Just got my bill for January's heath insurance, it more than doubled to $733, thanks.
- Thread starter Peter Breuninger
- Start date
What do you want Doc? By the way, I'm not buying the "cost" of treating patients as billed is the true cost. Hospitals don't even charge patients the same rate for the same care. They sometimes triple the billing costs to those with no insurance. It's no different than the way other businesses treat the poor. The less you can afford, the more you will be charged. There are entire industries based on taking advantage of the poor and exploiting them for money. Pawn Shops, Pay Day Lenders, Cash for Titles, Car Dealers (Buy Here-Pay Here), no-contract cell phone companies right on up to hospitals tripling their charges. Those who can least afford it pay the most for everything.
Just like in Canada, you present to an American ER, the government requires you to be treated and stabilized (EMTALA).
If you present with a non-emergent problem in Canada you don't get treated; you wait. According the the Canadian government "Wait Times In Canada: A Comparison by Province":
a) Benchmark for hip/knee replacements is 26 weeks; benchmark achieved 42-91% of time (an improvement from prior surveys)
b) Benchmark for coronary artery bypass is 26 weeks
c) Benchmark for radiation therapy is 4 weeks
d) Wait times for a CT scan were typically 7-22 days; for an MRI 31-77 days.
The Canadian system works because 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the USA border which acts as a release valve for those who can afford it. As the Danny Williams, the Newfoundland Premier noted when he went to Florida for heart surgery "This is my heart, it's my health, it's my choice" (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...my-choice-danny-williams-says/article4311853/)
mep, you're knocking everything and even businesses that are there to provide services only to those who want them. Please take a step back and defend obamacare, a law passed in the cloak of the night by people who never read it, signed by a documented liar in chief on its own merits. We're not Europe, Asia, Middle East or Canada, this is America and we do have a Bill Of Rights. We have a law here that gets modified at the liars whims, cost unknown, benefits, doubtful. Will expand government and by law gives open access to unknown thousands your most private information. Taking away what we want and FORCING us to buy what we don't. Please, stay on point and defend this law without diverting to irrelevant subject matter.
david
There is no doubt that wait times in Canada can be long in several instances, much as you posted. However these are non-emergency situations, so don't let anyone be misguided in thinking that the system lets emergency patients wait that long. That is simply not true and a fallacy.
Regarding Danny Williams...it was his choice to receive treatment elsewhere based on his beliefs and concerns. That does not mean he did so because the system failed as you seem to imply.
With some reservations, I mostly agree, Johnny. But, what to do with the fact that when utilizing any form of healthcare, there are services being rendered. Therefore, this must be paid for. The question is: By who...and how much?
I think the key is figuring out how to bring down the cost of said care. I don't think it can be construed as an accomplishment by forcing people into a premium that they can't afford in the first place.
I wan't implying that Canadians had long waits in their ER's, only that Americans (like Canadians) are treated when they present to the ER. The Canadian system seems to work fine for Canadians; they seem to accept the wait times with equanimity. If they don't they come to the States to get more timely treatment. I'm just not sure that would fly in the States. Indeed, the ink wasn't even dry on Obamacare when members of Congress and the administration started handing out exemptions. I do think Canadians would be less satisfied with their system, if they shared a border with Mexico rather than the USA, but that's an experiement we can never run.
As usual, many complaints about "Obamacare", not a word on how to constructively fix it (not that anyone here could act on it anyway). And I'd still like to know where all that extra money from the higher premiums is going, because I have yet to read or hear an explanation that makes sense. It's not going to providers (hospitals, physicans, lab/radiology, ancillary care providers, etc), and it's not going to the government.
Who here votes to give their money away?
Obama is making it so healthy people pay for those who heavily drink, smoke, ski off cliffs, weigh 500 pounds, never save a dime for a rainy day, swim with sharks, etc., etc.
Who here votes to give their money away?
zz.
Obama is making it so healthy people pay for those who heavily drink, smoke, ski off cliffs, weigh 500 pounds, never save a dime for a rainy day, swim with sharks, etc., etc.
Who here votes to give their money away?
zz.
Perhaps a liberal could be happy and a conservative could gloat. A reasonable centrist could question both the "All was well enough" above and the strength of the anecdotal examples being discussed here, most of which seem to related to employer-provided coverage, not individual coverage under the ACA. Why has employer coverage gone up so dramatically? You'd have to ask insurance companies, but I'd bet the farm that at least part of it is they have something besides themselves to blame for it.
You'll get no argument from me on the subject of ACA being pretty bad law. You might get some argument about who is responsible for how bad it is and whether or not the net result will be worse than the healthcare system we had and the direction in which it was headed. Something desperately needed to be done. No one in Washington, not the Democrats, not the Republicans, had the political will and testicular fortitude to do the right thing, though many seemed to have boundless energy to prevent anything successful from happening. And so this is what we have, and it's not very good. Is it worse than what we had? That remains to be seen, but I really have my doubts. What we had was woefully inadequate for tens of millions of people and headed toward collapse beneath its own weight for the rest of us. They should have simply let uninsured individuals and small business buy in to Medicare and made required coverage the simple act of mandatory personal responsibility car insurance in so many states (Does your personal freedom really include the right to screw your neighbor?). But that would have been simple and successful. Not enough of a dramatic victory for the Democrats; too much of an opposition victory for the Republicans. So we played politics with people's health. Again. God bless America.
Tim
No, I'm not knocking everything and responses like yours are why threads like this one get shut down.
Interesting to read a thread which is at the same time both fascinating and sad, replete with ideology and revisionism.
Interesting to read the thoughts of the better off, in some cases significantly better off, on the subject of liberty.
John, I feel you. Ack, great questions.
Interesting to read the thoughts of the better off, in some cases significantly better off, on the subject of liberty.
John, I feel you. Ack, great questions.
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