Here's some information for those of you who may think Obamacare is the answer to all your health insurance problems. This comes from a recent article in "Investor's Business Daily" concerning a survey undertaken by the United Nations International Health Organization.

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%, England 46%, Canada 42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%, England 15%, Canada 43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S. 90%, England15%, Canada 43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S. 77%, England 40%, Canada $43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S. 71, England 14, Canada 18

Percentage of seniors (65+) with low income who say they are in excellent health:
U.S. 12%, England 2%, Canada 6%

And now for the real doozy: Countries that have national health insurance:
U.S. No, England Yes, Canada Yes

Then why is the U.S. #38 in the world in life expectancy (from 2005-2010)? (According to the UN)

Behind such countries as:

Canada, France, Switzerland, the UK, the Scandinavian countries, CUBA (!), etc... (who all have national healthcare - and that's just a select few I grabbed from the list)

I think part of the problem is that in the US you could be on your deathbed and the Dr would say - "oh, looks like you have this or that, let's operate!). And your last few months would be horrible. We've all seen it happen. In other countries they would be realistic about the situation and, on average, people live longer, everybody has healthcare, and it is cheaper. What's wrong with that?

You can cherrypick statistics to make things look however you want with healthcare. Until the Standard American Diet (SAD) gets fixed, arguments over life expectancy are moot. With all the healthcare we have available, the healthiest people in America are recent hispanic immigrants. Eventually, they fall into the same lines as the rest of Americans.

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

That is not a decision solely based on the physician's opinion. 92 year olds get pacemakers. 40-somethings choose to refuse further medical care and succumb to disease. What happens to the patient is not a flippant decision. Surgeries are patient dependent. Do you have any idea how many patients get transferred to larger hospitals for surgical care only to find out they are not viable candidates due to health, age or illness? A patient is more likely to be advised to forego surgery than to have one based on a whim. If they do go through with surgery, it is because the decision was made by the patient, family and the physician.

Quote all the BS anecdotes you want, it has nothing to do with how things actually work.

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

Obviously when somebody needs a surgery that will provide them with years of healthy living, they should get that surgery. But a lot of what you said is incorrect.

You know why? Because my wife is an anesthesiologist at a University Hospital. While in residency she worked at a VA hospital and a large county owned hospital. And guess what? She came home almost every day talking about how ridiculous it was that patients were getting procedures done which cost tens of thousands of dollars and would maybe give the patient an extra week to live and it would be nothing but pain and suffering that whole time. Why did they do this? Because the people running the hospital could make some $ and nobody would tell the patient the condition they would be in after the surgery until they died.

Also, here's what I really don't understand about the health care debate: Anybody without insurance can go to the ER and get treated for whatever and skip out on the bill. As a result, the patients who do have insurance are charged more for their procedures to make up the difference. Obama is actually trying to fix this by saying that everyone needs their own insurance.

What is your defense for everybody who has a job and has insurance paying everybody else's bills?

@neup

Also, why don't you address the issue we're talking about. Are you satisfied that the US is #38 in the world in life expectancy? I'm not. Our healthcare system is broke for many reasons, mainly because hospitals and insurance companies care more about making $ than anything else. In my opinion that is wrong. Other causes are that instead of people taking care of themselves and getting preventative care, they wait until they have something majorly wrong with them before they go to the Dr., have major surgery, and then the rest of us get to pick up the tab bc they don't have insurance.

No, I'm not either, but the best treatment cannot replace prevention. Poor diet, poor medication compliance and abuse of medications is how we're getting to the bottom of the life expectancy.



Then your problem is with Capitalism. Or is it that you would prefer that the hospitals and clinics are run with the same caring and compassion as the DMV?



So, explain to me how Obamacare is going to fix any of that.

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

How long ago was this? Sounds like a sh###y hospital. A facility problem does not indicate an epidemic. Oh, wait, the VA HOSPITAL and COUNTY OWNED HOSPITAL provided poor care? Now why would people be wary of government involvement of health care...



...their own insurance that WHO is going to pay for? A national welfare insurance card is not payment. It's a shell game, not a solution.



Those people are ALWAYS going to be the ones paying. Whether it's through insurance premiums or increased taxes, the money is always coming from the same people.

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

"Then your problem is with Capitalism"

No, I have no problem with Capitalism when it works. Being close minded about other, better solutions and instantly saying "you're a Communist" is a bigger problem.

Bottom line is that many countries in the world have national health care and their populations live longer than ours. It is unfathomable to me that a country as rich as the US has a lower life expectancy than Cuba.

And, do a search on "hospitals unneeded treatment" - you'll find that it is an epidemic. Here's one example: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories ... ments.aspx

@neup99

I don't care to take the energy to refute everyone of your comments. You just keep defending the status quo... it's working so well..

You realize that no healthcare system can fix personal lifestyle right? If you can show me a study that concludes that there is a direct causation of a nationalized healthcare system on a population regardless of other factors like lifestyle, climate, genetic disposition, etc., I'd love to see it.

I'm not defending the status quo. I'm saying that national healthcare is not going to fix the problem. In fact, I'd suspect it may make it worse. However, that direct causation would be difficult to prove as well unless the federal government allows some sort of "opt out" program for individual states.

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

Well, at least what you have quoted in the link is closer to the reality of healthcare problems. This link is a far cry from your assertions of a surgeon saying "oh, looks like you have this or that, let's operate!" I agree that there are many procedures such as those listed that are performed which are unnecessary.

The problem with the list and topics they give is that much of the issue stems from our culture. For example, procedures to look for cardiac problems in low risk patients is still going to reveal a small amount of people with new onset cardiac problems. If they are not found and some sort of injury or suffering results, how long do you thing it will be before the patient sues? The medical providers are being put into a position where they need to over compensate to find any obscure problem or face litigation.

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

"If you can show me a study that concludes that there is a direct causation of a nationalized healthcare system on a population regardless of other factors like lifestyle, climate, genetic disposition, etc., I'd love to see it."

I only way I know of to do that is to compare ROMNEYCARE in Massachusetts to the rest of the states.

Remember the Canadian woman a few years ago who had quints. She had to be flown to Great Falls, Montana to deliver because Canada only has two facilities that can handle that kind of delivery and both were booked. Now, Great Falls, Montana is not exactly the medical metropolis of the U.S. and, still, it could handle the matter. I have a personal friend in Ontario who had cancer and came to the U.S. because she could not get needed treatment in Canada. She told me virtually everyone in Canada who needs major medical attention there comes to the U.S. because they either can't get treatment or can't get it in a timely fashion there. That ought to tell you something about the Canadian version of national health care.

Everyone has a friend. I too have a friend who lives in British Columbia and he likes their health care. There is always an exteme case or cases with any system. All one has to do is watch dateline each week.

I see a lot of problems with the initial claims. Take for example:
"Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%, England 46%, Canada 42%"

Most healthcare systems do not look for cancers like colon cancer for example until later because all the medical information shows many elderly die with it not from it. We diagnos earlier but does that mean a greater live span necessarily because of the diagnosis. No. In our hogde podge greed based system of course we diagnos everything and if you diagnos something earlier the chances of surviving 5 years is greater even with the follow up of treatment. In England and Canada more of the population is included. IN the US statistic, only those that manage to get heatlh care are counted. How about the rest that die undiagnosed?

The Canada quints story is missing some key details (as these types of stories typically are)...

Doctors had anticipated these quints would need special care but at the time the mother happened to start going into early labor the nearby facility had several unexpected pre-term births. Because of that they didn't have the needed four additional neonatal intensive care units. Because of that, they found another location (Great Falls, MT) that had enough open neonatal ICU's in one location. Canada has several of these facilities (not just two).

Along the same lines, pointing out the number of MRI scanners per million people is a BS statistic. For all anyone knows, the ones in the US may only be in use 5% of the time and those who actually pay for medical care wind up paying for way more of the machines than are actually needed. We don't need an MRI at every hospital if they're only used 3 times a day. As businesses competing with each other the sure don't have any incentive to share though do they?

Perhaps Canada has more than two critical care natal facilities now, but at the time of the quints there were exactly two! And MRI facilities do get substantial use. I've had five in the last six months and I was not the only one waiting at any time (three different facilities). Also, the survey results came from identical surveys in all three countries – the U.S. population was surveyed the same as the other two. And it wasn't a matter of "everyone has a friend." News story after news story and survey after survey says waiting time to get medical care in Canada far exceeds that in the U.S. I also recall a news item not long ago about Canadian doctors coming to the U.S. where they don't have to put up with the government regulations for national health care. And, perhaps like the 'friend' in British Columbia, national health care might be fine if you never need it. We provide health insurance for our staff and pay a high rate for one of our over-60 employees who has never used it. He's never questioned what we do about health insurance – anything's fine with him.

I'd love to see a link that documents that there were only two facilities in Canada at the time. From what I can tell, all of their major cities have such facilities and I can't find any reference to there only being two in all of Canada at the time those quints were born. From what I'm able to find, there may have been two such facilities in Calgary, but they were at capacity.

For some actual referenced information about health care in Canada see http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/canada.asp. One major thing to note, is that there isn't one national health plan in Canada, it's up to each area to determine their own plans. Therefor you can't possibly make blanket statements about the entire country because there are 13 different systems...

The fact that Canada only had two such natal facilities was regularly reported at the time.

In which case it should be very easy to find a link supporting that fact. I've searched and can find no such link. Since I can't find any evidence I'd like someone to show something that supports the statement or I'm going to have a hard time believing it's true...

**** that Obamacare, making insurers pay back money that they would have given out as bonuses to their CEOs in the past. Oh well, it'll get struck down so at least it'll be back to business as usual next year.

http://www.jsonline.com/business/health ... 66165.html

Each year tens of thousands of America go to other countries including Canada for various healthcare procedures. A friend of mine who is a rabid Tea Partier buys his prescriptions exclusively from Canada.

The fact is The Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare if you prefer will do more for Americans than all the Anti Obama schemes combined. Health Savings Accounts, tort reform, pooling with other states will not even come close and will not touch the 30-40 million without access at all.

Here is a good recent piece about some aspects of ObamaCare:
http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/co ... 963f4.html

Obamacare does have good ideas within it, however nationalized healthcare is a bad idea. In the short term, yes some people will benefit. However, the VA system and Medicare are good examples of why the nationalized system is going to negatively implact the entire healthcare system. Decreased reimbursement rates will decline significantly and those who live in towns with small hospitals may well be the first to see cuts or closing of critical access hospitals.

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

I think referring to the ACA as "nationalized healthcare" is misleading. All the hospitals, clinics, etc. are still going to be run by private companies. The local Tomahawk hospital is not going to turn into a wing of the VA. People don't want that. And I agree with you from experience that a lot of VA's are perfect examples of what happens when you let the government run something (i.e. slow service, overly bureaucratic, etc). So, I guess I don't see why small town clinics would close as a result of the ACA. There will still be demand for healthcare in small towns, and somebody will provide it.