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Tech In the Hot Seat For Oct. 1st Obamacare Launch
bednarz writes "In four days, the health insurance marketplaces mandated by the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act are scheduled to open for business. Yet even before the sites launch, problems are emerging. Final security testing of the federal data hub isn't slated to happen until Sept. 30, one day before the rollout. Lawmakers have raised significant concerns about the ability of the system to protect personal health records and other private information. 'Lots and lots of late nights and weekends as people get ready for go-live,' says Patrick Howard, who leads Deloitte Consulting's public sector state health care practice."
How many times have you guys been told by a project manager that QA testing starts on Wednesday and Go-Live is on Friday? I had a meeting once where a manager said we needed to improve our planning so we weren't constantly doing bug fixing on Thursday and Friday morning, and was willing to put in place so many new procedures, workflows, and documentation but never give more time between the start of QA and product roll-out.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
First you have to just adopt the technology, before we can see if it will work...
Sad pandas to you if you are unaware of the tragic quote that spawned this.
Yes, there is a point to this.
It may well be a long time before the Republicans have enough votes to get a repeal through the Senate. The way Demographics are headed, the Republican party of today will have to evolve significantly to stay relevant beyond this decade. And what Republicans fear about Obamacare more than anything else is that once it's implemented, people will decide that they like it, making it impossible for them to repeal it (much like Medicare and Social Security).
Nope. In a few years you'll see Tea Party demonstrations with placards like "Don't let government get its hands into my Obamacare!".
The Republicans can only get rid of it if it is unsuccessful, which is why they tried so hard to get rid of it before it was enacted. Even so, repealing it would take a Republican president and simple majority in both the house and senate, which is much harder.
Luckily for the Republicans they will always be able to find some metrics that show that it was a failure. Health care premiums will continue to rise no matter what until we serious talk about rationing care, so any health care plan written by either party will always leave room for complaints.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
We can only hope. I've looked at this whole mess and clearly the politicians supporting it have absolutely no clue what they're doing. Only that it's someone else's mess to fix.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I was under the impression that "Obamacare" is one of the first things that's going to be axed as soon as the USA gets its next Republican president... which is inevitable at some point in the future, given a two-party system.
I was under the impression there was just one party with people wanting power.
if by "evolve" you mean "lean further libertarian instead of continuing to be basically the laziest Democrats ever", I agree with that part.
As far as the "decide that they like it" part, I'd say it will be more along the lines of "dislike it but fear the disappearance of what few scraps it throws them"
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I would tell you that it doesn't matter if a Republican president gets elected, he still has to implement the laws that Congress has passed.
Although if the current presidency is any indication, I guess that's no longer true.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Um, no, it's not fully hands off. The Medicare act is Federal legislation that sets certain criteria for how the Provinces run their healthcare systems. The Provinces are given some latitude, but key aspects must be respected by the Provinces.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
. . . the same wonks that gave us so many failed DMV systems haven't found work in this sector too.
Yeah, I mean, Ted Cruz is practically a shoe-in in 2016.
Since it would be replaced with the option to die in the gutter I think axing is a bad move.
Considering that the feds in Canada fund the majority of our health care I'd suggest that they are very far from being "hands off". Just look at the legislation concerning the delivery of health care in Canada and you see what a dumb comment Mashiki is making.
Laziest democrats? Nixon was a socialist compared to todays republicans. If they leaned any further right they would fall over.
Barry Goldwater was a prophet. The religious right now owns the Republican party.
What are you on about?
That statement has been true at least since Andrew Jackson defied the Supreme Court.
. Lawmakers have raised significant concerns about the ability of the system to protect personal health records and other private information.
Would that be the same lawmakers that authorized the handling of our sensitive personal health records by people making pennies on the dollar in foreign countries... because hospitals asked them to disregard HIPPA safeguards to save a few bucks?
'Lots and lots of late nights and weekends as people get ready for go-live,' says Patrick Howard, who leads Deloitte Consulting's public sector state health care practice."
Wait, rolling out national access to one of the most complex databases ever designed, with multi-tiered access controls, and peering with tens of thousands of providers, in realtime... isn't easy? Shit, why not just hire some more 14 year old kids? They seem to know how these computer whatcha-things work. Can't be any harder than Youtubing the Facebooks.
Let's be serious for a minute -- the launch can't possibly go as badly as the Republican's last major foray into IT -- Romney's campaign. I mean, their competitor to Obama's data analytics software didn't just explode on the launchpad, it actually fired itself into the ground as it did so. So the idea that Obama might pull off another big data project while they're still trying to figure out where the off button is on the internet, is probably a bit frightening to them. And that's really all it's about. Have you seen the scare advertisements on TV? I mean, creepy guys dressed as Uncle Sam putting on lubed blue gloves and making a mockery of what is undeniably the best medicine in the world (once you're sick, that is, and as long as you can afford it)... they're going all out on this.
So yeah, big surprise they're predicting the end of life as we know it, asteroid smashing into Earth, total extinction of the human race kind of doomsday predictions over the launch. But truthfully, here's what's going to happen; It's going to work. Sortof. There's going to be spotty and random problems, many caused by humans, because whenever you launch a new, complex piece of software, the interaction of so many untrained people in an uncontrolled environment (read: "It worked fine in the lab!") is going to cause unmitigated stress and support headaches until people get used to the software... and the software gets used to them. And by used to them, I mean patched. Probably quite a bit. It's the classic support bathtub curve: High initial support costs, followed by a rapid falloff, a long period of stability, and then rising costs again as the product ages and reaches EOL.
This is IT Management 101. Nobody should be surprised when things go haywire... but it'll be haywire in the "Y2K" sort of way: A few newsworthy problems (that'll inevitably be blown well out of proportion), but mostly... it'll work. It'll be lagged, and people will be frustrated, but it'll work.
And no matter how badly it goes... it's still better than the alternative, which is for some people literally dying in place, due to a lack of access to health care. Even if it set every 20,000th's applicant on fire, it'd be better than what we have now.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
"Don't judge a philosophy by those who misapply it."
I'm sure that's a quote, but of whom I don't know.
I'm neither going to defend Nixon nor today's GOP. Neither deserves the defence. The few that deserve defence are the ones the GOP "leadership" (if you want to call it that) already hate.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The idea of having affordable health care as opposed to being told sorry but you must just go die someplace as quietly as possible does tend to make it more than likely it will succeed. In year's time this will be old news and the GOPTP will be whining about something else, looking for another hostage to take to get their agenda passed.
Yup, it's a mess. Perhaps if you Americans would finally just introduce a proper universal health care system, instead of these constants half-measures, you could stop spending such an enormous portion of your GDP on health care.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In hindsight letting it be called obamacare is probably the only mistake the democrats made.
The teapartiers will never carry a placard with a pro-statement next to a democrat president's name.
Obama should have named the Reagan Memorial Health Care Act, shortended to ReaganCare... now that's something tea partiers can get behind 5 years from now.
Not their fault. They had to pass the legislation before they could know what was in it.
The healthcare act sets out "how" the system should be. And what min. level of care should be. Provinces decide "how" to do it. In the US, the ACA determines "how" states should do it, and even "how" to implement it. See the difference now?
Om, nomnomnom...
I wept bitter tears at your post.
People did try to call it Romneycare, but maybe the magic underwear made it less convincing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So said, funding = telling provinces how to do it. Gotcha, can you tell me when the last time the federal government dictated where to build a hospital in Ontario, Alberta, or even Quebec? Right. How about the number of doctors that need to be hired in each specific province. Right. And let me know when you get around to reading the federal healthcare act again, which should take you all of about 8 minutes. I'll see you sometime next year when you're done reading the ACA.
Om, nomnomnom...
The problem for Ted Cruz in 2016 is that on his present course he looks as if he will be so successful in dismantling the US government that its unclear if there will even be a presidency in 2016. However, I'm sure in that case, he will probably just appoint himself as the rest of the country just stand back helplessly in horror.
Federal IT contracting also has the kickbacks and other BS that put's lot's of PHB's in the way of getting work done.
And these, folks, were the best politicians we could muster as a nation?
If that's the case, maybe if we beg really nice, we can get Queen Elizabeth II to take us back and end this silliness.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Relevant cartoon
Actually, the name "Obamacare" was invented by Republicans and was used as a derisive name for ACA at first.
I don't think this is possible. Once it goes into effect, people will pretty much love it. Already a strong majority of Americans either like the legislation or wish it were stronger, and many of the remainder will come on board the second the legislation goes live. Even more support the individual parts of the legislation. The actual implementation of the healthcare exchanges will be differently-named in many states, so that a lot of its details will not carry the stigma of "Obamacare". Very soon, we'll have Republicans standing up and saying, "Keep the government's hands off my Obamacare!" Well, they won't say Obamacare, but they'll name a part of the legislation that they probably don't realize is a part of it.
I don't know that I'd call it "proper", but it would be cheaper and more effective. What would really help though would be taking health insurance and government healthcare entirely off the table. The long-term damage of insulating the cost of healthcare from the market is what we're really up against. Just like anything you subsidize, prices always rise to match the subsidy.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
and then then some should do a sick kids sick out on the capitol steps and tell the kids don't get and in jail under cruel and unusual punishment and others laws they must give you medical care or you can just go to the ER.
Assuming a Republican could even get elected after the party trashes the economy (yet again), it wouldn't be easy to unwind ACA. For one thing, they have time to fix the technical glitches. They'd have a shot at fixing the programmatic glitches if the Republicans would stop acting like spoiled brats. Every entitlement has always required programmatic fixes, this will be no different. And those fixes would happen were the Republicans not hell bent on screwing Obama. I don't recall the Republicans being so worried about the economy or the health care system before the ACA. Now all of a sudden they've had a come to Jesus meeting.
And their budget objections have nothing to do with the budget. They simply do not like what the Federal government does...especially supporting Science. Science prevents them from making shit up and spewing it out over the media...ok, so it doesn't stop them, but at least it clear they are full of shit.
I know, but Obama approved and took ownership of the name, so it is often reported as obamacare even by neutral and pro-democrat sources now, planting the name much more firmly.
Had it been left only as the term used by the extreme right-wing mouth breathers as a term of derision it would be more likely to fade away, especially if the act itself gains popularity in the future.
Well tell that PM that new procedures are more time over all and more man power if you are getting done / ready for finale / RC QA testing just days before go live.
It is shitty bill, but not for any ideological sake...hell its a right wing bill through and through, that's the very reason why its a shitty bill, it caters to the insurance companys and mandates that we must buy private insurance. Now a public option would of made this bill much more likable.
It does patch holes that needed to be patched and its great at least we are trying something else, but i am not optimistic it is going to solve what the real problem is; hospitals, insurance company's and big pharama all realizing that they can extort anyone who is in pain or on a death bed.
In the end i am comforted in knowing that these corrupt individuals will get there day.
Yes, the Provinces decide how, but the parameters are not all that wide, and because the system is in considerable aspects Federally proscribed, you don't see that much variance between Provinces. And, in fact, the Feds have on occasion flexed their muscle and have sent warning shots to provinces who have traveled too far off the line.
Here's the facts. I am a resident of British Columbia. I pay about $127 per month in Medical Services Premiums. For that I won't be given a bill at any hospital or any doctor if I have a medical issue. If I need a scan or some other diagnostic test, I will not be billed. Furthermore, if I end up needing healthcare in Prince Edward Island, I will still be protected.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The democrats really have no idea how mad they've made some people. This thing is intolerable. And I and those I support in politics will go for pretty much whatever option is open to frustrate or destroy it.
Understand... this will not be worth it for the democrats. They've stuck their foot into something that has grown larger and more involved and enflamed more passions then they could comprehend.
Their reactions throughout have been "so what" "what's the big deal"... they don't get it.
Every trick in the book is on the table with this thing. By hook, crook, nail, and claw... this thing is going down or it will be so horribly scrambled that the democrats will wish it did die.
Politically, the republicans were completely sidelined for this thing. Utterly emasculated. To survive as a political organization, the republicans need to so thoroughly annihilate this move that the democrats for generations to come remember it.
Anything less and we transition to a one party system.
Let me opt out and we have peace. That's all we've ever wanted in this venture. Let people vote with their feet. If its such a great program you wont' need to force people to join it. If you do need to force people then its not actually a great program you irredeemable lying aholes.
Doubtless I'm going to get some snarky replies from some democrats. That's fine. Game on, stooges.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
you obviously don't know what you're talking about. $92 a year? Bullshit. For me it will cost an addition $8,000 dollars for health insurance, PLUS the cost of my diabetic wife's insulin, needle, test strips, etc have all doubled in price. For a grand total of almost $14,000 a year. I don't know where you got your $92 quote but it's WAAAAAAAY off. btw, I make less than 100k a year.
As for the second part, people in this country don't get turned away because they're poor, they get medicare or medicaid (depending on age).
There, fixed that for you!
And remember. The more you depend on government, the more control they have over your life. Soon, we will all be enslaved to the "machine".
Life is not for the lazy.
Here's the facts. I am a resident of British Columbia. I pay about $127 per month in Medical Services Premiums. For that I won't be given a bill at any hospital or any doctor if I have a medical issue. If I need a scan or some other diagnostic test, I will not be billed. Furthermore, if I end up needing healthcare in Prince Edward Island, I will still be protected.
Shoot, that sounds fantastic! Why can't we get something like that here in the U.S.?
For all of those if us concerned about the privacy/sanctity of our medical information, it doesn't exist *now*. If you are treated under any private health insurance plan, all of the diagnoses and treatments are fed into a database (http://www.mib.com/facts_about_mib.html) that all the insurance companies share to protect themselves against people applying for insurance and "forgetting" about a pre-existing condition. Next time you have a few minutes, pull out the mice-type on your health insurance plan and read up on how they can collect and share that information.
Actually they're quite wide. Go and read the healthcare act then look at the provinces. In fact those "warning shots" have been at Quebec most of the time, because they simply dump the money direct into general revenue, then take it back out. In order to claim that the money came directly from their own general fund. Aka useless BS Quebec type stuff.
And to highlight difference, in Ontario I pay nothing. I don't pay for any tests or diagnostics out of pocket. I pay for notes from my doctor, and that's it. And if I end up in another province, I still won't be billed--because OHIP will cover it.
Om, nomnomnom...
Exactly, its a shitty handout to the insurance industry. Government mandated spending on for profit industry. A right wing corporatist bill through and through.
What we really needed is nationalized single payer healthcare. But right wing Obama and his conservative democrats bowed down before the crazy wing tea party leadership and their regressive republicans.
We have that option in Canada too, but at least you're usually in an ambulance.
Om, nomnomnom...
The "tea party" isn't a philosophy. It's a bunch of idiots and corporate patsies. At one point it had an underlying philosophy which, while fundamentally flawed, was at least consistent. Now it's just a bunch of reactionary Obama haters.
That remains to be seen. After the law has been in place for a year or two, it may turn out to be a very good decision.
Ted Cruz the superpatriot Canadian-born Cuban?
The one who reads "Green Eggs and Ham" but fails to understand the core message of not saying you don't like something till you've tried it?
I was under the impression that "Obamacare" is one of the first things that's going to be axed as soon as the USA gets its next Republican president... which is inevitable at some point in the future, given a two-party system.
Not at all clear-- the president can neither pass nor repeal legislation. Even a Republican president would have to work through Congress to do so, and unless both chambers are also Republican, this may be difficult.
In any case, though, the reason that Republicans are trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act so urgently is that they believe that once it is in place, people will like it so much that it will be impossible to repeal. So if this is true, then no.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
What do you mean by demographics? The Us population is getting older, which is traditionally more Republican demographics. Oh, you mean the huge influx of Latinos. Right, I understand now. Only, in their own countries Latinos tend to elect fairly conservative governments so once the Democrat deception regarding the immigration issue stops working, things might change.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
>> Lots and lots of late nights and weekends as people get ready for go-live
Translation: "We've been sandbagging hours with folks in India and newbies right out of college for months. Now we may need to actually pull some of our senior guys off sales and deep-end pissed-off customer calls and see if they remember how to program again."
Too bad for you 0bamacare's shaping up to be anything but affordable. Even that is assuming they can crunch the numbers, which isn't a valid assumption either.
On an anecdotal note, my employer switched from a PPO plan to an HMO plan to keep its costs somewhat under control. You have the option to stay in a PPOish plan, but it now costs about 4x what we had previously been paying. I switched to this plan to keep access to its better network in case my wife had to quit working and go onto my plan; her oncologist is available through the PPOish plan, but not the HMO. (She's since passed away. :-( Now that it's just me, I might suck it up and switch to the HMO to save some money. So much for "if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.")
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Tea Party is in favor of reforming SS, Medicare etc. It is typical of the deceptive way liberals operate to take the placard held by some idiot to represent an entire movement. Do you also take everything every junkie wrote on a cardboard during the occupy protests as representative of the liberal policies?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
For Chrissy's Sakes!!! I will take either of your systems!
That is because ACA is not a single payer system...
As for the second part, people in this country don't get turned away because they're poor, they get medicare or medicaid (depending on age).
Some do. Some don't. Some have too much money for medicaid, but not enough to pay for a big hospital bill. Some charge hospital bills on their credit cards, and then go bankrupt when they can't pay them (sticking you and me with the bill). Some can't get credit cards, and use the Emergency Room for health care. Some just die.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSTRE58G6W520090917
"Reuters) - Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Here's the facts. I am a resident of British Columbia. I pay about $127 per month in Medical Services Premiums. For that I won't be given a bill at any hospital or any doctor if I have a medical issue. If I need a scan or some other diagnostic test, I will not be billed. Furthermore, if I end up needing healthcare in Prince Edward Island, I will still be protected.
Shoot, that sounds fantastic! Why can't we get something like that here in the U.S.?
Because we got FREEDOMS!!!!
So you think because it has "affordable" in the name, that it actually is affordable. Don't you know of the tradition of that bills in congress are given names that are exactly opposite of the bill's effects?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Then I'm sure you're ready and waiting to die for "healthcare" up here too. The last time I had a serious injury where I broke my back, it was oh two hours or so before I got in for an x-ray. And 7 days for a CT. As a helpful point, even though my back was broken I was sent home, because there were no beds available.
Om, nomnomnom...
Not likely. Considering "Obamacare" is going to collapse under it's own weight, lack of support, and poor implementation.
Religious right most definitely does not own the Republican party. It has moved more to the right fiscally, but it has become less religious.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Republicans are divided on that point.....half (like Ted Cruz) think it is crucial to get rid of it before it starts. The other half thinks it's so bad that they should just let it happen and people will see how bad it is.
There is reason to believe that there is truth in both points of view.
The security testing mentioned, do you think they will stop just because it goes live?
Or will they have a constant, dedicated intrusion detection/prevention team?
As far as I know, there is no province in Canada where you spend more than about $80 per person per month on public health care... which is less than $1k per year. However, public health care does not cover the costs of medication, which I know can get pretty expensive if you have certain medical issues.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Here's the facts. I am a resident of British Columbia. I pay about $127 per month in Medical Services Premiums. For that I won't be given a bill at any hospital or any doctor if I have a medical issue. If I need a scan or some other diagnostic test, I will not be billed. Furthermore, if I end up needing healthcare in Prince Edward Island, I will still be protected.
Shoot, that sounds fantastic! Why can't we get something like that here in the U.S.?
Because we got FREEDOMS!!!!
Especially the freedom to bend over and take it...
Why would you even want to opt out? You'll have to explain that to me as it sounds like a really dumb idea.
Well tell that PM that new procedures are more time over all and more man power if you are getting done / ready for finale / RC QA testing just days before go live.
Oh that is cute, thinking that a PM with such ridiculous opinions can be reasoned with. Many people did try, but eventually it was only fixed when higher level management got fed up and fired the PMs in question.
But now that I work as a consultant, I find these kinds of PMs all over the place. Luckily now it is easier to just not work with these kinds of people, or at least keep racking up billable hours fixing the problems caused by their ridiculousness.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Universal health system = rationing = substandard care, waiting lists and corruption. I have lived under the NHS and under the US system and I will take the US system any day. for the 86% that have insurance in the US, the care they receive overall is superior to any major country (please don't start throwing in countries with 4 mil population and unlimited oil resources like Norway as a fair comparison to the US) with a single payer system .
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Well, I thought that it was quite a coup. Now Obama will be associated with decent medical care (ACA is going to work vastly better than the current mess) for a looong time. The current Tea Partiers are generally beyond help, but future generations might remember that their healthcare was the result of government program fiercely opposed by Republicans.
Nope, we'll see more bills amending Obummercare and passed by Senators who say something like "We have to pass the bill so that we can see what's in it", then passing the bill in the middle of the night by the corrupt Senate majority, disallowing an appropriate review of the bill due to such little time allowed. At least Romneycare had a lot of voter/political support, unlike Obama's clusterfuck which is very unpopular and divisive which is why it was rammed down the throats of US citizens.
Actually, I long ago got the impression that the sole reason for the existence of the post-2008 Republican party is to ensure that every thing Obama ever did is completely and permanently erased forever as though they had never been.
Obama certainly has a lot to answer for and no few things that richly deserve erasing, but they started even before he took the oath of office.
You do realize that what you have is INFINITELY better than not having that access at all or breaking your back and going bankrupt because you cannot work and your insurance drops you, right?
Before clicking on any health care related article in Forbes, you need to ask yourself "am I about to read something written by Avik Roy?" If so, just stop. He spews crap. Now, I have not actually clicked on your link yet, but I am about to. And we will see if my powers of prediction are at all accurate.
And remember. The more you depend on other people, the more control other people have over your life. Soon, we will all be more dependent on each other.
FTFY. Government by the people, for the people, right?
I didn't catch the fish I ate at lunch, which was gotten commercially, but I didn't have to wonder if it was safe to eat, which the government inspectors deal with. And I took the metro, which the government runs. And when I walked home late at night in the dark I didn't have to worry about getting robbed or worse, because of the police being around. God, it really sucks to have to deal with other people, huh?
In Canada:
A married couple with no children pay, on average, $11,381 in government healthcare premiums.
Those premiums cover 70% of healthcare costs.
The other 30% of costs are paid out of pocket.
89% of the time, the time for an appointment is less than 90 days.
11%of the time, you have to wait more than 3 months.
For any doctor other than a GP, the average wait time is longer than 30 days.
Patients are not permitted to pay for faster service.
Patients are not permitted to pay for higher quality care.
Patients may pay for services not covered by the government program.
In the US, costs are similar, but slightly higher. Wait times are measured in hours, not weeks. If you're not satisfied with one doctor, you can get a second opinion from another doctor.
The US system is of course not perfect. It does have (had?) a lot of advantages over the Canadian system.
That's right and I want:
- Freedom from having to pay my mortgage ... [insert any expense]
- Freedom from making payments on my car
- Freedom from paying for my groceries (single payer groceries!)
- Freedom from paying
Just need to vote for other people to pay for it and I'll be all set.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
And what, you don't think the US system has a ton of horror stories. My run-in with serious illness was my wife's thyroid cancer, and the only real delay was because the initial symptoms aped salivary gland blockage. Within days that that specialist figured out that it was a probable tumor (initially they thought a carotid body tumor), we were driving to Victoria to see an ENT (ear-nose-throat specialist) whose specialization was cancerous tumors. She had surgery a few weeks later, which identified it as a thyroid tumor, and the big delay for removing the thyroid gland (total thyroidectomy) was that she had to heal sufficiently from the initial surgery.
Yes, there are delays and rationing, but really that happens in any system. In the US, in many places, rationing is basically defined by the size of your wallet. In Canada and other countries with universal systems, it's defined by utilization.
The public health system saved my wife's life, and other than her need to take thyroid replacement hormone for the rest of her life, she has fully recovered. Furthermore, I was laid off right in the middle of this nightmare, and the end result was that there was no bankruptcy or loss of our house.
I'll take the odd delay in treatment over no service at all or going bankrupt to save my loved ones' lives. If you like the American system so damned much, I urge you to move there.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Before you believe anything dcherryholmes says, be warned: he spews crap.
Hmm, ok so I tried your style of arguing and it doesn't work for me. I think I'll stick to arguing the merits of the issue instead of launching preemptive personal attacks.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
So if I'm unemployed under your system, how will I pay for, oh I dunno, treatment for melanoma?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The new resident cant do it alone, it will require a cooperative congress.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The government figures say a married couple with no children pay on average $11,381 in government healthcare premiums, and pay $3,414 for medication and other expenses.
Adding those two official numbers, that's $14,795 per year, or $1,232.94 per month for two people.
If only you guys didn't have snow and your surfing was better, I'd move up there.
Only if you can afford the FREEDOMS.
Tea Party is in favor of reforming SS, Medicare etc. It is typical of the deceptive way liberals operate to take the placard held by some idiot to represent an entire movement.
What is this Tea Party you refer to? That sounds like a political party... let me check... no... doesn't seem to be. I see many parties. Green Party. Libertarian Party. Even the Prohibition Party is still kicking. The Tea Party is not a political party, therefore does not have a platform in the traditional sense.
Do you also take everything every junkie wrote on a cardboard during the occupy protests as representative of the liberal policies?
Do people even use the word "junkie" anymore?
It wasn't an argument, it was an observation. Feel free to disregard it if his brand of propaganda scratches your itch.
Well, in the US the poor don't get access to healthcare, in Canada no one does. I guess at least it's fair...
We need to look beyond North America to find a system that works...
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
Let me explain something to you. Canada is a confederation of ten provinces with clear separation of powers. And yet we still have the Canada Health Act. And there's certainly no lack of Federal legislation that the States have agree to.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
A married couple with no children pay, on average, $11,381 in government healthcare premiums.
Wow, that's basically the same as the US. I didn't realize it was so high.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Two hours for an X-Ray sounds short for the US. Note that all those people who can't afford health care wait until they're really sick and then the clog up the emergency rooms. Which means that if you have a broken bone you sit and wait while the person next to you is coughing from the flu.
Also you'll be able to get care for that back in the future. In the US this won't happen if you can't afford insurance, you'll get emergency care only followed by a string of bill collectors calling to threaten you. The US system only works so far as you've got stable employment at a medium sized company or larger. If you're a food services worker then forget it, you will probalby never be offered health insurance or be able to afford it and just have to hope that your spouse gets insurance on the job.
Bingo.
The tea partiers define themselves in negative space -- by what they're against more than what they're for. They have no solutions, just one way after another to (1) attack Obama and anyone with a D after his or her name, and (2) rationalize giving even more money and power to corporations under some bizarroworld reformulation of "freedom".
Decades from now, people will look back on the tea partiers and wonder how the fuck we were stupid enough to elect even a single one of them to office.
I don't think they necessarily feel the fear of being unable to repeal it in the future. I think they're only using it as the current scare tactic to get votes. If it gets entrenched then they'll get another topic to get the fan base worked up over.
My mom, around 80 years old at the time, broke her arm on a Saturday, went to the hosptial. They gave her some pain medicine, a sling, and told her to go to her primary car physician on Monday to get it set and cast. This is in the USA, and she had relatively good insurance (not just Medicare).
Nonsense. Reagan is a liberal commie compared to these new congresscritters endorsed by the tea partiers.
These "freedoms" and more are available... but they come at a price.
For instance? No problem...
The county where I live offers an anus-puckering discount on poor families wanting to buy a home (imagine this - being offered a decent home in a neighborhood full of $250k homes for a mere $27k at 0% interest. No, that's not a typo.) Only thing is, the county gets to stop by and make sure you're still poor during the 5-year 'mortgage' period, else the rates and total price rises accordingly. Oh, and CPS gets to check in on your kids any time they want, among other governmental visits that would otherwise demand a warrant.
Groceries? No problem, present an appropriate sob story and proof that you lack income, and most states will lavish you with an EBT card. 'course, unless you get creative about how you dodge it, there's an approved list of foods you can and cannot buy.
Car payments? Well, most metro areas do subsidize free mass transit if you make less than a certain income level... but really - it's mass transit. That means you're stuck with living within walking distance of it, and no further.
How does this relate to healthcare? Well, there are folks already demanding that people be forced to wear health activity monitors if they want that subsidized health-care... but you're forced to buy the subsidized plan if you cannot otherwise afford it on your own, so guess what happens if you have the misfortune to be impoverished? Yup - the government now owns your health.
Long story short, the "freedom"s are there, but the dependencies and (IMHO) conditions you subject yourself to in order to receive them are, well... about to become rather dehumanizing.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It's good that you put "Sovereign" in quotes, because they certainly are'nt Sovereign States. They can't choose to make war, for example, which is something a sovereign state can do.
They are also bound by the federal laws of the government of the United States of America, some of which will be the ACA laws which will be funded shortly. So get ready.
You'd take the US system because you have enough money to participate in it. Healthcare is ALWAYS rationed. Currently we ration it based on who can pay the most. I'd rather it be rationed based on who needs care most urgently. Societies that choose this method always pay less as percentage of their GDP on healthcare, and get better healthcare outcomes than the US system.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Congress makes the law, not the President. You'd need a Republican Congress to do that.
And still, probably not. There's too much money invested now and too much insurance industry pieces wrapped up in it to stop it now; it'd be hugely catastrophic to just axe it entirely. Too many private employers have nixed their health insurance already for Obamacare, so that would make them all scramble to find something too. Besides, the reasonable Republicans all argue there are some good things in the bill; if we got a Republican dominated Congress and President what you'd see is severe modifications, down playing some of the more onerous pieces and keeping others.
So, you really mean: 100% their fault.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Where do these numbers come from?
Yeah, but they don't know that.
or won't afford? sure there are some that really, really can't, but the majority are just being dicks.the bigger the comapny, the more dickish. oh noes, we might have to cut manger bonuses?! so? bonuses are just that, bonus. they should never be relied on or guaranteed by anyone, ever.
Yes. And, woosh.
The US spends more on health care as a portion of GDP than pretty much any other industrialized country on the planet. Ponder that as you denigrate a public system and pump your fists for the US "model".
All I know is that I didn't go bankrupt even when faced with my wife's serious cancer and my own concurrent lay off.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Obama called it Obamacare at least twice during the Obama-Romney debates. He wanted to own it and he does.
What website are you looking at? Specifically.... this does not correspond with anything that I've read for BC, Alberta, or Ontario.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"The reason we pay so much for health care is because the recipient doesn't know and/or doesn't care how much it costs, namely because they don't pay for it. Likewise, they don't shop around."
Oh, when was that? 1981?
In actual fact, in the USA, average people are FAR more exposed personally to the extreme costs of medical care and yet the total spending and, of course, PRICES, are much higher in the USA than any other nation. As is the compensation of the managers of medical care institutions.
Why is that?
Why is the solution, as always, AMP UP THE PAIN! (and some how let the market fix it despite not fixing anything for 40 years). And why does this always seem to apply to the poorest?
Go ahead, repeal actual, Federalized socialized medicine (Medicare) first.
It's an anecdote off.......
I required an x-ray on 2 occasions for possible arm injury.
On both occasions I was seen within one hour and on one of those occasions received a cast and follow up treatment.
And paid nothing for any of it. (It is paid through taxation which I do or course pay).
This is in Filthy, Secular crypto-communist Europe (Boo!! Hiss!!).
But we are full of people suffering the effects of crippling bureau-incompetence and socialistic hobbling of the human spirit. Galt save us! How did I get treatment??
That is what national Republicans want you to believe, that they're no worse than the other guys. Sometimes the lesser of two evils results in less net evil.
Unfortunately, Slashdot doesn't provide a " -1: Commenter is an idiot option", so I'll have to try to provide you with a clue. Brace yourself.
We are not discussing health insurance, and the ACA does not provide for it. The ACA is about health care coverage, and that is different.
Insurance is intended to protect against unforeseen or rare events, not expected costs. Auto insurance covers against collisions and theft, but it doesn't provide payouts for oil changes, tune-ups, tire rotation, etc. Homeowner's insurance will pay to repair or rebuild your home in the event of fire or disaster, but does not cover costs associated with maintaining the property or structure.
Actual heath insurance would cover serious injury or illness but would not cover regular doctor visits, routine check-ups, most medications and so forth. But that we don't have health insurance, we have a sorta-kinda-halfassed subsidy program for heath care we mistakenly refer to as insurance. And it is price opaque. In other words, you do not see the actual amount of the subsidy. You have no idea what the true cost of service is.
And that is the problem AlphaWolf was talking about. If it was obvious up front that you would be charged twelve dollars for a generic aspirin, no one would pay. If you knew that you were going to be billed 175 bucks for waiting an hour and than having a fifteen minute chat with a doctor, no one would go. Health care coverage hides cost and distorts the market, driving prices up.
Imagine that auto insurance worked the same way as so-called heath insurance. When you needed an oil change, you would take your car to an approved facility, hand over your insurance card, pay a co-pay and then get a paper saying 'paid by insurance'. With no dollar amount. An oil change might cost a hundred dollars. And why not? If you only pay the co-pay, what do you care if your insurance company gets bilked? It's not your money, after all.
Waiting lists I'll agree with... but what evidence do you have of the others? I live in a country with universal health care and see absolutely none of the other issues arise.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Well, I thought that it was quite a coup. Now Obama will be associated with decent medical care (ACA is going to work vastly better than the current mess) for a looong time.
WTF? The ACA will do absolutely NOTHING to lower the cost of medical care. In fact, because it includes a significant tax increase on medical devices, it will actually INCREASE the cost of care, even if everything else in the bill worked as the lobbyists that wrote it said.
Seriously, you sound even more ignorant than the majority of ACA supporters. Do you work for MSNBC, perhaps?
Yup - the government now owns your activity
FTFY yes, they own your health in your example but that's less scary to most people than owning your activity (slavery)
I can't speak to any other province, but here in BC we have Pharmacare, which sets up limits to what any person will pay for meds, and it is means tested. In other words, a person making $100k per year will have a higher ceiling than someone making $25k per year. There are also provisions, though you have to obviously prove it, for emergency coverage of drugs. This often kicks in when you suffer a catastrophic illness and require very expensive meds.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Actually, I long ago got the impression that the sole reason for the existence of the post-2008 Republican party is to ensure that every thing Obama ever did is completely and permanently erased forever as though they had never been.
Obama certainly has a lot to answer for and no few things that richly deserve erasing, but they started even before he took the oath of office.
You think they wouldn't have done the exact same thing to Hillary? This pure-antagonist politics is pure Tip O'Neill - oppose everything, and try to impeach the President as soon as possible.
To take some specific examples in the English-speaking world, in Australia, the local conservatives did manage to repeal it the first time around. The second time around, they didn't get back into government for thirteen years until they promised to keep it, and they've never seriously tried repealing it since despite long periods in power. In the UK, even that hero of the right, Margaret Thatcher, left the NHS alone. The overwhelming evidence is that once universal health care systems are introduced, they are enormously popular.
So, yeah, drag this one out into a political fight to the death. It's unlikely, but possible, you'll knock it off. But if your lot continues with this crap for too long once it's in place, you will consign yourself to electoral irrelevance; even the ridiculous malapportionment and gerrymandering that goes on in the US won't be enough to save them.
In the medium term, I won't be terribly sad at that; while sensible health care reform will ensure that millions of your fellow citizens have healthier, longer lives, it doesn't affect me directly. But a couple of your party's other insanities, particularly its delusions on climate science, do. And if you do manage to consign yourself to complete electoral irrelevance for a few terms, the United States will be able to act effectively on climate change.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
That's just too bad. Oh, a real bummer.
Government by the people, for the people, right?
No. No one forced you to eat that fish, take the metro, or walk home at night. But the individual mandate does attempt to force you to have a peculiar sort of health insurance. And willy nilly increasing our dependencies on each other doesn't work, if the other parties don't deliver or you can't afford to participate even with subsidies.
You'd take the US system because you have enough money to participate in it.
No, I'd take the US system because with my, fairly average, insurance plan I get better care. Almost everybody can participate in US care and if you want to help those who cannot, then lets be honest about it and pay for their care directly and bill the rest of us through higher taxes. That is how it works out anyway under Obamacare except it is obfuscated through an extremely complex system that still doesn't change the reality that somebody has to pay for those who cannot afford it.
Healthcare is ALWAYS rationed
No it is not! Unless you have some bizarre definition of rationing that applies to literally everything. Are shoes "rationed" because there are some people who cannot afford them?
Everybody has the option of making more money and paying for as much care as they want or can afford. To take one anecdotal example to illustrate the principle: couple of years ago I tore my knee ligament while playing soccer. Within couple of days I received and MRI, and within couple of weeks an excellent surgery using latest equipment, pretty much the same kind used in case of professional athletes. I ended up paying about $1500, the rest was paid by my, like I said, totally average insurance plan I get through my employer. If I was under a rationed system like NHS, there is NO WAY that a sport injury that left me able to walk normally, just not play sports, in mid-30s would justify such expensive procedures. Most likely I would have to wait a few weeks even for an X-ray. The point it, the standard of care I received was determined by ME, my doctor and the contract I have with my insurance company. Under NHS it would be other people deciding how important or not my knee is (probably not very important to them).
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I'll take freedom from mortgage and foreclosure fraud.
And freedom from contaminated food.
Freedom from a few other things too.
98.2% of oddly precise numbers without sources can be disregarded as bullshit.
(that non-partisan analysis group dems love to cite) said (just last week) that Obamacare will bankrupt the country. Social Security and Medicare are indeed good examples where the Democrats lied about the costs, demographics, levels of regulation, etc as they jammed a new program through... then the program had such a massive displacing effect in the markets that it destroyed all alternatives, then the middle class got hooked on it (because the alternatives were destroyed) but then the costs ballooned (exactly as Republicans had predicted/feared) and the federal government is being destroyed by it. During Obama's 5 years in office, the national debt has gone from $10 Trillion to $17 Trillion and it will cross the $20 trillion line by the time he leaves office (Obama alone will have doubled the national debt). The national debt does NOT even include all the promised future Social Security and Medicare outlays... the REAL debt is aver $100 Trillion... there's not enough money on EARTH to repay that. This house of cards needs to be reigned-in QUICKLY or there will be a currency crisis and a global economic collapse followed by unheard-of misery that will make pre-WWII Weimar Germany look positively happy sometime within the lifetime of most Slashdotters.
All the blind faith of left-wing Obamabots cannot defy the laws of economics; this is NOT sustainable. The single most basic law of economics says that unsustainable spending will not be sustained.
Once everybody is hooked on Obamacare (NOT because it is wonderful, but because the alternatives will be intentionally destroyed by it) everybody will owe their very lives to federal government bureaucrats and when the money runs out those bureaucrats will decide who lives and who dies. This has long been the openly-stated goal of the progressive movement since the start of the 20th century and it's something Obama himself slipped-up and admitted in a campaign event last year (he said that older people were going to have to be told to go home and take pain pills instead of getting surgeries to fix the underlying problems).
Wow. You are so packed full of lies and propaganda it is just pathetic. Do you even know the difference between a lie and the truth?
Not using the American Health Care system much I see.
Not buying your own health care policy that you actually use either.
Your theoretical 70/30 ratio in the U.S. is not accurate because you don't know what services cost. Ever. Until you get the bill and the insurance company has decided what they will/will not cover.
I'm not permitted to pay for faster service either.
Wait times vary, and I'm thinking you are using the curse of averages to make your point seem to have some truthiness.
How would I know what's higher quality care? The American health care consumer has no way to know what constitutes higher quality care.
Nevermind the fact the U.S. health care takes the biggest chunk of GDP with a shrinking health care pool of consumers and returns a population less healthy than many Western nations. Just pretending that one away eh?
How YOU pay for it is up to YOU.
What you didn't want to ask is "So if I'm unemployed under your system, how will I get you to pay for, oh I dunno, my treatment for melanoma?
"His name was James Damore."
Everybody has the option of making more money
Life on your planet must be very pleasant.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
You must be too young to have 1st-hand experience in this bit of history.
First, Nixon was very far to the left in the Republican party (he implemented wage & price controls and created the EPA while hugging Communist China and trying to make nuclear arms deals with Russia that favored the Russians) but he got the support of the GOP base because [1] he had a history of fierce anti-communist action earlier in his career and [2] in each election cycle he cozied up to the social conservative base... not very hard to do given that BOTH parties used to be primarily Christian, with Democrats having somewhat higher penetration onto the Jewish communities. NOBODY in national politics back then would publicly embrace ANYTHING homo-, or drug-, or abortion- or athist-related.
Barry Goldwater was not a prophet, nor was he a conservative... the man was very Ron Paul in his views (i.e. a Libertarian) though not the same in his public persona. Barry had the strong support of a certain political block in his earlier races, and when they came back to him years later to beg him to run for president as a standard-bearer for conservatives within the Republican party he felt morally obliged to do it... which is why he ran that race (and his lack of desire to actually win was probably part of the problem with that campaign). The young conservatives at that time begged Barry to run because the establishment GOP was pushing the usual Rinos (not called that back then) like Mitt Romney's dad and the Rockefellers, none of whom were for smaller, constitutional government.
The modern GOP is FAR to the left of the GOP of 1980 (many modern Republicans have gone Libertarian on social issues like abortion, gay stuff, and half the current Republicans in the senate just voted to fund Obamacare...) you just think the GOP has moved right because the modern Democrats have moved so far left so fast that the gap between parties has grown very wide. Just 8 years ago, EVERY Democrat running for President was opposed to "gay marriage"... Democrat President Bill Clinton signed DOMA and "Don't Ask Don't Tell" military policies. During the 1980s Democrats used to scream and hollar and stomp about deficits and they repeatedly demanded Reagan negotiate with them on debt cieling limits... now they yell that the limits do not matter and they are printing money faster than anybody in history ever has...
Interesting, the only source for these "government figures" appears to be a whitepaper by the Fraser Institute...
Of course it's not a party but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a platform. This list is a good start seeing that most Tea Party groups endorse it and most Tea Party congressmen have signed up to it:
From http://contractfromamerica.org
1. Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)
2. Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nationâ(TM)s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%)
3. Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)
4. Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 wordsâ"the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)
5. Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitutionâ(TM)s meaning. (63.37%)
6. Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%)
7. Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isnâ(TM)t restricted by state boundaries. (56.39%)
8. Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51%)
9. Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)
10. Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2013. (53.38%)
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
If you like the American system so damned much, I urge you to move there.
For some reason when this topic comes up, we never seem to hear much about stories like this:
Report: Thousands fled Canada for health care in 2011
A Canadian study released Wednesday found that many provinces in our neighbor to the north have seen patients fleeing the country and opting for medical treatment in the United States.
The nonpartisan Fraser Institute reported that 46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent — more than double — compared with statistics from 1993.
Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment — the longest they have ever recorded.
It's a misleading number. It comes from this study by the Fraser Institute. Basically, they said "the government spends X% of it's income on health care, therefore we can take X% of each citizen's tax bill as the amount that they paid for health care". This is perfectly reasonable on its own, but the GP cherry-picked the number for a married couple with no kids because they have the highest tax bill. This makes Canadian health care costs seem higher than they truly are.
If you do an apples to apples comparison, the Canadians have a clear advantage.
Single adult: $3780 in Canada, $5884 in US
Family of four: $11320 in Canada, $16351 in US
Canadian numbers are from the Fraser Institute study, US numbers are from this study by KFF.
Republican fairy tales.
Yes, the Provinces decide how, but the parameters are not all that wide, and because the system is in considerable aspects Federally proscribed, you don't see that much variance between Provinces. And, in fact, the Feds have on occasion flexed their muscle and have sent warning shots to provinces who have traveled too far off the line.
Here's the facts. I am a resident of British Columbia. I pay about $127 per month in Medical Services Premiums. For that I won't be given a bill at any hospital or any doctor if I have a medical issue. If I need a scan or some other diagnostic test, I will not be billed. Furthermore, if I end up needing healthcare in Prince Edward Island, I will still be protected.
Obamacare gives us exactly this. Plus another 5X costs for variant billing, deductibles, and other overhead for still having insurance companies involved, rather than going single payer.
My wife has been through several surgeries as well. I have health insurance through my employer that I pay about 300 dollars every two weeks for. I usually, due to her medical condition, spend about 4500 dollars out of pocket every year. It's a lot of money but it's better than losing my wife. We went through several doctors before we found what was wrong and frankly, if I was stuck with the idiots we started with she'd be dead. It's nice to pick and choose doctors as I've had to fire a few. The hard cold fact of the matter is that it costs a lot of money to keep people alive that would have died 100 years ago. I don't know about Canada's system, I only know the one I've been on for my 53 years and I know it's expensive but it works. The new one being foisted on us is pretty bad and likely to cost as much or more. I remember looking at the bastardized setup they cam up with and thinking that they might as well just socialize health care entirely. What they did has all the problems of both systems with none of the benefits. They passed it and now we're finding out what's in it.
My wide is evidence that what you posted is a lie. That makes you a liar.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Fraser Institute is a right wing think tank. It's like calling the Koch's non partisan.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How much did you pay for that education of yours? Your post is full of typos and bad grammar. Let me guess; YOU, your teacher, and the contract you had with your private school determined how much grammar you learned. Is that about right? I say you overpaid.
Notice: elective treatment. Also notice: they weren't denied the procedure, they just had to wait a little longer.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Quite right. The number one thing they never explain is why premiums are going up. I read a story about something like this once. I think it was called either Chicken Little or The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
70% / 30% is the Canada number. In the US, government pays about 46%. Of course that's about to change.
Can't choose faster service? In my city of 160,000 people, there are three hospitals and at least one of them has a billboard advertising their average ER wait time for the month. At clinic I go to I can normally get in the same day. If I can't, I can choose to go to the walk in clinic near where I work.
As I said, the US system certainly isn't perfect. Compared to waiting weeks for an appointment in Canada, the US system certainly has some advantages. Some Canadians I know come to the US to get better care. Some Americans go to Canada to but cheaper prescriptions. Each has strengths and weaknesses. The wise thing to do is to try to combine the best of both. For example, if Canadian clinics could compete for patients by either being "zero cost" by charging the government rate or trying to offer better, speedier care to attract patients willing to pay an extra $25, that might work well. As is, Canadian clinics have no incentive to do the best they can. They get paid the same whether their doctors are awesome or if they're drunk.
Charlie Brown: Where did you get those numbers Lucy?
Lucy: I made them up!
Dude I hardly said anything about the US system, much less pumped my fist. I just provided the numbers for the Canadian system, which was being presented as "free" and some kind of paradise.
The US spends a LOT on healthcare, and changes are needed. When you're making major changes to a system that important and that complex, it's wise to CAREFULLY consider different options. Almost any change that helps solve some problems will also create new problems. Anything that has an effect also has a side effect.
In general, cheaper = lower quality, but we need to cut costs. That means we need to be careful. One way to reduce costs without reducing quality is to allow Texas consumers to ditch a crappy Texas insurance company and get a much better company from Arkansas. Right now, that's illegal. You can only buy insurance from a few companies in your home state. What do you think would happen if Maryland residents were only allowed to buy TVs made in Maryland, if it were illegal to buy from Samsung, Sony, LG, or any other major manufacturer? The reason Samsung keeps making their TBs better and cheaper is to compete with LG. Why not let insurance companies compete, have them try to EARN your business?
I'm not sure if this is still true, but one horror story about hmo's is that they have special extra protection against malpractice and lawsuits that the ppo's don't have.
go in for a procedure and they cut off the wrong thing? if its an hmo, good luck suing them!
that, alone, was enough to drive me away from the 'cost savings' of the hmo plans.
again, this may have changed, but I doubt it.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
republicans have been in a 'war on women' and 'war on poor people' for a while, now.
guess what: a lot of the US population is in those 2 groups.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
you are incorrect. if anything, the R's are more religious then ever before. they are doubling-down, in fact, on their 'core values'.
very few people really respect those core values once they see the light of day.
the jig is up. people see the R's for what they are. rich guys who want to keep the current power structure and, in fact, make things even more polarized.
if you heard the phrase 'american taliban', which of the 2 parties do you think more closely fits this description?
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
please unmod that post - he's not trolling. he's simply describing the reality that we currently have. like it or not - but he's not trolling.
the tea party is a hijacked group. nothing trollish about calling it for what it is.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I personally know Tea Partiers that have stated they are perfectly willing to suicide bomb federal buildings if UHC was ever implemented in the USA. We're a third world people living in a first world nation...
Tip O'Neill?
Look, I know it makes you feel good to name-drop the party that you don't like, and all, but this sort of thing has been happening since Adams beat Jefferson.
The only time you don't see partisan obstructionism for its own sake is when there's an actual existential threat to the nation. We haven't had one of those since WWII.
Honestly dude, it's embarrassing to be an american and say this, but if your problems happened here, you'd wife would be dead and you'd be living in a little shit apartment working god knows what job while you worked through your bankruptcy financial prison term. YEAH MERICA.
Can you fucking believe that 6 years ago I was almost dumb enough to join the US army? I fucking shudder at the thought now. Also, i'd likely be dead or horribly mutilated.
Because keeping the health insurance industry afloat is much more important than anything resembling what may be reasonable and socialized public health care. Pork pork campaign contributions and all that. Where have you been?
And yeah, it does look like our Canadian neighbors have got it better than us in this regard. Eh?
These are all outrageous suggestions! Praise be to the IRS and the Democrats for attempting to slow down the formation of such "crazy" groups.
"You have to pass the bill to know what's in it." - Nancy Pelosi
And this representative from California was re-elected. Huh. Well as Ron White says "You can't fix stupid."
If you wanted to fix the US Healthcare system by making care affordable for all and allowing people with pre-existing conditions to get insured, then it wouldn't take 2700 pages of other crap that's in the legislative package. What we didn't get was:
1) No direct influence over rising expenditures for Medical Care. You have a system which doesn't abide by market forces and hospital administrators get paid millions of dollars in salaries and benefits. When you're seriously ill, you don't usually have the time to shop around so whatever they charge you (or your insurance) is what's charged. Sure, there's negotiations and maximums that insurance companies negotiate but that drives further business through insurance companies, forcing you to deal with them.
2) There was no discussion on tort reform so thousands of ambulance chasers can still sue the doctors and hospitals when your scars comes out a little bit strange. A big component to care is the necessary malpractice insurance which can cost upwards of $200,000 in some high cost states. Add that to office staff, paying the Nurse, the building costs and the medical coder to bill the insurance companies correctly and you can see easily why it costs a lot to see a doctor over a routine sniffle.
3) The Drug companies were let largely intact. There are a few costs they'll have to put up with but they're still expected to rake in Billions in profits under the ACA. Ask yourself why that pill you're taking is $5 and why, if it was allowed, you could get it for $.25. Sure the drug industry will claim that "these are inferior" but really it's a smokescreen.
4) The Single Payer system died. Nobody wanted to go against the big Insurance Firms and their lobbyists so we love big business in this country, so why not throw a few billion dollars their way. Well, they do now have to spend more on direct costs for Insurance which is good but allowing interstate competition and other market driven forces into the process would have been much better. That's what the exchanges are supposed to do but here we have the US Government trying to create markets rather than creating incentives with appropriate regulatory oversight for markets to flourish. Oh wait, considering the Financial Collapse, the Regulatory Process failed, so DC can't be trusted with that.
To be honest, you could have taken this 2700 pages, cut out the BS, the Pork like the "Exchanges" which Deloitte is now merrily feeding upon it seems and done away with it and had legislation that was no more than 10 pages long. Starting next year you'll hear more pigs in DC all lining up because the Feds have just blessed one industry with unlimited monopoly powers and you have to pay what they want to charge you. You have no choice, so invest in big Pharma, Hostpital chains and big medical concerns because they'll be raking it in even more.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Posting AC because I moderated.
Single payer is what we need, and is what most other developed nations have made work well, but it's completely impossible to implement in the United States at this time. Obamacare, the ACA, whatever you want to call it, is at least a substantive step in the right direction. Incremental, imperfect progress beats waiting for the perfect solution we won't get to for a couple of decades.
The fact that they're worried about privacy is rich. These are the same shitbags that are continuing to let the NSA violate everyone's privacy.
Yeah, no one wants to depend on a constant service that will barely change in relation to the private offerings in the same regard. This doesn't refer to ACA (which is just a money grab for insurance companies), but to ACTUAL government provided services, which have a long history of dependability in almost every country in the world where people care about what their government does beside pour money into private coffers.
Next you'll want to privatize police and firemen, so only those who can afford the ever increasing costs will have basic safety measures for their families. It is obvious that basic logic and mathematics has failed you (and you likely blame public schools, rather than your own failure to accept your own share of responsibility to understand the ideas that facts rely upon, as most right wingers do), and you would much rather put your faith in for-profit companies with a long, well-established history of fucking people over and never being accountable for anything, than in a system that you actually have a chance to control.
tl:dr; Stop pretending like you're a victim. Man up, and take responsibility for yourself, and contribute to the society that has provided you with the tools to be able to complain about the government freely from your armchair without actually having to do anything.
You obviously don't watch TV or talk to many Republicans :) They have gotten even more fiscally liberal (as if they ever weren't), and there are laws in some states that literally don't allow non-Christians to run for public office. Every southern state is running deeply in the red financially, and in Tennessee it is literally illegal for a non-Christian to hold office. I had to leave for that exact reason...
iow, your response presented no counter to his point. why are you wasting our time typing in stuff?
You might want to rethink the 'older people are more republican' thing, I'm pretty sure it's just a myth based more on generational differences than anything else.
Nice groupthink, /.
I'm seriously afraid this discussion site has been overtaken by corporate paid shills right now. Why do the factually accurate posts get modded troll while posts with rhetoric that is easily disproven with facts get modded +5 insightful?
It is shitty bill, but not for any ideological sake...hell its a right wing bill through and through, that's the very reason why its a shitty bill, it caters to the insurance companys and mandates that we must buy private insurance. Now a public option would of made this bill much more likable.
IIRC, the Republicans tried very hard to defeat it. It only passed by one dead Senator's vote.
so you think in a city with multiple hospital in canada one cannot chose to go to the ER with less wait time? That's pretty uninformed of you... in Canada _all_ hospitals are "in network" ( a concept that was new to me when I moved to the US ) whereas in the US, you better verify with your insurance because going to a "non-prefered" hospital might cost you dearly...
There are quite a few other mistakes in your posts about this. You think you know what you are talking about, but you really don't, sorry. I lived in both countries and yes there are pros and cons but many of your points are basically just flat out wrong.
and fuck all you liberals...
By the time the next Republican gets elected President "Obamacare" will be so embedded it will be practically impossible to repeal it, just like it's politically impossible to axe Medicare. That's why they're so desperate to stop it from really getting started now.
The HMO itself has legal protection but not the doctors who did the damage. You might be limited to arbitration depending on the language in the HMO and contract with the provider but that's another story altogether. Malpractice by the doctor is malpractice regardless of who provides the treatment.
HMO's were created by the federal government in order to tame the costs of Medicare which was created shortly before. It gave power to determined covered treatments to secretaries with little medical training or experience based on a "best practices" rule which the ACA is implementing too. With this power to override doctors who are actually seeing the patients, the HMO's were also exempted from law suits based on what they allowed to be covered. So if your doc says we need to perform this expensive experimental procedure that has a 50% success rate to save your leg and the HMO said no, we aren't covering that, cut it off, you can't sue the HMO for not allowing the procedure that could potentially save the leg. But that is the entire purpose of the HMO or Health Maintenance Organization, to control the costs of medical care.
Now it does get dicey when something is accepted practice or best practice now but the HMO hasn't updated their criteria and refuses to allow the procedure. Then a suit can happen to force them to cover it but you will not make any windfall profits from it.
Lol.. That's a real funny lie I hear all the time. There is no war on women or poor people. Its a difference in approach about certain things.
Poor people should get a hand up not a hand out. It is more expensive to get a job for the poor right now then it is to stay on welfare and milk the public tit. Of course welfare is the reason why minimum wage is being paid at almost every job in larger cities with large concentrations of poor people. It is the ultimate business subsidy where they do not have to pay their employees a living wage because the government will step in and make up the difference.
The so called war on women is little more then not wanting to use public funds taken from you and me to provide for someone's condoms and abortions.
It makes a good sound bite, it even makes lesser intelligent people believe it. But it is a lie.
Obviously you have never looked into the issues or spent any time dealing with the tea partiers.
Your description couldn't be farther from the truth. Obama has nothing to do with what they are pissed at other then him currently being the one trying to implement the stuff they are pissed at.
With the Affordable Care Act, you are now obligated to purchase something from a third party simply for being born in America or residing in it. Never before has anything like that ever happened in the US or any so called free country that I know of. After a few shootings, the democrats are trying to take constitutional rights (guns) away from people. Whether you support gun control of not, it doesn't stop shootings, just look at Chicago and DC. They have some of the strongest gun control laws and criminals still get guns and still kill people with them. Just last week, 13 people were shot in Chicago.
Decades from now, people will look back and ask where their freedom went. They will see your post and wonder why everyone thinks they are so smart when they aren't.
Quite now.. let him have his delusions for a bit longer. Companies are laying people off, refusing to offer spousal coverage if they work somewhere, reducing hours of employees to not be forced into providing coverage. Unions are complaining that it increases the costs of their coverage- most of which will have to pay the Cadillac health care taxes, but more importantly, this is going to be so expensive, Obama and the senate democrats worked out a deal where the government slushes money from one department to another in order to cover 75% of the insurance costs for congress and their staff from the exchange.
This is a mess of an ordeal and the only people who like it are the people who seem to think "Insurance" is "health care".
I hope you meant "wife".
Posting AC because I moderated.
Oops!
It would put health insurance companies out of business.
Thought this was serious until I saw username.
by sumdumass (711423) on Saturday September 28, 2013 @02:44AM (#44977747)
Bravo sir, somebody get this troll a cookie.
You admit the Tea Party is no different than junkies writing on cardboard.
You fail to see the irony don't you?
Of course it's not a party but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a platform.
WTF? It sounds like you're just saying -- "Politicians are all crap, they should do it our way... but yea, I don't have time to learn how the political system works or why they do things the way they do."
I'll just leave it at the fact that the Prohibition Party seems to have its act together better than you guys -- and they had a constitutional amendment effectively wipe them from existence a century ago!
Especially the freedom to bend over and take it...
That's still illegal in the south, right?
Very funny line. Now grow up.
It's more like you have to finish coding before you write the manual, because some mid-level manager will toss on some new requirements throwing your work schedule to crap and you suddenly don't have a clue what the final program will look like. Only instead of the requirements might change, theres a ton of mid-level managers and they all hate your guts so they'll probably toss something in like "your program in addition to running a nuclear reactor must be able to run on a PDP-10 and produce any of Betty Crocker's recipes on demand".
Apparently, the new rule of law at least according to President Obama is that if the president doesn't like the law, he can choose not to enforce it. There is no law that says the administration can waive the employer mandate, and yet the mandate is waived. Similarly, the law saying that people have to buy insurance, or the Feds or states have to set up an exchange, or that people get subsidies. Apparently that is all now waive-able. Or maybe more damaging to ACA, the next president could choose to enforce it to the max and remove all the waivers.
The last time this topic came up, I predicted that the security would be half-assed (per the FISMA norm). (It may be the private sector norm too, but most of my experience is with government auditors.)
This also ignores the fact that we Americans already pay, through taxes or increased insurance premiums, for the care of people who are too poor to see a doctor but end up in the emergency room when something bad happens like a heart attack. For *LESS* actual dollars, Canada covers everyone. The only way the US system makes sense is if you assume that everyone in power has a vested interest (either financially or ideologically) in making private health always seem like the best idea, even when it clearly isn't.
In New York State, BC&BS of WNY charges just over $14k for ind & $40k family premiums for the lowest offerings. The basic HMO plan w/ these price tags, when you read the fine print, have 30-60+% co-pays for almost anything (drugs to test & procedure services.)
I personally know many people who have "employer health insurance" w/ these plans who can get prompt medical attention, but cannot cover the co-pays and other "hidden" exclusions (pre-existing included in that hidden group.) These people also have mandatory pay-in from their paycheck of $100-250/wk) for this "plan."
To get "reasonably complete" healthcare, a family of 4 breaks $60k / yr + 10-30% copays.
Being a healthy 50yo, I asked about "severe emergency" or "critical only" (ignoring long ter disability for the moment) ala cart style insurance selection and they literally laughed on the phone. All or nothing.
I effectively "cheat", by getting a DBA in a biz name for $35 and paying the (turns out $63k) fee and declaring it an expense on my taxes. Since my little biz doesn't show a profit, every third year I start a new one (DBA anyway) to stop the IRS 3 yr "make money counter" barrier they have created. Thus my fellow Americans are helping me pay the premiums. Of course, I (figuatively) starved the 1st year to get ahead of the game, but it all works well now.
Everyone in the entire Healthcare loop has a game to rape you. One must play the game to afford healthcare or you CAN'T afford it at the individual or family level.
If you are uneducated in the game, you lose. If you do not have a pretty significant job, you lose. What groups fall into those buckets?
Most people.
https://securews.bcbswny.com/web/content/WNYmember/get-coverage/individual-family-plans/HMO299or299pus.html
The devil is in the details of what your buying. Worst avail plan, BCBSWNY WNY~$1,100 / month for individual.
https://securews.bcbswny.com/web/content/WNYmember/get-coverage/individual-family-plans/HMO299or299pus.html
Healthcare is ALWAYS rationed
No it is not!
You must learn that the Holy Market (pbuh) does not magic up infinite resources, even when applied in a fully Galt-compliant Randian fashion.
When you can grow surgeons and nurses and doctors and drugs and hospital beds and replacement organ you might begin to have a point. Until then, you are willfully blind.
Blinded by your religion. Worryingly, market worship has become a religion for people like you.
Actually, I long ago got the impression that the sole reason for the existence of the post-2008 Republican party is to ensure that every thing anyone who isn't them ever did is completely and permanently erased forever as though they had never been.
FTFY
But hey, on the bright side, if you can't afford health insurance you'll still get fined/taxed for it...and STILL not have any health insurance. Woohoo! Go Obamacare!
You need a sockpuppet.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I can't speak to any other province
For. You can't speak for any other province. You can speak to anyone you want to.
(Parenthetical remark - it' great to hear from so many Canadians, all this talk of "provinces" is like some kind of echo from an alternate reality where the American "revolution" didn't happen. Which is, I suppose, what Canada is).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Further libertarian? WTF in any of the current Republican partty is "libertarian".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Obama should have named the Reagan Memorial Health Care Act,
More honestly he should have called it the "Heritage Foundation Heath Care Act", since they were the ones who came up with the idea.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
what nonsense, there is always a market even in countries with "socialized" medicine. things cost money, people need wages.
my cousins in spain had to wait half a year for necessary surgery, until then they always were telling me what a superior system they had. that was before they actually had to use it
I can see why you replied as an AC. If i was that intelectually lazy, i wouldn't want anything associating it with my real self either.
Perhaps you could add some real insight to what wasn't true in that post rather then attemp an unsuccessfull ad hominen attack. I know you don't have much to work with, but your effort is less than inteligent or honest. Then again, so is the war on women claims.
Corporate paid shills? Sure, probably. But what corporation would pay to have someone bash the tea party? Corporations love the tea party. Corporations are where the tea party gets its money.
No Obama will be associated with a medical cluster-fuck that will be the worst of all worlds mandated private insurance is straight up Fascism. The damn bill is basinal written by the insurance lobby.
While some defects are inevitable in a system of this complexity, the vast majority of them would have been identified earlier had more scientific software testing methods been applied.
Recently, for example, the following defect made the news and was one of the most widely-shared articles on the New York Times web site. Here’s what the article, Computer Snag Limits Insurance Penalties on Smokers said:
"A computer glitch involving the new health care law may mean that some smokers won’t bear the full brunt of tobacco-user penalties that would have made their premiums much higher — at least, not for next year.
The Obama administration has quietly notified insurers that a computer system problem will limit penalties that the law says the companies may charge smokers, The Associated Press reported Tuesday. A fix will take at least a year."
Anyone who is tempted to say "the answer it to test the system completely," bear in mind that there were ~ 41 quadrillion total possible scenarios that could have been executed to test the system. That would take 31 million years to execute those tests at 100 tests per second.
What other industries have known for a long time is that if you structure your experiments thoughtfully, you can learn a lot more effectively than poorly structured experiments. In the Obamacare software testing example that had 41 quadrillion possible tests, it is possible to create just 90 well-structured tests to test the system surprisingly thoroughly. Those 90 pairwise tests would have identified the bug that will take more than a year to fix. For the two of you who have read this far, we posted a blog post on this last week at: http://hexawise.com/2013/09/avoidable_obamacare_software_bug/
Unlikely. This train wreck of a program will likely take the entire economy down with it. Insurance companies are looking at massive rate increases to support it. I can barely afford the insurance for my family now. Our rates have already skyrocketed due to the preperations for ObamaCare.
Virtually every person in the medical field I've spoken with agrees with the above and says it will benefit no one (except the government).
Yes, we're going to turn into a communist dictatorship, like Canada. Or Norway. Hellholes, I tell you!
And who is it that you would want to decide "who needs care most urgently"? The political bureaucrats? The guys who give kickbacks to their friends and make life hard on everyone else? Is that who you would trust to decide whether they give a liver transplant to one of their alcoholic friends instead of to your sick child? A government system always results in corruption, and the people who get ahead are the ones with political connections. I would take the US system any day over that.
Actually, it is far worse then communist dictatorships like Canada or Norway. At least there, the government doesn't rely in third parties for their services.
Canada and Norway do not have constitutions like the US does nor do they have provisions in it guaranteeing the citizens will never have their right to keep and bear arms infringed by the government. But I do find it interesting that you would bring up a couple of other countries who have socialized medicine- calling them communist dictatorships in the process, and those countries have strict gun laws. It would seem they had to disarm their populations first before becoming that hell hole you likened them to.
Hmmm, where to start with this.
First off, I wasn't actually likening Canada and Norway to hellholes. That's called sarcasm, and I don't have a lot of time to go into detail about it here, so feel free to look it up yourself. Suffice it to say, the point of this sarcasm of mine is that Canada and Norway are actually very far from communist dictatorships.
As for the second amendment, I'd like to remind you that this is a discussion about health care, not gun rights. I actually quite like the second amendment. I think it's an excellent idea, and quite frankly, lack of access to health care kills a lot more people than private individuals with assault rifles do.
I do believe that government provided health care would be better than relying on private entities as the ACA does, but at this point the ACA is better than nothing. Hopefully we can change that some time in the future.
I know it was sarcasm. Couldn't you sense my rhetorical BS in attempting to deal with it? Feel free to look that up too.
And what has that to do with my points about Canada and Norway actually providing the services instead of forcing it's citizens to purchase something from a third party? My original point was about what the tea party is pissed over. Your sarcasm couldn't even hit an apples to apples analogy.
Actually, this is a discussion about the tea party within a topic about healthcare. I think I brought the second amendment up when I schooled the AC who posted BS about the tea party. You simply provided an easy example of illustrating it.
The ACA is worse then what we previously had. People who had insurance are loosing their coverage or facing steep increases in costs for it. Some employers are refusing to cover spouses now if they work- even of their plan is cheaper or better. People are getting their hours cut in order for the company to get under the requirement to provide coverage (30 hours a week average or more requires coverage). If it hasn't happened already, a large amount of businesses announced they planned to do so. Instead of having 500 full time jobs, we are seeing 700 part time jobs. Union workers are having to take lesser coverage plans or face stiff penalties for their so called Cadillac coverage. Medical devices, you know, the crap that saves you life and allows you to get out of the hospital and live at home now have massive taxes on them driving the cost of health care up. How is that better?
About the only things I can see better about the ACA being law verses it not is the preexisting condition clauses (which I think could be worked a little better), federal minimums on certain types of plans so those plans are available in every state regardless of the state's laws, and the elimination of lifetime caps on coverage payouts. Other then that, it is a disaster hurting more then anything. All of those can be done, including the expansion of medicaid which I didn't list because some states refused to implement it, without the other crap. In fact, I have a few ideas that could completely remove the negative crap about this law without going to a strictly government or single payer institution.
I hope you know that we are in the shape we are with healthcare because government got involved in the first place right? They created the HMO's in an attempt to control the costs of Medicare and screwed it all up in the process.
WTF? My health care costs were zero until I got married.
Actually, if you suspect that you have a broken bone, then you can schedule the x-ray after a short talk with your GP. Total time, including drive to the imaging specialist? 35 mins.
It works like this: 1. Break hand playing with heavy objects. 2. Call Dr office tell head nurse that you are certain you have broken hand, but you need x-ray to get an appointment with the ortho 3. Talk to Dr and tell him stupid thing you were doing. 4. Dr writes request to have hand x-rayed, and head office assistant faxes request to closest imaging specialist. 5. Fax arrives about the time I walk in the door.
This is in podunkville oklahoma... Most people who complain about healthcare are in the margins, or are lead by the nose.. rather than taking charge of the situation.
The war on the poor is obvious from the recent attack on food stamps. Your glib dismissal of those in need is a simple demonstration of the sort of mean spirit that pervades the Republicans these days. Regarding the war on women, look here, which gives a better list than I can amass on short notice.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
Groceries? No problem, present an appropriate sob story and proof that you lack income, and most states will lavish you with an EBT card. 'course, unless you get creative about how you dodge it, there's an approved list of foods you can and cannot buy.
There is no list of approved foods for EBT. If it's considered a food by any stretch of the imagination, you can buy it with EBT. I've personally used it to buy soda, candy, cookies, coffee, tea, and water. I also personally wish it didn't cover sugary foods, since I've been trying to kick the habit since watching "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" on YouTube some years ago and having since noticed that every weight gain correlates with a large intake of sugar, with large intakes of non-sugar foods (even high-fat foods) having virtually no effect. However, it's probably just as well that the government hasn't created an approved foods list, since most health agencies are still convinced that dietary fat is the evil, and so we'd be forced to buy foods with low fat, and so just about the only thing we'd be allowed to buy would be foods with all the fat removed and sugar added so that they still taste good. Better to have no rules than to have the wrong rules.
I also think they should allow people to use the money to buy cooking supplies. I happened to have a $200 stand mixer from before I got the EBT card which allows me to eat a steady diet of home-made pizzas which not only taste better than frozen pizza, but they cost less than $1 each. Since the EBT balance rolls over from month to month, I've accumulated about $400 of un-spent money on the card over the two years I've had it thanks to that mixer. However, most poor people probably don't have such luxuries and so are less able to prepare their own foods from scratch (it takes a lot of time if you don't have a lot of equipment, and poor people often have to work and stuff) but they could never the less eat healthier and save the government some money if they could just purchase some food processing equipment. At the very least, some sort of lending program would be a good idea, where you return the equipment when you no longer receive the benefits, perhaps just paying rent on the equipment from the balance of your EBT card. (Indeed, that may be necessary to keep some people from purchasing equipment and just selling it, but then they probably already do that with food anyway.)
Of course, another problem with EBT is that it's easy to spend more money than you actually need to. I noticed my balance start going down when a Dollar General store opened a few blocks away. I also developed a bad habit of eating more sugary foods since that's nearly the only kind of food they sell there. They don't even have yeast, a necessary ingredient in pizza dough, and there are no fresh fruits or vegetables or meat. I've since made it a point not to shop there since not only is the store not good for my health, but it isn't good for the government's budget. ...but of course, I'm sure there are poor people without easy access to someone else's car and so don't have the luxury of shopping at wal-mart. I pity those people.
You seem to misunderstand my statement. I refer to the few who are vilified by the GOP establishment, not the handful of people within the party who have been elected against the establishment's will.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't lump them into either party. For all their stupid, partisan tricks, neither party is the "American Taliban".
In fact, I tend to hear it in reference to John Walker Lindh. Even the Wikipedia search for "American Taliban" links directly to him.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Your question is malformed. You seem to want your question to look like a query as to how you will afford something, but what you're really asking is how you get someone else to pay for something. With the implied undertone of the belief that the outrageous cost of treatment we see on bills today actually reflects the necessary costs of a given treatment.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Doctors and healthcare professionals will decide based on empirical data and studying the problem scientifically.
A market bases system always results in higher prices and worse healthcare outcomes. See, I can make sweeping generalizations too. Mine are closer to the truth, however. The evidence supports my claims and is against yours. Countries with national healthcare programs simply pay less for healthcare as a percentage of their GDP. That didn't have to be true. It could have been the other way. It just happens to be true when you look at the facts. Same with healthcare outcomes. It just happens to be true that they do better when it comes to measurable qualities relating to outcomes like infant mortality, life expectancy, obesity rates, et al. We can measure all of these things, and the socialized systems do a better job--even with their flaws.
Again, you'd take the US system because you have enough money to participate. Millions don't, and that's not acceptable in a prosperous Western democracy in the 21st century. Imagine not having insurance, and not having enough money to pay out of pocket expenses. It doesn't matter if the streets are paved with MRI machines if the system restricts access to them to those who can pay. The best healthcare in the world does me no good if I don't have access to it, and in the US, if you don't have insurance or can't just pay cash for everything you ARE denied the highest levels of care and you ARE denied nearly all preventative care, and you ARE denied most medication. Then there's the inconvenient fact that the majority of people who are driven into bankruptcy due to medical expenses HAD INSURANCE. So even with insurance, most people cannot financially handle a catastrophic health crisis. Go to the ER? ER is the most expensive option for everyone, and doesn't cover routine preventative medicine which would save our country billions.
Rationing care based on a market solution is insane. It's perverse. It's against humanity.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
wow luck seems a lot less per month Im with my moms health care and its 500 a month . 0.o and if we need medical assistance for anything , we still have fee's even though we pay every month