I hate hospitals!!!

My mom called me this morning and asked me if I could drive her to the hospital because she was not feeling well and her Dr. could not see her until next week. So I pick her up and we drive to the HP. We have been here now for 3 hours and I understand the long wait because they are swamped.

What pissed me off is this "admissions / records" woman just came into the ER room my mom is in and had the nerve to argue with my sick mother about her insurance. They told her that they do not accept her insurance (she has one of the largest insurance companies in the US.. Blue Cross Blue Sheild) and that she needed to give then a card from another insurance company.... WHo has 2 insurance companies? So it took me asking to speak with her supervisor before she would quit badgering my mom about an insurance card. The supervisor confirmed that they do accept her insurance (duh shes used it in this very hospital like 4 times this year). So after that was cleared up the nurse came in and apologized to my mother for the original records womans attitude. She said that the hospital administration is freaking out about the proposed health care reform and has its records / claims staff pushing patients hard to pay in cash / credit card upfront for their services and to have their Ins company reimburse them later.

I almost lost my cool for the first time in 3 months when this woman told my mother that she was lying about them taking her insurance. Who in the hell argues with a sick woman who can barely speak or pick herself up to talk to you? This is one of the only times you will ever hear me say I envy Canada and the UK. You guys have your heath care system almost perfect.

:D

You also envy Canada because it's just generally a great place to live. We also have great beer, better hockey teams, etc etc. ;)

Live in one for a while and see how you like it.

I'm looking at having major shoulder surgery before the end of the year, unfortunately. If the doctors have their way about it, I'll lose all my teeth somewhere around the same time. And, there's being fit with new knee braces...

I ****ing hate hospitals.

Single payer health care is an awful idea. Our country spent nearly a trillion dollars to make sure the banks stayed in business. This bill would effectively put every health insurance company out of business in the next eight years. What's that going to do for our GDP?

Research has shown that as countries move toward socialism their GDP decreases. A fully socialist nation's GDP is only 60% of a capitalist's. If I had my choice, I would rather be capitalist and have the government take 40% of the GDP in taxes before I choose socialism and have them take some portion of that 60% in taxes.

What's the problem with our current health care? I will tell you.

#1: Despite the fact that people supposedly value their lives, they are not willing to spend any money at the doctor's office to preserve it. They think that because they are alive that it is their right to have their life preserved at any cost, no matter who pays for it. While I believe that the right to life is a basic human right, at the point that your life is being preserved in a way that interferes with the course of nature, that you need to pay.

#2: Medicaid and Medicare cost the doctors money. With food stamps, the grocer will get the full price of what is sold plus 5% for his trouble. For doctors, the amount the government pays them for Medicaid and Medicare is less than the cost of paying their employees and the supplies used. WTF!

#3: Only a few people have health insurance. People who have health insurance fall into a couple categories. They either have some ongoing disease that will cost them $600 a month in meds, so they are willing to pay $400 a month for health insurance. This is not insurance! Look up the meaning of the word!

This $200 a month loss is made up for the other people who have health care. These people have jobs and it gets paid by their employer. They are usually fairly healthy and their health care costs a barely anything, but should something big happen in their lives they will be covered.

The last group is the same group as the responsible people above, only now they are getting older. It is a fact that more money is spent on health care in the last five years of a person's life than the rest of their life combined. While this may seem like wasted money to the government that pays for Medicare and to the the tax payers that pay into Medicare. This is important treatment that leads to huge advances in medicine. It is the reason that from 1900 to today average life expectancy has increased from 47 to 78.

#4 When people don't pay for something themselves they become disinterested in the process. People pay tons of money at the dentist, they pay for it themselves most of the time and the dentist usually has a policy of getting paid up front. Yet somehow we think that the doctor should be free. Your doctor went to medical school, they did their residency, why don't we value their knowledge and think they should get paid for it? It is absurd that we will pay $1000 at the dentist and be okay with it but get pissed about a $100 doctors visit twice a year or a $20 co-pay.

Where Obama has it wrong.

#1 Single payer system. This would lead to a decrease in jobs in the private sector which would lead to more tax money needed to support private jobs that are being replaced by government jobs.

#2 End of life counseling. The elderly will be given end-of-life counseling more or less telling them to give up and not cost the country tons of money trying to keep them alive. This does not lead to new breakthroughs in medicine that increase life expectancy over time. We will see a cease in innovation because doctors will be told what sort of medicine they can and can't do.

#3 The government has to pay for it. I absolutely agree that everyone should be insured, but it should not be paid for by the government. The system right now is horribly broken (as shown above). So what do we do? Well, how about the government legislates instead of pretending to be a business? They could pass a law that in effect says that you must have health insurance, but that it is up to you to get it.

What would all this do?

Well, car insurance is affordable because everyone has insurance. You have to have insurance by law if you own a car. The same goes for health insurance. With 50 million more people paying into the system, the health insurance companies can compete for business. This competitive market drives prices down and increases competitive innovation. It is also important to note that the 50 million that are currently uninsured are healthy, so they represent a market that will pay into the system for a long time before they ever get a payout. (This is how insurance is supposed to work! It's called insurance for a reason!)

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The 50 million that are uninsured usually don't have health insurance at their job or they are healthy. Health insurance companies usually pay for one or two well checks a year. Why? Because they understand that early detection is going to cost them less in the long run than the huge amounts of money an emergency room visit, ambulance ride, or life-flight will cost. Preventative medicine is also where we should be investing the most money if we are going to increase the current life expectancy from 78 to 200 or above. Investing in end of life prevention research has done a lot of good, but isn't the best investment for living well to 78 or more.

I would also not be opposed to this being subsidized by the government to help those that can't afford to pay it themselves. This would keep the individual invested in the process (they will be paying something, so they will want to shop around for the best coverage for their dollar). This will also lead to doctors getting paid what they deserve (think about it, they take a loss on medicaid and medicare, so they have to overcharge somewhere else to make up for it). If the government ceases medicaid and medicare, and moves to subsidized private insurance, it will likely cost the same but the doctor will not be taking a loss.

Conclusion
Keeping insurance private, but legislating that we all must buy insurance will keep the GDP high, which means more jobs and more spending money, but also means that the insurance companies will have more money from the market that will make health insurance into insurance again, instead of a health care plan. Keeping the companies private also encourages innovation, which keeps costs low. The government never manages to keep costs low.

How do I know this? Well, internet research for one. Also, my dad is a doctor. He is a very good doctor and cares about the health of his patients, not about making money. This is why we are not rich. In order to make money from Medicaid and Medicare doctors will schedule ten minute visits every two weeks in order to get the most from the government. Private insurance usually catches this dishonest crap. My dad doesn't do this because he thinks that the system can be fixed, and that the solution starts at the individual level. Obama said that doctors get money from referrals, so they refer you all around town getting money every time. He couldn't be more misinformed. Doctors never ever make money by referring you to a specialist. Think of what that would do! You would always get referred for every little thing. There would only be specialists, and the doctors would do nothing but refer you to the right person and make money all day.

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You guys have your heath care system almost perfect.

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Hmm, unfortunately not true. I'll be honest, there's a middle ground there. Free health care is great, but the truth is that everyone suffers a little bit because it isn't a business. When it isn't a business, there's automatically some things that go. They're not worried about losing your custom, they're not worried about making you comfortable, or going out of business. Perhaps, crucially, they need to cut corners and save money wherever possible. In a business, there's certain things you just wouldn't cut, such as maintenance on the building.

An analogy would serve my point best, as having the luck I have, I've sampled the healthcare in Russia, the US, and the UK. Russia also has an NHS style system, but they're often underfunded. Doctors have to scrape by with what they have, and it tends towards a sort of cowboy attitude that actually serves them pretty well. Over here in the UK, we have better facilities and funding, but there's really patchy quality. There's a lot of nice new hospitals getting built, but there's a lot of things that they do to save money; for example, the people who take blood tests at my local hospital are hired on short-term contracts and have no experience at all. They're shown the blood-taking procedure and they're let loose.

In the US, on the other hand, I was admitted to hospital in California and seen right away. I was expecting to be badgered for my insurance, but they weren't fussed and took my details before they let me go. The nurse assured me that I'd be treated first, even if I didn't have the means to pay. Maybe that was just a nice hospital. However, when I went to get my prescription, the pharmacy claimed to not recognize my insurer, which was AIG (I am led to believe the largest insurer in the US). She phoned the company who told me I would have to pay for my own medicine then submit a claim form. Here's an interesting e-mail exchange we had when I returned from the US.

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Originally Posted by AIG

Hello. I hope all is well and you have happily adjusted to your new location.

This email is to let you know your membership with AIG International Services will expire on 11/28/08. The expiration of your AIG-IS membership will not affect any relationships you have already established with our preferred vendors. You are welcome to continue these services as long as you need them.

The expiration of your membership will impact the establishment of any new relationships through our program. It also means you will no longer have access to the membership benefits you have enjoyed over the past year.

Please let me know if there is anything I can assist you with during these final weeks of your current membership. It would be my pleasure to continue to serve as your counselor should you choose to renew. If you have any questions, you may call me at 1-800-******* or dial collect at **********.

I hope you have a great day. It has been a pleasure speaking with you during your relocation.

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My reply:

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Originally Posted by Dave

I am no longer in the USA. Thank you.

You might like to know that the chance of me using your service again is low. As happy as I am with the Car Insurance, I was extremely upset to discover that the medical insurance would not pay for my prescription. When I was in California, I was taken to hospital for severe dehydration due to a medical condition. After the hospital discharged me, I went to the pharmacist to pick up the prescribed anti-nausea and antibiotic drugs.

The pharmacist claimed that you weren't in her computer, so I told her to phone your company: when she did, she was told that I'd have to pay for the medication myself, and send the receipts to AIG International.

The cost of the medication was $250. Was I really to be expected, as a traveller in a foreign country, to have that kind of money to spare? My entire budget for that particular trip was just under $1000.

Perhaps I didn't read the given materials closely enough, but it seems that this system is configured entirely to prevent people from claiming on their insurance-at any cost. There are likely to be hundreds of your customers who were forced to do what I did. I had to pass on the medication that would have eased my pain, leaving me feeling extremely ill for a number of days.

As a person who's had extensive abdominal surgery, the medication was very important for my wellbeing. If this state of dehydration had returned, the results could have been catastrophic for me.

Simply put, the manner in which your company operates put my wellbeing at risk.

As such, it's extremily unlikely I'll use you again.

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Which one is best? I'm not sure. Although it is worth pointing out that according to Wikipedia, the serial killer with the highest number of confirmed kills is Harold Shipman, a UK doctor who poisoned OAPs.

I think both systems have their flaws and benefits. I'm not sure which one is best. But I can say that both the UK and the US have preconceptions about what the others healthcare system is like, and for the most part those preconceptions are falsehoods.

-Dave

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Originally Posted by DaveW

Hmm, unfortunately not true. I'll be honest, there's a middle ground there. Free health care is great, but the truth is that everyone suffers a little bit because it isn't a business. When it isn't a business, there's automatically some things that go. They're not worried about losing your custom, they're not worried about making you comfortable, or going out of business. Perhaps, crucially, they need to cut corners and save money wherever possible. In a business, there's certain things you just wouldn't cut, such as maintenance on the building.

-Dave

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Exaclty! Looks like we may have been writing at the same time. When health care becomes a service instead of a business there are big downsides. There is the cost, which is paid by tax payers. I think it is important to note that the total number of government employees in the US in 1946 was six million, which was %4.25 of the population at the time. Today there are almost 20 million government employees, which is %6.667 of the population. This means that in 1946 it took the tax dollars of 24 people to employ that one person. Today that number is 15. The more people are employed by the government, the fewer people there are outside the government to pay for them. This is exactly what lowers GDP and increases taxes. We all end up with less money.

Couple of clarifications and downright arguments....

1. The health care system in the UK is NOT free.... We all pay for it through taxes - specifically National Insurance Contributions which we pay on top of Income Tax - as well as this we have to pay a contribution towards medicines - sometimes that contribution is nowhere near the actual cost and sometimes it is radically higher - we pay exactly the same small fee for a couple of aspirin as for a 6 month course of very expensive meds. Irrespective, free it is NOT.

2. Having insurance solely run by private companies means that a chunk of it goes elsewhere - these companies do make a profit (and no, I don't claim they shouldn't - they're businesses after all) so having ALL healthcare paid for by a compulsory private insurance will only really benefit those companies - people who can afford it and already pay it will see little or no difference, people who can't afford it will just end up having to either cut back on other things which may well be essentials, or break the law - neither is a good thing.

3. Saying people being employed by the government reduces taxes isnt entirely true - unless, of course, govt employees are paid tax free - otherwise those people are still paying income tax, sales tax and all the other little taxes here and there with their pay.

4. As for insurance companies trying to prevent a claim at any cost - of course they bloody do - they're a business - businesses make profit by either a, increasing income faster than expenditure, b, decreasing expenditure faster than income. Insurance companies main outgoing has to be cost of claims so you're damned skippy they're going to use any excuse not to pay out.

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Originally Posted by slaveofconvention

Couple of clarifications and downright arguments....

1. The health care system in the UK is NOT free.... We all pay for it through taxes - specifically National Insurance Contributions which we pay on top of Income Tax - as well as this we have to pay a contribution towards medicines - sometimes that contribution is nowhere near the actual cost and sometimes it is radically higher - we pay exactly the same small fee for a couple of aspirin as for a 6 month course of very expensive meds. Irrespective, free it is NOT.

2. Having insurance solely run by private companies means that a chunk of it goes elsewhere - these companies do make a profit (and no, I don't claim they shouldn't - they're businesses after all) so having ALL healthcare paid for by a compulsory private insurance will only really benefit those companies - people who can afford it and already pay it will see little or no difference, people who can't afford it will just end up having to either cut back on other things which may well be essentials, or break the law - neither is a good thing.

3. Saying people being employed by the government reduces taxes isnt entirely true - unless, of course, govt employees are paid tax free - otherwise those people are still paying income tax, sales tax and all the other little taxes here and there with their pay.

4. As for insurance companies trying to prevent a claim at any cost - of course they bloody do - they're a business - businesses make profit by either a, increasing income faster than expenditure, b, decreasing expenditure faster than income. Insurance companies main outgoing has to be cost of claims so you're damned skippy they're going to use any excuse not to pay out.

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1. I never made any comments on this so I'll ignore

2. Yes. Insurance companies make money. They are a business so they have to. They do, however, provide the same coverage or better for the same cost. You miss the point where health insurance as a law means that the health insurance companies get 17% of the population paying in that never did before. This will lead to decreased insurance costs.

Example: I am 23 and at little to no risk of serious illness. I get on my motorcycle and get in a bad accident. I am life-flighted to Seattle and am saved, but rack up $250,000 in bills overnight. I have no insurance, so most of this cost is paid in medical coupons (which are meant to be used by those that actually need them) and then the hospital writes off the rest at their loss. In any case, they would never get that money from me.

If you think that doesn't happen you are wrong! That is a real world example.

Now, take 50 million people without insurance, but who are like me. I don't think I need it now, so I don't pay. I'll pay when I think I may need it. It will be a few years. If those 50 million people like me paid even $10 a month it would represent $500 million dollars a month of income at almost no increased cost to the insurance company. Why? Because the people who are not insured today are, for the most part, healthy! $10 a month is a price anyone can afford and $500 million a month is an income that every health insurance company is going to fight for. The hospital wouldn't have to write off the cost, a cost that they have to then make up by charging more to the responsible people who carry insurance.

What if this was a heart attack or cancer? Early detection/prevention is going to cost way less than what it takes to save the person later. If those 50 million people were insured then this would decrease medical costs and insurance costs would lower for everyone even more.

3. I never said that people being employed by the government decreased taxes. In fact, I said the opposite. It decreases GDP and increases taxes.

If I work for the government and have a government job, but pay taxes, then what am I really doing? I get paid by A and then give A some of the money they gave me. Next month A will pay me from the money I gave them. Where did the money come from in the first place? Getting paid by the government and paying taxes is essentially paying yourself. It takes those outside the governmental system to support it. This is why, like I said before, the more socialist a country becomes, the lower the DGP is and the higher the taxes are. This is also why paying attention to that privately employed to governmentally employed ratio is important. This is also a good argument for #2. Privately employed people also pay taxes, but those taxes aren't used to pay themselves again. A chunk of money goes elsewhere no matter what, so it might as well be a smaller chuck that supports itself.

4. Again, I never made any arguments about this, so I'll ignore again.

Being a part of the U.S. medical system I have some insight into this from the other side, but probably not a whole lot more than any of you. It is a very complicated business. I would agree with Dave's comments on it being difficult to say which is better, since better is not clearly defined here. It would seem that no society has really gotten this figured out, and most of the people here in the U.S. that are marching on Washington with these highly inflamed opinions don't even truly understand the bill in question. I don't think I even understand it, and it directly affects my future employment.
As for the business factor in health insurance, again, a tricky debate. I agree with all of the comments put for thus far. As a business it does benefit from the free market of capitalism which tends to drive results-based decisions. And it is true that since bottom lines are directly affected by policy payouts these corporations (who's board of directors have a legal responsibility to maximize shareholder returns) have a financial and many of them would argue legal duty to attempt denial first and settlement after all else fails. I think in the recent history of the US, this relationship has been fairly successful. Of course there will always be horror stories but on average Americans have been quite satisfied with their medical coverage. Things are changing though, and even over the short period of time that I have been working as a medical student and now resident physician I have seen an increase in the level of aggressiveness that the insurance companies deny coverage. My own health care premiums have doubled in the last 6 years to nearly that of my rent and I'm single. Many of my patients are not insurable and couldn't afford the premiums even if they were approved. I am also seeing a larger number than ever of people being dropped from their coverage for ridiculous reasons. We had a 9 year old girl who was denied health insurance because she failed to mention to the company that she had a pre-existing condition. The condition was Crohn's disease (anyone who knows someone with any sort of inflammatory bowel disorder knows that these people really need health care). The kicker, she was dropped at the time of diagnosis! How in the hell was she supposed to report a disease that she was unaware of??? I think we are going to see lots of changes coming soon, at least I hope so. The cost of medical education is such that you have to make a great deal of money just to pay off the loans. However, American doctors are probably paid too well all things considered.

Wow I sparked a nice debate. First things first. My mother has the flu for the 4th time this year.

Ok on to the debate.

I am 100% pure capitalist. I believe that business should be allowed to make a profit with out government involvement. Socialism is almost as bad as communism in the aspect that it does the business owners and the GDP no good. My statement about Canada and the UK's heath care system being almost perfect was based on the grounds that some sectary would not be badgering my mother about insurance in one of those systems.

My mother has pretty nice health care. She has 80/20 medical with 85/15 medicine coverage and her company will reimburse her the 15% she had to pay out of pocket. Her dental coverage is 100% after a $10 copay for up to $25,000 a year, and her vision insurance is the same. 100% coverage after a $15 copay up to $18,000 a year. On top of all this she gets supplemental coverage (think like aflac) provided to her for $5 a month. The emergency room visit this morning would cost an uninsured person about $2500 and only cost my mother $63 after her insurance and supplemental. I think she pays something like $60 a month total for all this coverage.

I think its just kinda ****ty for the HP to be hounding patients now because of a proposed bill making its way through congress when in the past a simple bill and follow up phone call did the job just fine. My mother has been to that HP many times in the last 10 years. She averages 5 times a year for severe asthma attacks and 1-2 times for other issues when her Dr is booked up. She has a $0 balance with the hospital and has always paid on time in full. She sat in the waiting room almost 2 hours before she was taken to triage and then 20 min before being moved to a room. Then a nurse walked in, took her BP, and listened to her take one breath. About 25min later the Dr walked in said "how are you feeling" to which my mother replied "sick". The Dr. said "well you have the flu" and my mother asked about H1N1 and the Dr. said "the chances of that are low and we are not going to do a blood test to check" then he said "do you have health insurance" and she asked why and he said "just curious" he proceeded to write her a script for tamiflu, an antibiotic, and a cough syrup. He never looked at her throat, listened to her breathe, or did any diagnosing. He based his diagnosis on what the nurse came in and did. That's unacceptable imo. When the nurse came in to discharge my mother I lied and told her I was just accepted into the nursing program at a local college and asked her what she was and she was just a LPN.

I took the time this afternoon to write a three page letter to the state medical board about the events of this afternoon and requested an investigation into the current diagnosing practices at the local hospital. I feel that a nurse should never diagnose a patient. That is why we have doctors. I as well as my mother felt that she was just pushed aside into a generalization or group of recent diagnosis.

That is entirely unacceptable medicine. Doc's do rely on nurses quite a bit to get the baseline vitals and background, but no doc should have that minimal a role in his/her patient's care. Flu 4 times in one year? Not likely, though remotely possible.

My dad has been out of medical school for 20 years and still has over $100,000 in student loans. I've worked at his practice for over eight years and our dinner conversation has often centered around his work. My mom is an electronic medical records trainer. She travels around the country and gets practices up to speed on EMR. She was the manager of my dad's business for almost ten years. She quit because her training job paid alot more and the demand has been going way up. She knows more about the business side of medicine than anyone I know.

It's hard to say that a family practice doctor is overpaid. They don't make that much (compared to any other job in the medical field that requires an MD). It's specialists and surgeons that are overpaid.

I agree that it's time the insurance companies were cracked down on. Most of the time you can fight and they will cave. They know they are in the wrong and a simple threat or incessant badgering will get you the coverage you've been paying for. Nonetheless, I think this can be solved with some legislature or a few court cases. The reason none of this has gone to court yet though is that they always cave if you keep bugging them.

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Originally Posted by Oneslowz28

I think its just kinda ****ty for the HP to be hounding patients now because of a proposed bill making its way through congress when in the past a simple bill and follow up phone call did the job just fine.

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That's pretty nice coverage I must say.

This same thing happened with cash for clunkers thing. People held on to their crappy cars for a long time waiting for it to be passed. Dealerships and car companies reported horrible sales from the time the bill was rumored until it passed. 250,000 people used up all the money in the first weekend (because they had been in the market for months, but held off for so long). The government called it "an overwhelming success" (not sure when less than 1/10th of one percent of the population became a majority) and quickly extended the program. People didn't haggle as much because they were getting $4000 off the car, and the car dealerships and automakers had been suffering for months in part because of this bill.

So while 99.92% of the population doesn't benefit, the car companies finally make the sales that they would have been making consistently for months, only they don't have to haggle and government pays the only real discount the customer gets.

On top of that, 250,000 old cars are off the road. Most of these ran and had value, but they had to be destroyed. I love how the government is literally willing to throw value in the garbage.

What will this do the used car market? Well, my guess is that new cars will depreciate in value very quickly.

What about people who couldn't really afford a new car? Because of that bill there are 250,000 people with car payments that didn't have one the week before. Their car gets repo'd and now they have no transportation, or they sell it at a loss to get out of the payments they can't afford.

My point? When the government meddles in the market they affect more than they usually realize, like the hospital acting all crazy for no reason.

Well, having what is essentially a terminal medical condition (Marfan's Syndrome) and being unable to get medical care, I'm predictably interested in the bills right now. I want to live, jackasses-I'm not too concerned about continued profits.

I'm not a strict capitalist-I believe in more of a meritocracy, which is the best service get paid the best. If I could afford the ridiculous charges that medicine wanted, I'd be willing to pay those who were actively working with me to help me, but around here they're more likely to kill you with neglect if your insurance isn't good.

Australia's health care is all right. I have been to the ER at my local hospital a few times and there has been like no one there. We have a lot of medical centers here where people can go for there day to day ailments but for major things and sugery's we have public and private hospitals. Unless you get an injection or something a trip to the doctor is usually free. As the doctors just bill the government.

You can get private health insurance which you can then claim expensive things against such as dental and surgery etc. If you do not have health insurance you can pay the money for say surgery and go on a waiting list.

It is explained here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(Australia)

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Originally Posted by Kayin

Well, having what is essentially a terminal medical condition (Marfan's Syndrome) and being unable to get medical care, I'm predictably interested in the bills right now. I want to live, jackasses-I'm not too concerned about continued profits.

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That sucks. I know that my idea of keeping it private but requiring everyone to be insured does not give you the best coverage. I will say, however, that you wouldn't likely get the coverage you deserve under the current proposed plan and that my idea would get you better coverage than what you have now. It really isn't about profits, but getting the most value for cost. In the end it has to be sustainable no matter how it's done.

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Originally Posted by Luke122

:D

You also envy Canada because it's just generally a great place to live. We also have great beer, better hockey teams, etc etc. ;)

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... and Luke... and me... etc...

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Originally Posted by jdbnsn

However, American doctors are probably paid too well all things considered.

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I live near the 'medical mile' in GR, MI. Spectrum Health is the corporation that owns most of the hospitals in west MI, and they spend billions in this city alone every couple of years putting up new buildings and parking, buying properties, forcing people out of their homes, etc...and yet they are extremely profitable. I can't even imagine the amount of money they are raking in by the day. And they pay their doctors VERY well. It isn't necessarily just the doctors that are overpaid...

Although I don't have health insurance due to being mildly sick only every 5 years or so, I think it is a good idea for a law to be passed to require every US citizen to be covered by health insurance. With such a huge customer base, insurance rates will be forced down to being incredibly affordable. And it's good to be covered anyway since accidents do happen. I've had some pretty close calls with traffic on my daily walk to and from work. (After we get the health care issues straightened out, we need to concentrate on the ***holes that are giving out drivers licenses like candy to any idiot that wants one.)

And as for government health care, I've seen incredible amounts of fraud with the current system. There was a popular local doctor that was recently convicted and imprisoned for insurance fraud and unsanitary practices. He was double billing insurance companies for procedures that were either never performed, unnecessary, or both. It's not a good idea to allow the billing of the government without a system that monitors and prevents such fraud. All contractors in existence already bill the government exorbitantly because "it's the government, they have plenty of money". Well, idiots (not you, gentle reader), all that billing adds up! People will brag about how they sold the government a hammer for $1000 and complain about taxes in the same breath...:rolleyes:

All of this points to the old adage: "greed is the root of all evil".

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1. The health care system in the UK is NOT free.... We all pay for it through taxes - specifically National Insurance Contributions which we pay on top of Income Tax - as well as this we have to pay a contribution towards medicines - sometimes that contribution is nowhere near the actual cost and sometimes it is radically higher - we pay exactly the same small fee for a couple of aspirin as for a 6 month course of very expensive meds. Irrespective, free it is NOT.

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This is a good point, but most people participating in this discussion will know that 'free' in this context means freely available, and not free of cost. I really should point out that in the UK, it's extremely difficult to be in a position where you can't afford prescription medication. There may be subtle differences between Scotland and England, but in Scotland if you can't afford to pay you'll usually fall into certain brackets, of which there about 15. These brackets mean you can get free medicine for a variety of reasons-a payment exception certificate, over a certain age, under a certain age, currently unemployed, currently unable to work because of illness, prescription is for contraception, etc. In Scotland, there's an upper bound to how much you'll pay for medicine. I buy a year's 'pre-payment' certificate, which means I pay about £80/$134.30 (I think) for my year's prescriptions, regardless of what I take.

I don't think we have a bad system, and I don't think the Americans, Canadians, Russians, etc. have a bad system either. Yet there is that general feeling that it could somehow be improved; it's just no-one seems to know how.

-Dave

Not a whole lot to add, but I am for overhauling the medical and insurance industry. However they are 2 separate issues that need to be dealt with separately. I don't feel that both systems need to be scrapped and re-invented. Things just need to be fixed.