31–40 of 134 posts
I'm sorry to be so ignorant when it comes to linux core (perhaps?) developers, but the entire blog post didn't mention his name nor his wife signed it with hers so I could at least assume who he is.
I just donated $50. And as much as I agree with the sentiments on this page about my country's lacking health care system (and have always voted with this in mind), I hope we can come together to focus on the problem at hand, which is raising money for a fellow dev in his time of greatest need. I assume the Indiegogo account cannot be suspended as easily as Paypal, so I made the donation through Indiegogo despite the…
Say whatever you like about EU, but I can't think of any country here that would not help this man, or let him die simply because he can't afford surgery. In the worst possible case he would still have the surgery done straight away ,but he would have to pay afterwards,not before - he might end up in debt because of that,but better than being dead for sure. Anyway, donated some money, really wish he gets all the help…
* Germany: In 2005, Germany spent 10.7% of GDP on health care, or US$3,628 per capita. Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care insurance system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck's Social legislation, which included the Health Insurance Bill of 1883, Accident Insurance Bill of 1884, and Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill of 1889. * US: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Uni…
I wasn't aware that a government-sponsored healthcare system this old existed in the world, because it's always seemed to me that such programs are fundamentally unsustainable.
So what I want to know is, how do they keep it sustainable? For example, if there's no longer a market where demand responds to price signals, how do they determine how much procedures cost? What keeps providers from increasing prices 5% every year, regardless of cost increases, until they're essentially looting taxpayers' money on a massive scale? If the government sets prices, how do you avoid damaging shortages or surpluses when it gets the pricing wrong? How about moral hazard -- the problem of people who waste healthcare resources by going to the doctor for every little sniffle, scrape and twinge since it's free? What keeps people in other countries who don't pay into the system from getting a burning desire to move to Germany when they find out they have something really expensive to treat like cancer or AIDS?
I just donated $50. And as much as I agree with the sentiments on this page about my country's lacking health care system (and have always voted with this in mind), I hope we can come together to focus on the problem at hand, which is raising money for a fellow dev in his time of greatest need. I assume the Indiegogo account cannot be suspended as easily as Paypal, so I made the donation through Indiegogo despite the…
I made the payment through paypal, I sincerely hope it isn't "suspended" due to a rapid influx of cash.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
* Germany: In 2005, Germany spent 10.7% of GDP on health care, or US$3,628 per capita. Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care insurance system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck's Social legislation, which included the Health Insurance Bill of 1883, Accident Insurance Bill of 1884, and Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill of 1889. * US: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Uni…
> Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care insurance system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck... I wasn't aware that a government-sponsored healthcare system this old existed in the world, because it's always seemed to me that such programs are fundamentally unsustainable. So what I want to know is, how do they keep it sustainable? For example, if there's no longer a market where demand responds…
Moral hazard doesn't seem to be a large problem with hospital services (doctors aren't going to order an unnecessary surgery), and there is a strong culture against unnecessary prescription drugs. So about the worst that can happen is someone wastes their local physician's time 30 minutes at a time. Since small-time office visits aren't where most of the healthcare costs go (in either Denmark or the U.S.), it's a minor concern. As far as foreigners, that's a concern, and handled by the immigration system (you probably won't get a visa if that's the reason you're trying to enter). The main current concern is intra-EU system-shopping of that sort from Europeans, who don't need visas. There are attempts to standardize something around that (the EU "blue card" scheme is one), but it's one of those awkward areas that showcases the EU's quasi-integration. There is also a debate currently about whether Denmark should start charging tourists, since it's one of the few countries that provides completely free emergency care to anyone. Many see this as the right thing to do: if a visitor is injured in a mugging, for example, some people view charging them for the hospital visit as adding insult to injury, like sending them a bill for the police investigation would be. But there is also annoyance that other countries don't reciprocate, so a little bit of a sentiment of, "well if the bastards are going to charge me for getting mugged in NYC, let's charge them when they come here".