Think your doctor is finding you the best clinic? - Stark law

[paul.karen]

Stoday your response was from a 2004 survey.  Mine was from a 2008 survey.  But again anything from the net can be contradicted by an opposing google search.  I myself truly could contradict myself on most anything i talk about with google searches.  Thus i dont find them all that relevant in a general discussion.  But some people live and swear by anything they find on the computer.

You live there you know much more about your system then i could start to think about.  But others i know could disagree with you.  And im not referring to anyone on these boards.  Just like you have myths and thoughts about our medical system.

it is ILLEGAL to refuse medical attention to anyone who goes to an emergency room.
Many of the people who dont have insurance are grown people who make over 300X the poverty rate in America.  They choose not to get medical insurance.
many other people who qualify for insurance are the YOUNG population who dont want to spend $30 a week out of there paycheck to get coverage from there workplace,
Yet an even greater amount of people CAN insure there children under our S-Chip program but are to lazy to sign there children up for this free coverage.
All (are most) of our disabled get some form of free insurance.  Most all seniors receiver medicade if they sign up for it(i could be wrong).
For the people who can be insured but choose not to these people are all in the numbers Obama talks about.  If these people refuse to sign up at work for insurance there employer will have to pay higher taxs.  It is almost a forced insurance plan.
Again dont get me wrong we need reform.
When we develop medicines and Canada and the rest of the world pay a 1/4 of what Americans have to pay that is ridiculous.  Us Americans pay for the lab work the logistics the ingredients and the trails to test new drugs which can run into millions if not billions of dollars.  Then when the pills are approved for the market we pay (example) Cozar American price $15 dollars a pill  Price for the rest of the world $ 4 dollars a pill.  (is this fair) So we are getting screwed all around.
Yes we need reform just not if it involves a government run program.  Like i stated earlier examples of government run programs like Social Security-medicare- on and on all have big cost overruns, corruption, payoffs schemes and are at present all set to be bankrupt in just a few short years.

The vast majority of Americans want reform
The vast majority of Americans dont want the reform to be run by government.  I think most everyone would agree with this.

[plugger]

The vast majority of Americans dont want the reform to be run by government.  I think most everyone would agree with this.

I'm afraid I don't agree, and from polls I've seen I may be with the majority - may have to look those up.  I have government-run government-paid-for health care and I couldn't be happier - the VA:

"Best Medical Care in the US" from BusinessWeek:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_29/b3993061.htm

Anyway, if you want information that isn't from some right-wing propaganda machine and bases their opinion on a lot of facts and stats - and has a lot of articles from all over the nation, I would highly recommend Physicians for a National Health Program:
http://www.pnhp.org/

I admit years ago I too did think the free market had the cure for just about anything, I was so wrong.  I'm actually seeing more Republicans catching on to this too.

[Rerun]

Why should my hospital bill be $40,000 for 4 days when all I was hooked up to was an IV once a day for 2 hours?  That is EXTORTION!  Put me up at the Holiday Inn! The problem is prices.  Someone in the government needs to take a look at PRICES and put a cap on them.  You can't ever get a price on anything before you go into the hospital or surgery room.  No one can tell you what it will cost.

These doctors make too much damn money.  I don't know how much is too much, but give me a break! 

You say we can't handle 70 million more people on a national health care system.  NOT all 70 million will hit the doctors offices at once.  They're not ALL sick. They are out there already and they do not go without health care.  But, I agree they wait too long and then have to be admitted to the hospital for days or weeks. 

The Medical Arena has us under their thumb and they know it.  They charge so much because they CAN, just like BIG Oil.  Just because they can.  This is greed and it needs to be broken.

When I was healthy and had health insurance it did not give me any priority over other sick people who didn't have health insurance.  I had to get in line and there were 20 people ahead of me who would not be paying but I was given no priority for having health insurance.  What's wrong with that picture.  Why should I keep my health insurance which I pay $200 a month for when I would get the same care as those who pay nothing?  I keep doing it, and wonder why?  I could put that away for a new car.

America has gotten too soft and people have taken advantage of it.  I was ridiculed when I complained that I had insurance and others didn't and I should be seen first.  OMG you would have thought I was being racist or something.  Why should I keep paying my current health insurance with that mentality?

   

[BigSky]

From my experience dealing with the VA and numerous horror stories I have heard from other vets I wouldnt trust the VA system to treat my dog.

Never seen more incompetence in a medical system than the VA.

[cariad]

if you want information that isn't from some right-wing propaganda machine and bases their opinion on a lot of facts and stats

Plugger, thank you for providing this information.

Paul, I agree that you can find *some* quote to back up just about any wild claim on the Internet, which is why it is fairly pointless to pull all of these random statistics and give us no idea where you are getting this from. The UK has a fairly low suicide rate in the westernized world, as Stoday points out. It is higher in the US, which may be why that statistic bizarrely compares the UK with the rest of Europe rather than the US. Most of Europe also has government-run healthcare, so why are we bashing the UK here?

I think you are wrong that "the vast majority of Americans" (whatever that means) do not want government-run healthcare. Most people want to be able to stop worrying about this all the time. Most people want to know that when the next recession hits and they lose their jobs (like my highly-educated and enormously talented husband did) that it doesn't mean that their wife might die from an inability to afford COBRA payments to pay for her transplant drugs. Please don't tell me that there are any programs that were going to step in and help - I looked everywhere, and called every assistance program I could find. This is not a situation that a trip to the ER is going to help at all, and I take issue with the idea that people can always go to the ER. (Legal or not, people have left the ER without being adequately treated.)

I lived across the street from the free clinic and used to see sick people hobble over there to line up on the pavement before it opened, so that they had some chance of being seen that day. To assume that someone is too lazy or too cheap to get insurance and has no one but themselves to blame might make you feel better, but it simply does not reflect any reality I have seen in all my years in this country.

[Stoday]

I still don't know what you have to do in exchange to receive your NHS- health service?
That is what I really wish to know. Thank you for the information, Kristina.

You have to live in one of the EU's 27 states. If you don't live in the UK, but live in the EU, you have to provide a form that entitles you to treatment. If you live in the UK you're allocated a National Insurance number, which entitles you to free treatment. Free medicines too if you're a child or over 60, otherwise the equivalent of $10 per item capped at $150 a year for all items.

[kristina]

You know very well that I live in the UK.
You also know very well that I tell the truth.
I find it very sad that you try to "sell" the UK-health-service to the USA.
If you really were a UK-NHS-patient you would know for sure
how unfair the system has become. A patient in one part of the UK
gets treatment, whereas another patient in another part does not get treated
at all and is left on their own without any NHS-medical treatment.
That is the reason why so many patient in the UK have lost their dignity
in order to receive any medical care/treatment on the UK health system.
That is why I asked you what you yourself are giving away of yourself
 in order to receive medical care? I am not prepared to prostitute myself
in exchange for a NHS-medical care and that is why for many years
I have been forced to pay money for every blood-tests etc.
Furthermore I have no NHS-GP/doctor/specialist to go to
because I am not prepared to prostitute myself like so many others do.
I can prove with documents everything I am saying here.
Furthermore, I have sent all my documentation and documentated proof
 to the Ombudsman, Health Commission, Queen, Prime Minister etc
with the result that they do not bother because there is no authority
in the UK to protect a vulnerable fragile patient under the UK-health system.
There is not even a solicitor in the UK to be found to take on a case like mine
because there are no human rights in place to protect NHS-patients.
These human rights exist on paper only, not in reality.
To me you do not sound like a patient at all but rather like a medical person
without any feelings and without any compassion for other unwell people.
You say you are privately insured, but I know from my own experience
that ALL private health insurances in the UK do NOT insure
patients with a chronic disease like kidney failure, MCTD or SLE.
So, you are either not on dialysis which is chronic, or
you are privately insured and have nothing wrong with you.
You sound to me like a doctor who tries to sell the UK-Health system
to the US because it is the doctors who profit most of all from this system.
First of all they get all their medical education free, courtesy of the British taxpayer,
then they have huge research-factory-centers (formerly hospitals) all to themselves
where the patients are only a research-material-number and nothing else.
Furthermore, doctors in the UK make even more money by
getting paid by the Pharmaceutical Industry for their research
on many patients who are registered with them but who are often 
 not even informed about what they are being misused for.
You sound to me like one of those unfortunate people
who are called by the indigenous population in the UK as
Thatchers children and Hitlers grandchildren.
Dealing with you is not good for my health
and so I shall refrain in the future from taking part
in any of your cruel games.
I shall not answer you anymore.

[KICKSTART]

Kristina are you english? You dont sound it.

[pdpatty]

KICKSTART,you are in England,have you ever heard of any women forced to exchange sexual favors for healthcare? 

[KICKSTART]

  pdpatty  How do you think i get my dialysis supplies    Joking apart this is what puzzles me , Kristina writes like she lives in the UK but doesnt come across as english. Im really baffled by some of the things she is saying about the NHS.







EDITED: Fixed smiley tag error-kitkatz,Moderator

[Stoday]

I’m flattered that Kristina should think I’m an overpaid doctor getting back-handers from the pharmaceutical industry. 

In fact, I started my career as an engineer, my education paid by a scholarship from an engineering company. In 1995 I started a consulting business that took me to some 20 countries around the world. That came to an end in 2005 when I suffered a heart attack. My only connection with any health service is as a patient.

As for medical insurance, this is essential for an owner of a small company. It enables you to jump the queue for hospital treatment. To have to wait could result in the loss of the company. That it does not cover chronic afflictions is irrelevant in these circumstances. I can choose to be treated under private insurance or the NHS. In the event, I think that I wasted my money: the NHS has been able to give me appropriate and timely treatment anyway.

My observations on the NHS are from my personal experience. I just cannot understand Kristina’s criticisms because they are so unlike my experience. In particular I do not understand what she means by “I am not prepared to prostitute myself in exchange for a NHS-medical care”.

Kristina — it’s clear that you should be getting medical help from the NHS; it’s sad that you are not.

 

[Bill Peckham]

I still don't know what you have to do in exchange to receive your NHS- health service?
That is what I really wish to know. Thank you for the information, Kristina.

By the looks of things I am too late but in the UK about 8% of GNP is spent on healthcare. Through VAT taxes and income taxes everyone is giving up about 8% of their GNP, their income, in exchange for healthcare. In the US we are giving up 16% of our GNP. One thing that is never acknowledged is that in theory if the US were to adopt that British system that we could fund it at twice the rate without increasing overall spending. What would the NIH look like with twice the funding?

Another way to put it is that in the UK you're spending less than $3,000 per person while in the US we're spending over $6,000.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data summarized here
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/us-health-spending-breaks-from-the-pack/

[cariad]

Kristina, I am also puzzled by your statements and your anger. As far as I could tell, everyone was trying to understand what you were saying, but you are making vague yet alarming accusations about the NHS. I used the NHS once, and I am not a UK citizen and I was not married to my British husband at that time. I only needed to see someone briefly for a med-check, but I was never asked for any cash nor ID to get service. It seems you do not want to discuss this anymore, and that's fine, but I am truly interested in how or why a UK resident would be denied NHS access.

Personally, I thought you lived in America, since you have written about being ignored by American hospitals. Perhaps you already know this, but unless you have a form of insurance accepted by these hospitals, you would have to pay out of pocket for services. If you cannot pay, well, you are sadly wasting your time contacting American hospitals. This is how it is here, even for tax-paying American citizens who are not adequately insured. That is why I would welcome government-run healthcare, as would most people I know, but I understand there is a segment of the population that would fear this would be a living nightmare. I was sick as a child (kidney failure), so I am what is referred to as 'uninsurable'. My only hope for proper access to health insurance is through employment - either my own or through a spouse. I can't work right now, and my spouse is self-employed, which means the clock is ticking for our health insurance to run out. Bascially, my husband must choose to take a salary at some 40% less than what he currently makes just to give us access to health care. Even then, we will still most likely pay premiums, co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles, for a grand total of some outrageously huge dollar amount every year.

My husband has volunteered to be a kidney donor. Why on earth should he be forced to give up his well-paid contract position because of my health problems when he is already sacrificing more than most people would? We would not be under this stress if we lived in the UK.

I hope you manage to get your difficulties worked out. Take care.

[plugger]

I did find this one poll that suggests those of us in favor of a single-payer, medicare-like program could be in the majority:

"Today the physicians’ group was “pleased but not surprised” that public support for a “universal health insurance program, in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that’s run by the government and financed by taxpayers” is high and rising rapidly. By a 2:1 margin (62 percent to 32 percent), an ABC News - Washington Post Poll released today found that the public favors national health insurance to “the current health insurance system, in which most people get their health insurance from private employers, but some people have no insurance”
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2003/october/majority_of_american.php

I can understand why so many have a hard time accepting that something like medicare just might be the most cost-effective way to go - it does seem to go against economics 101 and what we have taught about monopolies.  But in the case of infrastructure it actually seems to work to just throw the money in one pot and take what you need from there: roads, fire, police, schools, military, libraries, public utilities, and yes health care can all be considered infrastructure.  What doesn't make sense is paying some corporate bureaucrat, whose main aim is to hang on to the money, before services are rendered; then expect them to happily give up the money when their little gamble doesn't pay off - a gamble that the insured individual will stay healthy.

[KICKSTART]

Kristina = billybill in disguise ? 

[Zach]

Kristina = billybill in disguise ? 

   

[okarol]

Kristina = billybill in disguise ? 

Sheesh! She has been through a great deal of medical problems. Can we have a little love here?
Krisitina, I personally would like to know more about what you are talking about.

[Savemeimdtba]

This just doesn't sound like Kristina to me... are we sure someone didn't hack her account?  I was astonished when I saw it was her who posted what i was reading..