In article ,
"William Sommerwerck" wrote:

"John Byrns" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"William Sommerwerck" wrote:

So, this is where we are all headed with the coming
national health care system, rationed health care?

What "national health care" system? Where do you get
thisstuff from, Rush Limbaugh?

I take it you don't own a Television set, we have just been through a
long primary election season with much talk of a national health care
system.

I haven't heard anything of a "national health care system". I _have_ heard
discussions of how to finance universal health care, which is not at all the
same thing. None of the principal candidates have advocated any such thing.

Sorry, I tend to think of "universal health care", "national health
care", and "socialized medicine", as synonyms. "Universal health care"
is presumably something of a different animal as you point out, but I
suspect that what it really is, is part of an animal, the camel's nose
under the tent if you will, which must inevitably lead to national
health care/socialized medicine at some point in the future to remain
viable.

Though some right-wing commentators have talked about universal health care
(however it's implemented) as being equivalent to "socialized medicine", an
attempt to confuse the issue.

On the other hand some left-wing commentators speak of national health
care/socialized medicine as the place we must go for fairness. Many
members of the general public, both left and right, seem to also fail to
properly distinguish between the different health care systems.

While you may very well be correct that none of the principal candidates
have advocated national health care/socialized medicine this may be
because Hillary learned her lesson last time around, and didn't want to
make the same mistake again. IIRC back in 93/94 Hillary was seriously
advocating national health care/socialized medicine, although for all I
know that may not have been reflected in her final proposal, which I
didn't pay any attention to as it was obvious by then that it was going
to be dead on arrival in any case. As far as the other principal
candidate, Barack, goes, I don't have a clue what he is proposing other
than the fact that Hillary says that it isn't "universal". Beyond that
he has been very vague, can you explain his health care proposal to me,
or point me to a web site where I can find some actual details?

Great Britain has a national health care system, run by the government, with
attendant long waits, etc.

There you go, sounds like rationing to me. I get the impression that
people are expecting a heath care system free of rationing, that
everyone will be able to get all the health care they might want, and I
just don't see how that could be done. Some form of rationing appears
to be necessary for any system to work, including our current system,
it's simply an issue of how the rationing is going to be accomplished.


Regards,

John Byrns

--
Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

"John Byrns" wrote in message
...

There you go, sounds like rationing to me. I get the impression that
people are expecting a heath care system free of rationing, that
everyone will be able to get all the health care they might want, and I
just don't see how that could be done. Some form of rationing appears
to be necessary for any system to work, including our current system,
it's simply an issue of how the rationing is going to be accomplished.


Again, all but the rich are already receiving, at best, rationed health
care, since that is all we can get out of the insurance companies who let a
pencil pusher second guess the doctor as to what sort of treatment you
"need".

Brenda Ann wrote:
"John Byrns" wrote in message
...
There you go, sounds like rationing to me. I get the impression that
people are expecting a heath care system free of rationing, that
everyone will be able to get all the health care they might want, and I
just don't see how that could be done. Some form of rationing appears
to be necessary for any system to work, including our current system,
it's simply an issue of how the rationing is going to be accomplished.


Again, all but the rich are already receiving, at best, rationed health
care, since that is all we can get out of the insurance companies who let a
pencil pusher second guess the doctor as to what sort of treatment you
"need".


Many years ago, when I 'had' health insurance, I made an appointment to
get a mole removed. Where I live there are many hospitals. At the
largest one, where I made the appointment, the earliest slot was three
months down the line. I missed that appointment and had to make another
one...another three months. I got the mole removed, made my copay
(along with my premium)...and the mole came back.

It's still there.....

jak

In article ,
"Brenda Ann" wrote:

"John Byrns" wrote in message
...

There you go, sounds like rationing to me. I get the impression that
people are expecting a heath care system free of rationing, that
everyone will be able to get all the health care they might want, and I
just don't see how that could be done. Some form of rationing appears
to be necessary for any system to work, including our current system,
it's simply an issue of how the rationing is going to be accomplished.


Again, all but the rich are already receiving, at best, rationed health
care, since that is all we can get out of the insurance companies who let a
pencil pusher second guess the doctor as to what sort of treatment you
"need".

So then the relevant question becomes, are there enough "rich", with
enough money, to finance health care for all the non rich among us,
without rationing?


Regards,

John Byrns

--
Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

"John Byrns" wrote in message

So then the relevant question becomes, are there enough "rich", with
enough money, to finance health care for all the non rich among us,
without rationing?


Regards,

John Byrns


There it is, you just answered your own question. America has the highest
level of poverty and income inequality of any rich nation. The rich and
middle class provide coverage for the poor masses " which is huge in this
country". Deal with poverty in this country and you'll deal with one of the
major costs associatted with our health care system. The other big problem
is that there is more profit in a pound of cure than an ounce of prevention.


--
Regards
B.H.
Hill Amplification
http://hillamplification.com

Brian's Radio Universe
http://webpages.charter.net/brianhill/500.htm

"Brian Hill" wrote in message
...

"John Byrns" wrote in message

So then the relevant question becomes, are there enough "rich", with
enough money, to finance health care for all the non rich among us,
without rationing?


Regards,

John Byrns


There it is, you just answered your own question. America has the highest
level of poverty and income inequality of any rich nation. The rich and
middle class provide coverage for the poor masses " which is huge in this
country". Deal with poverty in this country and you'll deal with one of
the major costs associatted with our health care system. The other big
problem is that there is more profit in a pound of cure than an ounce of
prevention.


--
Regards
B.H.
Hill Amplification
http://hillamplification.com

Brian's Radio Universe
http://webpages.charter.net/brianhill/500.htm

The biggest problem with health insurance in general, is that the poorest
people, who can least afford it, are the very ones who need it the most.
Because of ignorance, lifestyle choices, attitude, etc. the poorest sector
of the population is the one you most see frequenting the ER departments at
hospitals. There is no solution to this dilemma except to have the upper
middle class and the rich help subsidize health care for the poor. We will
always have the poor with us, and there is some social responsibility for
the more affluent to help take care of the less fortunate. This is not
redistributon of wealth, it is simply, "help your fellow man". "Deal with
poverty in this country," sounds noble and good, but here in America, we
have been trying to deal with poverty for many years. Johnson's war on
poverty and its ilk has cost this country $500 billion over 45 years, and I
have yet to see a noticeable decrease in the numeric percentage of poor
people vs. non poor. Having said that, even the very wealthy sometimes do
not benefit from our health care system. Tim Russert is a good example. No
amount of sophisticated health care was able to help him. Sadly, I might
add. He was a good guy, he'll be missed . . .
Just my .02 worth (adjusted for inflation)
Regards,
Tom

"hifi-tek" wrote in message
m...
snip
The biggest problem with health insurance in general, is that the poorest
people, who can least afford it, are the very ones who need it the most.
Because of ignorance, lifestyle choices, attitude, etc. the poorest sector
of the population is the one you most see frequenting the ER departments
at hospitals. There is no solution to this dilemma except to have the
upper middle class and the rich help subsidize health care for the poor.
We will always have the poor with us, and there is some social
responsibility for the more affluent to help take care of the less
fortunate. This is not redistributon of wealth, it is simply, "help your
fellow man". "Deal with poverty in this country," sounds noble and good,
but here in America, we have been trying to deal with poverty for many
years. Johnson's war on poverty and its ilk has cost this country $500
billion over 45 years, and I have yet to see a noticeable decrease in the
numeric percentage of poor people vs. non poor. Having said that, even
the very wealthy sometimes do not benefit from our health care system. Tim
Russert is a good example. No amount of sophisticated health care was able
to help him. Sadly, I might add. He was a good guy, he'll be missed . . .
Just my .02 worth (adjusted for inflation)
Regards,
Tom

Tom,

Yes, it's vexing, isn't it? Canada has been trying to deal with "poverty
and its ilk" for many years now, especially as it concerns health care, but
as you point out, the poor are quite stupid and they continually make bad
choices. This makes it very difficult to help them, since they don't always
follow our "suggestions".

I'm sure if you have any actual ideas as to how we could improve our stats,
they would be eagerly accepted.

This "help your fellow man" thing is getting tiresome, I agree. It's driven
our taxes to the stratosphere!

Buck Frobisher wrote:

I'm sure if you have any actual ideas as to how we could improve our
stats, they would be eagerly accepted.

Too lazy to go look up the exact income figures but "poor" in the US
would be middle class in most of the world. And thats just income. The
additional entitlements when given a dollar value push the 'income'
figure quite high.

Its not up to me to judge who is poor and who is not. My income is
below the poverty line so I can't help but think that over the years the
giveaway program has self-widened to encompass more people. A lot of
that has to do with mismanagement of the programs and also smacks of
lack of political will to tighten it up.

From my perspective the biggest stumbling block to any sort of national
health care program is the cost of the services themselves. A national
"insurance" validates an already 'too expensive' medical system and I
can't see that as workable. On the other hand I see no reason why the
gubmint cannot become involved with providing direct services for the
less fortunate. That may sound socialistic but at least is the humane
thing to do. If they can get that obligation functional then maybe it
can be expanded accordingly as needed.

Thats how it works here and it seems to work well. Medical costs across
the board are about 1/3 that of the US mainland and there is virtually
no difference in the level or quality of the care. Our system would not
work if it weren't for that.

-Bill
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

hifi-tek wrote:

The biggest problem with health insurance in general, is that the
poorest people, who can least afford it, are the very ones who need
it the most. Because of ignorance, lifestyle choices, attitude, etc.
the poorest sector of the population is the one you most see
frequenting the ER departments at hospitals.

Certainly those factors apply, but the other factor you overlooked is
that they are just, well, poor. -Somebody- has to ask if "you want fries
with that" or make the beds at the Holiday Inn -- and usually those jobs
don't come with a good health care program. It's just a fact of our
society; we can't -all- be highly paid, PhD rocket scientists --
somebody has to shovel the ****.

There is no solution to this dilemma except to have the upper middle
class and the rich help subsidize health care for the poor.

....and we ARE subsidizing health care for the poor. Why do you think we
keep hearing about the twenty dollar Band-Aid(tm)? We complain when we
find that on our bill, but it's really part of the 'hidden' subsidy.

A BIG reason health care is so expensive is that as more and more people
get 'downsized' or lose their well-paying American manufacturing job to
Mr. Wong in China, the number of people requiring to be subsidized just
keeps growing and growing.

As a society, we have two choices: when they come to the ER, we can
provide (subsidized) treatment or refuse treatment and put them out on
the curb to die. Fortunately (and so far), we have chosen the former.

"Carter" wrote in message
...
As a society, we have two choices: when they come to the ER, we can
provide (subsidized) treatment or refuse treatment and put them out on the
curb to die. Fortunately (and so far), we have chosen the former.

Thusfar... for the most part. There have been highly publicized stories of
hospitals doing precisely that to the homeless.