I used to think I was lucky.Follow

I used to think Americans were lucky too.....

On many levels you still are, I guess, but when it comes to many aspects of life, such as healthcare, the media, paid holidays, work conditions, public transport, paid parental leave and other 'social' benefits of modern western civilised, progressive life, the US truly sucks.

On the other hand, as americans you can pretty much choose to live anywhere in the world you want to.....

Hey Totem, do you smoke cigars? You post like a cigar smoker.

Did Mr. Reid happen to mention what percentage of that 16% were uninsured by choice? No? Can you guess why?


You do understand that in a market based health care system, not having insurance does not mean not receiving care. It simply means you don't get care by paying an insurance company who'll then pay for your care. For most people (especially people in their 20s), it's much much much much much cheaper to not pay into an insurance program, pocket the money, and pay for the occasional health care need out of pocket.

The systems which require you to have insurance of some kind don't do this because it's better for those people, but to force them to pay more for health care so that the extra money can be applied to the rest of the people. All insurance systems are based on this principle. Most people pay more into the system than they get out in order to cover for the relatively small percentage who get more (usually a lot more) out than they put in.

It's not even hard math to understand.



Yup. Which is why most of the really good doctors move to the US to practice medicine. Lol...



The idea that you'd idealize the kind of sterile dehumanized environments typical of distopian novels is strange. Odd that this would even be mentioned. Was this your statement, or something on the show? Why would someone be opposed to the idea of having something to read while waiting to see a doctor? Is that too much capitalism? Kinda silly IMO...



Um... The presence or absence of medical databases is pretty tangential to the larger issue at hand. It's one of those things that both sides have proposed at various points, and both sides then point the finger at the other for wanting to collect data on patients, use them for nefarious purposes, etc. Um... The only real difference is that Democrats don't want said databases to be privately managed, while Republicans don't want it to be managed by the government. It really has nothing at all to do with whether it'd be more convenient or not...


Also. At the risk of being anecdotal. Every time I've walked into a doctors office or a dentist office for the first time, I've simply told them my employer, some vaguely close name of the provider (haven't had a card of any sort for over a decade), and every single time they've told me that they can figure it out from there.

I've never had a doctor in the US deny me care because I didn't have any paperwork on me, and I've never had an insurance company deny paying for the care because I didn't fill out the paperwork properly. My experience has been that the folks working at the doctors office know how to submit the information to the providers and the providers are smart enough to noodle out whether the persons information matches someone on their plan, and then they just pay what they're required to pay and I get a bill in the mail for the remainder.


The point? I could counter that in the US, I get the same quality of service, probably *better* care, and I don't need to carry a single piece of identification around to get it. So take that! Nyayah!




Shocking! Honestly, how many people really have trouble getting their insurance company to pay? The stories we always hear are the exceptionally rare cases in which a very very expensive treatment is denied because of some pre-existing condition, some failure to disclose something, etc. And yeah. That's a problem.

But in under socialized medicine, the equivalent case is that people with those rare conditions which require expensive and specialized treatments simply don't get them in time to save their lives. Thus, the issue of who pays for it and how fast really isn't relevant, is it?



And this is a good thing? I can't imagine how one could need to go to a doctor that many times per year. If I went to the doctor every single time I got a minor cold, it would not add up to 15 times a year. That's one of the problems with socialized medicine btw. The assumption is that if care is perceived to be "free", people will use it more often and unnecessarily. 15 times a year would seem to support that assumption.



Which is about right. Most normal healty people should not need to see a doctor more than once a year for a checkup. Maybe. I simply can't fathom how an average higher than this could be good.



Does that mean that folks in Japan get sicker? Or they just keep them in the hospital longer for grins? Rather than just parroting numbers, why don't you explain how longer stays in a hospital are better? I'd think the opposite. The last place you want to be is in the hospital. People get sick in hospitals because they're surrounded by other sick people. I'd think as a whole, a population would be better off minimizing the total length of stay in hospitals.

Seems like yet more unnecessary expense.



You're only required to have auto insurance if you own a car. And it only covers damages you may cause while operating said car. Do you see how health insurance is an entirely different thing?

Also. A whole lot of us conservatives opposed mandatory auto insurance as well, so you're really just arguing the slippery slope, aren't you? Well... "We already made auto insurance mandatory, so there's no reason not to make health insurance mandatory as well!". Want to be that 20 years ago some conservative somewhere argued that if we made auto insurance mandatory "next thing you know, you liberals will be insisting that we make health insurance mandatory as well". Want to bet said liberal said he was engaged in a "slippery slope fallacy"?

Yeah. Funny how often those slippery slope predictions come exactly true...



You're kidding right? Astounded?



Wow. So they took two words which exactly described what Truman was trying to do and put them together? And this is bad because of who came up with it? How about we stop being impressed with who said what and pay attention to the more important facts, ok?

Because they really ought to be playing gameboy instead. It's just a travesty to read about worldly issues when you could be killing dracula or something, man.



I dunno. I fought with mine recently for six months to get coverage on something that they were supposed to cover, by their own guidelines, but for some reason wouldn't. They did finally start covering like a week ago. Maybe it was just doctor insurance mis-communication, but since every response I get is scripted, I really can't find out the details.

***

That's not the only time, but it is the most recent.

Edited, Aug 24th 2009 10:11pm by Pensive

And in all seriousness, I have never had any insurance company cover exactly what they were supposed to cover (I always check before hand to see). 2-3 months later I end up with a bill and a lame excuse from the ins. company about how they can't cover such-and-such. This has mostly been with Cigna (and since it's provided by my employer, I can't get a different provider, unless I want to pay triple what I'm paying).

So anyway... yeah. That.

You know-nothing presumptious ***********


Of all the sh[i]it you've spouted over the years that I've been around this board, that one single statement has made me wish you would die in a fire more than anything else.


Fuck you. I truly hope your insurance company finds a reason to decline your next claim.

Self. Righteous. Cunt.

America. You need to stop producing retards like gbaji.

Yeah, I can't stand not having an eight month old copy of US News and World Report to read at the doctor's.

A significant minority. I used to spend a lot of time on the phone trying to get insurance companies to pay for covered procedures at the agreed-upon rate.

Very, very often it's a delaying tactic. They know they'll have to pay, eventually; but if they deny it at first some percentage will accept that and pay out of pocket. Others will fight it for a while and give up. Others will persist, and they'll eventually pay.

As a totally anecdotal aside that may or may not be representative of the cost of magazines, my father has been getting several magazines shipped to him for free for several years now. He doesn't operate a practice, but obviously someone thinks he does and wants to... well honestly I have no idea what they want to do; I just don't know if those subscriptions are things that doctors count as expenses or not.

The fifteen times per year thing is really skewed by the elderly, to the point where some go almost daily. The out-of-pocket costs are low enough that they can afford to do so. Not counting the elderly, the number is likely far more reasonable.

I'm trying to figure out how the people are staying 36 nights on average though, it costs roughly 12600 yen a night to stay in a hospital. The NHI brings that cost down to 3780 yen, but that's still 136080(about 1400 USD).

In terms of Hospitals and clinics, about 80% are privately owned. These are given a cap on what they can charge per service. A small stiching work is only 1600 or so. Childbirth can cost up to 900000 yen, so 270000 after NHI.

Kav,
Yes, I am a casual cigar smoker, moreso recently because of my access to quality tobacco at inexpensive prices. Various coworkers live in locales where high end cigars are made and sold for pennies, and bring them to work for us to toke after a long day at the office.

Why? Do I sound like Archie Bunker?

Totem

Yes, but on the downside, our rich people pay a little bit more taxes than your rich people. And acording to gbaji, this is the first sign of an impending armageddon.

I do find the whole private health insurance thing fascinating in some ways. It's basically a system where ordinary people must lose in order for the system to just survive. If people took out more than they put in, insurance companies would go bust. If they took out the same, insurance companies would go bust. It's a bit like the bank in a casino. It simply can't lose. I'm fine with having that system for gambling, but for health...

It's such a crazy system that stock prices of insurance companies are linked to the claim-paid rate of the company. Only in reverse. A company that has a paid-claim rate of 80% will be seen as more efficient than a company with a paid-claim rate of 85%. There is an actual disincentive for insurance companies to do the job they are supposed to do. For providing the service that people pay them to provide. Conceptually, it's an insane system. Especially for something as important as health.

I'm very glad I got them to add in a clause that makes it financially inefficient to do so. I'm sure my rates are higher due to the spite factor, but it'd worth it to me.