How do you think Healthcare should be run in the US or world?

[Tradewind]

They're jacking the prices partially because of overhead, malpractice and non-payment. But yeah, it's a shady deal and borderline racketeering. Still, it's the hospitals and insurance companies that are to blame for being shady in the first place.

But as we've seen, as Wells pointed out, when malpractice suits were regulated, the costs didn't go down to reflect that. Why would they? They're living like hogs. Hospitals in the US buy equipment and craft fees to turn a profit in the shortest amount of time possible, versus a hospital in the UK where the fees charged for it's use are crafted in a way that it equally covers the cost of buying and operating the equipment for it's expected lifetime.

[Theinquisition]

Have lots of family and friends in the military. Depending on their job, where they're stationed, and what they're doing they do either a little or a lot. I know many active duty service members that their job is to basically sit and monitor equipment so they have a laptop on the side to farm ore and herbs with.

Although I suppose because your job might not be so laid back, you feel it necessary to correct my egregious error that not ALL service members have it so easy, which I can't really seem to find where I said that.

Well heres what you said..."It's as if sitting in a military base overseas playing WoW (pretty much what half the people I know who are in the military do)"

You're painting with a broad brush, just because some of the people you know overseas play WoW doesn't mean they all do, to insinuate that Service members sit around all day playing WoW is a incredible stretch.

More than likely those guys are off duty.

In any military facility, your working with NIPR internet....specifically monitored, non-secret internet. MAC address are tracked as well as what ip address are being used and where and when. To use a internet capable computer in a military facility, the computer has to have been allowed onto the network by the S-6 folk. If a soldier was to plug in a personal laptop into a military internet port, it would be detected immediately and promptly either turned off, or MP's notified. Besides Most military computers are Dell 620's which are about 8 years old and about useless for running anything other than Excel.

[Cthulhu 2020]

There'd be a lot more going out than coming in. We simply can't afford it. :/

As Tradewind said, it's about 50 years too late. It's going to have to be some kind of transition rather than a sudden one. It's the lack of government regulation that's caused this racketeering scheme between the pharma, hospitals, and insurance companies to sky rocket prices out of control. Need some good old regulation to reign their prices back in, then slap down the single payer.

[OzoAndIndi]

They need a poor peoples uninsured hospital and also a hospital for the rest of society. I pay a shit ton of money out of my own pocket for health care coverage and should get better service than someone without coverage who just shows up in the emergency room for some bullshit cough.

Da hell... then you better hope you never hit a period where you're down on your luck and conveniently have a health issue on top of it. Don't wanna go end up in that uninsured hospital where you'd very likely receive half-assed care in comparison. After all, every person who is uninsured is always some low life who doesn't deserve good care, it's always the same story for everyone, am I right?

[Tradewind]

As Tradewind said, it's about 50 years too late. It's going to have to be some kind of transition rather than a sudden one. It's the lack of government regulation that's caused this racketeering scheme between the pharma, hospitals, and insurance companies to sky rocket prices out of control. Need some good old regulation to reign their prices back in, then slap down the single payer.

Yeah, the initial costs are going to be ridiculous for the US in the state it's in now. In 2012, it cost Canada about $6000 per person, it wouldn't shock me if that amount was at least 5 times as much per person in the US with the amounts hospitals are charging for care. Assuming we didn't want to cull the industry right at the start. You'd be looking at like the $9 Trillion mark to insure all 316 Million Americans. I'll leave it up to others to decide who to blame for that amount being so fuckin' retarded.

[Theinquisition]

Among many other things, I know military gets extremely nice insurance provided at no additional cost. Must be nice to speculate about how switching off an insurance model would, in your opinion, break the bank. You know, despite it working wonders for most countries that use it.

I'm speaking from a position of experience. Sure I have healthcare...but there's some catches to it.

I have to meet a very stringent set of physical standards to maintain eligibility. Being 6'0 I can't weigh more than 200lbs without undergoing a antiquated BMI test. If I am over 22% body fat.....boom out of the service, and no more healthcare.

Are we going to enforces such standards on our civilian populace?

If my Doctor is an idiot (which in my case currently he is) I can't just ask to speak to a different doc, I HAVE to deal with the idiot that i'm assigned to. Furthermore I can't see a MD without a referral, I strictly have to see a PA.

Did I mention the PA has about 600 other patients, and will only see walk-ins from 545am-630am?

Are we going to subject our civi population to those constrants?

Most of the time, when I'm injured or sick, i'm referred to another Doctor off post because *Gasp* our military healthcare system isn't equipped to deal with diagnosing or treating even the most basic of healthcare needs.


I broke my back while in the service back in Oct of 2012......which I had been having problems with for a year before that actual diagnosis date, because my "Doctor" didn't feel that my back pain was worth a referral to a specialist until I started having shooting pains go all the day down my legs to where I couldn't walk sometimes. By then the damage was done and now I can't serve anymore.

So long story short Decklan, the shit looks good on paper, but is really shitty in practice.

[Skroe]

The problem with every healthcare approach in the US and Europe is it accepts the high costs of services to a degree, and attempts to either indirectly control costs (via incentives or penalties) and spread costs (which is the biggest purpose of Obamacare).

That is a nonsense approach only built on the faulty foundation that the market for healthcare is like the market for televisions. It's empircally untrue. In fact, it is dishonest to say that every or even most markets behave like each other: the ability for free market competition to inherently control costs has been shown not to work in other markets aside from healthcare such as defense, space launches and higher education. In every case, becoming locked in long term relationships - not even just a singular contract but an ongoing business relationship - has retarded the ability for competition to surpress costs to the point where costs are not surpressed.

One of the things that bothers me most about modern American political discourse is that we pretend that we're the first ones ever coming across this (and other) problems and we're engaging in pioneering problem solving. It's like we live in a vacuum where the American experience of a problem is the only experience that matters. That's crap. It gets us into mess after mess.

Japan is by far the best example of how to fix a health care system. They have one of the best and least expensive in the world. They also have a problem that we have been thankfully spared: they're becoming a nation of the elderly to a degree far beyond what is happening to an Aging America. Their elderly, like everywhere else are demanding more retirement and medical services. But they are keeping it inexpensive and affordable to their far smaller base of younger taxpayers. So how is it then that they have a bigger problem but already found a solution?

Because Japan, one of the world's paragons of capitalism, had the intellectual honestly to realize Health Care is not a market like any other, and that the delusion of shopping around for providers and services like you're shopping around for television had no factual basis in reality for being effective. What they did was brilliant. They got insurance providers and health care providers in a room and sadi, in so many words, "you're going to agree to a low, but reasonable price... and if we don't like it, we're going to set the price for you".

As a result Japan is the land of the $70 MRI and some of the lowest cost services in the developed world.

If this sounds like price controls and the government controlling a market, that's because it exactly is that. Japan, one of the most successful capitalist countries in the world, decided that health care was different and treated it as such.

The US could easily do this and solve it's health care issue. It would have to make two intellectual compromises: first that the health care industry is a very low profitability industry - that health care providers and insurance companies do not exist to make a lot of money, but rather to provide a service. And secondly, we would have to make the compromise of openingly engaging in a price control. The truth of the matter is, in the US, through subsidies and outright legislation, lots of goods people use every day, especially food staples, are limited by strict price controls that keep things like milk affordable. But Americans like to pretend these don't exist because it makes every argument about free markets easier.

When it comes down to it, Japan is just a more serious country than we are. They had a problem, identified a pragmatic solution, and jettisoned principle, to great effect. In America, we embrace principle and accept the $2000 MRI, hoping vainly that spreading costs will surpress prices going forward. If it sounds like a bullshit strategy, that is because it is.

Diagnostics should be dirt cheap. Routine procedures (like mending the most common reasons for emergency room visits) should be cheap. More involved procedures should be expensive but affordable. But the root of the problem is the COSTS and how they are decided in the first place, which isn't effected by market forces at all.

To this, I point to a kind of amazing question: how much is a bottle of water? About $1.75 right? So you would think that a bag of Saline at the hospital should cost about $4.00 to $5.00 when you consider it's just salt water (entirely drinkable), with a bag instead of a bottle, and a disposable needle. You would think that, but you would be wrong. It's actually about $400. Yes. $400 dollars. Costs the French $4.73, but America, it's vastly more for overhead costs factored in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/he...anted=all&_r=0

And this is the source of every bullshit health care problem this county faces. Because instead of dealing with, head on, how $400 for a liter of salt water is allowed to happen, we focus on trying to bring that down via market competition or spreading costs or some nonsense like this. The fact is, you're being gouged in a cornered market.

Any health care reform that doesn't directly cut costs of routine procedures by a hundredfold, instantly, isn't serious health care reform worth talking about.

[Fugus]

Please, for the love of god, quit using Healthcare and Free Market in the same sentence unless you are putting a "Not" in the middle of it.

It really annoys the crap out of me watching people, even highly educated people, arguing over this and try to refer to the US healthcare as Free Market. That to me sounds like one of the most ignorant things on the subject to say. Arguing for the Free Market in Healthcare is about like running the special olympics, even if you win, you are retarded....

There is NO FREE MARKET IN HEALTHCARE. There never has been, there isn't now and now will there every be a free market in Healthcare. It has been said more times than can be counted that the free market requires and educated populace (which we don't have), options (which we don't have) and the ability to just do without (which we don't have).

Sorry but unless we all become immortal like the Highlander and the only things doctors do is nose jobs and tummy tucks as every major injury will self heal, there will never be a free market. Short of that, even under 100% ideal conditions, it is literally impossible for a free market in healthcare. So please.... quit referring to it as such, it is a unicorn, a myth, a legend, it does not exist....

[Theinquisition]

The problem with every healthcare approach in the US and Europe is it accepts the high costs of services to a degree, and attempts to either indirectly control costs (via incentives or penalties) and spread costs (which is the biggest purpose of Obamacare).

That is a nonsense approach only built on the faulty foundation that the market for healthcare is like the market for televisions. It's empircally untrue. In fact, it is dishonest to say that every or even most markets behave like each other: the ability for free market competition to inherently control costs has been shown not to work in other markets aside from healthcare such as defense, space launches and higher education. In every case, becoming locked in long term relationships - not even just a singular contract but an ongoing business relationship - has retarded the ability for competition to surpress costs to the point where costs are not surpressed.

One of the things that bothers me most about modern American political discourse is that we pretend that we're the first ones ever coming across this (and other) problems and we're engaging in pioneering problem solving. It's like we live in a vacuum where the American experience of a problem is the only experience that matters. That's crap. It gets us into mess after mess.

Japan is by far the best example of how to fix a health care system. They have one of the best and least expensive in the world. They also have a problem that we have been thankfully spared: they're becoming a nation of the elderly to a degree far beyond what is happening to an Aging America. Their elderly, like everywhere else are demanding more retirement and medical services. But they are keeping it inexpensive and affordable to their far smaller base of younger taxpayers. So how is it then that they have a bigger problem but already found a solution?

Because Japan, one of the world's paragons of capitalism, had the intellectual honestly to realize Health Care is not a market like any other, and that the delusion of shopping around for providers and services like you're shopping around for television had no factual basis in reality for being effective. What they did was brilliant. They got insurance providers and health care providers in a room and sadi, in so many words, "you're going to agree to a low, but reasonable price... and if we don't like it, we're going to set the price for you".

As a result Japan is the land of the $70 MRI and some of the lowest cost services in the developed world.

If this sounds like price controls and the government controlling a market, that's because it exactly is that. Japan, one of the most successful capitalist countries in the world, decided that health care was different and treated it as such.

The US could easily do this and solve it's health care issue. It would have to make two intellectual compromises: first that the health care industry is a very low profitability industry - that health care providers and insurance companies do not exist to make a lot of money, but rather to provide a service. And secondly, we would have to make the compromise of openingly engaging in a price control. The truth of the matter is, in the US, through subsidies and outright legislation, lots of goods people use every day, especially food staples, are limited by strict price controls that keep things like milk affordable. But Americans like to pretend these don't exist because it makes every argument about free markets easier.

When it comes down to it, Japan is just a more serious country than we are. They had a problem, identified a pragmatic solution, and jettisoned principle, to great effect. In America, we embrace principle and accept the $2000 MRI, hoping vainly that spreading costs will surpress prices going forward. If it sounds like a bullshit strategy, that is because it is.

Diagnostics should be dirt cheap. Routine procedures (like mending the most common reasons for emergency room visits) should be cheap. More involved procedures should be expensive but affordable. But the root of the problem is the COSTS and how they are decided in the first place, which isn't effected by market forces at all.

To this, I point to a kind of amazing question: how much is a bottle of water? About $1.75 right? So you would think that a bag of Saline at the hospital should cost about $4.00 to $5.00 when you consider it's just salt water (entirely drinkable), with a bag instead of a bottle, and a disposable needle. You would think that, but you would be wrong. It's actually about $400. Yes. $400 dollars. Costs the French $4.73, but America, it's vastly more for overhead costs factored in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/he...anted=all&_r=0

And this is the source of every bullshit health care problem this county faces. Because instead of dealing with, head on, how $400 for a liter of salt water is allowed to happen, we focus on trying to bring that down via market competition or spreading costs or some nonsense like this. The fact is, you're being gouged in a cornered market.

Any health care reform that doesn't directly cut costs of routine procedures by a hundredfold, instantly, isn't serious health care reform worth talking about.

Hey Brosif, good to see you on here again, I thought you gave up on these forums.

[Wells]

A single payer healthcare system in this country would break the bank.

Look how much money gets pumped into the VA, and it serves less than 1% of the overall population, there has got to be a more efficient way of providing healthcare.

Except its cheaper in every instance its used abroad than what we're paying now. The VA even only spends about 5k per patient. Less than medicare spends which is also more efficient.

[Tradewind]

I'm speaking from a position of experience. Sure I have healthcare...but there's some catches to it.

I have to meet a very stringent set of physical standards to maintain eligibility. Being 6'0 I can't weigh more than 200lbs without undergoing a antiquated BMI test. If I am over 22% body fat.....boom out of the service, and no more healthcare.

Are we going to enforces such standards on our civilian populace?

If my Doctor is an idiot (which in my case currently he is) I can't just ask to speak to a different doc, I HAVE to deal with the idiot that i'm assigned to. Furthermore I can't see a MD without a referral, I strictly have to see a PA.

Did I mention the PA has about 600 other patients, and will only see walk-ins from 545am-630am?

Are we going to subject our civi population to those constrants?

Most of the time, when I'm injured or sick, i'm referred to another Doctor off post because *Gasp* our military healthcare system isn't equipped to deal with diagnosing or treating even the most basic of healthcare needs.


I broke my back while in the service back in Oct of 2012......which I had been having problems with for a year before that actual diagnosis date, because my "Doctor" didn't feel that my back pain was worth a referral to a specialist until I started having shooting pains go all the day down my legs to where I couldn't walk sometimes. By then the damage was done and now I can't serve anymore.

So long story short Decklan, the shit looks good on paper, but is really shitty in practice.

Maybe I missed something, is this meant to be an example of how not to do healthcare? Cuz I would agree, that sucks hard.

It's not really representative of nationalized healthcare though.

[Theinquisition]

Maybe I missed something, is this meant to be an example of how not to do healthcare? Cuz I would agree, that sucks hard.

It's not really representative of nationalized healthcare though.

Jut using my experiences and listing limitations within the military provided healthcare to show..even at a personal level...that Gov't provided healthcare isn't all its cracked up to be.

Maybe some other countries have it running better than how the military is doing it, but if what im experiencing is what the rest of the population would be subjected to.....well...life would suck for ya'll

[Fugus]

Except its cheaper in every instance its used abroad than what we're paying now. The VA even only spends about 5k per patient. Less than medicare spends which is also more efficient.

Not sure how good the VA system really is honestly though, even though it is cheaper.

I have been dealing with it for over a year now, they try and drag everything out. I have been fighting them for a while. I finally officially get to see a doctor this December, a full 18 months from the time I got injured. I have been in the ER up there before just last week when my leg was going limp on me for a couple moments at a time almost making me fall over a few times and feeling like my leg was about to get ripped off along with all the back pain I have been dealing with for over a year now.

After 6 hours, all they did was give me a few X-Rays, an injection in my ass cheek and 3 bottles of pills and sent out and was told I might need an MRI but I can't get that till December either.

I am afraid I might end up having to go there again this week as of the 3 bottles of pills they gave me, only 1 did any good and they only gave a 1 week supply as they are pretty dangerous if you use them over a week and as the dosage has gone down the pain and all is going back up. Much preferred feeling like I was spartan kicked in the butt than feeling like my leg is getting pulled off like drumstick.

So while the VA is cheaper, I wouldn't call it good as they attempt to be cheap at the expense of service.

[Wells]

Not sure how good the VA system really is honestly though, even though it is cheaper.

I have been dealing with it for over a year now, they try and drag everything out. I have been fighting them for a while. I finally officially get to see a doctor this December, a full 18 months from the time I got injured. I have been in the ER up there before just last week when my leg was going limp on me for a couple moments at a time almost making me fall over a few times and feeling like my leg was about to get ripped off along with all the back pain I have been dealing with for over a year now.

After 6 hours, all they did was give me a few X-Rays, an injection in my ass cheek and 3 bottles of pills and sent out and was told I might need an MRI but I can't get that till December either.

I am afraid I might end up having to go there again this week as of the 3 bottles of pills they gave me, only 1 did any good and they only gave a 1 week supply as they are pretty dangerous if you use them over a week and as the dosage has gone down the pain and all is going back up. Much preferred feeling like I was spartan kicked in the butt than feeling like my leg is getting pulled off like drumstick.

So while the VA is cheaper, I wouldn't call it good as they attempt to be cheap at the expense of service.

Yeah the VA has a notoriously slow administrative process. They're working on fixing it, but it really is outdated. There's no reason to rely on paper records as heavily as they do.

[Theinquisition]

Not sure how good the VA system really is honestly though, even though it is cheaper.

I have been dealing with it for over a year now, they try and drag everything out. I have been fighting them for a while. I finally officially get to see a doctor this December, a full 18 months from the time I got injured. I have been in the ER up there before just last week when my leg was going limp on me for a couple moments at a time almost making me fall over a few times and feeling like my leg was about to get ripped off along with all the back pain I have been dealing with for over a year now.

After 6 hours, all they did was give me a few X-Rays, an injection in my ass cheek and 3 bottles of pills and sent out and was told I might need an MRI but I can't get that till December either.

I am afraid I might end up having to go there again this week as of the 3 bottles of pills they gave me, only 1 did any good and they only gave a 1 week supply as they are pretty dangerous if you use them over a week and as the dosage has gone down the pain and all is going back up. Much preferred feeling like I was spartan kicked in the butt than feeling like my leg is getting pulled off like drumstick.

So while the VA is cheaper, I wouldn't call it good as they attempt to be cheap at the expense of service.

Been waiting since March just to get my %'s

[Tradewind]

Jut using my experiences and listing limitations within the military provided healthcare to show..even at a personal level...that Gov't provided healthcare isn't all its cracked up to be.

Maybe some other countries have it running better than how the military is doing it, but if what im experiencing is what the rest of the population would be subjected to.....well...life would suck for ya'll

Then yeah, that'd be chalked up as an example of how not to do it Certainly not representative of how it works in countries that do have public healthcare already.

[Theinquisition]

Then yeah, that'd be chalked up as an example of how not to do it Certainly not representative of how it works in countries that do have public healthcare already.

Well lets just hope that our elected officials would be smart enough not to model a single payer healthcare system off of what we have now in limited doses...of course.....this is the American elected officials were talking about *snicker*

[Fugus]

Been waiting since March just to get my %'s

They set me at 10% in April after an X-Ray where they said they found Arthritis in the middle of my spine and "Damage" at the bottom of it but didn't really tell me what kind, has it put down as "Lumber Spine Strain" and then gave me a range of motion test in May. It has been "Open" ever since. Tried contacting the Regional office and been ignored, the local office just tells me it is open and just wrote the office in DC to see what is up.

I have been struggling just to keep a roof over my head, have family giving me help and a job that deals with me for now but it ready to fire me as I can barely do much and have people every night asking me if I am alright and have even had random strangers recently walk up to me offering me their prescription meds as they say I look like I am in real pain. Military I have spoken to have actually asked how I wasn't at 100% yet.

Just got the number of a VA rep I can call today, will try them on Monday morning. Maybe they can do something, not trying to end up homeless waiting on them or spending my whole life as a burden to the family.

[Theinquisition]

They set me at 10% in April after an X-Ray where they said they found Arthritis in the middle of my spine and "Damage" at the bottom of it but didn't really tell me what kind, has it put down as "Lumber Spine Strain" and then gave me a range of motion test in May. It has been "Open" ever since. Tried contacting the Regional office and been ignored, the local office just tells me it is open and just wrote the office in DC to see what is up.

I have been struggling just to keep a roof over my head, have family giving me help and a job that deals with me for now but it ready to fire me as I can barely do much and have people every night asking me if I am alright and have even had random strangers recently walk up to me offering me their prescription meds as they say I look like I am in real pain. Military I have spoken to have actually asked how I wasn't at 100% yet.

Just got the number of a VA rep I can call today, will try them on Monday morning. Maybe they can do something, not trying to end up homeless waiting on them or spending my whole life as a burden to the family.

Did you get rated while in the service or after getting out and filing a separate claim?

[prwraith]

Healthcare would be awesome if insurance companies for it didn't exist. If the government simply said, hey, are you sick, do you need help, do you need surgery, then yes we have highly trained doctors who will take care of you. Don't worry about money because we tax you for it.

Healthcare should be just that, if your sick you go get healthy without having to worry about money.

The current system we have is a giant fraud scam by insurance companies, and continues to be a scam under obamacare because all that does is extend the scam into a law that forces you to buy into insurance. It will only be good when healthcare doesn't cost anything extra than your taxes.