton of legislative changes at the state and federal level (no time soon).

Once healthcare insurers went to a for-profit status starting about twenty years ago it was a downhill slide on increasing costs but this current administration (Socialism) has really gamed the system like no other and the costs are exploding in administration and bureaucracy while services plummet. This is now a disaster. It would take a few hours to explain just how bad Obamacare is. Don't let this happen to your country of you can stop it. Not a political statement but reality. Another change made with supposedly good intentions (which is a lie IMO) but with horrible consequences.

[Bash On!]

"Attorneys aren't cheap, but they can be priceless."

Bash On!, Esq.

You are a fuckwit

Love you, too.

[Mel46]

I am hoping that this thread will not go into politics, so health care in various countries should be discussed based on their own merits. I think that different perspectives allow us to see what goes on in each country when one of us needs medical help after an accident. It looks like to me that accident victims in countries with socialized medicine have less problems getting help than those of us in the United States. I know that our system is now being stressed beyond its capabilities. Obamacare is but one of many problems we have. From our perspective, countries with socialized medicine have better results than we do. This could be because we are looking through rose colored glasses.

Here is one thing that I do know from experience though. Those with health insurance in this country have a distinct advantage over those without it, and not all of the people without insurance are poor. My wife worked for a small office for a while and they could not give their employees insurance. My wife applied for personal health insurance and was turned down because she had 2 prescriptions for different things. Obamacare allowed her to get insurance again. However, many of her friends reported that their employer was forced to cancel their insurance, forcing them to have to get Obamacare at a higher premium. So Obamacare is good and bad. The question though is whether it helped or hindered improvements in personal health care in time of need. Is having it as good as having socialized medicine, or does our country need some other kind of change in order to allow everyone to get basic care when needed?

[kramnala58]

I am hoping that this thread will not go into politics ...

Remember friends, as per forum rules, politics and religion are no-no's, so let's not go there.

[kramnala58]

From our perspective, countries with socialized medicine have better results than we do. This could be because we are looking through rose colored glasses.

Or maybe not getting the full picture.

I have lived in 2 countries (Canada, England) that offer socialized medicine and one (United States) that doesn't. I believe my present country (Thailand) is a combination of both.

My experience has been that the countries with socialized medicine tend to have longer wait times and taxes are considerably higher. In my opinion, the health care is also inferior, although with the US insurance companies calling the shots increasingly more as it relates to the care being offered, the discrepancy appears to be less noticeable. My experience in the US was that the cost was extremely high. Likely higher than the tax savings compared to Canada.

I use a private international heath insurance company while in Thailand and have found it to be much less expensive, but with better health care being offered through international hospitals.

[Alibally]

You can get private health in the UK if you don't mind paying, buts it's the same surgeons that work for the NHS a good deal of the time. That pays for the fancy cars and big houses.

[you you]

You can get private health in the UK if you don't mind paying, buts it's the same surgeons that work for the NHS a good deal of the time. That pays for the fancy cars and big houses.

Youre right about it sometimes being NHS staff that you would see if you didnt go private.

Same treatment but you pay twice and the NHS foots the bill if it goes wrong.

[Mel46]

I just realized that we actually are paying enough hidden taxes to put us very close to the tax structure of the socialized medicine countries, plus high premiums for health insurance that should definitely put us in the same cost structure. Our tax setup is so screwed up that even the Internal Revenue officers don't understand it. That is why there are tax courts in this country. I'm not talking about this as a political argument but rather to make the point that the tax structure that supports socialized medicine is probably about the same as the tax structure here, but much of our taxes seem to go into a bottomless pit and are never applied toward what they were intended for. We now have high taxes but low quality in almost everything. Thus, medical care is on its own in the private sector and has very little to do with the government except for Medicare, which we do pay for in our taxes.

[you you]

I just realized that we actually are paying enough hidden taxes to put us very close to the tax structure of the socialized medicine countries, plus high premiums for health insurance that should definitely put us in the same cost structure. Our tax setup is so screwed up that even the Internal Revenue officers don't understand it. That is why there are tax courts in this country. I'm not talking about this as a political argument but rather to make the point that the tax structure that supports socialized medicine is probably about the same as the tax structure here, but much of our taxes seem to go into a bottomless pit and are never applied toward what they were intended for. We now have high taxes but low quality in almost everything. Thus, medical care is on its own in the private sector and has very little to do with the government except for Medicare, which we do pay for in our taxes.

I thought you also had Medcaid?

[Mel46]

Medicaid is a different thing all together. You have to be so poor that you can't even afford the cab fare to get to the hospital in order to qualify. If you have been in the system long enough you can get all sorts of free stuff, but very few people qualify. That is not to mean that I am prejudice but rather the system is weird in that very few questions are asked if you are an illegal alien and help is given without the basic question of..."Are you a U.S. citizen?". However, there are quite a few of the elderly who can not qualify for Medicaid, especially those who do not qualify for Medicare yet. Many have to choose between food and medicine. I have quite a few friends and relatives who fall into this group. That is why many are crossing the border when pregnant. Free medical care for them and their baby.

[kramnala58]

I just realized that we actually are paying enough hidden taxes to put us very close to the tax structure of the socialized medicine countries ....

Taxes (hidden or otherwise) in Canada are significantly more than in the US. Here are a couple of links which affirm that by using the "Tax Freedom Date" as a metric for those in tax paying countries to estimate their total taxes. The US link shows it state by state with most states falling around the middle to end of April this year (2015) while Canada as a whole was June 10th.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Freedom_Day

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/when-will ... m-day-2015

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/tax-free ... -1.2415200

[Mel46]

The links are very interesting. Thank you. However, my point is that in addition to the taxes, we have to pay for private medical insurance in order to be able to afford medical care. There are quite a few families that are now destitute because of medical costs. Our $70,000 medical debt is a drop in the bucket compared to that of people who had to be hospitalized for any length of time. Imagine being released from a hospital after a major illness only to receive a bill for services of half a million dollars. There are coal miners in West Virginia who have black lung. Cost for hospitalization would break the family, which is already just scraping by, if they did not have medical insurance. Many insurance companies were either dropping those type of individuals or making it impossible for them to afford coverage.

[Mel46]

Well, they did the gain. My wife has to sign up for the Obamacare plans again this year (every year you have to reapply for coverage). Unfortunately, they are no longer offering the plan she had. In fact, many of the previously offered ones have gone away. To add to that, the price for overage has doubled. We are on a fixed income, so any increase is tough on our budget. But here is the kicker. If we can not afford the offered packages, then we will be fined through our taxes for every month we didn't have the coverage, to the tune of close to that which the insurance would have cost Us! So here is how it seems to work: Either pay the insurance or the government will take it, even if you can't afford it! That is suppose to help us??

The Internal Revenue Service is the government strong-arm, and it has no real oversight. They WILL throw you out of your home without even thinking about it. They are now the ones who will force you to take the insurance or else. So...how does this help those who don't have insurance or the money to pay for the insurance?? I am completely confused. This mess will force one of us out of retirement just to pay for it.

My wife is my caretaker. Forcing her to go back to work puts my health in jeopardy. How is it that Obamacare is making anything better?

[easyrider]

My brother n law seems to love it. He told me that he doesn't pay for it and gets it for free. He says he gets the best of medical care and loves it. I dunno, I never had to use it, but from what I understand it covers a lot of screenings like mammograms , colonoscopies etc for free.It might be that your income is too high or you simply live in a State that doesn't fund it.

[Oyabun]

Just an interesting fact.
I'm from a country where tax freedom day is on the 6th of august (if social security is accounted as a tax) whilst it is around end of April for the states.
Even though (theoretically) every medical service is included in the paid taxes - people have to often wait months for an MR or a CT scan, years for a transplant or a joint replacement and if you're not bribing the doctors working in the official system you generally get a very crappy service under conditions would be unbelievable in more developed countries. A few years ago I had to wait 6 weeks to see a doctor when I got infected by lyme disease - got fed up, and got an appointment from a private hospital for the next day. Was lucky this summer when broke my ankle that I got to a great doctor, but the hospital itself and rehab was such a quality that I was really amazed not to get some nasty antibiotics resistant bacteria.
Many of the better off population pays for private healthcare also - which provides great service for regular issues, screenings and so - when things turn really ugly they still have to be treated in the public hospitals as private ones are not prepared to manage serious issues.
I'd love to pay a minimum tax to support the system and get the freedom to decide if I pay extra for the better general care that the private sector can provide.
Luckily we have some savings, and earning more than 90% of the local population (would be still in the lower half in the US on purchasing parity), but 74000 USD would pretty much consume all of our intangible assets.

[gn2]

Many of the better off population pays for private healthcare also

Which is why the state funded care is not as good as it could be.
Only when private healthcare is banned can there be a fair and just healthcare system.