The Problem With Government Healthcare

[Indyvet]

Here's an article that ought to make us all happy if the current administration gets their way and socializes healthcare. Gotta love it. How about we fix this befoer we implement a new screwed up program.
Comcast.net: 9 patients made nearly 2,700 ER visits in Texas

 

[CarmelHP]

And when Uncle Sugar is paying all the bills, you can expect every poor, dumb, lazy, unbalanced slob in the country to swamp and overwhelm the system. All those of you clamoring for "free" healthcare just wait until you're paying a third of your income so every bum with sniffles can take the hospital beds so that when you have an actual emergency there is no room for you, put you on the list and wait. Oh. "free" healthcare will be grand.

 

[Indyvet]

And when Uncle Sugar is paying all the bills, you can expect every poor, dumb, lazy, unbalanced slob in the country to swamp and overwhelm the system. All those of you clamoring for "free" healthcare just wait until you're paying a third of your income so every bum with sniffles can take the hospital beds so that when you have an actual emergency there is no room for you, put you on the list and wait. Oh. "free" healthcare will be grand.

I could not have said it better myself. Our hard earned tax dollars hard at work for those who don't work.

 

[Indyvet]

And don't forget when you have to plan ahead to get sick and make an appointment with your doc six months in advance and if you have an emergency you might get put on a waiting list if you are lucky. Should be fun times if they get their way.

 

[Cwood]

The problem with Government Healthcare is Government!

 

[jedi]

And don't forget when you have to plan ahead to get sick and make an appointment with your doc six months in advance and if you have an emergency you might get put on a waiting list if you are lucky. Should be fun times if they get their way.

Bingo IndyVet!

What ends up happening is the system in place in Mexico. In Mexico (and I know becuase I have seen it first had since my grandparent's are still in Mexico) everyone has access to government health care. It takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get seen by a doctor. Typically you are seen by a student doctor unless you have a real life and death emergency. Any type of medical procedures and you are on a waiting list. So in this type of environment do you know what has popped up?

Yup! Private speciality doctors which only the upper middle class to upper class can afford. If you have dollars you can get any type of operation and see any type of doctor in the private sector no waiting. On the other end due to the inefficiancy of govrnment health care you have a lot of unlicensed medical men/women who the poor go to becuase they can treat you faster and cheaper then the government!

 

[Timjoebillybob]

I had a neighbor who took her daughter to the ER twice in one day. Then to the Dr. For a low grade fever. She told me she took her to the ER because she didn't want to wait at the Dr office for a hour. Then took her back about 2 hours later because she wasn't feeling better, then took her to the Dr office because she thought the ER wasn't doing enough and they were rude to her the second time. Yes she was on medicaid.

 

[HICKMAN]

They don't even have the VA working well yet for our nation's heroes, what makes them think they can handle everyone else?

 

[Jack Ryan]

And when Uncle Sugar is paying all the bills, you can expect every poor, dumb, lazy, unbalanced slob in the country to swamp and overwhelm the system. All those of you clamoring for "free" healthcare just wait until you're paying a third of your income so every bum with sniffles can take the hospital beds so that when you have an actual emergency there is no room for you, put you on the list and wait. Oh. "free" healthcare will be grand.

You mean kind of like it is right now.

 

[Jack Ryan]

And don't forget when you have to plan ahead to get sick and make an appointment with your doc six months in advance and if you have an emergency you might get put on a waiting list if you are lucky. Should be fun times if they get their way.

Oh no! I don't like it now and I only have to wait 2-3 months for an appointment!

 

[Jack Ryan]

The problem with Government Healthcare is Government!

Kind of what's wrong with government health care we have now.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

"If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it's free."

-J-

 

[5.56'aholic]

Yup! Private speciality doctors which only the upper middle class to upper class can afford. If you have dollars you can get any type of operation and see any type of doctor in the private sector no waiting. On the other end due to the inefficiancy of govrnment health care you have a lot of unlicensed medical men/women who the poor go to becuase they can treat you faster and cheaper then the government!

only problem is, hiliary and her crew of clowns will not allow a two tier system like this. Everyone thinks when the government steps in we will all get free healthcare with the same quality and speed that we have today. I wonder when the last time any of these people went to the BMV on a crowded day?

 

[rambone]

Read this.... its a sad and scary story about one person's experience in Britain's National Health Service (NHS).

Time for the NHS to go back to basics - Telegraph

Socializing health care would be the worst thing we could do. We have the best doctors in the world. People come from everywhere to be treated in our hospitals because we give them the best chance of their life being saved.

Government health care will become more about saving money than saving lives. The staff will be underpaid and over worked. Each nurse may have 50 patients to monitor. The neglect on the patients will be remarkable. It is just not possible for quality care to be given in these conditions. Britain has a staggering number of people who die in hospitals of different reasons than they we admitted for.

Health care will become so backed up by people abusing the "freeness" of the system, you may wait a year until you can be seen by a doctor. People will die waiting for their next cancer treatment or dialysis.

And if that weren't enough, there will be rationing of health care. The government will decide based on certain factors - including age and health and your ailment - whether it is worth it to treat you. If you are too old, too fat, a smoker, you can be denied treatment based on that. And if the treatment is too expensive they may ban the treatment all together. So much for free. In Britain there are certain cancer drugs that could prolong people's lives that are banned from use because the free health care system can't afford them. Too bad, you get to die.

And every year the health care system sucks. Every year people will complain. Every year they will try to put more tax money towards it. Every year your taxes will go up. Every year the crooked politicians and bureaucrats will snatch their share of the money. And every year the system will continue to suck. The system will never sustain itself and your life expectancy will drop dramatically.

Do not fall for this takeover of socialism.

 

[antsi]

I work in an OB ER right now and see this kind of stuff all the time.

Crazy patients who come in for nothing is part of the problem, and probably not the most solve-able part of the problem. People will show up in your ER because they're crazy, needy, or in my field (OB), because they're sick and tired of being pregnant. Co-pays can help with this - in my wife's and my plan, we have to pay 5x greater copay in the ER than clinic. Obviously Medicaid patients don't have copays, so they don't have this incentive.

The other part of the problem is the fact that ER visits cost $1000 on average in this article's sample. I was actually surprised how low that was - I know in an OB ER it is usually much higher than that.

Costs are out of control in health care, and a lot of it is due to our expectation of "100% perfect outcomes no matter what the price." This plays out in a lot of ways. One problem is astronomical malpractice payouts for outcomes that are not preventable by medical care. Another is the ridiculous amounts we spend on end of life care, often prolonging life - or more accurately delaying death - for a few more days or weeks in intensive care at $5K, $10K, or more per day. It is not at all uncommon to rack up half a million dollars of expenses in the last week or two of a terminally ill patient's life. Another problem is spending money on expensive routines to prevent rare maloccurrences. For example in OB, we are increasingly doing c-sections for large babies to prevent birth trauma. If you do the math, we are performing approximately 4,000 unnecessary c-sections for every one birth trauma we prevent.

No matter who pays - government, private insurance, or patient pay - health care costs are bankrupting our country, and no matter how it is paid for, we will eventually have to accept cost control measures that will seem harsh compared to what we are used to.

People come from everywhere to be treated in our hospitals because we give them the best chance of their life being saved.

This is a misleading statement. Our health care system does not actually have superior outcomes for most conditions and procedures. We do excel at some high-dollar, low-yield technologies that may not be available elsewhere, but for most patients we are delivering Chrysler quality health care at Rolls-Royce prices.

Here's an example from my field, OB. If you look at the overall outcomes for women having babies, we do not rank very well among the industrialized countries. We actually rank near the bottom of the industrialized countries for maternal and newborn deaths and major complications. Overall, a woman's chances of having a healthy baby and staying healthy doing it are better in any Western European country, Canada, Japan, or Australia than they are in the US.

An example of where we do excel in OB is the treatment of twin-twin-transfusion syndrome by in-utero laser ablation. This is an extremely rare condition, requiring high levels of skill and technology to treat. The treatment doesn't always work - there is still a high mortality rate for these twins even with the treatment. But for women who do have this problem, the laser procedure offers their best chances.

So, yes, you do sometimes get millionaires from Sweden, who are pregnant with twins and have TTTS, and come to America to have the laser ablation procedure.

But it is not true to say that hordes of Swedish women are clamoring to come to America to have their babies, or even that they'd be better off if they did. Overall, the quality of care in Sweden is much better than ours here and 9,999 out of 10,000 Swedish women are better off having their babies in Sweden.

This is a similar pattern throughout all specialties of medicine. Yes, we can do some amazing things in the US health care system - particularly when it comes to high-tech solutions for rare and unusual problems. But when you look at our overall performance, day-in and day-out, we do not do a very good job. We spend a lot more per capita on health care than other comparable countries, and we have worse outcomes.