We have the best heath care system in the World?

[red]

We hear this time and time again......If this is the best, I would hate to see what the average or worst is. Are we being lied to? We may have the most advanced technology and expensive but is it really the best system?


`Dumping' of homeless alleged
Patients said taxied from hospitals to churches
sgvtribune.com/news/ci_3448012

Citrus Valley Health Partners hospitals have hired taxis to drop off injured or ailing homeless people at local churches, according to area homeless-assistance volunteers.

Volunteers carried the man into a room at the church and cleaned up his leg wound, McKennon said, and added that the man was wearing a hospital gown and had no shoes, so workers got him some clothes.

The shelter workers that night called an ambulance to take the injured man and another man with diabetes to Foothill Presbyterian for treatment.

The next day, the two were dropped off by a taxi at St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Hacienda Heights, McKennon said, but the homeless shelter was not operating there. That church is about a 25-minute drive from the shelter in Glendora, he said.

Once again, according to McKennon, the paraplegic man wore only a hospital gown when he and the other man were found at about 4:15 p.m. by a parishioner. The injured man's bandages had not been changed, workers said.

McKennon said he eventually helped the paraplegic man be admitted to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

This is unacceptable. It is time for our entire health care system to be changed. The health care plans go up and up and we get less and less for it. The systsem is heading for a colapse. Where the heck is all of this money going? Other countires do not spend anywhere near what we spend on health care and most of the other countries get proper health care for all of their citizens.

This is an inhumane system that is based on greed.

[Rocco]

Red,

>>>Other countires do not spend anywhere near what we spend on health care and most of the other countries get proper health care for all of their citizens. <<<

>>>Where the heck is all of this money going?<<<

Bombs, fighter jets, tanks, etc. Can't have it all, I guess.

Imagine how bad off we would be if we ever wanted democracy in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait! The funny thing is, is that we could probably get democracy in both of those countries combined with half the effort it is taking in Iraq. By George, do you mean to tell me that this really may not be about "Democracy", after all! Duh.

[gemini]

Medicare-for-All is the prescription for taming health care costs, says insurance expert

news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/4981.html


April 6, 2005 — Years of double-digit increases in health care costs are devastating business, federal, state and family budgets. While the United States pays more per capita for health care than any other advanced country, 44 million people lack assured care.

"Most people overlook the most affordable way to achieve universal coverage; putting all of us under the Medicare umbrella," says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. "That single-payer system would reduce non-benefit spending by doctors, hospitals, clinics, laboratories and health care insurers by about $300 billion a year, providing funds to insure everyone without additional outlays."


Currently, Medicare incurs only 2% for administrative costs and does not need to advertise or pay commissions. According to Bernstein, private insurance spends considerably more on advertising and management. Administrative costs run as high as 30% because providers and insurers have to employ large staffs to cope with thousands of different plans for billions of billings a year. Similarly, federal and state public needs-tested programs must determine whether applicants meet the different programs' eligibility criteria, and these administrative costs run about 7% above Medicare's.

"Medicare-for-All would eliminate the need to ascertain eligibility for billions of billings," Bernstein says. "Shifting employer, federal and state funds already earmarked for medical care to the new plan would provide huge savings and coverage for the uninsured."

The medical care components common to liability insurance are costly and inefficient. According to insurer reports, for each $100 in premiums for auto and truck liability insurance, policies pay $10 for medical care, $2 for wage loss, and $6 for pain and suffering, while expending $37 for insurance company lawyers and other expenses.


Merton Bernstein
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"Medicare-for-All would make liability insurance medical care coverage unnecessary," Bernstein says. "Their share of the premium would be better spent on mental health services as well as dental, vision and hearing care."

Bernstein notes that thousands of people most concerned with patient care — physicians, medical students, nurses and unions representing non-professionals — endorse a single-payer approach.

"Business and state and local governments should embrace Medicare-for-All because it would rein in their costs," he says. "It would relieve providers of the distractions and overhead required to process billions of claims. The present course promises only higher costs and little progress but builds pressure for more regulation, significant cuts, or a government takeover.

"Other savings measures could supplement Medicare-for-All," Bernstein says. "Only a single-payer plan enables savings on a scale sufficient to make universal coverage feasible. And as with Medicare today, patients would choose their own doctors — the choice most of us cherish and that private insurance often limits."