Texas Ranks Next To Last in Health Care

[Wild Cobra]

Extra Stout is on a intellectual role.

I think the best sort of system would provide free basic health-care to everyone (pick your level of care) and those who choose to, or can afford too, can purchase catastrophic or supplemental insurance on their own.

The problem with such a system is that employers then remove their insurance plans for employees telling them they can get their own for free and the system then gets bigger than planned for.

[Nbadan]

The problem with such a system is that employers then remove their insurance plans for employees telling them they can get their own for free and the system then gets bigger than planned for.

Catastrophic/supplemental health-care insurance would pay for expenses for things that normal basic coverage wouldn't cover, for instance, money lost from work, experimental treatments, electable surgeries and other treatments, top-o-the-line accommodations equipped with the latest technologies. Basic health coverage would cover all non-electable treatments and focus on preventative care. Many of the costs would come from Medicare/Medicade and employer contributions to employee heath-care, after all, healthy, happy employees are more productive employees..

[DarkReign]

The problem with such a system is that employers then remove their insurance plans for employees telling them they can get their own for free and the system then gets bigger than planned for.

That would be inevitable. Thats why, IMO, this whole thing is an all or nothing situation.

[Wild Cobra]

That would be inevitable. Thats why, IMO, this whole thing is an all or nothing situation.

I see the request to go single payer as submitting to the least common denominator. That is the opposite of striving for excellence, and we will lose many of the good things about health care is we ever went the socialized route.

[xrayzebra]

I have a really radical idea. How about we do away with all
health insurance, medicare, medicaid, tricare, and every other
form of medical insurance. Every person will pay for their
health insurance out of pocket. Doctors will go back to the good
old days. People will not run to the doctors for every little ache,
pain, cough or whatever. Which they do now. Cost will have
to go down. Why? Because people will have to rely on what
they have in their hip pocket. Cant wait to hear the screams
about pooooooor people.

I mis-spoke in the above statement:

I said health insurance. I meant to say health care out
of pocket.....

Sorry.

[DarkReign]

I see the request to go single payer as submitting to the least common denominator. That is the opposite of striving for excellence, and we will lose many of the good things about health care is we ever went the socialized route.

I dont know how to say this any other way.

My health insurance, provided thru the company I work for, blows donkey balls.

I just so happen to know how much it costs though because I pay the bill(s).

We have HAP, which sucks. Used to have Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is great.

The difference in price the last time I checked was north of $2000 a month.

We have 7 employees (2006 sucked), 2 of which are family plans....

$3900 a month. Thats $46,800 a year that my company pays in health insurance a year for the worst HMO on the planet. Then, I have to hear the ing when someone gets sick and suddenly their wives are calling me everyday asking me questions I cant answer about why the insurance company is cutting them off, etc....

There has to be an alternative.

[DarkReign]

I have a really radical idea. How about we do away with all
health insurance, medicare, medicaid, tricare, and every other
form of medical insurance. Every person will pay for their
health insurance out of pocket. Doctors will go back to the good
old days. People will not run to the doctors for every little ache,
pain, cough or whatever. Which they do now. Cost will have
to go down. Why? Because people will have to rely on what
they have in their hip pocket. Cant wait to hear the screams
about pooooooor people.

Its the advent of civilized culture. The free and available healthcare for any citizen. Rome, Byzantine, ancient China and Japan....all had healthcare programs. Its a service to the people who make your country great, like roads and police forces.

[Spurminator]

We're not interested in having a great country. We're interested in having a subservient country that believes it's great because it's been told so since birth.

[DarkReign]

We're not interested in having a great country. We're interested in having a subservient country that believes it's great because it's been told so since birth.

Im not sure more truer words have been spoken.

[PixelPusher]

Its the advent of civilized culture. The free and available healthcare for any citizen. Rome, Byzantine, ancient China and Japan....all had healthcare programs. Its a service to the people who make your country great, like roads and police forces.

"Public Health" - a term utterly alien to some.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I just heard on the sean whannity show that the free market is the cure for all ills..

[PixelPusher]

I just heard on the sean whannity show that the free market is the cure for all ills..

Of course it is! You're always better of trusting a profit-minded corporate bureaucracy over a government bureaucracy.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Of course it is! You're always better of trusting a profit-minded corporate bureaucracy over a government bureaucracy.

Well maybe I have been wrong all along. I should just trust HMO's to do the right thing. of course then the free market folks will say "then choose one of their compe ors". unfortunately I'll be dead because the treatment that I needed was denied.. but hey it's the free market!!

[xrayzebra]

Well maybe I have been wrong all along. I should just trust HMO's to do the right thing.

GGA, I belong to an HMO some years ago and had
cancer. They took very good care of me. And guess it
worked out okay. It has been over 10 years and I am
still among the living. I no longer belong to them. They
left, me, well I should say my doctor left the HMO and I
stayed with him. And yes I had some fusses with them,
but , I have fusses with my doctor, but I still like
him and he me, I think. At least he hasn't killed me.

[George Gervin's Afro]

GGA, I belong to an HMO some years ago and had
cancer. They took very good care of me. And guess it
worked out okay. It has been over 10 years and I am
still among the living. I no longer belong to them. They
left, me, well I should say my doctor left the HMO and I
stayed with him. And yes I had some fusses with them,
but , I have fusses with my doctor, but I still like
him and he me, I think. At least he hasn't killed me.

Hey ray I am VERY FORTUNATE to work for a company that provides excellent benefits for my family and me. I have compassion for the many people that have to sit in an emergeny room for 8 hours..

And on a side note I am gald that you were able to beat that evil disease..

[DarkReign]

At least he hasn't killed me.

And this is the Gold standard all healthcare people should be held to.

(glad to hear youre fine. Cancer's a . It will be my fate, everyone in my family dies from cancer....thats not an exaggeration)

[xrayzebra]

And this is the Gold standard all healthcare people should be held to.

(glad to hear youre fine. Cancer's a . It will be my fate, everyone in my family dies from cancer....thats not an exaggeration)

I have always said and do believe, I will die from the
common cold. It is the one thing that really, really
puts me to the floor. Damn, I hate them with a passion,
even worst than dimm-o-craps, and they me. How can
someone feel so bad and survive. It has always been
a mystery to me.

[Extra Stout]

It seems to me we view these a little different. Your first two reasons I consider a category of why we need health care rather than the reason it is costly. I have not seen issues with on the prevention side when it comes to things like physical exams. I have seen these encouraged. I agree peoples lifestyle are a major cause, and maybe someday we can even eliminate the need for health care.

You may be among the fortunate ones that have an insurance company which encourages preventive care.

It depends upon the business model of the insurance company. Those with a long-term plan understand that spending $500 now might save $100,000 ten or twenty years down the road.

But if you've dealt with publicly-traded American businesses much, you know that few are looking ten or twenty years down the road. They are focusing on this quarter, next quarter, and maybe next year. Under that model, discouraging preventive care saves money in the short term.

Ten years ago, right-wing think tanks actually discouraged preventive care because it was not deemed "cost-effective" under their payback criteria. We are dealing today with the consequences of some of those policy choices.

Furthermore, the uninsured do not receive much, if any, preventive care, and rely a great deal upon interventional care in emergency rooms, which is both expensive and inefficient. For those who cannot pay, that cost is absorbed into what everybody else pays.

If we are going to look at lifestyle and food, we should separate that and remind people that a socialized system will not change such things. Socializing the system may (will in my opinion) make things worse since it removes personal responsibility.

Some "socialized" plans make some form of health insurance mandatory the way auto liability insurance is mandatory. (Those who can't afford it are subsidized only past their ability to pay.) I don't think such a scheme reduces personal responsibility.

Our lifestyle and food supply issues are not just because people are lazy and make bad choices. Stick an American in Europe, and he will lose weight simply because of the way the infrastructure is set up. Stick him in Monterrey, where people do travel everywhere in cars, and stay in air-conditioned buildings like we do, because the climate sucks even worse there than in Texas, and he will lose weight because Mexican food is sweetened by cane sugar rather than corn syrup. (He also will be less prone to diabetes and arteriosclerosis, but "The Evils of Corn Syrup" is a whole separate rant).

He also won't be ingesting all the estrogen-derived hormones we stuff into our domestic meat products, which encourage fat retention.

In addition, I have a big problem with placing all the responsibility for child nutrition on parents, while simultaneously letting corporations get away with manipulative advertising on unhealthy foods for children, that uses teams of psychologists to find ways to undermine parents. If we're going to let them do that, then parents should be able to defend their families by shooting the executives of processed food companies and ad agencies.

You seem to know what to eat, but that is in no small part because you are highly educated and aware. I don't not think it is reasonable to expect the general population to attain the level of education and wariness necessary to monitor their food to that degree.

As for the cost of drugs, I covered that briefly. It shares the burden of having to recoup money to pay out lawsuits. They would be far cheaper if they didn’t have that burden.

The one thing I have not seen anyone address was my point regarding settlements. What type of lawsuits would be permitted under universal health care? Would health care prices fall to acceptable levels if only reasonable lawsuits could be pursued?

No doubt our tort system is grossly out of whack. I certainly agree that product liability awards need to be curtailed sharply.

That alone will not bring pharmaceutical costs under control. The more significant development in pharmaceuticals is the explosive expansion in marketing, especially direct-to-consumer marketing. This is like the $100 sneaker which is endorsed by the NBA superstar, and costs so much more because of the endorsement contract, but really is no better than a $50 shoe. If reducing drug costs is a priority, then that behavior will have to be curtailed.

Meanwhile, our regulatory scheme for drug approval is one of the most bersome in the world. Getting FDA approval is significantly more expensive than getting approval to sell drugs in other developed nations, but we really don't get what we pay for in terms of product safety.

[Extra Stout]

I have a really radical idea. How about we do away with all
health insurance, medicare, medicaid, tricare, and every other
form of medical insurance. Every person will pay for their
health insurance out of pocket. Doctors will go back to the good
old days. People will not run to the doctors for every little ache,
pain, cough or whatever. Which they do now. Cost will have
to go down. Why? Because people will have to rely on what
they have in their hip pocket. Cant wait to hear the screams
about pooooooor people.

I mis-spoke in the above statement:

I said health insurance. I meant to say health care out
of pocket.....

Sorry.

This is how it is done in Chile. What happens there is that if you get really sick, and can't afford treatment, you die. Obviously, to many, that is an acceptable social model, and furthermore, it is a lot cheaper overall, because only a fraction of the population receives any health care whatsoever.

Why we have this discussion in the first place is because of the widespread sentiment that people should not have to die from readily treatable diseases simply because of lack of means. Remove that sentiment, and the difficult issues melt away.

[Extra Stout]

I just heard on the sean whannity show that the free market is the cure for all ills..

Did he mean free market literally, in the economics textbook sense, or "free market" in the present-day, corporate- sense, which means "industry lobbyists colluding with bribed politicians to set up uncompe ive market rules which grossly benefit large multinational corporations, and totally screw small businesses, consumers, and the general public welfare."

Because free markets actually do work pretty well, it's just that ever since the South took over the Republican Party, they've been a tactic left untried.

[Wild Cobra]

You may be among the fortunate ones that have an insurance company which encourages preventive care.

I haven’t been under any insurance company of HMO that didn’t encourage preventative care.

It depends upon the business model of the insurance company. Those with a long-term plan understand that spending $500 now might save $100,000 ten or twenty years down the road.

But if you've dealt with publicly-traded American businesses much, you know that few are looking ten or twenty years down the road. They are focusing on this quarter, next quarter, and maybe next year. Under that model, discouraging preventive care saves money in the short term.

I k now. That is a major problem with our corporations today, along with day traders.

Ten years ago, right-wing think tanks actually discouraged preventive care because it was not deemed "cost-effective" under their payback criteria. We are dealing today with the consequences of some of those policy choices.

That hard to believe. I can see those short sighted business types advocating such things, but not those with conservative priciples.

Furthermore, the uninsured do not receive much, if any, preventive care, and rely a great deal upon interventional care in emergency rooms, which is both expensive and inefficient. For those who cannot pay, that cost is absorbed into what everybody else pays.

I know, but there is no simple solution.

Some "socialized" plans make some form of health insurance mandatory the way auto liability insurance is mandatory. (Those who can't afford it are subsidized only past their ability to pay.) I don't think such a scheme reduces personal responsibility.

This might not reduce personal responsibility, but it reduces a person drive to work when not getting paid well. I wouldn’t like it either if it doesn’t address risk issue that individuals can control like smoking, weight, etc.

Our lifestyle and food supply issues are not just because people are lazy and make bad choices. Stick an American in Europe, and he will lose weight simply because of the way the infrastructure is set up. Stick him in Monterrey, where people do travel everywhere in cars, and stay in air-conditioned buildings like we do, because the climate sucks even worse there than in Texas, and he will lose weight because Mexican food is sweetened by cane sugar rather than corn syrup. (He also will be less prone to diabetes and arteriosclerosis, but "The Evils of Corn Syrup" is a whole separate rant).

He also won't be ingesting all the estrogen-derived hormones we stuff into our domestic meat products, which encourage fat retention.

You are right about our food. I liven in Korea for two years and Germany for six. Not only are the Germans very healthy compared to us, but the women have nice breasts. Probably from a proper diet.

In addition, I have a big problem with placing all the responsibility for child nutrition on parents, while simultaneously letting corporations get away with manipulative advertising on unhealthy foods for children, that uses teams of psychologists to find ways to undermine parents. If we're going to let them do that, then parents should be able to defend their families by shooting the executives of processed food companies and ad agencies.

The parents should be responsible and makers of children’s products should not be able to market unhealthy foods without warning labels.

You seem to know what to eat, but that is in no small part because you are highly educated and aware. I don't not think it is reasonable to expect the general population to attain the level of education and wariness necessary to monitor their food to that degree.

I expect our schools to teach such things rather than some of the things they do teach.

No doubt our tort system is grossly out of whack. I certainly agree that product liability awards need to be curtailed sharply.

That alone will not bring pharmaceutical costs under control. The more significant development in pharmaceuticals is the explosive expansion in marketing, especially direct-to-consumer marketing. This is like the $100 sneaker which is endorsed by the NBA superstar, and costs so much more because of the endorsement contract, but really is no better than a $50 shoe. If reducing drug costs is a priority, then that behavior will have to be curtailed.

Marketing is a cost of drugs, and that too I would like to see reduced or eliminated. Drug makers should not be marketing prescription drugs to the public. It places the doctors in a bad spot when someone insists of a certain drug.

Meanwhile, our regulatory scheme for drug approval is one of the most bersome in the world. Getting FDA approval is significantly more expensive than getting approval to sell drugs in other developed nations, but we really don't get what we pay for in terms of product safety.

Yes, the bureaucracy needs to be reduced. I am an advocate of reducing most bureaucracies anyway.

[boutons_]

"market unhealthy foods without warning labels."

nearly everything coming out of Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Kellog's, Kraft Foods, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza HUt and other pizza/fast food chains and mfrs is unhealthy.

[boutons_]

The Waiting Game

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?

O.K., it’s not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada.

The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care.

Actually, the persistence of that myth puzzles me. I can understand how people like Mr. Bush or Fred Thompson, who declared recently that “the poorest Americans are getting far better service” than Canadians or the British, can wave away the desperation of uninsured Americans, who are often poor and voiceless. But how can they get away with pretending that insured Americans always get prompt care, when most of us can testify otherwise?

A recent article in Business Week put it bluntly: “In reality, both data and anecdotes show that the American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems.”

( Business Week is a bunch of communist hippies )

A cross-national survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund found that America ranks near the bottom among advanced countries in terms of how hard it is to get medical attention on short notice (although Canada was slightly worse), and that America is the worst place in the advanced world if you need care after hours or on a weekend.

We look better when it comes to seeing a specialist or receiving elective surgery. But Germany outperforms us even on those measures — and I suspect that France, which wasn’t included in the study, matches Germany’s performance.

Besides, not all medical delays are created equal. In Canada and Britain, delays are caused by doctors trying to devote limited medical resources to the most urgent cases. In the United States, they’re often caused by insurance companies trying to save money.

This can lead to ordeals like the one recently described by Mark Kleiman, a professor at U.C.L.A., who nearly died of cancer because his insurer kept delaying approval for a necessary biopsy. “It was only later,” writes Mr. Kleiman on his blog, “that I discovered why the insurance company was stalling; I had an option, which I didn’t know I had, to avoid all the approvals by going to ‘Tier II,’ which would have meant higher co-payments.”

He adds, “I don’t know how many people my insurance company waited to death that year, but I’m certain the number wasn’t zero.”

To be fair, Mr. Kleiman is only surmising that his insurance company risked his life in an attempt to get him to pay more of his treatment costs. But there’s no question that some Americans who seemingly have good insurance nonetheless die because insurers are trying to hold down their “medical losses” — the industry term for actually having to pay for care.

On the other hand, it’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.

That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it.

The bottom line is that the opponents of universal health care appear to have run out of honest arguments. All they have left are fantasies: horror fiction about health care in other countries, and fairy tales about health care here in America.

===========

As always, the free market chases profits by screwing the customer with the highest price for the tiest product. When your health or life is involved, the non-compe ive oligarchy knows they have you by the short and curlies.

One of the reality/success stories about American govt health care is the Veteran's Administration after Clinton got it reformed in the late 1990s.

The health care industry will battle viciously against universal care, but that battle is coming.

[Nbadan]

Not only is our present health system dangerous, physically and financially, at current annual costs increases, business can't keep up...

LANDOVER, Md. (AP) - President Bush on Wednesday reiterated his threat to veto Senate legislation that would substantially increase funds for children's health insurance by levying a 61-cent-a-pack increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

...

On Friday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate signaled their support for a $35 billion increase, bringing total funding to $60 billion over five years. The Senate proposal would provide health insurance coverage to current participants as well as an additional 3.3 million uninsured children, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

The American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Cancer Society support the increase. But the administration, which has consistently refers to SCHIP as government-run health care, says billions of dollars in insurance costs will be shifted from the private sector to the federal government under the Senate proposal.

Bush spoke after attending a round-table discussion at Man & Machine Inc. here with small business leaders the president said feel pinched by high health care costs. "They don't like the idea of having to make the decision between providing health care for their employees and not expanding their businesses," he said.

Linky

Yeah, CHIP's is not good for kids, but Congress and the WH are under a government sponsored plan....

[Yonivore]

Truth: America's system of healthcare is atrocious. Not only does it cost the most, it kills the most in comparison to other developed countries.

Hey, DR, I'm still waiting on the stats that support this assertion before I decide there's even a problem with healthcare in America.

Found 'em yet?