Would the good people of Puna put up w/ this

[punafish]

Back to the topic...

Lee, in theory I like both your ideas. The trick is making it work. I'm wondering if the litigious nature of our culture would hinder success.

[Jon]

punafish "Anyone who thinks the current system isn't broke is delusional"

I don't think its broken.... Thus you say I am delusional.
I don't take it personal at all... I think its funny that you get to call people names and I don't []

Dope the Delusional Idiot Troll





-----------------------------------------------------------
I do not believe that America is better than everybody else...
America "IS" everybody else.
HBAT

[PaulW]

>Honestly, I've never heard of anyone in Japan or Switzerland being turned down for medical care.

"Injured man dies after rejection by 14 hospitals"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/ap_o...are_denied

[punafish]

I think you're stretching the definition of "name-calling" a bit, but I'm sorry you think that I was calling you names.

Now, if you just say that I'm delusional for thinking the system is broke, we can call it even and the universe goes back into balance. ;-)

Tim

[punafish]

Thanks for that article Paul. It begs a couple questions: is this a chronic problem or an exception? (Never heard of it happening the 10 years I lived there.) Is this incident a result of socialized medicine? Do other models exist that don't have these symptoms.

As an fyi, I'm a "free-market" guy struggling with this issue. The free-market (dogmatic) side of me says to keep the government out of it. But my conscience says we can't let innocent people go without medical coverage because of a principle. Perhaps there's a middle ground? Some angle we haven't thought of? Perhaps someone else has figured it out?

That's why I mentioned the public school system in my original post. It's nothing more than socialized education. On the one hand I see that private schools tend to maintain higher academic standards than the public school system. And yet, our society is still better off (imho) with the inferior public school system in place. Most of us were raised to accept (take for granted?) socialized education in America.

There's nothing wrong with pointing out the bad models around the world, as long as we do so to learn. I'm suggesting we keep an open mind and learn from others, whatever their political leanings.

[oink]

Wow!, so much for Japan's great health care. There is no doubt that our health care system has problems. I have stayed out of this thread because I don't have any strong idea of what the solution could be. I think everyone who is able to work and does work should have access to decent care. Those who can't work should also, but then it seems they already do to a large extent. It's workers without decent insurance that are screwed and those with a catastrophic injury or illness for which the insurance in inadequate. I do believe a large part of the problem is litigation costs plus the insufficient self regulation of medical practictioners. The insurance industry could also use some serious streamlining. Locally (Hawaii) I think a large part of the problem is the state. We also need to get rid of the huge burden of those who drag down the system with heavy use (abuse) of it, and don't pay into it. If you truly are not capable of working, ok. But if you can work and don't seriously try to find work, I don't care if you rot. Child rearing should, in some cases, be consider work for the purposes of the above rant. However, the idiot in California who just made all of those babies is an example (admittedly extreme) of that slippery slope.

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.

[aline]

Litigation is just part of the problem. I work in a hospital and see how broken the healthcare system is. And it isnt all doctors and hospitals. Do you know why you get outrageous bills from the hospital? Because your probably overpriced health insurance company contracts with each hospital to pay a percentage of a procedure based on certain criteria. So that procedure that you got an itemized bill for say $10,000 for a particular procedure the insurance company has already contracted to pay 20% for so the hospital only gets $2,000 for so maybe when the insurance companies actually pay for a procedure the hospitals can actually charge less because they dont have to inflate the price just to get a portion of the fee and yes all insurance companies do this. So now just for you to get a cat scan we have to call your doctor have paperwork sent as to why we need to do this,call the insurance company fax them info just to say ok you can do this,if we dont do this and you come in and have the procedure done and we didnt get authorization from the insurance company first we dont get paid at all. This just adds to the overhead cost of needing employees just to do paperwork and finally we can get on with treating the patient. The insurance companies have way too much power today. Sorry for the long rant but I just spent the day dealing with insurance companies for patients

[JerryCarr]

Aline, your post was not a rant, but a pretty accurate description of some of the reasons our health care system is broken. Paperwork, insurance-related mostly, constitutes over 30% of our health care budget. That is why many health care reform proponents push for a "single payer" system which would simplify the multiple layers of billing paperwork. Everyone assumes that the single payer would be the government, but that is not necessarily the only way.

The inflation of fee per service charges is a key part of the price manipulation game that the health care providers and insurers play. Of course, nobody pays the full price except the poor soul who is paying on his own and doens't know he can haggle just like the insurance companies. I had an underinsured friend whose inadequate policy wouldn't pay for a major procedure he needed and only partially paid for others. When he got the bill, he went to meet with the billing department of the hospital and told them he couldn't afford to pay it and would probably just declare bankruptcy. Faced with getting nothing, they quickly asked, "Well how much CAN you pay?" He left with drastic discounts on all the uninsured charges.

Cheers,
Jerry

[PaulW]

>Is this incident a result of socialized medicine?

I'd say it is. Socialized medicine has a built-in weakness, in that the price will eventually
spiral out of control due to abuse and inefficiency, and then there have to be cutbacks. It
doesn't have to be this way, but with the way governments run things at this point in history,
it's inevitable. IMHO!

I don't have the answers either, it's a difficult problem and I haven't seen any
country that's got it just right.

I disagree about socialized education, it's falling way behind private education.
Open it up to free enterprise. The government should help the needy, by all means,
but whether they're the best people to run schools, I don't think so.

[punafish]

First, I would never claim that Japan's health care system is the answer, it's mediocre at best. And their dentistry was borderline 3rd world. But (theoretically) it was available to everyone.

Socialized medicine may be one of the causes. But Japan's aging demographic (1 in 5 are over 60-years old) has certainly exacerbated the situation. What about Switzerland's model? Any dirt on the Swiss socialists? :-)

While I agree that socialized education is inferior to a private school system, I'd hate to deprive even one citizen of an education because they can't afford the crazy cost of attending a private school. Guess I believe that all Americans have a right to at least a crappy education.

In fairness, I know of a couple public schools that are succeeding. I know because my children attended them. Proof that it CAN be done.