A little back ground info on our world class snafu know as the U.S. health care system. Unlike any other industrialized nation on the planet we have a system based solely on profit. Fifty years ago that was not the case. All hospitals and the insurance companies that backed that care were non profit. Most communities had several groups that supported the town hospital with fund raisers and volunteer support. But once again those evil rethuglicons hatched a plan to make a buck on grandmas' operation. It was called managed care or HMO's (health maintenance organizations). That innocuous sounding name was the death toll for our medical delivery system.
And one has to wonder about the quality of our profit based system when unnecessary tests are run just to beef up the bill. For the aged and poor this is a win situation for the hospitals but not so for the insurance companies and taxpayers who foot the bill. Spare no expense when someone else is covering the costs as long as they can be justified and even then there are those less scrupulous who pad the expenses and pass on the costs and gain the profits. This is all done with computers thereby giving the hospitals and doctors an easy out in the event of an audit. But the insurance companies are no saints either with their claims denying department all set up to increase the year end statement. Beholden not to patients but to bosses and shareholders.
No, the solution is to remove the profit motive as it once was. We shouldn't have to grovel at the feet of an insurance institution just to get medical treatment. Doctors shouldn't have to note how many MRI's they've scheduled because the bottom line takes precedence over quality care. Just because a hospital was able to procure the latest scanning machine doesn't mean that everybody who enters the doors needs such a test.
But we just know that with the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act that those on the right will do everything in their power to erase it from existence. Even as I type this the powers that be are plotting to cut those at the very bottom with large cuts to Medicaid. A scary thought when you consider the numbers of uninsured. Scarier still when you stop to consider mental hospitals are planning on opening the doors and letting some very disturbed folk out on the street. You just know that that is where they'll land up. A disservice to both the patient and society if you ask me.
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So you *don't* want to assign a monetary value to each individual human being? What kind of unfeeling technocrat are you.
Mornin Demeur, interesting post,I dont even know much about health care's history, and sure as Hell didnt know of what you were talking about how it was 50 year's ago and the insurance comapany non profit gig, but then I never read much of that I reckon, I just could see the bite's and scam's they were pulling on HCR a year or so ago, that is why I called it so accurately, just looking at the hustle end basically. You know Guy, when I was in England for instance, I got sick real bad one day (probably from them street side Kabob joint's I used to eat at frequently, kind of like street side NYC Coney joint's) in my stomach, my friend Kam (Londoner) took me to one of the local hospital's, they waited on me quickly, didnt ask for insurance, no paper work or deductible's, part a,b,c shit or whatever, just my passport/ ID, gave me a antibiotic type script, that I filled at a pharma joint connected to it, which was the only thing I had to pay for, about 5/6 pound's only ... nothing else Dude, I couldnt believe it, Kam said it was like that all over town. My sister in law and her hubby are both RN's in Toronto, the same thing basically (I stayed in Toronto as well as Montreal). A friend will be up here in Dallas with me next week from Monterrey, MX ... he also has went over the HC there in Mexico with me, he carries a national card "Instituto Mexicano Del Seguro Social", look's like a drivers liscense basically, you can go anywhere's in Mexico and use it, fee's are auto taken out like SSI here, out of your paycheck if you work (he also get's a monthly electric/ utilities subsidie, and the gvmnt regulate's the price of petrol/ gas as well as tortilla's down there, so the market's dont just milk ya) but he went over with me in detail how to use the system and how it work's.
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