Death Panels Of A Single Payer System

[ataraxia]

no one is deprived healthcare in the US. anyone can be treated at any time.

No. Not true. I work in healthcare and I can tell you this is false. Emergency rooms will only treat you if you have an urgent problem. That does not include having diagnoses like cancer if it is not acutely killing you at the time your present. And then they will send you the bill. If you cannot pay then you will be sent to collections. Hospitals then raise their fees on you and me to cover the costs. These costs are astronomical because it is much cheaper to treat high blood pressure with $10 a month pills then it is to treat the ensuing heart attack at 3 AM with a coronary bypass.

This is not what a civilized country should be doing to its citizens.

 

[ataraxia]

Many poor work for companies with decent insurance. And, the very poor pretty much get free care, before Obamacare and after Obamacare. I have known several people, including myself, where those with less money get better insurance than many with lots of money. I managed for a very small retail chain and my health insurance was infinitely more superior and far cheaper than my wife who was an RN at a large hospital chain and my brother who was doing quite well at IBM. In fact, my wife had to turn down her free health insurance so that my insurance would be her primary insurance because it was so much better. It is a large misconception of other countries to think that the poor get no healthcare and only the rich get good healthcare. That is just simply not true. The huge majority of Americans get their health insurance through their employers.

In this last recession, we saw many people lose their jobs and insurance and not be able to afford their medicines or regular doctor visits anymore. So their blood pressure was running high, but so what? I felt fine, and they would hold out until they could get a job again, right? Some suffered catastrophic consequences while waiting. But if it's any comfort, yes the emergency room saw them. Some of them were declared dead there on arrival. I guess that's what they should get for being stupid, lazy, and not working hard and raising themselves up by the bootstraps.

 

[Moderate Right]

What? Your statement makes no sense.

After reading I can see how some might not understand how I worded it. I meant that liberals want single payer healthcare and what happened in the UK can be a result of single payer healthcare. I have more than one chronic disease and have talked with tens of thousands (if not more) of others around the world (including the UK) where their single payer systems don't have the latest treatments available or flat out refuse to treat some such as the baby in this case. I can list many other things about the shoddy care they get in other countries but it is a waste of time with liberals. This thread was merely to point out that liberals deny there would be death panels but this is one case of absolute truth that there was indeed a death panel.

 

[eohrnberger]

That is because they are being lied too and they think that all these rich people are just going to pay for it and they have no clue about how much it is really going to cost them.
all they know is that people keep saying it will be free.

it is far from free. they are going to see a 20-30% healthcare tax on their pay checks.
that doesn't include the private insurance they will still need to cover everything that their so called free government healthcare doesn't
the typical medicare supplement plan runs 250 a month.

that also doesn't include co-pays etc ...

that is if people want to be honest about it which no one wants to do because then no one would vote for it.

I'd have to agree.

You can liken the wealth redistribution schemes inherently baked into single payer health care systems as being very similar to a wealth tax, and we see how well that worked for France.

Rich people are fleeing France

The real problem with France's 75 percent tax

Flight of The Millionaires: Reasons to Give Thanks For The One Percent

Same type of bird, just of a slightly different feather.

 

[eohrnberger]

It has in practice, in every country it has been implemented. Most recently, Thailand instituted a system of universal healthcare. Not only has their public health improved by almost every measure, their lowest poverty rate has also disappeared. How? It turns out, most of those people were going broke trying to care for an uninsured family member who had come down with an unexpected catastrophic illness.


Thailand?s Universal Coverage Scheme

I think the population and the medical challenges that the US and Thailand face are very different, so I don't believe Thialand's solution would work.

 

[Moderate Right]

In this last recession, we saw many people lose their jobs and insurance and not be able to afford their medicines or regular doctor visits anymore. So their blood pressure was running high, but so what? I felt fine, and they would hold out until they could get a job again, right? Some suffered catastrophic consequences while waiting. But if it's any comfort, yes the emergency room saw them. Some of them were declared dead there on arrival. I guess that's what they should get for being stupid, lazy, and not working hard and raising themselves up by the bootstraps.

I almost thought you might be able to have a rational discussion there when you first started out but then it quickly degraded into partisan talking points. Let me know if you want to have civilized discussion without the partisanship but from your previous posts I find that highly unlikely.

 

[MaggieD]

After reading I can see how some might not understand how I worded it. I meant that liberals want single payer healthcare and what happened in the UK can be a result of single payer healthcare. I have more than one chronic disease and have talked with tens of thousands (if not more) of others around the world (including the UK) where their single payer systems don't have the latest treatments available or flat out refuse to treat some such as the baby in this case. I can list many other things about the shoddy care they get in other countries but it is a waste of time with liberals. This thread was merely to point out that liberals deny there would be death panels but this is one case of absolute truth that there was indeed a death panel.

No offense, but for those who choose to refer to "death panels," we all need to understand that they exist at every single insurance company in the world. No insurance company is going to pay for useless treatment. Example...the autoimmune treatment of certain cancers costs $18,000 a pop, generally every other week. Every insurance company is going to want to see a body scan done every three months to make sure the chemo is slowing down cancer growth. As soon as the scan DOESNT show improvement...or at least no growth? The treatment is stopped. Period. If people want to call those decisions death panel decisions, that's up to them. But every single insurance company in the WORLD does the same thing.

Doesn't mean a patient has to stop the treatment if he chooses not to, but it does mean he's going to have to pay for it himself.

 

[ludin]

No. Not true. I work in healthcare and I can tell you this is false. Emergency rooms will only treat you if you have an urgent problem. That does not include having diagnoses like cancer if it is not acutely killing you at the time your present. And then they will send you the bill. If you cannot pay then you will be sent to collections. Hospitals then raise their fees on you and me to cover the costs. These costs are astronomical because it is much cheaper to treat high blood pressure with $10 a month pills then it is to treat the ensuing heart attack at 3 AM with a coronary bypass.

This is not what a civilized country should be doing to its citizens.

You are wrong. emergency rooms must take you no matter how critical you are this is federal law.
yep most services like to be paid but they will still treat you.

your opinion is noted.

you can see most GP's for 100 bucks if you don't have insurance.

 

[Greenbeard]

You are wrong. emergency rooms must take you no matter how critical you are this is federal law.

Federal law requires only that an emergency department (if the hospital participates in Medicare) screen you and stabilize an emergency condition.

(a)Medical screening requirement
In the case of a hospital that has a hospital emergency department, if any individual (whether or not eligible for benefits under this subchapter) comes to the emergency department and a request is made on the individual’s behalf for examination or treatment for a medical condition, the hospital must provide for an appropriate medical screening examination within the capability of the hospital’s emergency department, including ancillary services routinely available to the emergency department, to determine whether or not an emergency medical condition (within the meaning of subsection (e)(1)) exists.

(b)Necessary stabilizing treatment for emergency medical conditions and labor

(1)In general If any individual (whether or not eligible for benefits under this subchapter) comes to a hospital and the hospital determines that the individual has an emergency medical condition, the hospital must provide either—

(A)within the staff and facilities available at the hospital, for such further medical examination and such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition, or
(B)for transfer of the individual to another medical facility in accordance with subsection (c).​

And to be clear about what an emergency condition is:

(1)The term “emergency medical condition” means—

(A)a medical condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in—

(i)placing the health of the individual (or, with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of the woman or her unborn child) in serious jeopardy,
(ii)serious impairment to bodily functions, or
(iii)serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part; or
​

(B)with respect to a pregnant woman who is having contractions—

(i)that there is inadequate time to effect a safe transfer to another hospital before delivery, or
(ii)that transfer may pose a threat to the health or safety of the woman or the unborn child.​

That's what they have to treat. Nothing more.

 

[ludin]

I think the population and the medical challenges that the US and Thailand face are very different, so I don't believe Thialand's solution would work.

I am more of a fan of the Singapore healthcare system. they empower people through HSA's and competition and I mean actual competition.

basically it would work like this. the Government would issue a tax credit every year of say 3k for single and 6k for families.
with this you can buy any qualified medical expense. you can buy a catastrophic plan.

any medical expense counts against your deductible. you pay what you not someone else negotiates with your doctor.

with cash in hand you have more buying power than what the insurance companies can have you can also get lower rates.
next catastrophic plans are for just that huge impacts on your health.

you don't have to worry about pre-existing conditions.

companies can get special deductions for contributions to your HSA over 5k a year.

so you have the one time pump from the tax credit then every pay check you have more building up in your account.

 

[ludin]

Federal law requires only that an emergency department (if the hospital participates in Medicare) screen you and stabilize an emergency condition.

thank you for backing me up. they are required to see and diagnose the issue just as I said. they have to take you regardless of how critical you are.

 

[ludin]

No offense, but for those who choose to refer to "death panels," we all need to understand that they exist at every single insurance company in the world. No insurance company is going to pay for useless treatment. Example...the autoimmune treatment of certain cancers costs $18,000 a pop, generally every other week. Every insurance company is going to want to see a body scan done every three months to make sure the chemo is slowing down cancer growth. As soon as the scan DOESNT show improvement...or at least no growth? The treatment is stopped. Period. If people want to call those decisions death panel decisions, that's up to them. But every single insurance company in the WORLD does the same thing.

Doesn't mean a patient has to stop the treatment if he chooses not to, but it does mean he's going to have to pay for it himself.

yet they do. defensive medicine costs us billions of dollars a year on un-needed services and medical costs.

 

[Greenbeard]

thank you for backing me up. they are required to see and diagnose the issue just as I said. they have to take you regardless of how critical you are.

They don't treat you regardless of how critical you are.

 

[Greenbeard]

I am more of a fan of the Singapore healthcare system. they empower people through HSA's and competition and I mean actual competition.

Price controls are good now?

 

[ludin]

Price controls are good now?

the market will set the price controls. hence competition.

 

[ludin]

They don't treat you regardless of how critical you are.

if I go to the emergency room they will treat me period. you evidently don't know what you are talking about.

 

[Greenbeard]

if I go to the emergency room they will treat me period. you evidently don't know what you are talking about.

Try managing a chronic illness in an emergency department and let me know how it goes.

Perhaps it'll be easier after you've achieved your dream of shifting the vast majority of care to public hospitals.

 

[ataraxia]

thank you for backing me up. they are required to see and diagnose the issue just as I said. they have to take you regardless of how critical you are.

They will not treat your little boy's asthma until he stops breathing. Then you are right, they will see him because he's in critical condition. Yeah, great healthcare.

 

[Moderate Right]

No offense, but for those who choose to refer to "death panels," we all need to understand that they exist at every single insurance company in the world. No insurance company is going to pay for useless treatment. Example...the autoimmune treatment of certain cancers costs $18,000 a pop, generally every other week. Every insurance company is going to want to see a body scan done every three months to make sure the chemo is slowing down cancer growth. As soon as the scan DOESNT show improvement...or at least no growth? The treatment is stopped. Period. If people want to call those decisions death panel decisions, that's up to them. But every single insurance company in the WORLD does the same thing.

Doesn't mean a patient has to stop the treatment if he chooses not to, but it does mean he's going to have to pay for it himself.

The article was about the UK system refusing to help. These people raised over one million dollars to come to the US for treatment because apparently the UK was either unwilling or unable to do the treatment, even for a million dollars.

 

[Manc Skipper]

There is no withholding healthcare from the poor.

Since when have ERs started to turn way those who couldn't pay?
Hasn't happened. Isn't going to happen.

Crappy, overly expensive, subsidized health insurance is not the same thing as healthcare.

Emergency care is not healthcare.

 

[Manc Skipper]

The article was about the UK system refusing to help. These people raised over one million dollars to come to the US for treatment because apparently the UK was either unwilling or unable to do the treatment, even for a million dollars.

He's not being refused help. Clinicians have concluded that the ethical thing to do is let him die. There is no treatment. He has had ten months of the best care in a world class children's hospital, and there's nothing more that can be done for him other than prolong his vegetative state as his condition slowly deteriorates.

Incidentally, his pre-existing condition would not be covered under Trumpcare. It would only be a matter of time before his ICU bills reached his lifetime maximum even if it did.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

There is no withholding healthcare from the poor.

Since when have ERs started to turn way those who couldn't pay?
Hasn't happened. Isn't going to happen.

Crappy, overly expensive, subsidized health insurance is not the same thing as healthcare.

I didn't know you could get chemo at the ER. The ER is only required to temporarily stabilize people that come in without insurance, not provide any primary care or operations that don't immediately save their lives. The "oh the poor can just go to the ER and get free healthcare" argument is a laughably stupid one and I think you should realize you can't build a national healthcare system on it.

 

[molten_dragon]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-tweets-u-apos-155454733.html

This is what liberals want.

No it isn't. There are multiple types of single payer system, and what's going on there really has nothing to do with Britain's healthcare system at all.

 

[Port & Starboard]

Healthcare should be non profit....period!

 

[holbritter]

No offense, but for those who choose to refer to "death panels," we all need to understand that they exist at every single insurance company in the world. No insurance company is going to pay for useless treatment. Example...the autoimmune treatment of certain cancers costs $18,000 a pop, generally every other week. Every insurance company is going to want to see a body scan done every three months to make sure the chemo is slowing down cancer growth. As soon as the scan DOESNT show improvement...or at least no growth? The treatment is stopped. Period. If people want to call those decisions death panel decisions, that's up to them. But every single insurance company in the WORLD does the same thing.

Doesn't mean a patient has to stop the treatment if he chooses not to, but it does mean he's going to have to pay for it himself.

Sounds like the problem is the cost of treatments.