Crisis What Crisis

[jeffsg4mac]

The main reason people like Gene pay too much(and I feel bad for you Gene) is because of costs period. We need to control costs in this lawsuit happy, everyones a victim society. I work in the ER X-ray, and I see daily the kinds of things that make it so expensive for Gene and others like him. Cost reforms we need, socialized medicine we don't.

I will give you one example of what is making our healthcare so expensive. This is just one of many I have personally witnessed. There is a person who comes into the ER on a weekly basis. This person has had so many X-rays and CT scans that they are no longer allowed to have CT Scans. This person comes in and says something is wrong and the docs have to order X-rays and tests because of fear of a lawsuit. This person has had literally hundreds of CT scans and X-rays I am not exaggerating one bit. Hundreds! This type of abuse is widespread and is the main reason we have such high cost. Socializing our healthcare would only make this kind of abuse more widespread. This type of abuse has to be stopped if costs are ever going to come down. This is in NH, I just I could not fathom the abuse like this in a large city.

 

[lsiberian]

The main reason people like Gene pay too much(and I feel bad for you Gene) is because of costs period. We need to control costs in this lawsuit happy, everyones a victim society. I work in the ER X-ray, and I see daily the kinds of things that make it so expensive for Gene and others like him. Cost reforms we need, socialized medicine we don't.

I will give you one example of what is making our healthcare so expensive. This is just one of many I have personally witnessed. There is a person who comes into the ER on a weekly basis. This person has had so many X-rays and CT scans that they are no longer allowed to have CT Scans. This person comes in and says something is wrong and the docs have to order X-rays and tests because of fear of a lawsuit. This person has had literally hundreds of CT scans and X-rays I am not exaggerating one bit. Hundreds! This type of abuse is widespread and is the main reason we have such high cost. Socializing our healthcare would only make this kind of abuse more widespread. This type of abuse has to be stopped if costs are ever going to come down. This is in NH, I just I could not fathom the abuse like this in a large city.

Are you certain that lawsuits are the source of our high health care costs?

I've seen evidence that it only makes up 2 percent of the costs in our country and furthermore many hospitals have come up with innovative arbitor systems to handle malpractice issues. These result in resonable outcomes for patients and doctors.

You can't limit lawsuits without a constitutional amendment. They are a guaranteed constitutional right. Sorry tort reform is simply unconstitutional.

It's too bad IMO. As I believe a common sense law would help our country significantly.

 

[jeffsg4mac]

Not the lawsuit itself, but fear of having one, and the abuse of the system. Who do you think is paying for that persons unneeded X-rays, CT's and medical tests? Unless you have worked in or around an ER you just don't understand the scope of the problem.

This is not an isolated incident I am talking about. This happens every single day at this hospital. People come in to the ER for the stupidest things. Things that are not an EMERGENCY. Things that could wait until they contact their family doctor. It does not even matter if they have insurance or not. Either the insurance company is paying for frivolous ER visits and then raises their price or the hospital eats the cost for someone who is uninsured and prices go up. The abuse has to stop.

 

[gene]

Sorry tort reform is simply unconstitutional.

Tort reform should be a high priority but you never hear politicians on either side discussing this.

 

[jeffsg4mac]

Tort reform should be a high priority but you never hear politicians on either side discussing this.

Sad but true.

 

[Tomorrow]

Are you certain that lawsuits are the source of our high health care costs?

I've seen evidence that it only makes up 2 percent of the costs in our country and furthermore many hospitals have come up with innovative arbitor systems to handle malpractice issues. These result in resonable outcomes for patients and doctors.

You can't limit lawsuits without a constitutional amendment. They are a guaranteed constitutional right. Sorry tort reform is simply unconstitutional.

It's too bad IMO. As I believe a common sense law would help our country significantly.

What part of the Constitution does it violate? That 2% you quote does not include the enormous cost of malpractice insurance that physicians and medical providers of all stripes must pay. That's a major reason healthcare is so expensive here. Tort Reform is a MUST.

 

[lsiberian]

What part of the Constitution does it violate? That 2% you quote does not include the enormous cost of malpractice insurance that physicians and medical providers of all stripes must pay. That's a major reason healthcare is so expensive here. Tort Reform is a MUST.

Amendment VII


In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Not to mention judicial precedence.

I view Tort Reform as a popular political buzzword with no real merit.

I do think a common sense law would be most helpful, but I don't think it could stand.

 

[annunaki]

And, hate to break this to you, but we accept more immigrants than any other country in the world, on a per capita basis.

Perhaps legally, but I venture to bet that our illegal population is considerably larger with true conservative estimates now in the 20 million range. Approx. 1/3 of all prisoners in the prison system illegals as well.

We pay for nearly all of them with our tax dollars. This is one of the biggest burdens on our health care system. Most politicians don't seem to care about it though and would rather grant them citizenship so they have a dumbed down voting population. (I am not stating that all illegal immigrants are uneducated).

If you need proof, simply look at California & their budget crisis.

 

[annunaki]

Sad that a Canadian has a better grasp of the truth about our medical system than we do, and only because many Americans choose to willingly blind themselves to the truth.

Yeah, we have the most innovative, the most advanced, the most blah blah f*cking blah... Chris Rock said it best:

"I live in Alpine NJ. My neighbors are Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest men on the planet, Mary J Blige, one of the greatest singers ever, Jay Z, one of the greatest and most successful rappers of all time. And a dentist. He's not the world's greatest dentist. He's not in the dental hall of fame. He didn't invent teeth. He doesn't get plaques for removing plaque."

There is a strark contrast between true doctors, who got into the profession because they have a burning desire to help people and provide quality life care services, and the quacks, who got into the profession because they were told they could make $400k (conservatively) a year while treating people like material objects.

Say what you want about Michael Moore and his movie Sicko, fact is he did show a normal average doctor in the UK living quite the life, far better than me, and he didn't have to do it here in the US.

We are SUPPOSEDLY the greatest nation on Earth! Why are people so quick to equate what WE can do with what other countries have already done! We judge it to be done poorly, and we basically say "We can't do any better so we won't do any better." Um... HUH?!?! If we're so great, why can't we make a good system out of Canada's or France's or the UK's supposedly poor systems? Laughable really, pitifully laughable how dismissive yet critical some people can be.

You have a point, but what stands in the way are crooked politicians and big money lobbying. This always seems to prevent real solutions from reaching the people, much less the senate floor.

 

[annunaki]

As it stands now, i pay around $12k/year to insure my family as I am a small business owner and don't have the benefit of employee insurance from a large corporation. For this amount of coin, we have no dental or optical insurance and we each have $500 deductibles on our health care + $500 deductibles on our prescription drugs! We did the research and this was actually the best plan we could find for the money as it provided even more coverage than HSA/MSA accounts.

Most of my wife's issues aren't even covered by her insurance b/c of pre-existing conditions she developed as a nurse when a 300lb patient fell on her. She didn't sue the hospital she worked for even though they dismissed her injury at the time b/c we are not lawsuit happy people. Now as a result, her insurance provided will NOT cover physical therapy, massage or chiropractic treatments despite she has 2 herniated discs.

In comparison, I was floored when I went to my wifes home country of Colombia last year and saw state of the art medical facilities and prescription drugs that would cost $500/bottle here for $6/bottle there. Lasik surgery was invented there and costs 1/4th the price it does here. Yet that is considered a 3rd world country. Surely we could do better here?!?

We truly need reform, especially for the middle class that pays their bills, earns income, and yet gets dictated by large insurance companies on what type of treatments our doctors are allowed to give us.

It seems to me that the sole purpose of health insurance companies in this country is to figure out ways to make you pay your premiums while giving you less and less coverage each year.

Normally I don't speak out publically on these issues but enoughs enough!

Gene you are right about insurance companies. They are in business to make money, not to ensure you get all of your medical bills paid. The only one's who are not as bad are co-ops who must pay profits back to members, but even they have flaws.

Much of it comes down to costs and controlling them. Sadly like I posted earlier, true reform will not happen because of the greed & corruption of our political elite class.

 

[Tomorrow]

Amendment VII


In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Not to mention judicial precedence.

I view Tort Reform as a popular political buzzword with no real merit.

I do think a common sense law would be most helpful, but I don't think it could stand.

I'm no Constitutional lawyer (thank goodness ), but I don't believe there is anything within the Seventh Amendment that prevents Federal legislation of litigation award criteria.

I would guess with all those law firms donating huge amounts of money to the Obama campaign, we're unlikely to see Tort Reform. Perhaps you see no merit to limiting judgments, but it would have a huge impact on the cost of medical care in this country vis a vis malpractice insurance rate reductions. By the way, there is nothing I can see in the new Democrat bill introduced in congress that assists in medical cost containment. It's just another (giant) spending bill...or so says the OMB. This country is not going to get better medical care with governmental involvement. Just more bureaucratic care.

 

[GO-NAD!]

Oh, I think I am. I paid $30K off the top last year not including property tax, sales tax, gas tax, sin taxes or license and other fees. All told, I think Big Brother takes well over $40K. Yet I'm well over a year into a medical issue that I needed resolved last year with no resolution in sight. I pay for the "best health care in the world". Where the hell is it when I need it?

Maybe I didn't state clearly what I meant. I paid about the same as you in taxes, but I don't think 25% of it went to health care. I sympathize with your health care issues and as I said previously, our system isn't perfect. I don't believe you will find anyone in this country who claims we have the "best health care in the world". Well, nobody who doesn't have his head up his a**.

The problem with our ER's is that most people who go there are knuckleheads who should've seen their family doctor or they have no choice because they can't get a family doctor. It really ties up resources.

As for wait times for tests and procedures - you're absolutely right. Faaaar tooo looong.

But, as cold as statistics may seem, when you don't feel you've been personally cared for in a proper manner, they do tell a story. From an overall perspective, health care outcomes in Canada are better than in the US - right across the board.

That said, there are superior systems to Canada's found in Europe. They are generally a mix of public and private providers and insurers. Funnily enough, we have a similar problem to the US - everybody is afraid of reform. In Canada, we don't want more private involvement and in the US, they don't want more public involvement.

Go figure.

 

[Tomorrow]

From an overall perspective, health care outcomes in Canada are better than in the US - right across the board.

Would you care to back this statement up with references and scientifically supported data? Thanks.

 

[GO-NAD!]

Would you care to back this statement up with references and scientifically supported data? Thanks.

Just google "oecd health data". It'll give you more info than you could ever wish for. I haven't read every word of it, so it may not be 100% accurate to say "right acroos the board". But in a significant majority of health indicators (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc) - yeah it's true. Again, I'm not bragging about our health care system - we have lots of problems too.

 

[Nemo128]

GO-NAD, commendable but statistics never mean anything to people who don't agree with them. People find the statistics that suit their arguments and bash the sources of opposing statistics as (insert current political buzzword).

BTW, 47% of all statistics are made up on the spot by those tofu-eating granola-crunching liberal hippy draft-dodging weak economy-killing commies and those war-mongering gas-guzzling racist inbred conservative elitist silver-spoon-raised hillbillies.

And if anyone takes offense, I guess the truth does hurt. I know I never get offended when anyone says something derogatory that has no reference to me in it.

 

[Davemcc]

The problem with our ER's is that most people who go there are knuckleheads who should've seen their family doctor or they have no choice because they can't get a family doctor. It really ties up resources.

Oddly enough, I was sent to the ER by my family doctor because she doesn't have the ability to get patients to a test or treatment facility in a reasonable amount of time. The ER is practically the only way for doctors to get their patients examined and treated in a time frame of weeks rather than months or years.

 

[Alex2507]

I know I never get offended when anyone says something derogatory that has no reference to me in it.

Your CGI Mitch Miller avatar is really stupid.

That do anything for ya?

 

[jamie2112]

Your CGI Mitch Miller avatar is really stupid.

That do anything for ya?

Your avatar looks just like ya Pork Chop..................

 

[Alex2507]

Would you care to back this statement up with references and scientifically supported data? Thanks.

Sure. Canadians are scientifically healthier from all the physical activity they get playing hockey and have a better diet from all the ice fishing they do.

Common knowledge.

Alright, that's it for useless posts for at least 30 minutes.

 

[GO-NAD!]

Sure. Canadians are scientifically healthier from all the physical activity they get playing hockey and have a better diet from all the ice fishing they do.

Common knowledge.

Alright, that's it for useless posts for at least 30 minutes.

Actually we have a lot of fat and lazy people as well...

And Davemcc, you seem to have had the worst fortune in health care - I don't know ANYBODY who has had as hard a time as you. I feel for ya. My worst issue is that I've been waiting about 18 months to get a vasectomy. If that's as bad as it gets, I guess I'm doing OK.

I guess the main point I've been trying to get across is that you need not be afraid of public health care. It certainly doesn't have to look like the Canadian system - I wouldn't advise any country to follow our example. But the most effective systems appear to be a mix of public and private.

For Americans, look at it this way: health outcomes in most European countries are much better than yours. Some of them are better than Canada. Yet you guys pay much more per capita, by a wide margin, for your health care. So, are you getting value for your money? I would say not.

Food for thought...