Since medical is going to be abosrbed by the Political forum here is a start to educate some of the naysayers as to the impact of medical practices and policies on the public. It provides some insight into the UK Medical practices. Why worry about whether it is a democrat or republican and more whether it is how we want to go as a nation?

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/h...tionreport.pdf

and poorer medical outcomes for its citizens is the definitive finding of this study. I strongly urge everyone on this board to read the report and think how it may apply to the US. The system of private insurance with government assistance to the poor seems to be a better way to go.

Originally Posted by BBQMan

and poorer medical outcomes for its citizens is the definitive finding of this study. I strongly urge everyone on this board to read the report and think how it may apply to the US. The system of private insurance with government assistance to the poor seems to be a better way to go.

And you don't think this is already going on in the US? The US healthcare companies ration healthcare in many ways. First and foremost by not insuring people with pre-existing conditions. If they get a big claim then cancel the policy by claiming fraud on the application.

I got a taste of this recently when I tried to refill a prescription last year the same drug was $10.00 per month but this year required a pre-authorization and now costs $50.00 per month. When I asked what changed they replied the formary. They suggested a substitute drug to which I had a reaction. Every time I asked what was the difference between the 2 drugs the song and dance routine began. What was the difference? One was generic and the other not....COST was the difference but they will never say that.

The insurance companies are in this for their bottom line.

pharmaceutical and insurance companies and the medical providers and the POLITICIANS and thieves (I know the last two are synonomous).....there will be no breaks for the individual citizen.

A good example: lipitor's patents are to expire in 2011 but the patent attorneys are already working their croines in Washington to get it extended AGAIN!!!!!

The process and intents have absolutely no thought or consideration for the individuals called we the people.

If one buys the same lipitor from one of the many reputable suppliers off shore...that by the way are the manufacturers of exactly the same product in the very same package for 1/4 to 1/3 the price.
Don't chant that is illegal....so is speeding!!!

btk

Can you guess how large, complicated and expensive it would be for the Government to administer a "medical data base for 30M people + administering the laws governing insurance" assuming there is a 'private' clause in the bill that is passed. . They can't even set up systems to cross check terrorists from coming into the USA.Just take a guess as to the number of programmers, administrative people, managers, support (HR, etc.) designers, systems engineers, and mega more employees will be required? Also include the hardware that will be needed and the need to design more hardware to support the programs. Include the need to identify the people who qualify vs those that don't, illegals, etc.etc.etc.
It is truly mind bogging. From experience I can say that such a program would be almost impossible to design without missing the target by at least 25% on top of the fact that the technical people are not even available today. Talk about biting off more than you can chew. This is a great example of a government out of control!!

REH7380 - You're wrong on a couple of points.

We *do* have the capacity to do this. In point of fact, there are a lot of medical information systems out there that could be scaled up to do this at a fraction of what a military aircraft contract costs. I used to work at a hospital working on just those kinds of systems.

The costs don't HAVE to be outlandish - though implementation would take quite a while in order for everyone to "get on the same page".

The technical people ARE available today - of that I can guarantee. A lot of VERY good unemployed techies are out there who could use the work now that their jobs were outsourced to Bangalore (and those jobs are NOT being done as well as before - as a friend of mine said, when you pay peanuts, you get monkeys).

djplong..I appreciate your indicating you have some knowledge in the medical field at a hospital. This goes way beyond that as the medical piece is small when compared to the infrastructure that would be required to drive requirements of this size. I will avoid being personal other than saying that I have many many years in the systems, technology and business aspects of the computer field and the requirements for a government insurance based system to cover the broad alternatives is in itself enormous. You cannot treat this as a sort of "turn key" from current systems. Just the staffing is huge even with outsourcing to India, Japan, Germany, etc. New systems would have to be developed and installed and that is not usually a quick turn around and if new hardware is required that is very time consuming and costly when there are government only restrictions.. All of this considering the staffing required is available and can be brought on board quickly. I am sure it would be a boom to other countries as a lot would be outsourced and that will not help the current labor market in the US. If the work is assigned to a US Computer Manufacturer you can go to the bank that they would outsource a lot of the work outside the US.
The bottom line is that to install such a far reaching system to cover many alternatives and 30M people is a very expensive piece of work. Do not just look at the practice that is being considered but also the tremendous costs associated with it..

was the administration effort required to handle the so called un-insured that would become insured. The estimate was an additional 35-50,000 at the clerk level. Add to that the normal beurocratic pyramid of management and fluff department heads and assistants plus expenses and there would/could be costs of more than double the expense of the clerks.

And where are the business geniuses in the government that have sufficient knowledge to make it happen....COST EFFECTIVELY? They do not exist.

Most of the politicians (including Obama) that are racing this forced legislation to law will not be around when the feces hits the oscillator!!!!

btk

REH:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not a big job. In fact, I would imagine it would take longer for some government committe to decide on what kind of system to have and pick something to 'scale up' than it would to actually get the back-end stuff up and running.

Of course you have the costs associated with administration - but to hit both sides of the coin here, fears of the scope of the task didn't stop the government from creating the Department of Homeland Security and trying to "monolith" it into one organization. (The other side of the coin being - just look at how effective THAT turned out to be).

Face it - we already HAVE "Medicare" being administered to cover a SIGNIFICANT portion of our population and it happens to be the portion that needs the most (on average) care!

You could solve a lot of tech unemployment problems with 2 conditions. 1) Any company working on the system must have citizens or green-card aliens on the project. 2) No increase in H1B visas. Conditions 1 and 2 are in effect until the unemployment rate goes below 5%.

Why is it that several foreign countries, like Switzerland, France and Germany, can do this so much better than we can. And for all the complaints about 'rationing' in the UK and wait times in Canada, those single-payer systems are ranked far higher and far more efficient than our 'system'. Again, I'm reminded of how we're *37th* in the industrialized world in health care, YET PAY THE MOST. Canada and the UK are 7th and 11th, if memory serves.

There IS one area where we're apparently VERY competitive with the rest of the world in health care. Evidently, once (if) you reach 65, your life expectancy in the US gets longer and we start beating the statistics of other countries. Is it a coincidence that it's at that point where the wretched Medicare system comes into play?

Mind you - I've had some AWFUL experiences with Medicare when it comes to my relatives. But, like the Post Office, apparently, it's an envy-of-the-rest-of-the-world system - which makes me wonder how bad off THEY are.

The issues are the corruptness, the look the other way administrators, the do nothing to fix it politicians.
Most benefactors I know, some with catastrophic illnesses have been well covered by Medicare and the supplemental carriers of private insurance for Medicare.
For example, I can say that we, my wife and I, have not had to write a check for any health related issues since turning 65 and having Medicare as our primary insurance and AARP Supplemental Insurance.....including my wife's bout with breast cancer and all the specialists and treatments and medications.
Medicare is not the problem....the crooked, cheating, stealing persona of our society (includes all politicians local and federal). How many years have they all known the problems/issues affecting Medicare? That is how many years they have done nothing to fix the issues. Theses are the same people who are now magically going to extract $500 billion from Medicare?

As has been written many times by many levels of reporting....the current health care system does not need reform....IT HAS AND CONTINUES TO NEED REPAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remember that no matter what we have today....it will be the best we ever HAD!!!!!!!!!!

Wait until the additional 30-45,000,000 hit the system....how about a pool on bankruptcy? Not whether but picking when!!

btk

Are you advocating no change, that everything is fine, that it's okay for costs to continue to increase higher than inflation, that some 15-47 million cannot afford health insurance or are ineligible because of pre-existing conditions? You are okay with this?

Originally Posted by REH7380

Since medical is going to be abosrbed by the Political forum here is a start to educate some of the naysayers as to the impact of medical practices and policies on the public. It provides some insight into the UK Medical practices. Why worry about whether it is a democrat or republican and more whether it is how we want to go as a nation?

http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/h...tionreport.pdf

You seem more concerned with political polemics and labels than with the real state and cost of health care. Have you ever been to the UK and talked with the natives to see what they think of the health care they receive? I have and they love it. Get your info from the natives...not the media, whatever version or network you have chosen.

Saratogaman..It's interesting you ask about the UK. Yes I have been there many times, worked there for awhile for a major corporation, (just on the edge of London). Also, worked in southern England, and have known a number of people there. In fact currently have friends who come to the US on a regular basis and have visited with us in The Villages.
Having said this I would not pass myself off as an expert on UK medical. I would consider some expert advise that may come my way but that is just one input. I do read the UK newspaper everyday and it does have some good articles on their practices. I really don't understand your making the following comment since it is 180 degrees from my notes where I continue to disregard whether it is a democrat or repulican and search for as many facts as I can get..
"You seem more concerned with political polemics and labels than with the real state and cost of health care"

Saratogaman and djplong, I am interested to know if you took the time to read the referenced document. I did and found it both informative and disturbing. It is informative because it shows that 1 & 5 year survival rates for various illnesses are higher in countries having either private or public/private systems than those such as the UK, which has a single payer system. The US scored significantly better than the European countries as a whole in survival rates on those studies that included the US.

Like several others on this board, I have spent a significant amount of time in the UK and had occasion to have one of my daughters hospitalized for a seizure while we were visiting friends in St. Andrews.

This was her first, but unfortunately not her last, seizure. It was a severe grand mal seizure. When she got to the ER, I was amazed in both good and bad ways. In the good, there was no rush for paperwork, insurance cards, etc. This was gratifying to see. The downside was the lack of even basic medical services. Despite this being a fairly large hospital there was no CT scan equipment. What shocked me even more was that when a teenager had a seizure for the first time in her life, the ER did not even think to test for drugs! To the best of my knowledge, my daughter has never used and I am confident that she had not when the seizure occurred. They, however, did not know my daughter. Any ER in the US since the 60's would automatically check for drugs. The UK has a drug problem comparable to ours, but the ER did not check for the most common cause of seizures in teenagers today.

From personal experience, I can assure you that the government (VA) computer system does not work at all well. This has been an extremely expensive system and they are still working the bugs out. Medicare is rife with fraud and abuse since there is no financial incentive for the elimination of it. Please excuse me if I do not believe that the government is capable of putting in place a system that is effective, efficient, reliable and not prone to abuse. Again, I believe we should carefully examine the Swiss and German models of private insurance with public support for those who cannot afford coverage. It's time to work towards this idea rather than a total change of the healthcare delivery system in one step.

It is interesting to note that Martha Coakley, the Democrat candidate for the Senate seat left open by the death of Ted Kennedy has received large contributions for the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance providers. Her opponent, Scot Brown (R), has not benefitted from such largess. One might question why the companies that the supporters of Obamacare want to see this 'reform' enacted since the Democrats continually claim that they wish to fight the evil insurance companies?

I've never advocated a single-payer system except to point out that the countries that have them tend to score better in overall health than we do. That being said, they don't rank the best, again according to the study results I'd seen. What DID come out as 'best' are models like France and Switzerland where you still have private insurance in addition to the public option. What many people don't know is that Switzerland converted from a system much like ours is now to their 'hybrid' system starting in 1994. Not all that long ago.

As an aside, I tried to read the document you referenced. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get at it - I keep getting DNS errors when trying.