Free healthcare

[hyperblaster]

A lot of people have been discussing Michael Moore recently. I actually support universal healthcare. I have too many friends without any kind of health insurance. People in entry level jobs (especially retail) don't get any health insurance. Even without Michael Moore, no one is debating that we do need to be able to see a doctor when we fall sick

Comments

[wombat_socho]

People need to realize they can go to the emergency room for non-fatal problems too; it's just that the triage nurse will make them wait until all the gunshots/knife wounds/ODs/pregnant women/etc. are dealt with. Most cities also have some kind of urgent care or community clinic service for low-income folks.

Let's face it - "free" medical care never really is. You wind up paying for it in a lot of other -sometimes unpleasant- ways.

(Did I mention that it was good to see you posting again? If not - welcome back!)

[hyperblaster]

I still haven't decided if I'm going to resume posting and checking messages on a regular basis. But I'm here for now. I'm not certain what you mean by 'other unpleasant' ways. But if you mean higher taxes, I believe that I'd come out better than even if I paid higher taxes and nothing for health insurance. We all have to pay considerable amounts of money for health insurance (whether personally, or as part of a salary package). We already know that the health insurance firms are aggressively for-profit. The government, as incompetent as it can be, would at least not be profit driven when it comes to people's lives.

[wombat_socho]

The government, as incompetent as it can be, would at least not be profit driven when it comes to people's lives.
This is not necessarily a good thing. While ability to pay may not be the best way to decide who gets expensive treatments and who doesn't, it beats having some bureaucrat make the call - or worse yet, having a promising treatment kept on the shelf because the government has decided that there's no real need for it. Which happens today, true, but if the FDA turns down a prescription medication the pharmaceutical companies can usually get it licensed in Europe. I'm not at all impressed by the record of the British and Canadian systems, and having had to deal with the U.S. military medical system I would not want to inflict it on our civilians. Lots of waiting, very limited prescription lists, and other bureaucratic hassles.

[hyperblaster]

Sometimes expensive treatments really are redundant. Doctors usually have a lot of discretion when it comes to prescribing. Pharmaceutical companies typically try to induce doctors to prescribe the most expensive new drugs. While having newer drugs is a good thing, using them when much older, cheaper alternatives exist is not. Vioxx costs over $400 for a month's supply. Advil or Motrin costs less than $10. They are exact the same class of drugs (COX-2 inhibitor), but Vioxx costs over 40 times more. For the same dose of drug, Vioxx is marginally more effective than the generics. Even ignoring the fact that Vioxx turned out to be unsafe, prescribing Vioxx was not justified in most cases. Insurance companies noticed this a long time ago, and started denying expensive treatments when generics work just as well. Of course, being profit-minded companies, they eventually went overboard and started denying as much as they could

[elodie21]

I agree with that, there should be free healthcare. Insurance diesn't always work-I was reading the Paul Krugman column and he mentioned how insurance companies kept delaying things as they didn't want to pay up and not everyone can afford insurance. For everyone's good, I hope President Bush doesn't win another term!

[hyperblaster]

Insurance is necessary to get any kind of healthcare in this country, no matter how minor. Even the most basic medical care is prohibitively expensive. We really need to change that. Wish we could outsource medical care... that'll turn things on it's head.

[elodie21]

Yes outsourcing is a way-isn't that happening with the advent of KPOs? Or am I way off...? I heard KPOs offer really very handsome salaries to professionals-they are a new entry in India-mostly they hire doctors etc, pay them very well in Indian rupees, which still works out cheap in say, dollars.

[hyperblaster]

I didn't know they were already doing that. I guess it eventually had to happen anyway. Though I'm not certain how successful it will be. I can understand someone off-shore preparing tax returns, researching stocks or even legal briefs, but surely it's necessary for a doctor to be physically present in order to be useful? I guess a lot could be done with a reliable video link and a competent nurse, but it'll still be far from actually seeing doctor.

[izuko]

If you take a look at the health care systems in Canada and England, it becomes difficult to support universal health care. Their systems are lumbering, lurching icons of inefficiency and mismanagement. People wait weeks or months for tests and treatments that you would get in hours in the U.S. There are fewer doctors, per capita, because there's less incentive to put yourself through the years and years of additional schooling. Patient visits are cut short because they go over their alloted blocks of time (because more people will go see the doctors without need - since there's no reason not to - this is especially common among pensioners, who go to the doc just to have someone to visit

[wombat_socho]

This.
Even though I have a fairly serious ongoing condition (diabetes) I would much rather have the extra $10K from my soon-to-be-ex-employers and put it in a pre-tax spending account or health spending account. State mandates here force me to pay for a lot of things I'm not going to use (psychiatric/drug/alcohol treatment) and if those mandates weren't forcing up the cost of insurance here I'd be a lot better off paying cash for my care. Get their laws off my body! ;)

[hyperblaster]

I'm not sure if healthcare necessarily benefits from a free market. The product being offered 'medical treatment' is a black box to the consumers. There is no objective way for consumers to compare different 'brands' of treatment. Patients do not know enough to judge the services they receive. Therefore it's probably not a good idea to portray doctors as selling their wares in a free market.

On another note, I have lived in other countries before, and the cost of medical services is preposterously high in our country. I'm not sure why that is the case, but sure as hell I couldn't afford to have a broken arm if I didn't have insurance. I feel really concerned about uninsured friends self-medicate themselves with Motrin no matter what the ailment.

[izuko]

Ask John Edwards and his malpractice suits. Especially the ones he won for infants with cerebral plasy, where he sued the doctors for not performing a cesarean. Even though we now know that performing cesareans does not reduce the risk of CP. Suits like this push the risk that doctors face into unacceptable territory. The average doctor pays more than 30K a year in malpractice insurance premiums. And, like all businesses, they must pass the cost to the customer.

[foofighter0234]

I support universal health coverage as well.

[hyperblaster]

Yay!! Finally a supporter!

[foofighter0234]

I always have. :)

[elodie21]

I just read your comment on the drug costs, why the huge difference? Does patenting have anything with pushing prices up? Am really ignorant on this and want a clearer idea.

http://cthealth.server101.com/the_case_for_universal_health_care_in_the_united_states.htm
This link is interesting-it may help answer some questions.

[izuko]

The main reason for the high drug costs is that the US, alone, pays the R&D costs for most drugs. Canada and other states refuse to buy the drugs at fair market value, so the drug companies are forced to charge less there, and shift the cost avoided by other countries on to the American consumer.

And, while the profits for these companies are high, so is the cost to develop a new drug and bring it to market, as is the almost limitless liability if something goes wrong (and, let's face it, when people have allergic reactions to Peanuts, no drug is entirely safe).

[elodie21]

True, a drug may havfar reaching benefits for some people while others may be allergic to an ingredient in it... I guess intellectual property rights must also be increasing costs and branding also plays its role.

[izuko]

These intellectual property rights are the cost of having the drug in the first place. If we didn't have them, the companies would not take the risk to develop the drugs and -nobody- would have them.