"Free" health care!

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
"Free" health care!
250
Thu, 07-22-2004 - 7:15pm
I wonder how many of you have had to live without health insurance? You say that health care is not a right? NO WONDER! You have always had a place for the bills to go other then your mailbox! How many of you have ever asked what the actual cost of your prescriptions are? Do the math! Do you have any idea what it is like to call around from doctor to doctor trying to find one who would see you WITHOUT insurance? Have you ever stood at your doctor office and humbly asked for samples instead of a prescription because u know that your $360 check wont stretch enough to cover your $280 med bill AND the doctor appt. Don't even mention medicaid! If you make enough money to buy food and scrape by...you do not qualify.

Go ahead and be technical but if you ever run into some bad luck you will see things in an entirely different light!

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-16-2004
Tue, 07-27-2004 - 11:32am
Our respective governments spend tax dollars differently, that's the bottomline. Our Government spends more on healthcare, and other social programs, and more on foreign aid (yes, more % of our GDP than the US), but we spend less on defense, and on other things that the US spends on. No judgement on this - we all elect our government, and we clearly have different priorities, that's it. We think that taking care of children so that they grow up as productive citizens is the most important thing.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Tue, 07-27-2004 - 3:43pm
So I am just taking it that Bush lied when he spoke of 40 million Americans without healthcare. You have proved to me that he did in fact use over-inflated numbers and not factual numbers during his speech. It seems that he in the habit of doing this, not only about healthcare, but with most things in general. How in the world am I supposed to trust him and think he is doing the best thing for our country, when I cant even trust or believe the numbers he is saying to us? I am supposed to go and check up on every bit of information that he gives to the American public? Maybe before he speaks, his writers and researchers do the work first. I think it would be wise to just speak the truth, which in my opinion, he is unable to do.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-31-2003
Tue, 07-27-2004 - 5:01pm
thanks for the reply, but I doubt that the differences lie in Canada spending more on foriegn aid, social programs, and healthcare vs the US speding on defense.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Tue, 07-27-2004 - 7:51pm



"As many as 195,000 people a year could be dying in U.S. hospitals because of easily prevented errors, a company said on Tuesday in an estimate that doubles previous figures."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040727/hl_nm/health_mistakes_dc_1

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-16-2004
Tue, 07-27-2004 - 9:00pm
A point of clarification. You talk about research and bureaucracy. There is huge mis-understanding on the part of americans about what the canadian health care system is. First of all, it's not 'socialized medecine', it's very simply put, a single payer (or single insurer is you prefer). The government doesn't tell doctors what to do. They decide what treatements to give us, and doctors frequently don't agree between themselves, so sometimes we get second opinions. And we don't need any authorizations to do that. We go see the doctor, any doctor, anytime we feel the need, and as often as we need. Now some specialists are a bit different - in many cases one needs a 'referral' from a GP, but each time I've asked for one, I've gotten my referral. And yes, for those there is a wait, because they tend to be booked ahead of time. But I haven't needed a referral to see an OBGYN, or a determatologist, and I've seen other kinds of specialists immediately in the two emergencies I've ever had in my life. But I'm off on a tangent here. Now about research and hospitals.. again, it's not 'socialized' and any more bureaucratic than american hospitals. I don't know where you get that idea. And research isn't socialized either. Some reseach is done in university hospitals, and may get grants (private and public), and much of the research is done by private companies, just as is it done in the US.

I think there's a lot of dis-information in the US about so-called socialized health care. I think it's a ploy by the big medical insurance companies to make sure americans don't find out the truth: it works, and it is cheaper.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Tue, 07-27-2004 - 9:09pm

<Sometimes different doctors have different opinions about what one needs, including a transplant. In Canada, it's doctors who make decisions about what is necessary, not the government, and NOT INSURANCE companies>>


That's not what this was about. It was a major feature in Time or Newsweek last year. Whichever province this family lived in had a cut off age for this type of transplant that was determined by availability of organs (I think it was a kidney transfer he needed) and the amount of money the province allowcated to transplants every year. It was not a medical decision and not made by his doctors.

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Tue, 07-27-2004 - 10:01pm

Good work! You've hit on

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-16-2004
Wed, 07-28-2004 - 9:30am
I'd love to read that story and get the specifics. But the reality is that american health insurance companies also make decision about what they 'cover'. I'm heard on TV a lot of stories about people being denied benefits because the treatments were deemed 'experimental' (even though they were not, and in fact were already available in Canada). There are guidelines in the canadian system of course - and certain treatments may not be deemed appropriate for people who meet a particular criteria, such as age. Don't know the details of the case you mentioned, but possibly he was very old, and dialysis was possibly less risky than a transplant, which involves surgery and lots of drugs after to supress rejection of the new organ.

Again, the point is that americans have much many more 'decisions' made by their insurance companies and many treatments need 'pre-approval' by the insurance company. No such concept here. I'd rather have those decisions made by a government I elect than a company whose objectives are profit.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-16-2004
Wed, 07-28-2004 - 9:35am
Where's the american statistics? What's the 'standard' for what is considered a mistake. In canada (because health care is national), there are controls and after-the-fact reviews. Is there such universal rigour in the US. Do you know how many mistakes are done? What kind of reporting is used. It's kind of like the stats on abuse.. If people don't report abuse, you don't really get a good count. In a context where people are encouraged to report it, stats may show a lot more abuse, but that all could be misleading.

Personally, I suspect doctors in canada make as many mistakes as american doctors.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 07-28-2004 - 1:19pm
I guess that would depend on each person’s definition of “wrong.” A must treat provision is a nice sentiment and something I can support morally. But as with many “moral” or “feel good” laws, it is not the intention or desire that matters, it is the result. Since we are talking about this law causing fewer health services and fewer hospital beds to exist in our community, yes I would put this in the “wrong” category. More specifically wrong in the way it was implemented than anything else, but wrong nevertheless.

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