Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
stuck at a stalmate
barbarians at the gate
the season of hate
i'm sure i can find something to dislike, given time. till then, why look at history? why not start fresh? (it's the OBAMAWAY!)
Single Payer Heathcare
I'm one of those strongly leaning in the direction of Single Payer, at least under a system where the doctors are still autonomous. What kind of recourse is available for mistakes is dependent on how the legislation gets written. My main compliant is that current system is too inefficient for the level of care it provides. I'd rather fight the bureaucratic motive of government than the profit motive of business. Litigation is often a pyrrhic victory. I don't remember any of the three dem plans dealing with malpractice insurance and weeding out bad doctors.
My understanding is that we currently pay about 15% of GDP in healthcare, but France and Germany only pay around 10% - 11%. The US may still have the coolest toys and most innovative techniques, but we're falling behind on basic quality of life measurements for the population as a whole.
U.S. health care spending is expected to increase at similar levels for the next decade reaching $4.2 TRILLION in 2016, or 20 percent of GDP
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml
since i think most people. basically, want it. i think since the gov't would be taking over the insurance system, it would take over the tort system as well (arbitration, not litigation). it probably would work better for most, but not all. i also think that it would probably be a floor-level health care system, better than we have now, but not boutique health care with very expensive tests, transplants and such. it's something none of us really know about and i'm looking forward to what OBAMA promised, a symposium on C-SPAN determining what it should be (including insurance people, hospital people, doctors, foreign administrators, pharma all concerned people - it's a Big Problem and needs Big Ed)
I'll tell you, everyone's for limiting and rationalizing health care so that 'all' can have some, until they're the ones who are turned down.
Canada, the UK, France and Germany are all democracies.. If socialized medicine was so unpopular in those countries the electorate would by now have voted to get rid of it.
Unlike in the US there does not appear to be any great groundswell of public support for changing the system whereby medical services are delivered in those countries.
In all those countries it is quite possible to go to a private doctor outside of the government provided services, no one is being flatly denied anything they can pay for or might have private insurance to cover.
Everyone hates lawyers until they need to sue someone then it's "Kill Him!!!"
I've never sued anyone in my life and yet I do not hate lawyers, I recognize them as a necessary part of a society which operates by means of the rule of law.
I do know a few lawyer jokes though:
Q: Why do lawyers wear neckties?
A: To keep their foreskins from sliding back up over their heads.
Q: How can you tell the difference between a dead possum in the road and a dead lawyer in the road?
A: There are skid marks before the possum.
Then there is the old joke about why lab rats are being replaced with lawyers.. The lab assistants were becoming emotionally attached to the rats and there are some things even rats won't do.
You appear to be projecting your own anger on others that do not share that anger, your posts seem very angry and vituperative almost without exception.
Honestly, I find these message boards quite disturbing. I applaud them for providing opportunities to create bonding social capital, but many of the posts are quite negative and offensive, detracting from any social benefit they potentially create.
I have to ask if you have ever listened to right wing talk radio?
Or even better, have you ever visited a site such as Little Green Footballs, Red State or Free Republic?
Online discussions of damn near anything tend to get considerably more vituperative than equivalent face to face discussions.
But in my case at least, it is online discussions or nothing, there is no one I know in real life who is either interested in or willing to engage me in discussions on the subjects in which I'm interested, politics being just one of them.
or at least by his lights - you don't think so. that's humor for you. these threads are about obama and hillary. surely you can find angrier more vituperative folks than electro. again, as i've said before, electro and i are on different sides of the electoral fence - i don't want to be put in the position of defending him, i just have a different impression.
Under most proposals for single payer in this country the only thing the government would be taking over is the coverage. Nobody (at least nobody I have seen) is clamoring for them to employ all the doctors as well. So, there are a few options:
1. Sue - although this depends on how the government decides to deal with tort reform for the medical and pharmeceutical industries if they ever go this route. Note that in Europe, they get things like drugs approved faster than we do, but if there are safety/health impacts from the drugs, there is very little payout if you sue. But, I don't know about suing for additional procedures.
2. Pay for it yourself, if you have the money, because most doctors, at least those that are still in private practice, will be able to accept cash, or credit cards. Still. So, I suspect that the great fear of many of the well-off in this country, that their access to health care will be diminished under any kind of health care reform, isn't going to come true, at least as long as the doctors don't work for the government. I'm not saying that anyone here has this fear, just that I believe it is out there.
However, for all the fears about the government refusing to pay, I've seen more Canadians shocked at my private health insurance refusing to cover what the policy says it will cover, when the doctor says it's necessary, than any who told me that it's been a problem for them. Because the insurance company simply says it isn't necessary, no matter what the doctor says. I'm sure there would still be some of this with single-payer, but less, if the Canadian experience is any example.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
