Healthcare

Well, for one thing, I would HOPE that theoretically socialized healthcare would not be paid for partly on a regional basis according to freaking property taxes. That is and always was a bad idea.

edited 10th Jul '12 2:09:30 PM by Karkadinn

Have I said how much I hate Rick Perry in this thread yet? Because I do. We have two years until the next election, though, and I have no idea what's going to happen in between now and then. (I think his screw up during the presidential race has probably dented his chances for being the gubernatorial nominee next time at least a little.)

In any case, this is a federal law he's refusing to put into action. If he doesn't do it himself, the feds will HAVE to in order to get anything done. And in a state that's voting Democrat in increasing numbers, this is going to hurt him. However, I really don't think he'd be doing this if there weren't SEVERAL OTHER Republican governors doing the EXACT SAME THING, so this isn't solely a "Texas sucks" matter and I'd appreciate it if people didn't call it a hellhole.

Funny story, i had this rerally long post with all these sources and then just when i hit post my imternet connection fsiled.

So, short version:

Choobeth's numbers were so unbelievably wrong and yet so easy to google, i think it managed to gemerate a number larger than the us economy (another esay to google fact)

Google Lnumber of us hospitals" and you may be able to easily find the AHA's "fast facts on us hospitals"

In it you will find that it costs 750 trillion in 2010, for 37 million admissions (whixh gives us only a few thousand per hospital). The 36 million can be confirmed by the CDC. Per capita given about 330 million us population, we get around 2700 dollars. Now that is only as is and it is only for hospitals but come on, we can cover that. I already did something on how to look at that per household and as a tax.

I'm not even sure why we need to invent these numbers. Single-payer and nationalised healthcare systems in various countries already have total healthcare spending per year. We also have the healthcare spending per year of the USA.

Canadian healthcare spending per person per year averages to $3800 USD in PPP ($2900 in USD), 70% of which is paid for by the government. France has the least private providers in their healthcare system and they spend $3,679 USD in PPP ($3040 in USD) per person per year, 78% of which is paid for by the government. In a comprehensive comparison, France ranks number one in healthcare in the world. And, since we want to relate this back to USA (because looking at the numbers I just realised French healthcare surpasses Canada and costs less), America spends $7,437 per person, per year, with 45.1% of that covered by the government.

It's just a yearly budget. You fund hospitals, you have negotiated salaries with medical personnel and you pour money into R&D. You don't pay for education insurance; if healthcare is run by government rather than private providers then there is no need for insurance.

edited 10th Jul '12 7:52:50 PM by breadloaf

Interesting insights from a guy working in healthcare, and how he'd redo the whole system from top to bottom.

I do remember that during a study of different Ontario health care providers, that one place did do the community health clinic that he spoke about. The study said that the amount of health care cost savings was actually quite enormous (like upwards to 40% cheaper), allowing the healthcare dollars to do vastly more things while giving people even better health.

Actually, I feel like there's multiple healthcare discussions going on internationally.

a) Developing Countries

These are countries like India and China that are "new" money countries that now have the capacity to start building a comprehensive healthcare program. China, for instance, is getting British aid in setting up an NHS-style system to provide healthcare. Their main issues is how to provide care in rural areas where it is very expensive to do so and there is very little local income and the lack of a strong healthcare infrastructure to begin with.

b) United States

The United States is in the unique position between Developing and Developed countries. It maintains a private healthcare system that is struggling and overly expensive but is unable to shift into a public system. If it were to shift into a public system it will have to bring in extensive changes to the insurance system, litigation, payment model, triage-system (as it currently works by raising the price until so few people can afford a service that you have no waiting line) and public-minded data collection.

c) Developed Countries

These countries already have working healthcare systems that have a range of public/private healthcare providers and a single-payer government run insurance with varying levels of copay (since the 70s, some got it later like Taiwan). At this level of development it's a question of shifting healthcare to match 21st century needs.

I've heard many different ideas

• Let hospitals compete over government funding in a private fashion
• Holistic healthcare at the community level with integrated service facilities, using doctors as a last resort for any problem
• In soviet healthcare system, doctor visits you!
• Expanding insurance coverage to include everything (pharma, eye and dental in order of which is first)
• Expand lesser skilled positions to cover over tasks doctors previously did and scale back the workload of doctors
• Mental health facilities to reduce strain on hospitals
• Home or community care facilities to reduce strain on hospitals (and also to reduce hospital internal infection rates), also to help with first-line triage
• Paying for results rather than paying for services, alternatively, the crown/state employs the healthcare personnel so they get paid a salary and they just do their job

edited 12th Jul '12 8:40:11 PM by breadloaf

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/07/12/how-i-lost-my-fear-universal-health-care

I feel this is relevant, though I'm not quite sure if I should crosspost it into the thread about the Supreme Court upholding the ACA.

Well this is the healthcare thread, so it's entirely appropriate but she's not talking about ACA so probably not that relevant.

I think I should caution a few things she indicates simply because she was wow-ed with how much better Canadian healthcare is to American. Firstly, that's not a feat of any amazement. Secondly, our healthcare system is constrained by the resources which we put toward it, so while doctors try to choose the "best" option for each patient, they do still have to take into account cost. They will opt for less costly procedures in order to treat more of their patients which means that very high-end (as in like you have 10 million dollars plus in net wealth) get screwed. Everyone else gets better treatment otherwise. The super high-end people tend to like and promote the American healthcare system for that reason, they can pay for their superior care. But those are also guys who can blow $150k on a medical procedure and still have enough cash floating about to maintain their 22 ft yacht.

I think the main thing though is that you guys aren't afraid to go in to get a check up when things are just a little bit wrong, so you don't end up waiting until it's possibly a life or death decision as regards treatment. And that everything she thought about what nationalized health care would force you to do just isn't or doesn't have to be true.

I myself have not been to a doctor in forever, because I just don't think I can afford it. And yet I do generally complain about not feeling well every now and then and that worries my mom a lot.

Heck, I put off going to the doctor as much as possible, and I have stuff that I know needs to be taken care of better than that.

Well actually most people put off going to a doctor even in a public system... and that's stupid because it ends up costing the government more. That's why there's a push for a combo of community care (easier to access with less wait times as people who are less well trained as doctors but still trained can treat more common illness such as a simple cold) and doctor-visit-you/homecare which is all about lowering the chance of acute medical needs.

I'm just glad I'm a Canadian citizen so I can go live there at some point if I have health problems. Incidentally, the only reason I'm a Canadian citizen is because of the healthcare (my mom had already came to the States, then went back to Canada when she was pregnant because she didn't have insurance).

That unfortunately doesn't work as well any more. You need to be a legal resident in addition to citizenship.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/07/26/pol-premiers-thursday.html

Canada is moving ahead with the "health care team" idea, using lower level health personnel to treat frontline problems. It's a major step toward the community-care centre idea.

The provinces will also cooperate on drug purchases to buy cheaper generic label drugs at bulk prices.

Please please please don't let the Harperites derail this.

They can't, constitution blocks Harper from interfering.

Bumping this for news.

'No-cost' birth control under Affordable Care Act begins today.

Predictably, this is the Republican's response.

They are parodies of themselves. Seriously.

... Wha?

I'd love to hear veteran's organizations weigh in on that.

Well, the Hawaii senator (and Pearl Harbor survivor) is pretty close.

That put-down would win gold in the judo, alright.

edited 4th Aug '12 5:14:11 AM by Euodiachloris

I really, really wish the Republicans didn't control the political narrative.

So I think I just discovered a loophole in America's Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare).

Y'know how part of that act was how there are no longer annual or lifetime limits on insurance benefits? Well, I recently got a form detailing how my insurance benefits are going to change in the coming year, and while there's no longer an annual limit, there are apparently a whole bunch of daily limits. Like they'll only pay out $600 for anesthesiology per day; I don't know how much a day's worth of anesthesiology actually costs, but even if my insurance isn't ripping me off, I gotta think some insurance companies out there must be using these daily limits to screw people over.