Why the US Does Not Need nor Want National Healthcare.

[DKW 86 7,431]

http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php

8 months for Brain Cancer?

I see now. THis is how the elites are going to weed out the population of their own countries.

[autiger4life 3]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the system the Dems are putting forward is more of making insurance affordable to everyone(affordable) and if some can't afford it then the government helps them. This isn't really the same thing is it?

[Ranger12 46]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the system the Dems are putting forward is more of making insurance affordable to everyone(affordable) and if some can't afford it then the government helps them. This isn't really the same thing is it?

It is the first step to socialized health care. How is the government going to make health insurance more affordable without them getting involved in controlling the prices of health care? You can't. Hope that answers your question.

[autiger4life 3]

It is the first step to socialized health care. How is the government going to make health insurance more affordable without them getting involved in controlling the prices of health care? You can't. Hope that answers your question.

Yea that makes since. I don't have any opposition to them trying to make insurance more affordable. I don't like mandates except when it comes to children. I understand that it is a slippery slope with governmental involvement. Maybe it is too much to think they will not go to far and ruin what could be a good thing.

[AFTiger 282]

It is the first step to socialized health care. How is the government going to make health insurance more affordable without them getting involved in controlling the prices of health care? You can't. Hope that answers your question.

Yea that makes since. I don't have any opposition to them trying to make insurance more affordable. I don't like mandates except when it comes to children. I understand that it is a slippery slope with governmental involvement. Maybe it is too much to think they will not go to far and ruin what could be a good thing.

Look what happened in Florida when the state tried to make homeowners insurance more affordable.

[DKW 86 7,431]

I had always read that most libs wanted a single payer system "just like Canada."

[channonc 466]

I had always read that most libs wanted a single payer system "just like Canada."

I haven't heard that.

[Tiger Al 0]

I had always read that most libs wanted a single payer system "just like Canada."

I haven't heard that.

That's because it's a strawman.

[BamaGrad03 0]

Hillary's plan is just like Canada's. It's government run/socialist healthcare.

Obama's, conversely, is more of a government assistance program that helps with the COSTS of healthcare, but doesn't dissolve the current privatized system.

[lukeduke 8]

Hillary's plan is just like Canada's. It's government run/socialist healthcare.

Obama's, conversely, is more of a government assistance program that helps with the COSTS of healthcare, but doesn't dissolve the current privatized system.

But by helping the "poor" afford healthcare, is it driving up the price of healthcare for the "rich" that are able to afford it now.

The market has to adjust in some way.

[channonc 466]

But why are healthcare costs so inflated?

[MDM4AU 332]

But why are healthcare costs so inflated?

Here is an interesting opinon: LINK

[autiger4life 3]

The way I understand it is they will combat the health care cost that will rise due to extended coverage for the poor by getting more involved in the process and helping curve the cost with things like malpractice changes. Things like that are what drive up the cost, not what we actually pay. Same thing for prescriptions when you have the 22 year olds as drug reps getting paid huge bucks. We shouldn't have salesman for pills, it should just be the one that works best. I know that is a little utopian, but when I read an article about Merck targetting college cheerleaders as future saleswomen, then I get worried that the pill I am taking isn't the right one and that my doctor really just thought a girl was cute.

[Ranger12 46]

The way I understand it is they will combat the health care cost that will rise due to extended coverage for the poor by getting more involved in the process and helping curve the cost with things like malpractice changes. Things like that are what drive up the cost, not what we actually pay. Same thing for prescriptions when you have the 22 year olds as drug reps getting paid huge bucks. We shouldn't have salesman for pills, it should just be the one that works best. I know that is a little utopian, but when I read an article about Merck targetting college cheerleaders as future saleswomen, then I get worried that the pill I am taking isn't the right one and that my doctor really just thought a girl was cute.

My wife works in the health care industry and the drug reps cater lunch for them almost every day just so they stay in good standings with the doctors. I have to admit that those free samples save me some money on co-pays whenever I am prescribed a drug that is not available in generic. Like you said though, they seem to pay these reps a lot of money and then they turn around and write off a lot of things, like those catered lunches, to get the doctors to use their particular company's pills. However, it is the big drug companies that are making a killing. I have a friend that worked for too smaller companies and they both shut their doors because the could not compete with Bayer, Merck, Pfizer, etc.

I have also noticed that the prerequisite for being female drug rep is that you must be a total babe, so that does not surprise me that they were recruiting cheerleaders.

I am one of those that think we need to make sure all children have proper medical care. Even if they do not have it because their parents are too lazy to work or in a situation because of bad luck, that is not the kids fault. I don't mind helping adults either because sometimes things happen, like bad health keeping you from working, that are beyond our control. However, for those able to work, the help should be temporary until that person can afford their own health care.

The catch is making it affordable, because it has gotten to the point that even Fortune 500 companies are making their employees pay out of the ying-yang for their health coverage. One way to try to get health care costs under control is to limit malpractice suits. I agree that there are some crappy doctors out there, just like in any profession, and they need to be sued. However, I would guess that at least more the half of the suits should never have been filed to begin with.

With all of that said, the United States still has the best health care available. Some of the best foreign doctors in the world have come to the United States to practice. You also can't beat how timely you can have a procedure done compared to other countries, especially those with socialized medicine.

[AFTiger 282]

After we "fix" healthcare, we will not have a United States system to bail us out.

HEALTH CARE: EMERGENCY TREATMENT IN THE U.S. IS ON THE RISE

Why Ontario keeps sending patients south

Poor planning and bed shortages mean 'everything is jam packed'

LISA PRIEST

March 1, 2008

More than 400 Canadians in the full throes of a heart attack or other cardiac emergency have been sent to the United States because no hospital can provide the lifesaving care they require here.

Most of the heart patients who have been sent south since 2003 typically show up in Ontario hospitals, where they are given clot-busting drugs. If those drugs fail to open their clogged arteries, the scramble to locate angioplasty in the United States begins.

"They rushed me over to Detroit, did the whole closing of the tunnel," said Eric Bialkowski, 47, of the heart attack he had on March 14, 2007, in Windsor, Ont. "It was like Disneyworld customer service."

While other provinces have sent patients out of country - British Columbia has sent 75 pregnant women or their babies to Washington State since February, 2007 - nowhere is the problem as acute as in Ontario.

Why Ontario keeps sending patients south

At least 188 neurosurgery patients and 421 emergency cardiac patients have been sent to the United States from Ontario since the 2003-2004 fiscal year to Feb. 21 this year. Add to that 25 women with high-risk pregnancies sent south of the border in 2007.

Although Queen's Park says it is ensuring patients receive emergency care when they need it, Progressive Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer says it reflects poor planning.

That is particularly the case with neurosurgery, she said, noting that four reports since 2003 have predicted a looming shortage.

"This province and the number of people going outside for care - it's increasing in every area," Ms. Witmer said.

"I definitely believe that it is very bad planning. ...We're simply unable to meet the demand, but we don't even know what the demand is."

Tom Closson, the Ontario Hospital Association's president and chief executive officer, said 30 per cent of Ontario's hospital medical beds are currently occupied by patients awaiting more appropriate placements, such as assisted living centres, a nursing home, a rehabilitation facility or even their own homes with proper home-care supports.

That squeezes the system at both ends: Patients in intensive care units whose condition improves cannot get into step-down units, and some emergency patients can't get a bed at all, he said, adding that "everything is jam-packed at the moment."

A method for determining the right mix of beds and health services required in Ontario needs to be developed, he said, noting that that task has not been undertaken on a provincial basis for a decade.

Laurel Ostfield, press secretary to provincial Health Minister George Smitherman, said that in emergencies, where the patient goes becomes a clinical decision.

It is preferable for someone with a heart attack in Windsor to be sent to Detroit, a few kilometres away, rather than on a long ride to London, Ont.

When demand has peaked, government has responded, she said. It struck a neurosurgery expert panel to study the problem and $4.1-million has been provided to stem the tide of U.S. neurosurgery patients.

As well, stand-alone angioplasty services were created in Windsor in May.

Canadian Medical Association president Brian Day said he couldn't speak about the Ontario problem, but noted this country is the last in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to finance hospitals with global budgets.

Under that model, patients - and often doctors - are sometimes viewed as a financial drain.

"We keep coming back to the same root cause," Dr. Day said in a telephone interview from Ottawa. "The health system is not consumer-focused."

Patients first learn of the problem when they are critically ill.

Jennifer Walmsley went to Headwaters Health Care Centre in Orangeville in October and was diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage due to a ruptured aneurysm. That acute-care hospital does not have neurosurgery and no Ontario hospital that does could take her. She was then rushed to a Buffalo hospital.

Headwater's chief of staff, Jeff McKinnon, said three neurosurgery patients have been sent to Buffalo in the past year. Others have gone to Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton and London.

Radiologist Louise Keevil said Headwaters has an arrangement with neurosurgeons at other Ontario hospitals to send electronic images for their assessment, but "the limiting factor is availability of beds in their hospital.

"The physicians are very accommodating but their hands are tied by availability of service."

Kaukab Usman had a heart attack after a gym workout in Windsor on Dec. 9. She was rushed to hospital and given clot-bursting drugs.

When they failed, she was sent to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where she had angioplasty on one clogged artery and two stents inserted.

"It was a miracle for me to be alive," Ms. Usman said in a telephone interview from Somerset, New Jersey, where she is recuperating.

Aaron Kugelmass, director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at Henry Ford Hospital, said a system is in place to get these patients the care they need expeditiously.

"We try to make their length of stay in the U.S. as short as possible," said Dr. Kugelmass, associate division chief of cardiology. "If they are stable for discharge, we discharge them to home in Windsor, with clear follow-up plans."

Cross-border emergency health care should become less frequent when Amr Morsi, an interventional cardiologist currently in Orlando, Florida, comes to work at Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor in April; a second interventional cardiologist is to come on board there by end of year.

When the program is fully functional, Dr. Morsi expects Hotel-Dieu Grace to be able to do 500 angioplasties a year.

"The idea of starting the program in Windsor is that we will be able to do more of the angioplasty procedures in Windsor without having to send them to Detroit or London," said the Toronto native who did his cardiology training at the University of Toronto.

"It will take some time to decrease the numbers entirely, but that certainly is the long term plan."

Mr. Bialkowski of Lakeshore, a town east of Windsor, had angioplasty and received four stents. The stents, typically made of self-expanding, stainless steel mesh, were placed at the site of the fully blocked artery to keep it open.

The price to treat him, including a two-day hospital stay in March, 2007, was $40,826.21 (U.S.) With a 35 per cent discount from Henry Ford Hospital, the bill to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan tallied $26,537.03 (U.S.), according to a health ministry document, a copy of which was sent to Mr. Bialkowski.

The father of six, a human resources manager for a manufacturing company based in Windsor, is back at the gym and feels great. It didn't matter where he received the lifesaving care, he said, just so long as he obtained it.

"I guess the Canadian government took care of me," he said.

Link