RE: Health-Care Questions

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Lucylastic -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/21/2009 8:44:49 AM)
From your first article..... "At least in Canada, you don't worry about going broke to pay for health care. You do here." Page three. Second, they are working on it not hoping the problem will go away and disagreeing over death panels thirdly..this from Ms Doig, the new head of the CMA... http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/08/17/cma-doig.html Doig is willing to look for solutions from private and public sectors to improve patient care, but stressed she'll never waver from one principle: access to care regardless of a patient's ability to pay. She rejected a recent development in Alberta, where doctors have started opening "members only" clinics with annual fees of $3,000 to $4,000. "Do we think that that is a model of care for Canadians? No, we don't," said Doig. None of the canadians here have said our system kicks ass, they have ALL (including myself) have said it has problems and isnt perfect. That said, everyone agrees here that it needs work, and isnt doing the "Im alright jack, screw you" blame game or "I deserve it more cos I earn more" Bullcrap that seems rampant in the US right now.

Arpig -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/21/2009 9:05:02 AM)
Our system is not "imploding". My son was brought to emerg on Monday around midnight. He was seen by the surgical resident before morning and it was determined he didn't need immediate surgery. He saw the specialist on Tuesday, was admitted that day,and scheduled for a diagnostic procedure Thursday. We will have the biopsy results in a week or two. That to me seems to be a system that works just fine. The stories in the news about wanting more of a role for private for profit care, is firstly for delivery,not for coverage...a very different thing. And secondly, it is all coming from one speech made by a Dr. who runs a chain of for profit diagnostic clinics...note that he already runs a chain of them...they already exist, he just wants more of a role for the for-profit sector...the sector he makes his money in. The article you cited doesn't cover the topic at all. The real problem with our system is a shortage of medicalpractitioners...a shortage that is mainly caused by the lure of the big bucks to be made in the US. US hospitals and HMOs actively headhunt in Canadian medical schools.

Mercnbeth -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/21/2009 11:42:33 AM)
I would appreciate if anyone can explain to me how this representation made by President Obama is an accurate reflection of reality. quote: "I think early on, a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, 'Look, let's not give him a victory, maybe we can have a replay of 1993, '94, when Clinton came in, he failed on health care and then we won in the mid-term elections and we got the majority. And I think there are some folks who are taking a page out that playbook," the president said. IT'S THE EVIL REPUBLICANS! Each and every Republican voting against the Bill as presented has no impact on the result. How can a party with no power be accountable? It is his position that all the voices of decent are Republican voters? Even if that were the case, why should they be considered part of a "conspiracy"? Even with those 'conspirators' he should be secure in the knowledge that he has a unique opportunity with a Democratic controlled, filibuster proof Congress, was put in place despite them. Why outsource, or even feel it necessary, to project a "conspiracy"? Is the Administration counting on the ignorance of the general electorate not to know the pragmatic fact of who controls the vote while he awaits with the signatory pen? What's to be gained by playing the conspiracy theory card on this issue? Accusing the Republicans of scare tactics doesn't work. Think about it, if tomorrow Congress convened the pending Bill was passed and signed by the President, all would be well! Everyone would be insured - Free. The cost taken on by those heartless excessively rich families earning $325,000 or more. The general public will be enrolled and participating in preventative health programs, eating better, working out, and generally happy and healthy. When that result is realized as projected, Americans will be partying in the streets as a statue rivaling the Lincoln Memorial was commissioned and built in Obama's honor for delivering the country from the evils of the current health care system. The proponents of the Bill in Congress such as Barney Frank and those in the general public know that the Bill will initiate an era of a healthy caring USA while at the same time leading to a boom economy. He and the Democrats would be in power for generations to come, especially when they would only need to point back at the silly obstructionist Republican and their ilk proved to be wrong in every point raised. Doing what it's proponents claim it will do and by next November all Senate seats up for reelection will be Democratic and, if they are smart, the remaining Republicans will switch parties and every Senator and House Representative will be a declared Democrat. Mr. President - call your Party representatives and tell them to pass the pending Bill and its done - All is well!

cadenas -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/21/2009 12:18:37 PM)
I had been under the impression that you lived in the USA. I'm sure it's news to quite a few people that our US system "works." And in fact the both articles say that the Canadian system is working just fine. The first discusses how the Canadian government goes about delivering health care, the second is about an arcane budgeting issue. Cross-border alliances are only natural when you have a large population living near a border. We have the exact same thing in San Diego; Delta Dental, Aetna and Health Net send some of their patients to Tijuana for treatment http://www.sandiegometro.com/2009/may/connection.php For the most part, though, you find Americans fleeing the broken US system on their own. quote: Michael Vujovich, 61, of Windsor was taken to Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital for an angioplasty procedure after he went to a Windsor hospital in April. Vujovich said the U.S. backup doesn't show a gap in Canada's system, but shows how it works. "I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry. quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity Our current system may cost more, but what we have works and it's available. The Canadian system is imploding and Canadians continue crossing over the border seeking treatment: http://freep.com/article/20090820/BUSINESS06/908200420/1319/ http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jbjzPEY0Y3bvRD335rGu_Z3KXoQw I'm sure there are effective changes we can make to spur on competition and reduce our outrageous lawsuit lotteries, and I could easily agree with many of them, but it would be madness to use Canada for our template. Canadians are actually looking towards making changes that would make their system look more like ours in order to correct some of the problems they are having. quote: ORIGINAL: Arpig Nope, I must in all honesty admit that I don't. You may be right on the interpretation of the numbers, but I don't think I misread. It doesn't really matter, I hope this particular health care reform bill dies quickly, but for entirely different reasons...politics and strange bedfellows and all that.[;)] As long as the private for profit insurance companies maintain their position as the primary coverage for most Americans, your health care system will continue to be the most expensive in the world, and the rate of increase in that cost will continue to outstrip those of the rest of the world. In addition a larger and larger percentage of the population will be uninsured and the actual care provided will continue to decline. These trends are evident today and they will continue until something is done to actually remedy the situation, not just apply PR band-aids.

mcbride -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/29/2009 6:39:24 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity Our current system may cost more, but what we have works and it's available. The Canadian system is imploding and Canadians continue crossing over the border seeking treatment: http://freep.com/article/20090820/BUSINESS06/908200420/1319/ Well, except that they aren't, unless they're sent across as part of a two-way business arrangement. If you read your posted article, you'll notice that it's about Windsor, Ontario's health authority making a deal with Detroit hospitals for excess capacity. That happens all along the border, and patients move in both directions. It's a more efficient use of health care dollars. Opponents of health care reform in the US have made a point of repeating the lie that Canadians flood across the border to access for-profit health care. A study called Phantoms In The Snow: Canadians’ Use Of Health Care Services In The United States surveyed American health facilities in border states. To paraphrase, close to 40 percent of those American health facilities reported treating no Canadians over the course of the year, and another 40 percent had seen fewer than ten patients. Only about 5 percent reported seeing more than 25 during the previous year. None reported more than 100. To quote the study, "the numbers found are so small as to be barely detectible relative to the use of care by Canadians at home." quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity Canadians are actually looking towards making changes that would make their system look more like ours in order to correct some of the problems they are having. What's fun about that, Sanity, is that when Canada's conservative politicians attempt to introduce more private, for-profit care, they fall all over themselves insisting that they are NOT trying to introduce "American-style for-profit type of health care". Recently retired Alberta premier Ralph Klein was one. "The allegation, he told Maclean's, is that his Conservative government is out to create "this awful American-style for-profit type of health care." Why, Klein asks, would he set out to dismantle Canada's cherished medicare system? "I wouldn't do anything to purposefully and intentionally get myself unelected," he says. "I don't want to get fired."

Lucylastic -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/29/2009 6:48:49 AM)
He'd get more than fired, someone would be wearing his test tickles as earrings

Mercnbeth -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/29/2009 8:19:41 AM)
quote: The debate over health care will resume in Washington after Labor Day, just two weeks after White House budget officials projected that deficits would total a staggering $9 trillion over the next 10 years. Though President Barack Obama has said he wants the total health care bill paid for without adding to the deficit, congressional budget officials have estimated that House health care proposals would cost the government more. The interesting aspect of the Administration's position is that their recent acknowledgment that their deficit projection was wrong and the CBO was right, establishes a credibility issue. Take from the same source: quote: Democrats also are calling for cuts in Medicare spending, using some of the savings to help uninsured workers. A House bill would result in a net reduction in Medicare of about $200 billion, though Obama has insisted the reductions would not cut benefits in the health program for the elderly. But Enzi said: "This will result in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the elderly to create new government programs." The money has to come from somewhere. No details about where the $200 Billion would come from (bureaucrat layoffs?) but again credibility is a big problem at this point with the Administration. The "elderly" do two things - use Medicare regularly and vote. Both Democrat and Republican career politicians can't risk their ire; even if they have a PAC program to deliver for their campaign funding sources. The highest number of projected "beneficiaries" of any health care program represent a much smaller voting block, with zero political value other than as manipulated pawns for either side. Creates quite the dilemma for the ruling class doesn't it? If they really wanted to solve the problem and the issue - it wouldn't take a 1000 pages and it wouldn't need a new bureaucracy. Mandate coverage by employers, qualify the unemployed for existing Medicare coverage. The Medicare option cost will be offset in the by the only choice available to the uninsured presently, the much more expensive trip to the ER. But it should be apparent to just about everybody; insuring the uninsured is not really the goal now is it? Partisan though it may be; Senator Enzi's quote sums up the sentiments of the majority of Americans concerning this Bill "The Democrats are trying to rush a bill through the process that will actually make our nation's finances sicker without saving you money," Enzi said. Personal and/or political agenda based opinions notwithstanding, the image generated by the accomplishments of this Administration to date doesn't point to any credible factual evidence to the contrary.

Sanity -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/29/2009 10:03:18 AM)
With just a very casual search I easily found an article that raised some very serious objections to the "Phantoms In The Snow" study, including the fact that the data is ten years old, it was a very limited study (limited to just a few cities), and: quote: Near the end of the article, there is this rather eye-opening passage: Periodic formal contracts between provincial payers and U.S. providers have a long history, but a few such contracts have received considerable attention on both sides of the border. Most notable have been contracts for the provision of radiation therapy for cancer patients, in response to backlogs created by shortages of radiation technicians. For example, Quebec contracted with three radiation centers in Vermont and Maine in October 1999 for treatment of patients with breast and prostate cancer; 1,030 patients were treated during the subsequent year. Ontario contracted with three health care organizations in Michigan, New York, and Ohio in March 1999 to provide treatment for patients with breast and prostate cancer, and 1,416 patients had been referred as of 31 October 2000. This is equivalent to approximately 8.5 percent of all prostate and breast cancer patients treated with radiation therapy in Ontario during the same time frame. 8.5%?! That would mean that about 1 in 12 prostate and breast cancer patients from Ontario treated with radiation therapy went south to the U.S. for that treatment! How can 1 in 12 be described as “Phantoms”? So not only does the data in this article have some severe limitations, the authors include data that undermines their case. Perhaps the article should have been titled, “Phantoms In The Snow: Are Their Researchers That Don’t Let Their Biases Color Their Research?” http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/21/3/19.pdf What happens when the Canadian system crumbles further, the United States system adopts a socialist approach and begins to decay, and there is no where else to go for care? As I've illustrated your study admits to a shortage of radiologists, which isn't surprising. Students have disincentives to go into medicine placed on them in socialized systems because government would their slave master after they graduate. Everything is strictly regulated, including pay. There has been some mention on these boards that Med students commonly move to the United States from Canada after graduation because they can actually earn what they're worth here. Imagine the disarray after there is nowhere for such graduates to go and there are shortages in both the USA as well as Canada. Where will these patients go for their care then. Cuba? And really, trying to compare Canada's current system to anything we might do in the United States is foolish anyway because there are more people in California alone than in all of Canada. It's like comparing a small town clinic to a major urban teaching hospital, its literally like apples and oranges.

mcbride -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/29/2009 2:14:04 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity And really, trying to compare Canada's current system to anything we might do in the United States is foolish anyway because there are more people in California alone than in all of Canada. It's like comparing a small town clinic to a major urban teaching hospital, its literally like apples and oranges. Absolutely true. Canada's population is slightly smaller than California, considerably smaller than the 47 million Americans who have no access to health care, and way smaller than the the number of Americans whose access is completely at the mercy of an insurance company bureaucrat. The existence of that “small town clinic” sure seems to upset right-wingers. Maybe it’s the free, universal health care right on their doorstep. Now, about your math. A quick look at a map will show you that for many Ontarians, clinics in Michigan, New York, and Ohio are a short drive. Given the larger population of the US, it shouldn’t shock any student of economics that if you can buy excess supply of services at a discount, and if you do that for one procedure 8.5% of the time, it saves a few dollars for taxpayers. See? That’s one of the benefits of a single payer system. Instead of asking a patient to deal with health care corporations an hour after the heart attack, we let the health region use its buying power, on behalf of several million patients. Imagine that. They teach economics in Nampa, do they, Sanity? The study shows that over five years, 0.23% of the patients treated at American border state hospitals were Canadian, and 80% of those were emergency maternal cases. So, as others have pointed out, the hordes of people fleeing Canadian health care for treatment in the U.S. was actually an infinitesimal 0.046%. And…it’s funny, isn’t it, that while right-wingers keep going on about hordes of Canadians, they, and you, never seem to have -- oh, what’s it called? -- evidence. And that makes it important to try to attack what the evidence on the subject shows. As for specialists and med students, no question, some go south. You spend so much money on health care, you can afford to pay. But in fact, Sanity, more doctors returned to Canada than moved abroad in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Dr Randall White, an American who moved to Canada, thinks they come back because of low administrative costs, low malpractice insurance rates, and guaranteed payments. “And if Canadian doctors think "government interference" is a problem in Canada, wait until they have to struggle with insurance companies for payment, have their patients' treatment dictated by insurance industry bureaucrats, or find they must treat patients for free.” Maybe they just like the “small town clinic.”

tazzygirl -> RE: Health-Care Questions (8/29/2009 2:30:11 PM)
quote: A second University of Michigan study released this month in Neurology, funded by the National Institutes of Health, predicts that the nation will pay $2.2 trillion during the next 45 years to care for stroke patients. The study says a disproportionate amount of that bill will be for Latino and African-American stroke patients, because of their tendency to suffer strokes at younger ages and because they have poorer-quality preventative care. “Doing the right thing now ultimately could be cost-saving in the future, but we have a long way to go before all Americans receive adequate stroke prevention and emergency stroke care,” said lead study author Dr. Devin Brown, also an assistant professor in the university medical school’s Department of Neurology. “If our society is not going to do it for the right reasons, perhaps we can do it because it’s going to be obscenely expensive.” The $2.2 trillion estimate includes hospital costs, medications, nursing home and at-home care, as well as lost earnings for stroke survivors under age 65. The studies focus on ischemic strokes, which account for 88 percent of all strokes, and occur when a clot or clogged blood vessel blocks the flow of blood to all or part of the brain. Stroke is the third-leading cause of death in the country, and a leading cause of serious disability. About 700,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year, and 157,000 of those die, according to the American Heart Association. The cost for treating ischemic strokes in 2005 among Hispanics, the largest minority group in the country, was estimated at $3.1 billion. Hispanics, who now account for 13 percent of the U.S. population, will comprise 25 percent by 2050. http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=5d3fde1ef9036805 i did not post this as a slam towards any group. just as an indication of how our health care dollars are used, sometimes needlessly, when preventative treatment could be so much cheaper ... such as paid check ups and medications.

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