Yes, yes I said I was leaving the forums. But I feel compelled to create this thread because for the life of me I can't understand why so many people in the States do not believe that health care is need of major reform. Just now I read in the "2008 Presidential Election" where Indie "warns" us against impending health care reform! I'm so afraid...

You can dig through the stats on the World Health Organization's site here. There's a lot there, but the bottom line is that US spends more money per capita on healthcare then any other nation. Switzerland and Norway, two dreaded "tax countries", are in a distant second spending approximately 30% less. This is all for a lower quality of care, taking into account life expectancy, infant mortality rate, number of physicians and hospital beds per capita, etc. But the real kicker is this: the US government already spends more money per capita then both the UK and Canada, countries where everyone has government healthcare. Remember, this excludes the amount we spend privately for healthcare. Currently the US government spends more money per capita to provide care to less then half of the population then the UK and Canada do to provide care to 100% of their populations. Clearly we are doing something very wrong.

Bottom line: the US health care system is a joke. People have been saying it for years, but far too many people are still not acknowledging that it is in need of major reform.

What I don't understand is why we don't look at countries who are doing this very well (Germany, France) and try to base our model on what they're doing. It seems like the only argument I ever hear that is against it is that it's "socialist". OK, so what? I don't care what it's called as long as it works. Doesn't this seem logical?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sans_success,

Even though I have a good job that covers 100% of my health care costs, I'm in favor of a single payer government run system. I think the country as a whole would be far better off having health care available to all, and really, if that means that I'd have to pay a little more in terms of taxes, I'm willing to make the sacrifice.

I don't buy into a lot of the scare tactics that opponents of health care use, because every other industrialized nation uses that model, and they don't seem to have these problems. I'd argue that you'll find far more medical horror stories in our profit-based health care system.

I don't know how it works in the US, but here in Aus we have both public and private health care, along with many public and private hospitals.

In my area alone, there's like 5 medical centre's within 10 minutes that all bulk bill completely across the board (bulk billing being completely public paid consultations), with many doctors, nurses, and excellent facilities i.e. treatment rooms, x-ray machines, ECG machines, and so on. Most general practices can do small surgical procedures as well.

Most of our pathology labs bulk bill across the board, although I think radiology services vary depending on the type of test you need.

Specialists mostly charge privately, but you can quite easily organize care-plans with your doctor, which will get you a certain amount of public paid treatment with specialists.

We also have many mixed billing medical centre's that only bulk bill for certain demographics, like children under the age of 16, full time students, aged pensioners, unemployed/government health care card holders, or otherwise charge privately, in which case you can easily claim back about 75% of the consultation fee over the counter at any local Medicare.

This system appears to work brilliantly.

I think public billing was compulsory for general practice years ago, however that changed, and many practices went private, or mixed billing.

Now, we’ve got big medical corporations building these huge, completely bulk billing medical centre's, that don’t book appointments, are open long hours, have heaps of staff, and all the best medical equipment. The only problem here is that it’s slowly making it more difficult for smaller, private practices to survive, and I think it’s already forcing practices to go completely bulk billing just to stay in business, which is a great thing for walkin customers, and people who can't afford to pay, but in a way lacks that family doctor element, and practices more like the McDonalds of health care.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Azuzu!,

Yep. Wot me countryman said.

Americans...time to push hard on Obama.

Most American’s that I meet who’re traveling through Australia are bedazzled by our health care setup; I hear all these horror stories of waiting hours for basic medical attention and so on, but I was never aware that there is no public health care setup at all in the US, and if Obama is pushing for that, then God speed.

Any kind of argument that apposes a public health care setup seems like madness, and this whole fear of massive taxes must be propaganda, hell, the whole American tax method seems nutty to me.

For Super'Shed, here's how our current system works.

If you want health care, you have to have medical insurance. You can pay out of pocket, but it's ridiculously expensive to do so. If you have a full time job, most employers have some sort of insurance plan, but depending on the job, the employer may or may not pay for you to be enrolled in the plan, or may just pay a portion of it.

I'm lucky, since my employer covers all my health insurance (except optical), but at my previous job, I still had to pay about $15 a week for health insurance.

There's also not-so-good insurance plans, where you might have a limited choice of physicians you can see or still have to pay a portion of your medical expenses before insurance kicks in. Sometimes it's $1000 or so.

Poor kids and the elderly can get on a government health care plan, but there's a whole lot of people, who may work, but don't have a decent enough job that provides health insurance, that have no health care. I think it's something like 40 million people who have no health insurance of any kind.

An individual can buy health insurance without an employer (this was John McCain's health care plan), but it's really expensive to do so. I doubt most people who are currently uninsured would be able to afford this, even with his proposed $5000 tax credit.

So, say I had no health insurance, and I wanted to just go see a local GP for a cough or something, how much do consultations roughly costs, and is there many practices where one can quickly go for such a thing?

quote:

Originally posted by Super'Shed:
So, say I had no health insurance, and I wanted to just go see a local GP for a cough or something, how much do consultations roughly costs, and is there many practices where one can quickly go for such a thing?

There's walk in clinics, but I imagine you'd pay at least $100, maybe up to $200, without health insurance. That's not including any x-rays or drugs, obviously. But, if you're making $10/hr or so, $100 is a lot of money. Chances are you wouldn't seek treatment unless it was something life threatening.

We do have laws for emergency room treatment that state doctors have to treat you regardless of your ability to pay. A cough probably wouldn't be worthy of an emergency room visit though.

I'm nominally against nationalized health care, but I would vastly prefer it to the quasi-corporate-socialized system we have now. A single payer system would be better than anything the GOP has come up with.

Trust an Aussie who has a number of American friends, and Australian friends resident in the US, suffering through US care, that a nationalised health care system is the way to go.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ninny Gooptz,

quote:

Originally posted by Kulturtrager:
Trust an Aussie who has a number of American friends, and Australian friends resident in the US, suffering through US care, that a nationalised health care system is the way to go.

I wonder what it's like in Australia... I kind of want to go there to check it out. Seems nice!

We sit on beaches of pure white silica and wonder what it's like not to live in Paradise...

P.S. I'm very homesick, living here in the horrors of China.

quote:

Originally posted by Kulturtrager:
We sit on beaches of pure white silica and wonder what it's like not to live in Paradise...

P.S. I'm very homesick, living here in the horrors of China.

China huh? Wow I really need to get out of the States.

The cliche is true: Travel really does broaden the mind.

quote:

Originally posted by Kulturtrager:
The cliche is true: Travel really does broaden the mind.

Also: Chinese food daily will broaden your ass.

quote:

Originally posted by Kulturtrager:
We sit on beaches of pure white silica and wonder what it's like not to live in Paradise...

P.S. I'm very homesick, living here in the horrors of China.

What's keeping you there?

Posted by Super Shed

quote:

What's keeping you there?

This is a family forum...right??

quote:

Originally posted by Kulturtrager:
Posted by Super Shed

quote:

What's keeping you there?

This is a family forum...right??

So secretive...

I've just noticed this isn't the first time you've mentioned your resentment for China.

Anyway...

It seems more Doctors in my area are embracing the all out, unconditional bulk billing approach, who would of thought that it would work out better for both the patient and the Doctor? Funny how people are so much more willing to line up for a service that's free.

Posted by SuperShed

quote:

I've just noticed this isn't the first time you've mentioned your resentment for China.

My reasons for staying in China are too complicated to begin to go into on here, but yeah, this is an awful country on the whole, and in the parts...but, meh, whatcha gonna do.. , start a revolution?

See: Tiananman Square.

The health care here, incidentally, excepting the expensive foreign clinics, is functional, but wayyy out of date, often unhygienic, with careless (under severe pressure mind you) doctors running about doing many things half-arsed, and a curious but charming fixation on saline drips as a cure for any and everything!

Health crises are rampant. Half the thngs dont get reported..anyway, I'm raving on now.

Back to USA care!!

Hello, this is my first post, and although this topic may appear closed, I would like to bring back discussion on it... I unlike nearly every person on this forum... except for Indie (who I do not know actually still posts at this site),I am actually a Conservative. The facts about universal, socialized, free, or non-private health care is as follows. First of paying for public health care costs a lot of money. As demonstrated in any health care start, and the U.S. is already in... Debt Clock or let's say over 11 trillion dollars. Secondly, although I acknowledge the fact that some people can not afford health care and do have working jobs, need to work on getting into higher paying jobs and grow in the "food chain", so to speak. For those that do not have health care and do not have a job, because of laziness I have no sympathy, some of this "40 billion without health care" could earn it if they tried.