Irvine511
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my effete, liberal, elitist, northeastern-corridor, urban American mind as well.
MANDATORY health insurance
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my effete, liberal, elitist, northeastern-corridor, urban American mind as well.
HyperU2
War Child
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Yes, I'm aware of the goal, I'm just not sure why you think a focus on preventative health wouldn't change that.
HyperU2
War Child
Well it seems that the UK already has a focus on preventative measures, as well as access to primary care physicians. Yet they still enjoy the same waiting time as we do.
VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
We have that problem here, as well, to a certain degree. There are certain factors to keep in mind, though.
1) Our ERs operate on a triage system, where you're seen in order of priority. Everyone is assessed within a few minutes of arriving. So, if there are people coming in with life threatening conditions, they'll be seen immediately, people with the sniffles may have to wait.
2) For people with the sniffles, in addition to their primary care physicians (or instead of, in the case of people who don't have GPs), we also have after hours clinics they could go to that are more appropriate for treating minor things than the ER is.
3) I don't have a great deal of sympathy for people who go to the ER at 11 pm for a cold they've had for several days, and then find that they have to wait.
4) Much of the wait times are seasonal, having to do with levels of colds/flus in the community. Or, if there's a high level of traffic accidents on a given day/evening, they get behind as well.
All that said, my mom has to go to the ER when she has a chest cold, due to an underlying heart condition, because her GP's office and walk in clinics just don't have the testing equipment available to tell the difference between the two conditions. She is ALWAYS seen immediately.
5) Is the trade-off of having to wait a few hours for minor illnesses to be treated worth knowing that all people in this country are on a level playing field regarding the care that they receive, and that it's free, with no one being left out or financially devastated? Absolutely.
BoMac
Self-righteous bullshitter
Socialist.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
From my understanding their wait times are due to different factors. It's not due to a lot of people who are going in because they've let their diabetes go unchecked or they haven't had a physical in years.
VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
Why do people fear that word so much? I bet that 90% of people don't even know what it really means.
Another thing I've been thinking of the past few days - it seems that relatively high numbers (60-something percent, I think I read) of people who were polled say that they're satisfied with their current health insurance.
Well, it's easy to be satisfied with co-pays, jumping through hoops for insurance companies, bureaucratic bs when that's the only system you know. If they only knew the ease of our system, how we don't have to spend even a second thinking of these things while enjoying a very high quality of care, I'm sure they'd change their tune.
HyperU2
War Child
On a personal level almost totally unrelated to this, I just got a call to interview at a rehab hospital I'd lovvve to end up working for. 
VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
On a personal level almost totally unrelated to this, I just got a call to interview at a rehab hospital I'd lovvve to end up working for.
Good luck!
Irvine511
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INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
You heard it here young, healthy Obama supporters. HSA's are "great" for you -- but guess who wants to legislate them out of existence?
Unless you've been contributing to one for 20 years and now have that reserve should you need it. The stock market sucks too if you've only been in it the past 5 years. But if one has been making steady contribution for the past 30 years you're still way ahead.
meegannie
Blue Crack Addict
I've never been to A&E in the UK, but I completely agree. I would never want to live in the US again under the current healthcare system.
Who has the kind of money to invest in HSAs, 529 plans for each of your child's college educations, and 401K plans for retirement, in the face of stagnating wages and uncertain long-term market returns? Chains of violent market bubbles and bursts aren't exactly good for long-term investors.
There is a reason why so many elderly people lived in poverty prior to the introduction of the 1930s welfare state. That kind of self-centered conservative fantasy is wholly unrealistic, particularly since one unexpected illness can cost enough to wipe out anything you've invested over the years and then some.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Very good point and one that is often forgotten. I was reminded of it when Wal*Mart of all companies came out in favor of mandatory employer-provided health care insurance. Why Wal*Mart? Well, they know they can absorb the costs better than smaller companies and should those smaller companies go under that's less competition for Wal*Mart. Yes it's true, big business loves to use big government to limit competition.
Interesting that the AMA, Pharma (a coalition of drug companies) and the insurance industry is all onboard with Obama and a larger government role.
So why not cut out the middleman or third-party, be it the inefficiencies and lobbyists of government or the profit model of private insurance, and buy most of your health care directly with your own money?
indra
ONE love, blood, life
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And most people didn't go to college then, so there wasn't even that expense.
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Ya-huh, we do so know. It means NAZI! Duh!
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
And it's only going to get harder as we pile more and more debt on future generations.
martha
Blue Crack Supplier
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Of course big business also loves to use small government to limit competition (they generally like deregulation of a given industry right? Doesn't this go back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusting?). Big buisness could care less about ideology--at the end of the day its all about the bottom line, as I suppose it should be in business.
Really? I didn't know this. In what sense would you say they are on board with Obama? Because a lot of the stuff I read on some of the current proposed legislation would not be good or insurance companies. I imagine they're definitely "on board" now that Obama has started backpedaling away from a public option. Mandatory health insurance is something they WOULD love as long as it didn't involved some massive government run competitor.
This sounds a bit like one of Melon's ideas--getting rid of the insurance industry all together. I found it intriguing but I doubt it would ever happen and even if it did, it would be a bumpy painful road to get there.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Nazi, also known as the National Socialist German Workers' Party I believe.
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
but, seriously though, you do know that facism and socialism aren't the same thing though. It's like the old name for East Germany--the German Democratic Republic. Just because it had the words "democratic" and "republic" in it didn't mean that's what it was actually about.
VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
Oh, c'mon. Anybody with any political knowledge whatsoever knows that the Nazi party is far right while socialism, specifically democratic socialism, is moderately left. What one party in Germany decided to call themselves doesn't change that.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Guess how practical they are? How much were you able to set aside day one out of college?
Oh the privelaged few...
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Just stop right there. Rush claimed just today that the left shares with Hitler more than anyone else, so any historical knowledge or what you call "facts" are useless.
VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
I don't even know what to say to that.
martha
Blue Crack Supplier
Then it must be true.
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Yep, he did indeed.
VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
Well, Rush may have said it, but I still wonder what Indy's point was. He knows that it's two different ends of the political spectrum (he does know, right?), and he knows that we're more politically aware than your average person out there, and that we know too...so what was the point of that statement?
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