Universal Healthcare! Come on U.S. Get with it.

[UtahBill]

You can read about it all the time. They are not happy with it. people are dying while they wait for appoinments they made 8 months ago. The system is taxed to the limits and they have a population 32,000,000. Now lets compare that to 290,000,000 and your have a disaster oif epic proportions

I can look at other nations like CANADA that have this problem. Did you bother to read about it at all? It is not unheard of for canadaians to come to the US for treatment because they can't get the same quality treatment there and they can get it ina timely manner

Are you 14?
...[/QUOTE]
Are you 15? That adds nothing to the debate. Save it for your teen friends.
I know only one pair of canadians who are in my age bracket, and they go back home for medical care, most recently for breast cancer. I know one much younger than me who uses USA doctors out of his own pocket since he works here, and it is a long drive home, but for big ticket items he plans on going back to Canada. People dying while waiting? Got some links to back that up? People die here because they can't find enough doctors and hospitals to work for free. Again, this is not about the lazy or chronically unemployed, this is about ALL of us. And if you think that your insurance company is going to be there for all your medical problems, better read the fine print in your policy. I know people who pay a bit over $800 per month for family coverage, through their employer! And it will get worse. We have more people than Canada, but we have more doctors and hospitals as well.
I agree that comprehensive and universal health care is highly unlikely here, but that does not mean we can't do something about the big ticket illnesses.
And if we were not so damn busy sticking our noses into the affairs of other countries, (not to mention space programs) we would have plenty of money to better educate and care for our own.
BTW, have your compared the health plan that congress has to yours?

 

[alphieb]

Choas,

My husband has a friend who lives in Canada. He says he receives excellent care.

 

[Calm2Chaos]

Are you 14?
...

Are you 15? That adds nothing to the debate. Save it for your teen friends.
I know only one pair of canadians who are in my age bracket, and they go back home for medical care, most recently for breast cancer. I know one much younger than me who uses USA doctors out of his own pocket since he works here, and it is a long drive home, but for big ticket items he plans on going back to Canada. People dying while waiting? Got some links to back that up? People die here because they can't find enough doctors and hospitals to work for free. Again, this is not about the lazy or chronically unemployed, this is about ALL of us. And if you think that your insurance company is going to be there for all your medical problems, better read the fine print in your policy. I know people who pay a bit over $800 per month for family coverage, through their employer! And it will get worse. We have more people than Canada, but we have more doctors and hospitals as well.
I agree that comprehensive and universal health care is highly unlikely here, but that does not mean we can't do something about the big ticket illnesses.
And if we were not so damn busy sticking our noses into the affairs of other countries, (not to mention space programs) we would have plenty of money to better educate and care for our own.
BTW, have your compared the health plan that congress has to yours?[/QUOTE]

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/cancer.html

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/canfreeandfirst.html

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/canbacklog.html

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/cangetworse.html

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/surgeryabroad.html

http://www.libertyhaven.com/politicsandcurrentevents/healthcarewelfareorsocialsecurity/loveddeath.shtml

http://www.readersdigest.ca/debate.html?a=v&di=176

 

[Calm2Chaos]

Choas,

My husband has a friend who lives in Canada. He says he receives excellent care.

I have found article after article that says differently. And that this system is failing miserably. And may be bankrupt within 10 or so years. People are waiting and dying and the system can't handle them. Again this is a country with 32,000,000. now we try it with 290,000,000...... sorry but that has disaster written all over it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/20/health/main681801.shtml?cmp=EM8705

"Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton.

The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care.

It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario


Sorry.. 48% and they still can't get everything they want? I will be happy to pay a few more dollars to keep me hapy and my child out of pain

 

[alphieb]

I have found article after article that says differently. And that this system is failing miserably. And may be bankrupt within 10 or so years. People are waiting and dying and the system can't handle them. Again this is a country with 32,000,000. now we try it with 290,000,000...... sorry but that has disaster written all over it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/20/health/main681801.shtml?cmp=EM8705

"Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton.

The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care.

It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario


Sorry.. 48% and they still can't get everything they want? I will be happy to pay a few more dollars to keep me hapy and my child out of pain

You will always find negative in the media......

 

[UtahBill]

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/cancer.html

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/canfreeandfirst.html

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/canbacklog.html

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/cangetworse.html

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/surgeryabroad.html

http://www.libertyhaven.com/politicsandcurrentevents/healthcarewelfareorsocialsecurity/loveddeath.shtml

http://www.readersdigest.ca/debate.html?a=v&di=176

So Canada has a shortage of medical staff, and it impacts their version of universal comprehensive health care. Maybe if their government paid their staff better, the problems would not exist?
Knowing their mistakes we can move to avoid them. Their inability to perform is no reason for us to ignore our problems.
And again, I am NOT for the plan that they have, or Britian, or others. Just the big ticket items....

 

[Calm2Chaos]

So Canada has a shortage of medical staff, and it impacts their version of universal comprehensive health care. Maybe if their government paid their staff better, the problems would not exist?
Knowing their mistakes we can move to avoid them. Their inability to perform is no reason for us to ignore our problems.
And again, I am NOT for the plan that they have, or Britian, or others. Just the big ticket items....

48% of there income goes to taxes and 40% of that goes to healthcare... so now taxes are going to have to be more then 50% of your income... Sorry I don't pay anywhere near that now for better quicker service. WTF is there in this for me. It cost me less and it would seem I get better care and service. There is a darkside to everything. NO.. it isn't perfect, but I think it's better then the universal healthcare, with better service and in general a more timely manner. There are no absolulets, but i am going to take the good with the bad. And universal healthcare doesn't seem to be wort the effort. Least not for the working class. It does however benifit the terminally unemployed....

 

[Calm2Chaos]

So Canada has a shortage of medical staff, and it impacts their version of universal comprehensive health care. Maybe if their government paid their staff better, the problems would not exist?
Knowing their mistakes we can move to avoid them. Their inability to perform is no reason for us to ignore our problems.
And again, I am NOT for the plan that they have, or Britian, or others. Just the big ticket items....

You boiled all that down to lack of staff?????You obviously didn't read them. Either way, it's not working. No it isn't completely failed. But it can't handle the present load on it by any stretch. People are leaving the country to get treatment that is newer, safer, better, and most importantly .... SOONER.

 

[Calm2Chaos]

You will always find negative in the media......

:rofl

In the last 5 post I put in half a dozen links. And you give me You will always find negative in the media...

I am sorry but thats a copout. It's repeated over and over again in the Canadian press. Using your argument then how do we ever gage anything? they lose 48% OF THE INCOME TO TAXES... Far more then me. And of that 40% goes to healthcare alone. Yet it's failing. but thats just negative stuff in the media. That my friend is a brilliant rebuttal....:rofl

 

[alphieb]

You boiled all that down to lack of staff?????You obviously didn't read them. Either way, it's not working. No it isn't completely failed. But it can't handle the present load on it by any stretch. People are leaving the country to get treatment that is newer, safer, better, and most importantly .... SOONER.

How in the heck can they afford it? With this blood sucking Healthcare system. By the way, there is a staffing problem here too.....trust me, I'm a Nurse. You are over stating how bad the system is in Canada

 

[UtahBill]

Media hype is most definitely an issue. You can bet that the party not in power will spoon feed stuff to the media in an effort to better their position during the next election.
True, I did not read all your links, but my Canadian friend who is my age is a retired dentist, and he says it is inadequate staff more than any other issue, and that poor pay in Canada drives many of them south. We also get medical staff here from the Phillipines, Central and South America, Pakistan, India, etc. We have plenty of Doctors here. We must have, as they can all afford to take an afternoon off every week to play golf.

 

[Calm2Chaos]

How in the heck can they afford it? With this blood sucking Healthcare system. By the way, there is a staffing problem here too.....trust me, I'm a Nurse. You are over stating how bad the system is in Canada

I am not overstating anything. I am giving you links to canadian papers and others that are saying the system s failing.

They are paying almost HALF there income into taxes and of that 40% is going to healthcare. And after all tat tere still having problems. I don't pay that much now for healthcare, why would I want universal healthcare that wil cost me more and impact the quality?

It's not al about the staffing problems. Thats evident at least to me. You can only staff what you can afford. You want more staff increase taxes to 60% then.

Medical care and breakthroughs, medical research, medical trial, drug development, drug research etc etc... Your losing a lot of this in the universal system it would seem to me. The money is just not there to fund this research. Why would Glaxo Smith Kline pay 800 million dollars to develop a new drug if they couldn't sell it? Our current system is not perfect. But I don't see any upside to Universal Healthcare

 

[bandaidwoman]

According to WHO listing of rankings "Getting the best bang for your buck IN MEDICINE " so to speak, France is number 1. US 37 and Canada 33. (We were outranked by Chile, Morocco, Singapore, Columbia etc.) . http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html

I personally think our medical system gets outranked by countries that provide some sort of universal health coverage because they are better at preventative care and maintenance of chronic diseases. However, if you have a heart attack in Canada, it is one of the worst for surviving a heart attack.


http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/05/04/sci-tech/compare040504

Yet, In Canada they do better in terms of childhood leukemia survival rates and so the tit for tat goes on.


And I can personally attest that when I worked at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, 1/3 of the patients were from Canada who were not able to get the care they desired and sometimes needed.
Both our systems (Canada and US) have our problems.

What this means is we can learn different things from each other in terms of how we can improve our own healthcare in our respective countries. But, the worst thing we Americans can do right now is refuse to admit we have a problem and we don't need fixing.

 

[StillPhil]

I am not overstating anything. I am giving you links to canadian papers and others that are saying the system s failing.

Did you even read the articles I originally posted For Universal Healthcare?

Our current system is not perfect. But I don't see any upside to Universal Healthcare

I think its interesting that extremely hard working United States citizens, the ones who put in 40+ hours a week, the ones who don't get vacation, sick, or personal pay, the ones who work and work and work for relatively nothing, just to squeak by are defined by you as "chronically unemployed and the forever lazy".

:doh

 

[Bergslagstroll]

I tried to start a thread to inform about the cost about health care, and from responses here I think people should have been intersted of reading that post.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/showthread.php?t=4278

Because contrary to that I presume many americans think you pay almost the same or more tax for your private healtcare (depending on how you mesure it) then we do for our public system.

 

[Calm2Chaos]

According to WHO listing of rankings "Getting the best bang for your buck IN MEDICINE " so to speak, France is number 1. US 37 and Canada 33. (We were outranked by Chile, Morocco, Singapore, Columbia etc.) . http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html


I personally think our medical system gets outranked by countries that provide some sort of universal health coverage because they are better at preventative care and maintenance of chronic diseases. However, if you have a heart attack in Canada, it is one of the worst for surviving a heart attack.


http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/05/04/sci-tech/compare040504

Yet, In Canada they do better in terms of childhood leukemia survival rates and so the tit for tat goes on.


And I can personally attest that when I worked at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, 1/3 of the patients were from Canada who were not able to get the care they desired and sometimes needed.
Both our systems (Canada and US) have our problems.

What this means is we can learn different things from each other in terms of how we can improve our own healthcare in our respective countries. But, the worst thing we Americans can do right now is refuse to admit we have a problem and we don't need fixing.

It's tough to compare a country of 290,000,000 people to a country with a couple of million. No immigration problems, no millitary needs, no major drains on there economy. Sorry but your comparing apples to oranges and it makes no sense. Although I have no doubt it works for a small country with a small population and no real outside draw on it's economy. I think you get into a few bigger problems with larger industrialized nations with large populations

 

[Calm2Chaos]

Did you even read the articles I originally posted For Universal Healthcare?


I think its interesting that extremely hard working United States citizens, the ones who put in 40+ hours a week, the ones who don't get vacation, sick, or personal pay, the ones who work and work and work for relatively nothing, just to squeak by are defined by you as "chronically unemployed and the forever lazy".

:doh

WTF are you talking about?

I thought the word unemployed was a realatively easy word to understand. If your working for a living that would make you employed. And as an employeed person I don't want to pay 50% of my income to taxes. I have healthcoverage and it cost me no where near that... Are you being sarcastic or just thick?

 

[Calm2Chaos]

I tried to start a thread to inform about the cost about health care, and from responses here I think people should have been intersted of reading that post.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/showthread.php?t=4278

Because contrary to that I presume many americans think you pay almost the same or more tax for your private healtcare (depending on how you mesure it) then we do for our public system.

I pay 33% in taxes. I have health insurance. I see the doctor I choose when I choose to see him. I don't wait for appointments, or have to get on a list to see a specialist. Canada pays upwards of 48% in taxes.. And thats for a country of only 35,000,000. I just don't believe it would be a viable solution in the US

 

[UtahBill]

WTF are you talking about?

I thought the word unemployed was a realatively easy word to understand. If your working for a living that would make you employed. And as an employeed person I don't want to pay 50% of my income to taxes. I have healthcoverage and it cost me no where near that... Are you being sarcastic or just thick?

Not all workers have benefits.
Got any idea what percentage of employers either offer NO medical insurance, or a medical insurance plan that is incredibly expensive? What does your employer charge you for family medical insurance?
http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml

 

[Calm2Chaos]

Not all workers have benefits.
Got any idea what percentage of employers either offer NO medical insurance, or a medical insurance plan that is incredibly expensive? What does your employer charge you for family medical insurance?
http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml

I need my money, and I don't need it syphoned off for universal healthcare. A 18 year old working at McDonalds is more then likely not going to get insurance, yet he will fall under the unisured umbrella. It doesn't matter if they opt to have it or not. They all still fall under the same umbrella. What about those that don't want to work for it or voluntarilly do not get it for various reason? You can easily spin this either way. I can't give you numbers but i am guessing there are not a lot of carrer positions with comapnies that do not offer healthcare of some sort. Now thats not to say there isn't some that don't. And if the company that they work for does not offer it there are other alternatives or even better move to a better company

 

[alphieb]

I need my money, and I don't need it syphoned off for universal healthcare. A 18 year old working at McDonalds is more then likely not going to get insurance, yet he will fall under the unisured umbrella. It doesn't matter if they opt to have it or not. They all still fall under the same umbrella. What about those that don't want to work for it or voluntarilly do not get it for various reason? You can easily spin this either way. I can't give you numbers but i am guessing there are not a lot of carrer positions with comapnies that do not offer healthcare of some sort. Now thats not to say there isn't some that don't. And if the company that they work for does not offer it there are other alternatives or even better move to a better company

Most companies use temporary agencies for their employees, in that case they do not have to pay them benefits. It is not like it was in the 50's anymore. Employers that do offer benefits charge an arm and a leg for health care. You still never stated how much you pay for Insurance.

 

[UtahBill]

I need my money, and I don't need it syphoned off for universal healthcare. A 18 year old working at McDonalds is more then likely not going to get insurance, yet he will fall under the unisured umbrella. It doesn't matter if they opt to have it or not. They all still fall under the same umbrella. What about those that don't want to work for it or voluntarilly do not get it for various reason? You can easily spin this either way. I can't give you numbers but i am guessing there are not a lot of carrer positions with comapnies that do not offer healthcare of some sort. Now thats not to say there isn't some that don't. And if the company that they work for does not offer it there are other alternatives or even better move to a better company

Those who don't want to work don't get my sympathy either. I say draft them either into the military of the county road cleaning crew.
HOWEVER, as I said, and as the link indicates, employers are moving away from retirement AND medical benefits. That is how they save money while giving you a pay raise at the same time. We are going to be on our own for everything eventually. Part of GM's downfall was paying medical benefits to its retirees.
So the answer for you and me and many others is to make better use of the money we have, because the picnic is over. We have to compete with foreign countries who offer NO benefits and pay a fraction of what we get.
The American dream has just been downsized, and there is more to come.

 

[bandaidwoman]

I need my money, and I don't need it syphoned off for universal healthcare. A 18 year old working at McDonalds is more then likely not going to get insurance, yet he will fall under the unisured umbrella. It doesn't matter if they opt to have it or not. They all still fall under the same umbrella. What about those that don't want to work for it or voluntarilly do not get it for various reason? You can easily spin this either way. I can't give you numbers but i am guessing there are not a lot of carrer positions with comapnies that do not offer healthcare of some sort. Now thats not to say there isn't some that don't. And if the company that they work for does not offer it there are other alternatives or even better move to a better company

Employer sponsored health care is disappearing fast in this country. http://www.allhealth.org/sourcebook2004/pdfs/chapter2.pdf#search='employer%20provided%20health%20insurance%20disappearing'


It will no longer be the norm. As a business owner myself, I can tell you purchasing health insurance coverage for my 40 + employees is one of the biggest overheads I have. If I did not feel morally obligated, I would not keep offering it. As for keeping employees, it only keeps the older ones who realize the value of insrance coverage. I had two young employees leave to make $1.25 more an hour with a competitor (who did not provide insurance coverage and thus could offer a higher salary.)

 

[Calm2Chaos]

Most companies use temporary agencies for their employees, in that case they do not have to pay them benefits. It is not like it was in the 50's anymore. Employers that do offer benefits charge an arm and a leg for health care. You still never stated how much you pay for Insurance.

For realitively unskilled help in smal companies they use a temp service. But then again you know this going in. If your looking for benefits then don't work temp help. However MOST companies do not use tewmps for there skilled or semi skilled positions. And MOST medium or large companies don't use temp workers for anything other then Brief temp work, or covering ful time employess vacation time. Why does it matter what I pay for insurance? I pay for it and it ain't cheap. But it's also not driving m e out of house and home either.

 

[alphieb]

For realitively unskilled help in smal companies they use a temp service. But then again you know this going in. If your looking for benefits then don't work temp help. However MOST companies do not use tewmps for there skilled or semi skilled positions. And MOST medium or large companies don't use temp workers for anything other then Brief temp work, or covering ful time employess vacation time. Why does it matter what I pay for insurance? I pay for it and it ain't cheap. But it's also not driving m e out of house and home either.

Eli Lilly and Comapny uses a temp agency for college grads. that majored in chemistry. Only very few get hired on permanent