Bamablazer:
Why don't you and Sarabelle move to Canada, where taxes are high and your healthcare is free..........
Tree huggers make me.....
That's not very nice.
mobileblazer Wrote:Bamablazer:
Why don't you and Sarabelle move to Canada, where taxes are high and your healthcare is free..........
Tree huggers make me.....
and where u have to wait 9 months for a hip replacement or any other kind of non-emergency treatment.
dfarr Wrote:mobileblazer Wrote:Bamablazer:
Why don't you and Sarabelle move to Canada, where taxes are high and your healthcare is free..........
Tree huggers make me.....
and where u have to wait 9 months for a hip replacement or any other kind of non-emergency treatment.
If it's free, methinks people
might consider it...
Maybe, just maybe, the high taxes are paying for the 'free surgery. DUH....
Blzer4Life Wrote:dfarr Wrote:mobileblazer Wrote:Bamablazer:
Why don't you and Sarabelle move to Canada, where taxes are high and your healthcare is free..........
Tree huggers make me.....
and where u have to wait 9 months for a hip replacement or any other kind of non-emergency treatment.
If it's free, methinks people might consider it...
right, thats why canadians pour across our borders to our hospitals so that they can get treatment when they want it. there's a reason why all the best doctors in the world leave countries w/ socialized medicine and come here to work.
Dfarr, I know this might be confusing to you...so take as much time as you need to process it, but socialized medicine =/= national healthcare.
Sarahbelle18 Wrote:Dfarr, I know this might be confusing to you...so take as much time as you need to process it, but socialized medicine =/= national healthcare.
how does it not equal national healthcare? everyone is covered for "free," although those outragous taxes dont seem too free to me.
Quote:Socialized medicine is a system in which doctors and hospitals work for the government and draw salaries from the government. Doctors in the Veterans Administration and the Armed Services are paid this way. Examples also exist in Great Britain and Spain. But in most European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan they have socialized financing, or socialized health insurance, not socialized medicine. The government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector. This is similar to how Medicare works in this country. Doctors are in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis from government funds. The government does not own or manage their medical practices or hospitals.
The term socialized medicine is often used to conjure images of government bureaucratic interference in medical care. That does not describe what happens in countries with national health insurance. It does describe the interference by insurance company bureaucrats in our health system.
either way, i dont want to pay for crackheads or ignorant asses who take their kids to the ER for a head cold. ill pay for myself, thank you ver much.
dfarr Wrote:either way, i dont want to pay for crackheads or ignorant asses who take their kids to the ER for a head cold. ill pay for myself, thank you ver much.
and those who can't deserve to die or spread their illnesses to your family and/or yourself?
What about working class families who can't afford to cover their children?
no, they dont deserve to die, but am i supposed to pay for them? why should i pay for someone else's healthcare? nobody else is paying for mine. why should some people get a free ride? oh let me guess, b/c they cant help it that they dont have a good job right? its not their fault that they probably dont have anything higher than a high school education.
dfarr Wrote:either way, i dont want to pay for crackheads or ignorant asses who take their kids to the ER for a head cold. ill pay for myself, thank you ver much.
Hate to tell you, but you are pretty much doing that right now--it's built in to the healthcare costs you are paying.
You know, I think more government is the answer to everything. That would be the sure fire cure for our healthcre problems- more government involvement. Because hey, the government is OBVIOUSLY the ultimate solution to eveything, right. Hell, everything they do, they do perfectly. MORE GOVERNMENT EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!
When are you people ever going to learn that the more you depend on the government, the more power and control they have over you. And I'm talking about DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS here. They want you to depend on them for healthcare, education, retirement and everything else possible. Some of you aren't going to realize this until its too late.
dfarr Wrote:i know, and it sucks.
Amen.
BatesUAB Wrote:You know, I think more government is the answer to everything. That would be the sure fire cure for our healthcre problems- more government involvement. Because hey, the government is OBVIOUSLY the ultimate solution to eveything, right. Hell, everything they do, they do perfectly. MORE GOVERNMENT EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!
When are you people ever going to learn that the more you depend on the government, the more power and control they have over you. And I'm talking about DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS here. They want you to depend on them for healthcare, education, retirement and everything else possible. Some of you aren't going to realize this until its too late.
More power to you! Let's try it out!
dfarr Wrote:no, they dont deserve to die, but am i supposed to pay for them? why should i pay for someone else's healthcare? nobody else is paying for mine. why should some people get a free ride? oh let me guess, b/c they cant help it that they dont have a good job right? its not their fault that they probably dont have anything higher than a high school education.
I know I'm pissing into the wind to even try, but gawd, dfarr, are you truly that heartless? I work at a doctor's office, and every single day I go to work I get asked for samples of prescription drugs by old folks. Some of them live at Liberty Park and just don't want to pay a copay, and for some of them getting samples of their meds eases the choice between having their diabetes medicine and eating or paying the power bill. I routinely see little old grannies who don't have a pot to piss in. I see little kids, and frankly I don't quite see how they should not get decent care because they had the bad luck to be born to someone who is lazy, or ignorant, or for whatever else fails to be able to provide for them properly.
You know, I venture to guess that other people have helped to subsidize you in your life. Did you go to public school by any chance? Surely people who don't have children shouldn't have to pay to educate someone else's child. If they weren't some kind of lazy freeloader they'd pay for their kids to go to a good private school. At UAB, I'm sure you paid your own way and didn't make other people pay for you by getting financial aid. Why should my tax dollars go to pay for some slacker that didn't save enough to put his kid through school?
If some of these arguements seem specious and unfair, you just got a taste of how I feel about your logic. This country wastes tremendous amounts of money on how it handles healthcare. You have
no idea how much wasted money I see daily in how big pharma markets pharmaceuticals. Insurance companies are incredibly wasteful... how many separate bureacracies do we need to support to pay people's medical expenses? The most efficient healthcare delivery system in this country, dollar for dollar, is Medicare. Get rid of the duplication and the BS the hundreds of different healthcare insurers bring and you'd be surprised how many dollars are out there to care for those who need it.
Band Dad:
I've been in medical/pharmaceutical sales for over 11 years, and I see some bad things as well. There are pros and cons of the indusrty. drug pricing is insane, I'll admit. It typically costs more for the packaging of drugs than the drugs cost themselves. Most pharm companies offer free medicine to people if they can't afford it. However, it isn't utilized hardly at all. Generics are great for the uninsured. However, if all drugs had a generic, no pharm company would invest the money to bring new drugs to the market.
First of all... Thank you for making a thread about me, I am deeply honored & eternally grateful.
And next... There is a reason why ASSUME starts with ***.
I am not for a big federal government at all. I would say I am for state's rights but "STATE'S RIGHTS" don't even exist anymore. The entire U.S. political system is corrupt and I would like nothing more than to see both parties fall flat on their faces.
I will most likely be voting for the Democratic candidate in the next election, but that still depends on the 2 candidates that are running :)
yes, i am that heartless. if the little old grannies had saved their money instead of relying on the government to do it for them, then maybe they could afford the things they need.
no, i never received financial aide from uab. i was on full scholarship. i did attend public schools all my life, but i am a proponent of school vouchers.
i see wasted money in healthcare at work as well. i worked in a surgeons office after high school and i currently work at uab hospital. the cost of medicine is directly related to over diagnosing, which comes about because of frivolous (sp) lawsuits. my uncle is a surgeon, but technically owns nothing. every valuable that he has is in my aunts name so that if some day someone tries to sue him, he'll still have his house when the bleeding heart juries award some overweight slob my uncle's money for him trying to save their life. i use overweight slobs as the example because he is a vascular surgeon and thats 90% of his patients.
I couldn't agree more about the money that is wasted by Doctors trying to protect themselves from predation by lawyers. That's another form of waste that I see daily, expensive procedures that are not really needed but are ordered strictly so that five years from now the Doctor won't be sitting in court hearing "But Doctor, why didn't you order a CT? Didn't you read this X-Ray report that mentions an unusual shadow in the lung?" He won't mention that this shadow was the density of a woman's nipple.
In fairness, a lot of this came about because over the decades doctors took the position that no oversight was needed, that the medical community could police itself. There were an awful lot of incompetent doctors who were not sanctioned and allowed to move on and continue to practice. Of course, the driving force is money on many (by no means all) medical lawsuits.
Mobileblazer - I'm very ambivalent about big pharma. They develop drugs that do incredible amounts of good for us all. I don't have a problem with making a profit, and I understand the costs of development and the regulatory hoops that have to be jumped. I also know that if you are the granny mentioned above and you're trying to live on a small fixed income, that $100/month prescriptions are tough, particularly if as many elderly she's taking several of them. Generics are good, although in some cases simply not as good as brand name. Yes, there are assistance programs, but first you have to know about them, second you have to go to a doctor who is willing to help out (paying salary to employees who help push paper, particularly for folks who don't fill things out right or understand what they're supposed to do), and third you have to jump through continuing paperwork hoops. These are great programs but not a substitute for some form of universal minimum health care.
I'm not some big advocate of "universal health care" and far from expert on policy on such. I simply think that this counrty and its federal government does indeed have a responsibility to see that our people don't suffer needlessly when it could be handled. I don't have easy answers but in brief I'd like to see a program that assured basic care. If you want to add private insurance you/your employer pay for to add better care, sure,that's great. Our health insurance system as is wastes money at a tremendous rate, and the uninsured drain money from us in other ways. However, the insurance industry has the money and lobbyists to protect the status quo. We wind up with uninsured going to Cooper Green's ER, about the most expensive form of care there is, instead of making a simple doctor visit that they can't afford. Most insurance companies don't pay for a child's routine immunizations - they'll pay for the doctor/hospital care from not getting them, but not for the shots. Why? Because they know people will use that, that they'll have to pay out for those shots. They might not have to pay for sick kids, and the actuarys say its cheaper to roll the dice.
No way to run a railroad.
My opinion on American Drug companies:
They are wielding their power in congress to prevent foreign drug companies from selling their products here, which means there is practically no competition. Thus, they can drive their prices up. The drug companies deserve to make a profit, but against competition like every other business (car companies, fast food chains, whatever.) Allow outside competition to come in and you'll see drug prices come down.
You see, just another example of how the government is the problem, not the solution.