'30 Days'

[MrFun]

Originally posted by General Ludd
High standards of living?

beat me to it

[Dis]

I have no medical insurance and I'm doing fine.

though it helps I never get sick. not that I would ever go to the doctor anyways.

though I did go to a clinic last fall for a rash. They gave me a presription for some creme that didn't work.

doctors are all quacks.

[Dinner]

US company after US company is going bankrupt due to medical costs. GM says that medical costs add an estimated $1500 to the price of every single car they make and if you look at every large American company they are all in the same boat.

If we had universal insurence then risks would be spread out over a much larger pool thus making per unit costs much lower. We're talking economies of scale here. Currently private insurence can cherry pick the best then drop the seriously sick people on to medicaid thus leaving the government with none of the healthy people but most of the long termsick people. It would be much efficent & lower cost just to get a universal health insurance system in place.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

I dont know bout other states but in texas we have community hopspitals where the indigant go or shipped to. For the most part those that seek care there dont end up paying for the service. They are billed and if they dont pay these folks arent sued their credit rating gets messed up. The quality of care isnt as hi as for those in private hospitals because most of the drs seeing patients are residents being supervised by licenensed physicians. And for the record this doesnt really matter, but we do have some type of free insurance unfortunatly to get it you have to be poor and pegnant or mainly a child, its called medicaid

[chequita guevara]

http://www.justhealthcare.org/

How American can afford full heath care for all.

[Dinner]

That's a nice idea but without some profit we will see underinvestment in the health sector. A better way would be to have a national insurance plan which all hospitals would be required to accept. Like any other plan agents would decide how much the insurance company would pay for any procedure and that is how much the health care provider would get. The more efficient the health care provider the larger their profits while inefficient providers would lose money and go out of business. Elective procedures could be covered by private insurance just like most European and several Asian countries do while the national insurance would cover all basic medical care.

This would reduce costs since insurance is essentially a statistical game which becomes more precise the larger the number of people involved. We could effectively spread costs around among 300 million people and that kind of bargaining power & economies of scale could wring out all sorts of cost savings from drug companies, health care providers, and medical equipment manufacturers.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

This i find very entertaining Franky prolly gona choke after he reads it . My 14 yo old just had to have his appendix out last month. I just got a break down from insurance co. on the cost of the whole deal er charges ex rays and 3 day stay in hospital or 2 .5 day stay and surgery cost totaled 67,000 dollars. my part is 3500.00 dollars

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
We don't have it because Southern politicians were worried it would lead to segregated hospitals. Later, Nixon, who was also a proponent of it, was crippled by Watergate. After that, the GOP was taken over by conservatives.

Yep. One thing that people don't know about is that Nixon was about to propose a national health care system similar to the one Canada has now until the Watergate scandal hit.

I'm still trying to think of a reason why this would be a bad thing. Anybody got an answer to this?

Che covered it. If a doctor messes up and you can never walk again, is $250,000 fair?! Why protect negligent doctors?

And the states that have put malpractice caps have similar, if not greater, rise in insurance premiums. If you want to find an answer, look at the insurance companies.

A national health care plan would fix a lot of problems.

[Donegeal]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Why should the government set a limit on punitive damages if the doctor cuts the wrong leg off? You still need to have the other leg removed, so now you're limited to a quarter million dollars for your loss and you can never walk again. Is that anything close to a fair trade?

The problem isn't malpractice awards, it's unrestricted raising of premiums. Caps have not produced savings anywhere they've been tried . . except for the profits of the insurance companies.

Ok, there you go. A reason why malpractice caps might be bad ( however I still think there is room to argue here, but I'm just not going to).

The scary thing is that we appearently agree about "Evil Impersonal Insurance Companies".

[Dis]

malpractice caps are a good thing. I can't believe you people support people getting millions of dollars.

What you guys fail to realize is these caps only limit pain and suffering. Which is all bull**** anyways. They will still pay for all medical costs for the rest of their life, and for lost time at work for the rest of their life.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What you guys fail to realize is these caps only limit pain and suffering. Which is all bull**** anyways.

So losing the wrong leg and thus not being to walk again is something which deserves bubkas? You don't have medical costs for that, really, after they are cut off.

Malpractice caps are a bad thing. They prevent people from getting the money they should when companies and doctors are a bunch of negligent *******s.

When are the doctors going to take personal responsibilty for their actions.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

What you guys fail to realize is these caps only limit pain and suffering. Which is all bull**** anyways.

So losing the wrong leg and thus not being to walk again is something which deserves bubkas? You don't have medical costs for that, really, after they are cut off.

Malpractice caps are a bad thing. They prevent people from getting the money they should when companies and doctors are a bunch of negligent *******s.

When are the doctors going to take personal responsibilty for their actions.

you think being a doctor is easy? The doctors don't do this on purpose. Accidents happen. We don't sue drivers that get in an accident with you and cause you to lose a leg.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Dissident
you think being a doctor is easy? The doctors don't do this on purpose. Accidents happen. We don't sue drivers that get in an accident with you and cause you to lose a leg.

Yeah, and when you have an accident that causes someone pain or harm, you have to pay. That's called a tort. OF COURSE we get to sue drivers that drive negligently and cause you to lose a leg in an accident... which country do you live in? It happens all the time!

[Dis]

a woman just killed 3 teenagers at a bus stop. She's not being sued. Unless you are drunk (or on drugs), you can't be sued or arrested. They are called accidents. Perhaps my state laws are different.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Dissident
a woman just killed 3 teenagers at a bus stop. She's not being sued. Unless you are drunk, you can't be sued or arrested.

It's called negligence. I suggest you look it up. If the woman was driving negligently, the parents of the kids would be fully justified in filing for wrongful death actions.

Just because they haven't yet, btw, doesn't mean they won't.

People are sued all the time for driving recklessly and causing injury as a result.