OT government

[Tom Kunich]

"Andrew Price" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:02:03 -0500, !Jones <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>Millions of citizens without access to adequate health care?
>>
>>Oh, we have great health care, just an oddball way of funding it!
>>Most countries nationalize the coverage. This works... sort of; there
>>is no incentive for anyone to provide anything above minimal quality,
>>so that's what you get.
>
> What is the definition of "minimal quality" and do you have a
> reference for that assertion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(Canada)

"One widely-cited statistic which has been used to argue that Canada was
under-performing came from the World Health Organization, which ranked
Canada as 30th in 2000."

" It cost Canada's economy $14.8 billion in 2007 to have patients waiting
longer than needed for medical procedures."

"Canada's proximity to the United States causes a "brain drain" or migration
of Canadian-trained doctors and nurses (as well as other professionals) to
the United States, where private hospitals can pay much higher wages and
income tax rates are lower."

Health care is an on-going argument. At the very basis of it is a doctors
desire to recoup the tremendous cost and time to learn his trade while
critics want to pay them a pittance for their work with the idea that
medicine should only be practiced by angels.

 

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:49:59 -0700, "Bill Sornson" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Dan O wrote:
>> On Jun 12, 7:48 pm, still just me <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> Just how much more has to happen for us to be "second class"?
>
>> Millions of citizens without access to adequate health care?
>
>Name one. (Hint: even NON citizens can't be turned away from getting
>needed care.)

The emergency room isn't really a good place to get chemo or deal with
diabetes.

 

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:33:07 -0700, "Bill Sornson" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Broke my shoulder two weeks ago (tire blow-out on a 40 mph downhill curve),
>but it was faster to see my doc 4-5 days later and eventually an orthopedist
>10 days after /that/ than to go to my plan's ER.

Were you the guy who fell off a cliff onto your head when mountain
biking?

 

[!Jones]

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:11:29 +0200, in rec.bicycles.tech Andrew Price
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:02:03 -0500, !Jones <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>Millions of citizens without access to adequate health care?
>>
>>Oh, we have great health care, just an oddball way of funding it!
>>Most countries nationalize the coverage. This works... sort of; there
>>is no incentive for anyone to provide anything above minimal quality,
>>so that's what you get.
>
>What is the definition of "minimal quality" and do you have a
>reference for that assertion?

You' re demanding a definition of "minimal quality"?

That type of posting usually introduces what I call the "more
information" troll. The objective herein is to get the other person
responding to your demands... it doesn't matter what they say, you
follow it up with more demands for further information. If you ever
participate in the gun proliferation vs. rights debate, you'll see
some pros at thet tactic there.

My counter is to only take one question at a time and, for each
question you expect me to answer, you must first answer one of mine...
if that's acceptable, then my first question is: What is the
definition of "definition", please? (I expect original writing, of
course, no copy and paste; you will receive the same from me.)

Jones

 

[still just me]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:50:09 GMT, John Forrest Tomlinson
<[email protected]> wrote:

>
>The emergency room isn't really a good place to get chemo or deal with
>diabetes.

Nope, or anything else wrong with you short of a need for immediate
medical attention. But, if you wait long enough without that chemo,
they'll admit you when you start dying and treat you for a couple
days.

Most of the folks arguing against any changes in the health care
system work for other people who pay for their health care. They've
never owned a business and felt the pain of shelling out $8K per
employee for insurance, or seen their rates skyrocket because one
employee had the misfortune to actually need some health care under
the policy. They've never bought their own (very limited) insurance at
a ridiculous $10-12K per year simply because they weren't part of a
group plan. They don't have hands on experience with lower income
folks, or the elderly, or anyone else who can't come close to paying
the cost of non-employer insurance. The don't see the colossal waste
of having insurance companies act as profit taking middlemen in what's
a service system, not an insurance system.

Instead they go on deceiving themselves that "everyone gets health
care if they need it" whilst secretly thinking "and those damn poor
folks that can't afford it don't deserve what I get".

 

[still just me]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:06:54 -0700, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo.
com> wrote:

>Sorry Charley - emergency room care is prioritized to the most critical care
>first. I had the misfortune to be in a serious accident less than a month
>ago and being out of work I ended up in the county emergency room since it
>never occurred to them to ask if I had insurance - instead they just asked
>if I was working.
>
>I observed what was happening up close and personal for most of a day since
>they thought I hit my head and was knocked out instead of having some bones
>in my face broken knocking me out for a couple of seconds from pain and
>shock and no serious damage.
>
>If you need emergency treatment these hospitals will treat you rapidly. They
>halted treating me in the middle of a treatment in order to provide complete
>care for a heart attack victim.

Lacking a life threatening emergency, the prioritization system in
most emergency rooms leaves much to be desired.

 

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:43:31 GMT, still just me
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Most of the folks arguing against any changes in the health care
>system work for other people who pay for their health care.

Maybe. Some are just arguing because they're so caught up in
reactionary view of poltiics that if they start admiting (even to
themselves) how wrong they've been, their heads will explode. They
can't change, because what they've been saying and believing is now a
house of cards.

 

[Ed Pirrero]

On Jun 14, 7:43 pm, still just me <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Instead they go on deceiving themselves that "everyone gets health
> care if they need it" whilst secretly thinking "and those damn poor
> folks that can't afford it don't deserve what I get".

And the real ***** of it is that "those poor people" then turn around
and get *the most expensive* care in the system, paid for by whom?
Yeah, those same tax-hating people. And their "free" health care
isn't free anyway - they pay for it as part of the cost of goods and
services. There ain't no free lunch.

What's mind-boggling is that they think that if government took it
over, there's be some sort of bureaucracy over an above what we have
now with the insurance companies. Almost like they'd never dealt with
an insurance company. Some years back I had a filling. I requested
of the dentist to make it an amalgam one, which I prefer because of
their durability. The filling actually cost less than the resin kind,
but the reimbursement from insurance was a nightmare because they see
very few of those types of fillings these days. Of course, I had to
spend two non-productive work days trying to track down the ~ten
people I needed to talk to to get $112 covered by insurance. In
retrospect, I should have just paid out of pocket. Remember, NO gov.
agency was involved. And this in not some atypical case, nor some
special experimental procedure.

E.P.

 

[still just me]

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:39:10 -0700 (PDT), Ed Pirrero
<[email protected]> wrote:

>And the real ***** of it is that "those poor people" then turn around
>and get *the most expensive* care in the system, paid for by whom?
>Yeah, those same tax-hating people. And their "free" health care
>isn't free anyway - they pay for it as part of the cost of goods and
>services. There ain't no free lunch.

It's a horribly broken system - but the vested interests and their
lobbyists are making lots of money. So, don't expect anyone to
actually fix anything any time soon.