Is THIS the great Universal health care we've been hearing about?

Question

State denies cancer treatment, offers suicide instead...

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67565

Answer 1

No, it's not. Try again.

Answer 2

No, however it is a preview of what some hospitals might have to do when they go bankrupt from socialized healthcare.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, yes.  When the government becomes the sole provider of anything, it also becomes the arbiter to determine who lives and who dies.  And while insurance companies currently play the same role in some instances, a free market has three distinct advantages:

1.  The medical treatments would be much much cheaper.  (Note that, since medicare and medicaid, the aggregate cost of health care has gone up 4.5 times in terms of real dollars...the direct result of government incursion into the health care system.)

2.  If your medical provider refuses service, you will still have other options.  Under single-payer, if the government tells you no, your only option is to go overseas and beg for treatment.

3.  There would be competition for your health care dollar, so some provider somewhere would be incentivized to provide health care at your affordable rate.

4.  The system would not be clogged with routine sicknesses and people with colds coming in to see the doctors, as people would be more discriminating about how and when to use their more-limited medical resources.

Given the government's track record with education, transportation and social security why in the world would you want to give the government a monopoly on health care???

EDIT in response to emal2me: You need to study your history.  Capitalist countries have consistently delivered the goods across the financial spectrum.  The more capitalist the country, the better off their poor.  I would rather be in the bottom 20% of the income spectrum in the USA than in the bottom 90% in Myanmar.  And it keeps getting better.  I would rather be in the bottom 20% of the income spectrum in 2008 than in 1908.  The standard of living that the average income earner enjoys today is roughly the same as those living in the 75 percentile of earners back in the 70s (when you look at quantity and variety of goods consumed instead of just dollars).  The same cannot be said of any of the socialist countries.  So who is failing the poor and disenfranchised?

Answer 4

Why would it be?  The Universal Health Care system Obama proposes would be an affordable alternative to current systems.   These days if anyone wants to buy care outside of an employer programs the rates are astronomical.  And, small businesses are hard pressed to offer reasonable rates to employees.

Wasn't it  CIGNA that repeatedly denied a transplant to a teenager who eventually died while waiting for the life saving surgery?

Answer 5

One of the best examples that demonstrate the benefits of socialism is the American highway system. We all chip in to pay for it at the pump. Rather painless isn’t it?  I imagine national medicine would be much the same.

If capitalism worked as well as some will have us believe, it would work equally well for the poor too. But as we all know, it fails the disenfranchised miserably.

Answer 6

Bingo!

"I understand the way it was interpreted. I'm not sure how we can lift that. The reality is, at some level (doctor-assisted suicide) could be considered as a palliative or comfort care measure."

They were just more honest than most are about the FACTS of UHC--some people are told they're not worth treating. It always goes like that. Always.

That is why people need to pay their fair share, why we need to stop letting insurance companies RUN health care instead of doctors, and why we need MORE doctors, nurses, etc. so we have enough folks to handle the need. When demand is high and supply is low, things cost more. Period. It's not debatable--it's FACT.

That is also why we need the best most comprehensive plan out there, which is also AFFORDABLE. A pol didn't come up with it, of course. They let the special interests decide things for them. Someone who studied the actual problems and applied free market principles to the issues developed a perfectly good plan:

http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...

Nathan has a way to reform the system--logically:

enforce CONTRACT law--right now too many legit claims are denied by companies with impunity because paying what they OWE would be "expensive"--see http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPe... for one person who came clean on just that subject

enforce ANTITRUST law--in about half the 300 major markets there is one large insurer who CONTROLS the market and basically sets prices including what we taxpayers fork over for Medicaid, etc.

Nathan would require PRICE TRANSPARENCY which no honest man need fear or should object to. All those prices HIDDEN from the patient in the computer--let us see them NOW. We should shop around, especially the uninsured. The only game you can play where you get to charge whatever you FEEL like AFTER THE FACT instead of providing honest info up front. There's a MAJOR cause of bankruptcies right there. More than half the bankruptcies are over medical bills AND 75% of those folks HAVE insurance.

Nathan would also like to offer up a plan that stops the hemorraghing of taxpayer money and FIX the broken systems of Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP and END the problem of the uninsured and more importantly the uninsurABLE (folks who can't get insurance at ANY price). It's a VOLUNTARY, NO fines, NO employer mandates, NO new taxes on people.

It's catastrophic care PLUS. The plus is that EVERYONE on the plan gets:

a physical with follow up each year for a co-pay. They can have discounted prescription meds. They can have one NEEDED ER visit (ending ER abuse is important) per year with co-pay. Better than the other plans out there by far.

It's AFFORDABLE. How? Means-tested with a sliding fee scale--no way you can't afford it. The co-pays are based on what you can afford. The CATASTROPHIC LEVEL is also set by that. The working poor may only be able to shell out $2K in a year on med expenses--THEN the insurance would kick in. Someone making good money might have to shell out $10K before it kicked in. It's fair because it's going to save the well-off anyway because now they get robbed with every paycheck for BS like Medicaid which leaves lots of folks with NO coverage options and sends them into bankruptcy which COSTS US ALL.

Also by catching things early, which WOULD happen with a physical each year, we'll cut costs.

By making people pay their own way UNLESS and UNTIL they hit a catastrophic level of med expense, the nonsense of running to the doc for the sniffles or the ER for a stubbed toe ENDS because they have to pay for that themselves. This happens now with people who either have overly generous insurance plans or with illegals who use the ER as a doctor's office and because of spineless administrators, the abuse continues. Spineless administrators because federal law requires LIFE THREATENING conditions to be treated and stabilized without regard to payment. It does NOT, NOT, NOT say that any jerk who shows up at the ER and says "my toe hurts" gets seen at an ER. It is misapplied that way all the time, but that is the FAULT of spineless fools. Once the nonsense stops--or the administrator has to pay for that so it WILL stop--we'll see a reduction in who is going to the ER.

Then and this is KEY: Nathan says we need to greatly increase the number of doctors, nurses, and other allied health care professionals in the US. Right now we IDIOTICALLY turn away THOUSANDS of well-qualified students for NO good reason at all--then we rely on 25% of our RESIDENCIES to be filled by grads of foreign med schools--STEALING students from poor countries who provided those people with a free to them ed in many cases. They now get NOTHING for that expense they can ill afford.

Because of this we DENY a legit ed to qualified students in the US as well by relying on the fact that we will always have thousands of foreign med students who want to live HERE instead of their home country.

Just stupid as well as immoral.

Nathan's plan if implemented as she describes it would likely address more than 90% of ALL the problems with health care in the US and drop prices substantially. And ALL legit docs and facilities are automatically ON the plan so patients can see the doc or go to the facility of their choice. Funding IS explained.

It's doable, but there is no graft or patronage, no FORCE against the public, so no one seems interested. Go figure.

Totally effective system, costs would be lower because nonsense is out, competition is in, and payment is timely; only truly FAIR system proposed because it's guaranteed truly affordable and allows anyone on plan (which is open to all) to go ANYWHERE. Impossible to be fairer than that (and a LOT fairer than UHC which is rationed and bankrupt).

Answer 7

yes

Answer 8

Yes, the elite will still be able to afford the best that there is to offer and the poor will still have substandard medical care .

The only difference is that the government will deciding who is going to live and who is going to die.

Do you really want that

Answer 9

Yes, it's a preview of Universal health care,, the elite will always be able to pay for better health care, while ordinary citizens health care will be rationed...

from your article:

We can't cover everything for everyone," Dr. Walter Shaffer, a spokesman for the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, told the paper. "Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people."

I'm sick and tired of hearing--do the most good for the most people---it's a scam.

Answer 10

And we all wonder why Ted Kennedy refused to go to the Government provided "FREE" medical aid given to Senators when he had the opportunity to use them for his brain tumor.

Instead Teddy opted to PAY for his treatment HIMSELF so he could stay alive.

Is that the Kennedy endorsement for "Socialized Medicine"?

He is SMARTER than THAT. According to HIM, Socialized Medicine is only okay for YOU!

Answer 11

Fact is government taking control over health care is a bad idea.  They have mismanaged education, social security, and even national defense if you think about it - now we are proposing giving them control over 25% of our financial lives and expecting them to do it right...bad idea.

We should encourage our government to put its resources into creating MORE health care.  By that I mean increase the number of medical schools - dramatically if necessary.  Flood the market place with nurses, doctors and assistants.  Guess what - the prices will come down and the level of service will increase.

Answer 12

I didn't want to answer this question at first because I am so upset. My Friend who is English, just lost her son April 27th, 2008, because Universal Health Care wouldn't allow him enough operations to close the hole in his heart he was born with. He is now dead, at 11 years old.

Holes in children's hearts, if they don't close on their own are easily cured, all the time, but not Antony's. He was allowed to die, and get by with medicine given to him by English doctors, that made his teeth start falling out. He had to eat soft foods, like yogurt a lot. I guess the yogurt companies are losing money now, because poor little Antony is dead.

Liberals you better wake up before its YOUR child who dies from something that is EASILY cured!