Offer a better option or shove it.

[tsukikage]

Yuck.
See, I'm not so naiive as to think that government health care will not come with its own set of problems. But seriously, unless you guys are ready to come up with a better option, shut the fuck up. The only "patients" you seem to give a fuck about are those who have FT jobs and their familes. I'm just... The willingness to not even acknowledge the portion of the population that, for whatever reason, isn't qualified for a FT job (which aren't exactly handed out like candy) pisses me off royally.
Also, your talking about the government making decisions about what conditions are worth treating? Why don't you go ahead and compare that to how private HMOs regularly refuse to cover those with pre-existing conditions.

Which reminds me, I need to call the sliding scale, etc., places around here on Monday and try to schedule a physical. I think it's been at least three years... I also discovered a route through which I should be able to get 40% off dental costs... Still waffling on whether I should get individual health insurance (my dad recommends against in), and if so, whether I should go for comprehensive or hospitalization only. Not to mention deciding where to set the co-pay/premium/deductible/out-of-pocket levels.

Informal poll: is the cost of worldwide universal health care at the quality levels that middle-class Americans expect simply greater than the world's combined GDP can afford?

Comments

[baranoneko.livejournal.com]

Sadly, it isn't as black and white as either side wants to make it. It isn't as simple as waving a magic wand and getting "universal coverage," no matter how grand the Dems try to make their new public option sound. My problem with all the plans that Washington is currently looking at is that there is no way the costs are going to be anywhere near what the politicians say they'll be. Most people outside of health professions have no idea what upkeep for a population (of 300 million) actually costs. Especially one used to the toys and fancy drugs that comprise the standard of care in this country. Meanwhile, the government has a horrible track record with starting up programs that appear to be great, only to horrifically underfund them (*cough*Medicare*cough*). And when they don't work? They cut the budget (*cough*Medicare*cough*). Not exactly the people I want in charge of my health decisions. HMOs are bad enough. And will somebody please explain to me how cutting Medicare funding is supposed to improve healthcare?

Healthcare in this country is broken. Something about it needs to be fixed, and soon. Unfortunately, nobody wants to take responsibility for the financial aspect of the overhaul. The only way it'll get paid for consistently is if we raise taxes. And I mean across the board, not just on the richest Americans...we can only bleed them so much, in the end. Dems seem to think there's an unlimited amount of money that can be pulled out of that population. Try passing a massive tax hike past the majority of the population and see how quickly approval ratings tank.

Long story short: Issue is complicated. Nobody has a clue what they are doing. We're all screwed. The end.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

You're totally right, of course. I've actually wondered if it really just comes down to a sustainability question. Perhaps the human race just isn't MEANT to have the quality of care the lucky ones are used to, which would be a bitter pill to swallow if it's true. And of course we can expand that into more than just issues of health care...
I don't know the name of it, but ellie_desu recently watched a documentary investigating health care systems all across the globe, and according to her there actually seemed to be a few that had pretty good ones, even digging at least a few layers under the surface.
But yeah, as much as many dems. irresponsibly overlook the fiscal issues surrounding universal health care, I find it easier to get pissed off over overlooking PEOPLE than overlooking fiscal considerations, even if even that's short-sighted.

Yeah, I think you're long story short is pretty much right. ><;

[lugia222.livejournal.com]

Probably Sicko by Michael Moore.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

It was

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It was <A HREF="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Frontline_Sick_Around_the_World/70098734?trkid=196150"?Frontline's <I>Sick Around the World</A>.

[lugia222.livejournal.com]

I think it's inappropriate to blame the lack of good health care coverage in this country on any one party. The fact of the matter is, everyone in Washington has dropped the ball, and at least Obama is bringing the issue to the forefront so people can actually talk about it. A problem that gets ignored will never get solved. People can bitch and moan about paying for it all they want, but again, if there's no discourse, there's no solution.

[baranoneko.livejournal.com]

Precisely. Like many issues in Washington, Republicans don't want to talk about it and Democrats don't want to be realistic about paying for it (especially with our doom and gloom economy). I'm glad it's something being discussed, because it NEEDS to be discused, but I am concerned about the route that is being taken, especially since it fails to address all the causes of the high health care costs in this country. This could either go well or really, really badly. And when you're tackling something as big as the healthcare industry, halfway isn't going to cut it.

[akaneko.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not a particularly good time for me to write as full a response as I'd like, but for what it's worth, I generally oppose the nationalization of healthcare on several levels, my main reasons being that I think it'd unbelievably creepy to give the US federal government power of the purse over private citizen's medical decisions, and that government interference in medicine has a reasonably long history of horrible results - including our present system.

As a historical matter, one common means of getting life and health insurance that used to be viable for a number of working-class men in the United States was fraternal societies, whose mutual aid arrangements made it possible to pool significant sums of money from moderate monthly or yearly membership dues and charitable events that could be disbursed to cover medical and/or funerary expenses for members and their families. It was apparently not uncommon some decades back for fraternal societies to make contracts with individual private practices for routine medical check-ups and other such services for their members at a discount as it would provide the doctors with a good number of guaranteed regular patients.