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Gone, gone, gone. I've done my time and it's time to move on.

Boy, you got that right Rick. It's been this long and my back still gives me trouble. As for the disc in my back, he figured I had a bad disc because I couldn't tough my toes without bending my knees. I've never been able to do that. Unless I've been working on a roof and my legs get stretched, I can't do it. My hamstrings are insanely tight, so much so that my wife, who is a massage therapist is always on my case to stretch them out because she's afraid that I'm gonna blow one.

Oops. That's an expensive procedure. If he operates for a herniated disk, there are all kinds of things that aren't good that could happen.

Unfortunately, having had both problems, sprained, strained and torn ligaments hurt worse and take longer to heal.

Sorry for your pain.

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Gone, gone, gone. I've done my time and it's time to move on.

And also in the period of a year...actually more like nine months, I've been into get a MRI on two separate occasions for my neck. The first was to do an initial scan and found a laundry list of things including three bulging discs and the second was to see if anything got worse. It turns out nothing got worse, but nothing got better either..haha.

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:

U.S. 65%

England 46%

Canada 42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:

U.S. 93%

England 15%

Canada 43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:

U.S. 90%

England 15%

Canada 43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:

U.S. 77%

England 40%

Canada 43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:

U.S. 71

England 14

Canada 18

Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health":

U.S. 12%

England 2%

Canada 6%

I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare" comparable to England or Canada .

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Gone, gone, gone. I've done my time and it's time to move on.

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Gone, gone, gone. I've done my time and it's time to move on.

quote:

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Originally posted by mrrickbear:
Show me one death certificate in the US where the cause of death was lack of healthcare and I will concede the argument.

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Lol

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Now, let me show you what government run healthcare will be like: Currently woman are recommended to get a baseline mammogram at age 40 and if there is a family history of breast cancer, they should start even sooner.

The Feds just came out with a report that now says that women should start getting mammograms at 50. Excuse me, Mr. President. Your new guidelines are going to cost lives.

If we have NHS in this country, I would suggest everyone learn how to be VERY aggressive when it comes to treatment, diagnosis and healthcare in general. Or, contrary to the panacea that some people are painting about NHS in this country, more people are going to die.

I've always said that the idiots in DC would turn us into a third world country, and damn if they ain't tryin'.

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Gone, gone, gone. I've done my time and it's time to move on.

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People in Great Britain live one year longer than we do. People in China outlive everyone. It is their diet. People in Japan outlive most people. It is their diet. Out of over 200 countries the US ranks 34th. With our diet, and propensity for obescity, that ain't bad.

What you failed to mention is the average life expectency worldwide is 67.2 years and we live an average of 78.1. Not bad for nation with a bunch of fat people that live on fast food and beer. And other than Canada, we live longer than anyone in the western hemisphere.

We eat a bunch of fried food with high fat content and we still live longer than most of the countries in the world.

First of all, poor people get free healthcare. True there are some without insurance, but some of them choose to be without insurance, because they don't wish to spend the money. Also, most of the un and under insured are young people.

I'm glad you are happy with your healthcare. You country isn't trying to support a starving world with little or no thanks. Your country has a balanced budget. The idiots in our Congress don't know the meaning of the word and our president thinks that he can buy people jobs with his stimulous package which has not created on job as of yet. We have 10% unemployment and another 7% under-employed.

My healthcare is just fine. I pay almost a grand a month for it and I don't want the government saying to me that if I choose not to have healthcare I face imprisonment, which seems to be part of the bill they are trying to pass.

People in Canada have their own problems with NHS as do people in England. Like I said, I'm glad you're happy with yours.

Get our budget balanced and we could talk about this, but right now, we owe China big time for the folly of our government's spending habits.
You can blame it on both sides of the isle.

Thanks but no thanks.

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Gone, gone, gone. I've done my time and it's time to move on.

My parents both work for the NHS and I have had required treatment from the NHS over the years and I can say that it is the single greatest invention by a government in the whole of the 20th Century.

The idea that if you feel sick that you can go to a local GP and they will diagnose you and then prescribe medicine that for many sections of society is free is simply a genius idea.

I have absolutely no patience for those who argue about government takeover of healthcare and all that crap, our government has run the NHS and people have lived longer and now live longer than Americans, we have been healed by experts and technology has been developed as well.

The NHS is not without its flaws, but it is simple an outstanding institution and those fearful of a 'public option' in the US should only be fearful that its not public enough, because the NHS has proven itself to be a God send.

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I'm In Charge, REMEMBER That!!

Now, there is a fine balance when it comes to healthcare and profit. I have a plan in mind that would take care of the poor and we could get better doctors with it.

My plan is this: Free medical school for any doctor willing to work in poverty areas of the country for a low, but living wage for ten years. They will treat the poor in clinics set up by the county. These clinics will have an ER to treat stabbings and minor gunshot wounds and to stablize the people that come in. They will also have regular exam rooms to treat the walkins. These people will pay on a sliding scale. Those that can pay a little will. Those that can't will receive free treatment. However, patient abuses won't be tolerated. This means three people can't go to the hospital 1500 times in five year. There are such examples out there.

I think this will solve many problems with healthcare. Between this and tort reform and maybe some reform on medications, then we don't need all of this other crap.

Okay. You put a doctor in a clinic in a poor area for ten years, when he's done with that, he will be a great GP. He will know how to deal with everything from sniffles to a stab wound.

The tort reform will lower insurance costs, which will translate to lower doctor fees.

Okay. Now, for some enlightenment on medication costs. A drug to be put through trials, to be advertised and developed with R&D, usually costs between $800,000,000 and one billion dollars.

Now, most of that cost is in the advertising. This would include wining and dining doctors to get them to use their new and improved drug as a drug of choice in the instance it was designed for.

Now, while I understand this part of the business, there needs to be some reigns on it. There are other problems like they have only a few years to get all of this money back before the patent ends. Then the drug can and will be copied and put out in generic form for much less money.

There is also the problem with countries like Canada. Canadians, please, hear me out before you find me offensive on this subject. Canada will go to a drug company and flat tell them the price they will pay for any given drug. Let's say it is Viagra. Instead of $8 a dose Canada will give them $1 a dose. If the company doesn't go along with it, Canada just has a company reverse engineer the drug and put it out and say "Okay. Sue us." Civil lawsuits take years and a buttload of money. So the companies give Canada what they want. This means that the US patients subsidize Canadians' drug cost.

Then if you are a Canadian and unfortunate enough not to have a great drug plan through work, your own country bones you on your meds that they basically extorted from the US company.

If the US does get a plan similar to just about any other country that has Universal Healthcare, you will probably see the R&D go away like it has in many countries in the world.

Let's face it. If the government dictates to these companies what they can and cannot sell their drugs for, if the profit ain't there, they will pack it in or move to a country that allows them to continue to make a profit.

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Gone, gone, gone. I've done my time and it's time to move on.

Sadly, it does. Another thing about our health care system here in Canada is that although hospital visits, doctor's appointments, hospital stays, x-rays, surgeries, etc are all covered with our health card; medication is a totally other beast. For instance, if you're a part time worker or a full time worker working somewhere that doesn't have benefits or has really poor benefits and let's say you fall ill. So, the doctor prescribes this medication for you to take, this hella expensive medication...it's not covered! Sure, there is things like insurance and other private stuff you can get to but it's next to impossible to get these things after you're sick and it's not logical to get them before.

The bottom line is that, no matter who runs health care Government or otherwise people should be able to receive the best medical treatment! Although, I personally feel the Canadian system is far better than the US system, its by no means perfect and its tiresome when I hear people on TV and stuff constantly praise the Canadian health care system for how great and how free it is! Boo-urns!

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"the opinion you will inevitably agree with."

All insurance companies == governments included -- feel that it is their job to take your money and not pay out anything if they can get away with it.

For example, many of you will remember that seven years ago I had a couple of heart attacks leading to some open-heart surgery. Well, the first thing that happened is that I was sent by ambulance to another hospital for treatment of the first heart attack.

My insurance company refused to cough up the $1300 cost for the ambulance, stating that it was not a preferred provider. Now, at the time I was sent to the other hospital my wife was told that I probably wouldn't live to make it the 35 miles to the other hospital. The nearest preferred provider was in Boise which is 400 miles away.

So if I would have waited for the preferred provider, I would be dead. Talk about trippin' over a dollar to save a dime.

Then, when I went through the cancer surgery six years ago, the insurance company refused to pay the $9000 for the radio active seeds that were implanted. They said that was an "experimental treatment". I called them up and said they've been usin' them for 20 fuckin' years and the experimental part of it was over a long time ago. I guess they didn't get the memo.

No matter where you live, healthcare is a pain in the ass. Is there a problem here? Fuckin' A. Are they going to solve it the way they're going? Not in this lifetime and they will probably fuck it up like they have everything else. The government is never as efficient as private enterprise. So they need to work on tort reform if they want to bring costs down. Medical malpractice suits are a waste of time and money 19 out of 20 times. What people don't get is that for a suit to be successful, there has to be a violation of standard of care in the area. That means that the Mayo Clinic has one standard of care and my local hospital has a lesser standard of care and some little hospital in Bum Fuck Whatever may have the standard of care of a veternarian. Bottom line is most of the time there is no violation of that standard of care and people just don't like their results. Too bad. Get over it and get on with your life.

Example: When I broke my neck and the doctor did surgery on me. He reduced my paralysis, but didn't do much for the pain. People wanted me to sue. Why? He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't give me a guarantee that I would be pain free. He didn't violate the standard of care in this area. Bottom line is that a law suit would have been not only stupid but costly. He would have to spend thousands defending himself and his rates would have gone up.

If you are a OB/GYN in Baltimore, your medical malpractice insurance is around $800,000 per year. Many doctors set up an LLC and go without insurance and say "hey, sue me." You will get my practice which is not worth much. It is called going bear.

That is an extreme case, but malpractice insurance has exploded its rates since 1998.

If you can do tort reform and limit the punitive damage portion of lawsuits, then cost can go down.

Will they do tort reform? With congress full of trial lawyers, I doubt it.

Basically, if we really want something good in healthcare reform, we need to get rid of all incumbents and get business people and farmers in congress. Get rid of the professional politician that is more interested in getting re-elected that watching out for the people.

I've listened to people talk about how they were treated in hospitals and how it is expensive to have insurance. Hell, I spend $800 per month for health insurance, so I can sympathize.

Now, why have durable medical equipment costs ie wheelchairs etc, gone up so much in twenty years?

Simple. Medicare has given manufacturers 2 to 4 percent a year increases. Well, now you know why a wheelchair without a motor, which is really nothing more than a re-configured bicycle, is now costing $2000. The Wright Brothers, who were in the bicycle business, used to give away wheelchairs to people that couldn't afford one as a way to promote their business.

Do you know that there are companies that rent wheelchairs to medicare patients and charge $500 every 90 days to medicare? And this goes on for as long as the patient needs it. We are talking about a piece of equipment that is really worth about $200 to build and sell getting that kind of money and the government wonders why medicare is broke. No wonder to me or most of you.

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Gone, gone, gone. I've done my time and it's time to move on.