Single payer health care

[quest55720]

The 2 problems I have with single payer are pretty simple.

1. I don't want Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the rest of the corrupt in DC to be in charge of my healthcare.

2. Who is going to pay for it?

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: ccbadd
Again, you are missing the point. They will not be given an option. What if the government took over whatever industry you work in and decided what you charge, get paid, and what not. That is just plain wrong and UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

The government isn't taking over the health care industry. What they're proposing is Medicare "lite", a version available for everyone.

If you think Medicare is unconstitutional, please tell us why.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
I dont expect to have the right to health care. I am in fit condition and young and will take the gamble rather than spend the money on insurance. I know many people who do this as well. I guess older people expect to have the right to health care as their cost will go up with age.

The gamble your taking is not with your life, it's with OUR money. When you have an unforeseen illness or accident your $$$$$ bill will be picked up by the taxpayers and paying folks with insurance. We already pay for the catostrophic care of the uninsured, just not the way we should.

And what does your gambling with your own life or our money have to do with UHC? The debate is not about your willingness to gamble on your health or future as much as it is about what to do with you when somebody drags you to the emergency room and how it will be paid for.

Exactly, what people like Andrew1990 don't understand is that WE end up paying for his irresponsible behavior.

Yep, so "we"(gov't) are going to force him to do it.... for his own good...

:roll:

Anyone who thinks UHC in any form is going to cost less is a fool. It won't. Yes, negotiating power..(until the companies go away) and all that but with it being "free" it will be used and abused even more than it is today - not to mention the bureaucratic mess it will be and the quality of care.

 

[ZeGermans]

Originally posted by: quest55720
The 2 problems I have with single payer are pretty simple.

1. I don't want Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the rest of the corrupt in DC to be in charge of my healthcare.

2. Who is going to pay for it?

Barney Frank is one of the best congress people in office on most issues, way to buy into the propaganda. Single payer systems work well and are far less of a bureaucracy than our current system.

 

[MotF Bane]

Originally posted by: ZeGermans

Originally posted by: quest55720
The 2 problems I have with single payer are pretty simple.

1. I don't want Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the rest of the corrupt in DC to be in charge of my healthcare.

2. Who is going to pay for it?

Barney Frank is one of the best congress people in office on most issues, way to buy into the propaganda. Single payer systems work well and are far less of a bureaucracy than our current system.

A government run system has less bureaucracy than a non-government system?

Frank is terrible. Spoken as a MA resident, and it's shameful he remains in power - but no less shameful than the continued powers of the Kennedy family.

 

[ScottFern]

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Originally posted by: Billyzeke
Great! With UHC we can all die waiting for treatment.

We could do like all the Canadians with money do who want treatment, just go t the US....ohh wait

See I find this incredibly hard to believe. Say a Canadian needs X treatment/surgery and there is a 12 month wait in Canada for the procedure, so they just fly down to the US with a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills and pay for the treatment? I highly doubt Canadians have the cash just sitting around for say a hip replacement or bypass surgery. Just doesn't add up at all to me.

 

[Andrew1990]

Originally posted by: owensdj

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
I dont expect to have the right to health care. I am in fit condition and young and will take the gamble rather than spend the money on insurance. I know many people who do this as well. I guess older people expect to have the right to health care as their cost will go up with age.

Andrew, I'm glad you're fit and young, but you really are taking a huge gamble. Something could go wrong with your health at any moment. Even a relatively minor problem like appendicitis could leave you with a hospital bill in the tens of thousands of dollars. What are you going to do then?

Like most Americans, I see health care as a huge rip off. My father recently had a bladder procedure done that was non-invasive and took less than an hour in the OR, but still cost something like $8000. That's not counting the ridiculously high hospital room fee and other inflated costs. They charged over $500 for his prescription medicines that he picks up at the local pharmacy for a fraction of a cost, for a month's supply. Who exactly is pocketing all of this profit?

I know, it is a very big gamble, but as of now all I can do is go day by day. Although, looking at UHC, it might benefit me when I find another job. Right now I think I am actually on medicaid according to my mother.

 

[ccbadd]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: ccbadd
Again, you are missing the point. They will not be given an option. What if the government took over whatever industry you work in and decided what you charge, get paid, and what not. That is just plain wrong and UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

The government isn't taking over the health care industry. What they're proposing is Medicare "lite", a version available for everyone.

If you think Medicare is unconstitutional, please tell us why.

This whole UHC will put private insurers out of business and all that will be left is this "Medicare Lite". In effect they will be the only choice left. What employer will want to continue to provide health care if you are going to be forced to pay for the federal one anyway. Not to mention if they start taxing those who do get health care benefits, why would they stay with those rather then take the federal plan they will already be getting taxed for anyway. Only thing left will be supplemental plans maybe, but that is only if the health care industry is allowed to maintain some autonomy without threats of getting kicked off the "list" of "Medicare Lite" approved doctors and no longer have any patients. We need to take the blinders off and see the whole picture, not just the rosy parts.

 

[soulcougher73]

Originally posted by: glenn1

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
Maybe the dems just dont have the political capital to take it on all at once, or put thousands of workers out of work, but lets face it, every person in America considers health care a right. We all expect to get treated for an illness, regardless of the fine print in our health insurance policy. If we need treatment, we get it whether we can pay for it or not, and if the hospital sends you a bill for 100K, you declare bankruptcy or get on some small payment plan that will never pay off the full bill.

My point is that since comprehensive health care is everyone's expectation, whether they are willing to admit it or not, it doesnt make sense to even have a private insurance market. There should be one plan that people pay into, and since it is a single comprehensive plan, there is no room for large scale competition or profit in this market. This middle man that is the private insurance market is just an inefficiency in the system, and should be done away with. I suspect that the government run plan that the dems are putting forth is just a trojan horse to this eventual system, and I have no problem with that.

Yeah, I'm so thrilled that my taxes will go up along with millions of other middle class folks, so that we can ensure that folks like this have their medical treatment costs picked up by Uncle Sam. After all, healthcare is a "right" isn't it?

link

link

link

LOL

you will be glad when its your kid doing those stupid things though.

 

[TheSkinsFan]

Originally posted by: ccbadd

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: ccbadd
I find it funny that nobody looks at the issue of forcing all of our medical persons to work for the government.

Except that they won't be working for the government.

What is the difference when the governments reviews you work, sets how much you get payed, and can cut you off if you anger them.

Just ask the CEO of GM, or any one of the thousands of now underpaid employees of the bailed out banks...

"won't be working for the government" indeed.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

Single payer is the worst of both worlds.

UHC only works well when the goverment owns and runs hospitals.

You need a two tier system like we have in Australia.

Private hospitals for people with insurance and public hospitals for those without.

It works very well here.

 

[gingermeggs]

Originally posted by: Billyzeke
Great! With UHC we can all die waiting for treatment.
I agree something needs to be done, but single payer health care is definitely not the answer.
How can we possibly insure everyone and expect to have any kind of quality care?
Where are we going to get the doctors and nurses to fill the increased demand? Dr's offices are already an overbooked madhouse.
When medicare and medicaid are on the verge of collapse, how are we going to pay for it all?

So in your triage system; it's the richest, not the most in need of attention- that get attended to first? Lovely guy!

 

[gingermeggs]

No, actually they work for money, who they are employed by is another thing.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Slew Foot

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: sportage
Healthcare for profit is the master of all evils.

Thanks for the link. This sums it up nicely:

He says he finally decided to quit in 2007 after Cigna's controversial handling of an insurance claim made by the family of a California teenager, Nataline Sarkysian.

The Sarkysian family made repeated appeals at news conferences for Cigna to approve a liver transplant for the 17-year-old, who had leukemia. Cigna initially declined to cover the operation, then reversed its decision.

Sarkysian died hours after the company's reversal.

Liver transplants patients need high doses of immunosuppresants to keep the liver from being rejected. Those doses would have caused her leukemia to flare killing her. She's dead anyway, give the liver to someone who has a chance.

But of course, what do I know, Im just a Liver Transplant Anesthesiologist.

You can be anything you want on the internet...hahahaaa

 

[gingermeggs]

Originally posted by: RocksteadyDotNet
Single payer is the worst of both worlds.

UHC only works well when the goverment owns and runs hospitals.

You need a two tier system like we have in Australia.

Private hospitals for people with insurance and public hospitals for those without.

It works very well here.

Or even those who choice to pay for themselves without insurance as the costs in Australia aren't so outrageous, most operations occur in a publicly owned and operated hospital even if it's private paying consumer or a insurance job or a scheduled public job, everybody working here pays $about $500 or 600/per annum and those earning over $70,000/annum pay an extra $500 privately insured people don't pay the levy, but that will be scraped 2009/20010 onwards.
Insurance companies still make a profit, using the public owned facilities, maybe if everyone was publicly cared for they might (the very wealthy, like politicians) start to make the system more efficient and better care provided for everyone.

 

[Slew Foot]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda

Originally posted by: Slew Foot

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: sportage
Healthcare for profit is the master of all evils.

Thanks for the link. This sums it up nicely:

He says he finally decided to quit in 2007 after Cigna's controversial handling of an insurance claim made by the family of a California teenager, Nataline Sarkysian.

The Sarkysian family made repeated appeals at news conferences for Cigna to approve a liver transplant for the 17-year-old, who had leukemia. Cigna initially declined to cover the operation, then reversed its decision.

Sarkysian died hours after the company's reversal.

Liver transplants patients need high doses of immunosuppresants to keep the liver from being rejected. Those doses would have caused her leukemia to flare killing her. She's dead anyway, give the liver to someone who has a chance.

But of course, what do I know, Im just a Liver Transplant Anesthesiologist.

You can be anything you want on the internet...hahahaaa

Just like you, a complete dipshit.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...word1=liver+transplant

Most of the picture links are broken.

 

[Beattie]

http://reason.com/news/show/134553.html

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: Billyzeke
Great! With UHC we can all die waiting for treatment.
I agree something needs to be done, but single payer health care is definitely not the answer.
How can we possibly insure everyone and expect to have any kind of quality care?
Where are we going to get the doctors and nurses to fill the increased demand? Dr's offices are already an overbooked madhouse.
When medicare and medicaid are on the verge of collapse, how are we going to pay for it all?

None of those statements is a 'good' reason to not provide UHC.

There is no question that UHC is a goal to which the US should aspire and move towards... but there are a lot of details and minutia that need to be addressed to say the least.

For simple example: With UHC we will likely have a situation where 5-10% of population absorbs 90% of the UHC cost. It is one thing to spend a lot of money on a child with leukemia or a otherwise healthy person who contracts a treatable disease and entirely another to spend money on a chronic smoker's lung cancer or a morbidly obese person's heart surgeries.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Beattie
http://reason.com/news/show/134553.html

Does John Stossel ever dare touch healthcare in say, Japan or Norway?

http://www.npr.org/templates/s...y.php?storyId=89626309

He's always come across as someone who cherry picks his way to argue a point.

 

[Mxylplyx]

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
I dont expect to have the right to health care. I am in fit condition and young and will take the gamble rather than spend the money on insurance. I know many people who do this as well. I guess older people expect to have the right to health care as their cost will go up with age.

You arent taking a gamble. You know damn well that if something serious happened, you'll be taken care of and either the hospital or the government will eat the bill. You expect more out of this country, and you damn well know it.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Billyzeke
How can we possibly insure everyone and expect to have any kind of quality care?

1. We already insure everyone. Your insurance premiums and health care costs pay for the guy without insurance who goes to the emergency room and can't pay the bill.

Originally posted by: ccbadd
I find it funny that nobody looks at the issue of forcing all of our medical persons to work for the government.

2. Except that they won't be working for the government.

Originally posted by: glenn1
After all, healthcare is a "right" isn't it?

3. You are correct.

Originally posted by: Billyzeke
Great! With UHC we can all die waiting for treatment.

4. Or we can just die waiting for our private for-profit insurance companies to approve our treatments, like Nataline did.

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
But of course, what do I know

5. You don't know much, since you weren't her doctor. Why did her doctors approve the transplant while the insurance company rejected it? Shouldn't the doctors be the ones making the health care decisions?

1. And yet government health costs are projected to swell incredibly... we don't pay for everyone... otherwise all this UHC mumbo jumbo would not be necessary.

2. Once UHC is enacted it only a matter of time before private health insurance goes the way of the dodo bird... and they effectively, health care systems will be working for the government because the government will be the primary bill payer. Not that there is a problem there, IMO.

3. Healthcare is not a right... yet. That is again what UHC is about... making it a right that is validated and supported by the Fed government.

4. With our present view of healthcare and 100% cost for all people... we WILL see a decline in the quality and availability of healthcare... at least in the short term.

5. I am not intimately familiar with her particular case.. but there is really nothing you can or should say against a doctor who is intimately familiar with the practice of medicine in this field. That just oozed ass-hattery.

Also... that her surgery was 'approved' simply means they approved her to go on the waiting list... a liver board may not have given her a liver over other patients (young diabetics on dialysis for instance) simply based upon probabilities for life expectancy outcomes... due to factors that slew foot brought up.

Without know the particulars of her case (but i remember this story) this girl was seriously in trouble... had a marrow transplant, and a lot of other exotic treatments, then due to treatment for the marrow transplant post-op, had multiple organ failures. Doctors were saying she could make it if she got a liver but the statistics were overwhelming not in her favor.

Don't forget that doctors/hospitals will do any surgery they can get paid for because they make a shit ton of money for doing it. Don't forget that.

Insurance companies know these things too (above 3 paragraphs)... and yes insurance companies are money hungry dick suckers, bye and large, but they are also staffed by individuals who are compassionate people (by Mom is an insurance underwriter... has been for almost 30 years off and on). But look up the mortality rates for leukemia patients with liver failure... probably really, really bad even after transplant.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317809,00.html -- for what it is worth... a snip from the article.

The case raised the question in medical circles of whether a liver transplant is a viable option for a leukemia patient because of the immune-system-suppressing medication such patients must take to prevent organ rejection. Such medication, while preserving the transplanted liver, could make the cancer worse.

Transplantation is not an option for leukemia patients because the immunosuppressant drugs "tend to increase the risk and growth of any tumors," said Dr. Stuart Knechtle, who heads the liver transplant program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and was not commenting specifically on Nataline's case.

The procedure "would be futile," he said.

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: Slew Foot

Originally posted by: jpeyton

He says he finally decided to quit in 2007 after Cigna's controversial handling of an insurance claim made by the family of a California teenager, Nataline Sarkysian.

The Sarkysian family made repeated appeals at news conferences for Cigna to approve a liver transplant for the 17-year-old, who had leukemia. Cigna initially declined to cover the operation, then reversed its decision.

Sarkysian died hours after the company's reversal.

Liver transplants patients need high doses of immunosuppresants to keep the liver from being rejected. Those doses would have caused her leukemia to flare killing her. She's dead anyway, give the liver to someone who has a chance.

But of course, what do I know, Im just a Liver Transplant Anesthesiologist.

Damn, pwned!

 

[abj13]

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH

Also... that her surgery was 'approved' simply means they approved her to go on the waiting list... a liver board may not have given her a liver over other patients

Do you actually know what happens once you are listed on the transplant list? Depending on her blood type (usually type A's get a liver faster, at least in my local OPO region), her medical status was serious enough at the time to warrant placing her near the top. Liver listings are primarily based on medical status (being sick, but not unstable enough to survive the operation) totaled up into the MELD score (although given her age, I wonder if she was calculated with the PELD), blood type, immune status/antibody status, support systems, etc. She would have been already on immunosuppressants at the time.

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
(young diabetics on dialysis for instance)

Um, why would a diabetic need a liver? That makes no medical sense, there isn't some reverse hepatorenal syndrome.

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
simply based upon probabilities for life expectancy outcomes... due to factors that slew foot brought up.

His post is in error, her leukemia was already treated with a bone marrow transplant. Her medical issues were primarily related to GVHD, which would be controlled with the same immunosuppressants she would require for the liver.

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
Doctors were saying she could make it if she got a liver but the statistics were overwhelming not in her favor.

65% at 6 months is not "overwhelming" in her favor? What exactly is your medical training to call that "not overwhelming?" The chances of her living without a transplant? Almost zero.
http://articles.latimes.com/20...siness/fi-transplant22

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
Don't forget that doctors/hospitals will do any surgery they can get paid for because they make a shit ton of money for doing it. Don't forget that.

Liver transplants are hardly a financial motivating operation. When someone talks about million dollar operations (and followup), liver transplants are certainly one of them. It ties up a lot of support staff, usually requires a procurement team usually happening at odd hours of the night, is long (8+ hours), requires significant intraoperation interventions, significant post-op ICU time, etc.

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
But look up the mortality rates for leukemia patients with liver failure... probably really, really bad even after transplant.

65% at 6 months for her. Don't bother with leukemia with liver failure, those patients don't get transplanted (nobody with active cancer gets transplanted). You would have to look up data on s/p BMT with liver transplant.

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317809,00.html -- for what it is worth... a snip from the article.

Oh, Dr. Knechtle... I actually had the opportunity to work with him before he went to Emory. What he says in the article is true, in reference to people with LEUKEMIA and hepatic failure. Nataline no longer had leukemia, she was status post chemo and BMT. That is completely a different issue. The writer from the AP clearly doesn't understand the difference between being in an active leukemia status versus being post-BMT. Its huge, the influence on the immune system is the complete opposite. With leukemia you want the immune system working, after BMT you don't in order to limit GVHD.

 

[Jadow]

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
but lets face it, every person in America considers health care a right.

I don't, and I'm an American citizen.

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: ZeGermans
Barney Frank is one of the best congress people in office on most issues, way to buy into the propaganda. Single payer systems work well and are far less of a bureaucracy than our current system.

Frank is a fat mumbling joke, it is truly shameful that the sheep in my state bleat loud enough to get this idiot back into his seat every re election. Look at what the fool did with the sub prime mess, he is a corrupt hack and should be voted down but sadly people like you seem to love this type of "leader"

Also good to see the Obama propoganda machine in full swing, hopefully this gets shot down as truly we cannot afford it nor do we have the capacity to manage it, and it seems neither does anyone else who employs government run health care.