Nationalized Healthcare in the US. Your views appreciated.

[plugger]

I had what many considered whiz-bang private insurance for awhile and I didn't have many complaints - until I got laid-off in 2004.  First they tried to drop my wife and daughter - both who had problems, my daughter being the one with a kidney transplant.  The insurance company tried to blame it on the company that was administering COBRA, I didn't believe them.  Also found out from a former co-worker the same thing happened to him with dependents he had.  Later when my former company wasn't paying for COBRA my wife talked me into dropping coverage on everybody except my daughter, I still wonder if my wife is going to pay a price for going without coverage.

Private insurance is great, unless you need.  Unless you like paying a whole lot extra for what a program like medicare could be doing better and cheaper.

Frontline did an excellent program called "Sick around the World".  The whole program can be watched, or it can be watched in segments.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

[pdpatty]

When I read about Austraila's health care plan,makes me so jealoue.
Even on Medicare ,it can cost a lot. If you have so secondary ins ,you pay the 20% Medicare doesn't.
Medicare cost me $96 a month ,then I pay $217.00 for secondary and then another $39 a month for prescription drug planD . My generic drugs are free in my plan but I had to pay $36 for Fosrenol. The gap is at $2700 and I have a little over $800 left until I have to pay 100% cost of drugs.
My neph is supplying Fosrenol samples for me for free.

Here in US Fosrenol for 93 1000mg tabs  can cost over $700 ,without insurance.

[dwcrawford]

Similar to yours but I pay 73 for prescription drugs (though I have unlimited generics).

So gratful that I bought the expensive verious of supplement.  I was told how ridiculous that was but it saves co pays, deductibles, etc.  All in all, its the least expensive way to go in the long run.  Here's hoping there IS a long  run.

[Slywalker]

I do know that the United States is the only industrial nation that does not provide health care for all of its citizens.  I know that we spend more than other other nation on health care and yet that money doesn't cover everyone.  The math shouldn't be too hard - if you took all the money currently being spent and apply to a national system it would all even out.  Of course, one of the problems is finding the actual truth on how much is spent on health care.  The docs don't want to ante up the information, the hospitals are quite closed mouth and why would the private insurance companies offer up their profit info?

It is complicated now because the drug companies, insurance companies, hospitals, patients who are covered by good insurance don't want the status quo to change.

It will be an interesting debate.  I hope we come out ahead at the end.

 

[willowtreewren]

I hope this mess can be worked out, too.

As employers, we have provided 1/2 of the health insurance costs for our employees if they opt into it. The problem is that even paying only 1/2 the premium they can often get cheaper health insurance else where, so they tend not to take advantage of it. If we don't have at least 1/2 of the employees signed up we lose the group. (and our insurance). Every year we worry about that. This year our agent set up a two-tiered system of administration and employees. We have to have prescription coverage to be listed. The year that Carl was supposed to go on the list we ran the numbers and decided that it would be cheaper for us to pay for the anti-rejection drugs than to pay for everybody to have prescription coverage. Little did we know that we would not be allowed to get listed. We only have a 4 week window each year to change our coverage and by the time we were rejected for the list, it was too late to change. We lost a year on the list over that.

With all this finagling, it still costs us $1000/month for insurance, plus $96/month for Medicare and we each have a $2500 yearly deductible. This is a BIG ouch! Of course, Carl uses up his deductible in the first month!

[plugger]

Employer provided health insurance is such a scam.  Who are they insuring?  Working people who are working and are normally healthy (exceptions of course).  You would think they just want to keep the money and not pay for health care.

[Zach]

Frontline did an excellent program called "Sick around the World".  The whole program can be watched, or it can be watched in segments.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

Excellent primer on universal healthcare insurance in other countries.

[plugger]

Taiwan was my favorite.

[bette1]

I am 100% for some sort of universal health care.  It is a shame that people's career decisions, if you have any kind of chronic condition, have to be based on insurance, and if you get too sick to work, you are screwed unless you qualify for medicare and Medicaid.  The dialysis community is very lucky that we have an illness that is covered by medicare.  What would happen to someone in this country who had cancer?  If they lost their job due to illness, they could be screwed.  Cobra is very expensive.

Right now what many employers are doing is offering very insufficient plans.  My husband was offered a job the had a health plan that capped benefits per year at $15,000. per person.  That seems great if you're healthy, but have a car accident, a heart attack, or need any type of surgery.  That 15K is gone in a moment. 

[BigSky]

Right now what many employers are doing is offering very insufficient plans.  My husband was offered a job the had a health plan that capped benefits per year at $15,000. per person.  That seems great if you're healthy, but have a car accident, a heart attack, or need any type of surgery.  That 15K is gone in a moment.

Sounds similar to my jobs last health insurance.  I swear the section on stuff not covered was actually larger than the section on what they did cover.

[Phraxis]

I humbly offer that there  ae only three things that govenment has to do education, health care and security and should expand into other areas only reluctantly.

On the topic of healthcare, I hear that payroll taxes would have to go up 8 pecent for everyone in US to have access to healthcare. What a small price? Currently people are paying $700 to $1,500 per month for family coverage under a private system. This is in keeping with the projected payroll tax.

Quality? The care given in Canada is equal to or superior to that available in the US on every conceivable measure.

A government attack on obsesity, smoking, drug use, and other preventable health problems will help reduce costs. as would a healthy dose of personal responsibility.

[plugger]

I was surprised to find out the government might actually do drug research pretty darn well:

"A recent congressional report found that of the 21 most important drugs introduced between 1965 and 1992, 15 were developed using knowledge and techniques from federally-funded research. Then the public pays astronomically for the drugs once they hit the market."
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2004/plunder_drugs