Universal Healthcare

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Originally Posted by g0zen

Umm, the core rate alone rose last month, and that's a manipulated number to begin with. The actual inflation is much higher.

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I would source you for this and ask what you consider to be actual inflation, but really, its not important enough to derail the thread.

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Originally Posted by Tenchimo Dos

My dad and mom were in Vancouver for vacation last spring. While in Vancouver, my dad's appendix ruptured, nothing serious if dealt with quickly. He was in severe pain and didn't really know what was going on. So my mom took him to a Canadian hospital. My father ended up sitting in the hospital waiting room for 16 hours. While waiting for assistance, his appendix ruptured 4 more times (although he obviously didn't know this at the time). My mom could literally see that he was dying, and there was still no sign of him getting help. No one was helping him.

So she got him in the car, and drove down to Port Angeles, WA (the closest U.S. city from Vancouver). The hospital he arrived at immediately took him in, and placed him under surgery. His body was experiencing toxic shock from the ruptures in his appendix, and he almost died.

Socialized health care almost killed my dad. As of right now, I'm not a big fan of adopting it. I like being guaranteed quick service when I go to the hospital, and I feel with socialized health care, hospitals will be extremely overbooked. Furthermore, there is suppose to be a severe shortage of nurses and doctors within the next 15 years. Basically, we're not churning out enough medical students to take care of the whole population. Most nursing programs have a 3 year waiting list.

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Think of it this way: Your dad didn't get service in Canada because many other people were getting treated (the service was being utilised), your dad got service in America because many other people were not getting treated (the service was not being fully utilised). From an altruistic standpoint it's better to treat 10 patients and not have room for an 11th than to treat say 7 patients, so anybody who's waving some Franklins can get treatment right away. You're saving the lives of more people.

Your post does not show the weakness of public health care or the strength of a private health care system, it shows the strength of a two-tiered system (HOLA ANDREW!). You have a public system to treat the bulk of illness and to provide care to everybody, then you have a private system to provide care without a waiting list, experimental care, and care with extras to people with dolla dolla bills yall.

Haha, wanna know why there's a shortage of healthcare workers? Nobody wants to go into a field where you get sued for every goddamn little thing! The Cleveland Clinic bought out my father's private family practice because they couldn't afford to fight the lawyers anymore without big-name backup. They've been eating up so many small facilities and practices in NE Ohio over the past few years because of malpractice insurance costs pretty much exclusively. It gets ridiculous.

I'm trying to find an online version of the article on it, how the enrollment in geriatric, family medicine and obstetric programs has declined so significantly and a lot of blame has been placed on lawsuits.

Shit, I'm glad I dropped out of the medical field for college. I don't really care for any of that bullshit.

In regards to Canada, the CC has long since been looking into building a facility up there that would be like those pushing for private CT/dialysis/etc centers that are on a private pay basis. People wanting to pay for better or immediate care creates a unique market, but the CC has never been permitted to do anything in it. (I think they're building in FL to counter the Mayo Clinic center down there instead)

It's ridiculous that insurance against having to pay for wrongdoing (whether it be willful or negligent) is even legal. At most, doctors should be able to insure against the legal cost of frivolous malpractice suits. We need to get that nonsense out of the equation and in return raise the bar for what gets a malpractice verdict so that the 90% of doctors who shouldn't need it, don't.

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Originally Posted by The Gas

It's ridiculous that insurance against having to pay for wrongdoing (whether it be willful or negligent) is even legal. At most, doctors should be able to insure against the legal cost of frivolous malpractice suits. We need to get that nonsense out of the equation and in return raise the bar for what gets a malpractice verdict so that the 90% of doctors who shouldn't need it, don't.

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Our law system needs an overhaul.

If someone sues and loses they should be forced to pay the legal fees of the person they lost to. That would solve the problem of 90% of the frivolous, bullshit lawsuits.

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Originally Posted by bbobb

Our law system needs an overhaul.

If someone sues and loses they should be forced to pay (some of) the legal fees of the person they lost to. That would solve the problem of 90% of the frivolous, bullshit lawsuits.

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This might work. Just because you are a big rich company and get a hotshot lawyer does not mean i should be terrified of sueing you in case I lost.

You can always mortgage your home for the second time, no big deal.

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Originally Posted by bbobb

If someone sues and loses they should be forced to pay the legal fees of the person they lost to. That would solve the problem of 90% of the frivolous, bullshit lawsuits.

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I've been arguing for something similar to this for years. I propose we institute a system in which a judge can dismiss a case as a frivolous waste of the court's time and force the filer to pay the legal fees of the defendant. Once in a great while a judge will dismiss a case on the grounds of being frivolous but it doesn't happen nearly enough (most judges are former lawyers).

The problem with malpractice suits in this country is that trial lawyers have successfully expanded "malpractice" to include "uncharacteristically unsuccessful". If a patient takes an unusual turn for the worse during an operation the doctor can now expect a lawsuit, even if there's no evidence of malpractice. The patient not faring as well as the average patient undergoing the same procedure is enough for a lawsuit under the current system. We've got way too many lawyers in this country and they're all trying to create cases for themselves. John Edwards can talk all he likes about Canadian health care but this guy made $50 million suing doctors for not performing C-sections often enough (on the bullshit premise that vaginal birth increases the risk of cerebral palsy). Knowing he had no evidence to support his lawsuits he went the route of actually channeling the dead babies to talk to the jury. And he won. Getting rid of John Edwards would be far better for our health care system than listening to his proposals.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

We trust the government to educate our children, fight our wars, and protect our innocent.

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LOL

I can't believe there are people defending the current American health care system. Socialized health care might not be the answer, but the status quo does not fucking work.
At the very least, big changes need to be made to the health insurance industry.