1/2 U.S. personal bankruptcies from medical bills

[Ted Striker]

I agree with you Siddiqui, but up to a point, as long as there is malpractice limits.

The IT systems in the whole medical field are really ancient or non existent and those need drastic improvement.

[Imran Siddiqui]

as long as there is malpractice limits.

Nope, not going there. Bad doctors need their feet held to the fire. They already get away with too much. And besides, they are absolutely HORRIBLE when it comes to maintaining their practices' pension plans .

[Ted Striker]

The problem is that it's not the doctors who ultimatley pay that bill.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So the solution is let them off scot free? They already get off too lightly.

[Ted Striker]

First of all that's not what I said so don't even try to start setting up a strawman. I said LIMITS.

LIMITS != "letting them off scot free"

Do you really think that awarding someone 2 million dollars versus awarding them 25 million dollars really makes that big of a difference besides putting a financial strain on people who have nothing to do with the case in question?

We are talking about the law of diminishing returns here.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Giancarlo


Like it or not, in this world money is important.

So why is anyone not a doctor then?

Actually forget that, why are we not all millionaires?

Clearly 50k/year jobs are in demand, Fez. Your argument isn't holding up...

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Actually, the link he provided was quite strong support of universal healthcare.

Yeah, I thought so too, but apparantly:

Canada is Canada. We are talking about the United States, not some damn socialist state.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia


funny how in canada you have to wait forever to get a non-life threatning surgery done.

Or-- if you have the money, we remain free to pop across the border and pay the same as the Americans

[Dis]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn


So why is anyone not a doctor then?

Actually forget that, why are we not all millionaires?

Clearly 50k/year jobs are in demand, Fez. Your argument isn't holding up...

umm, in case it isn't clear, not everyone has the ability to be a doctor. Or I'd be one.

The fact is people are not created equal. Some people were created to be slobs posting in an internet forum while working some dead end job. (that's me )

[Flubber]

On lawsuits

Three things help the Canadian situation

1. The Canadian medical protective Association insures almost all doctors nation wide and is very aggressive in the defense of doctors. Apparently no case is settled to "save money" or because its "cheaper than going to trial"

2. canadian courts have imposed limits on the amounts ANYONE can get for pain and suffering. The maximum is now just over 300K. People can still get large awards for lost income or needed care BUT it does tend to limit awards quite a bit as opposed to the US

3. canadian courts have systems where losing plaintiffs MAY have to pay the court costs of the successful defendent. It eliminates pretty much all frivolous loitigation

[Flubber]

Oh and canadian doctors do quite well-- they are just not among the super-wealthy like in the US-- its a very good living

[KrazyHorse]

Plus their debt loads tend to be much lighter on leaving med school

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

That's the exception. The average out-of-pocket costs for someone with insurance was more than $13K, while interestingly enough, for those without insuance it was slightly over $10K. Hence my point that not only is our system of private insurance not protecting us, it even costs more than not having insurance.

Interesting.
In Germany Health Insurances cover all costs for any treatment which is deemed necessary from a medical standpoint.
You only have to pay 10 € for every different Doctor you visit per quarter year and a little fee for every medicine you have to buy (normally less than 10 € per medicine)
In case of dentists they even encourage people to visit them twice a year by lowering the costs you have to pay for artificial dentures when you finally need them (as they say it costs them less to have your teeth regularly checked [and saved in case of Karies] than have their customers only go to the dentists when it is too late and the teeth have to be extracted)
The highest costs you have here are normally from prothesis and aids (hearing aids, glasses etc. ) as for these the Insurances cover only costs up to a certain amount.

Therefore you rarely have people go bancrupt because of the costs for healthcare.

But of course, we also don´t have excessive lawsuits because of malpractice and doctors don´t have to pay a fortune for their study (but, after study, are forced to work in regular clinics for some time, before they are allowed to open a practice on their own).

[:) Smiley]

The average out-of-pocket costs for someone with insurance was more than $13K, while interestingly enough, for those without insuance it was slightly over $10K. Hence my point that not only is our system of private insurance not protecting us, it even costs more than not having insurance.

Strange.

Not strange at all. Those without insurance can't pay and end up dead.


US resistance to modernization in the last 15 years (the years that I'm old enough to remember) is incredible. There's been such little investment in either infrastructure or public services that it makes me wonder when it's all going to catch up on us.

[Ted Striker]

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