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This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

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Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#41

Post by mikekij »

- I'm really sorry to hear about the author's father's passing.

- While it's heart-warming, it is unrealistic to think that a public program can spend infinite amounts of money on citizens who a) have paid "little or no" taxes and b) "throat cancer suffers who quit smoking four years afterwards". The math just doesn't add up.

- The fact that the US has a pseudo market-based healthcare system is what allows drug / device companies to make money on innovations that ultimately save lives in other countries (like the UK) where these drugs / devices may not even break even. If you create a system in the US where it's impossible to make money in healthcare innovation, we'll see far fewer technological developments in healthcare, which will lead to worldwide increases in infant mortality / decreases in life expectancy.

That said, we should have a way in the US to provide basic healthcare for the uninsured. The answer is not, however, a single-payer system.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#42

Post by revelation »

carbocation wrote: post #24
bunderbunder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it does refuse to treat people quite regularly. Aside from emergency department, health care providers are generally free to refuse care for patients they believe cannot pay except in the case of a life-threatening emergency. What this means is that in the USA it's common for people to have to allow earlier-stage, less expensive to treat problems develop into serious problems before finally going into the E…

> Actually, it does refuse to treat people quite regularly. Let's not play with words like that. People in the US get treatment—you even say so later, despite your ominous lead sentence. They just get it later, via the ED, after prevention goes un-performed. That's abominable enough, and that's what we should talk about, not the (false) specter of non-treatment.

Now thats playing with words. Do you really think the people on the ground in a US hospital are completely distanced and isolated from the costs that accrue once they admit someone without insurance?

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#43

Post by danso »

ahi wrote: post #35
danso wrote: post #8

Some excerpts: He was a charming, damaged, charismatic, fiercely intelligent, dissolute individual, who lived entirely on his own terms. As a professional gambler, it is unlikely he paid much if any tax in 37 years. He had no will, no funeral plan. He never did fill out the forms necessary to vote in the last election, or the one before that, as I discovered. He just hated forms. I could sympathise. Had he stayed in…

The problem with the TANSTAAFL argument in this case is that the NHS is far cheaper than the American alternative. It is also far superior at providing preventative care than the American alternative.

Just for the record, I'm not saying NHS is worse than American healthcare. I'm just stating that its possible, in a hypothetical system, in which an efficient and fair allocation of resources will bring about end-of-life care scenarios that are less ideal than what the OP describes. And that its also possible that ideal end-of-life care will end up hurting others (through a disproportionate allocation of resources) and doing so in a way that is hard to dramatize (until it's too late).

This is a tension that keeps effective health care reform from moving forward, but it's still a tension that should weigh as heavily in a debate as an emotional appeal.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#44

Post by jgrahamc »

ahi wrote: post #35
danso wrote: post #8

Some excerpts: He was a charming, damaged, charismatic, fiercely intelligent, dissolute individual, who lived entirely on his own terms. As a professional gambler, it is unlikely he paid much if any tax in 37 years. He had no will, no funeral plan. He never did fill out the forms necessary to vote in the last election, or the one before that, as I discovered. He just hated forms. I could sympathise. Had he stayed in…

The problem with the TANSTAAFL argument in this case is that the NHS is far cheaper than the American alternative. It is also far superior at providing preventative care than the American alternative.

As an example of preventive care offered by the NHS. I am registered with a local GP who I hardly ever see (because I don't need to). Two years ago I received an SMS message from them because of my age (over 40) to come in for the NHS Health Check (http://www.nhs.uk/Planners/NHSHealthCheck/Pages/NHSHealthChe...).

The test involved a bunch of basics (weight, exercise, blood pressure, etc.) and two blood tests (for cholesterol and blood sugar level). They will repeat this every five years.

I do not think the NHS is the greatest possible system (in fact, I preferred the French system when I lived there), but by many measures it is good.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#45

Post by Aaronontheweb »

abstractbill wrote: post #19
oneandoneis2 wrote: post #6

I was in America, in LA, a few years back (I'm British), when the whole Obamacare thing was being debated everywhere. The one thing I noticed, and it was a rule that didn't have a single exception, was that everyone I talked to could give at least one example of a time when either they or somebody they personally knew had been faced with a ruinous bill for healthcare. People who'd been bankrupted, people who'd fled t…

Having lived in the uk for the first 27 years of my life, and then in California for the past 10, I have only one word to describe the way American healthcare feels to me: barbaric. Long live the NHS, and yay for Obamacare - it seems like a step in the right direction at least.

Speaking as someone who's had multiple relatives die at the hands of NHS rationing, I completely disagree.

In a system where you can't sue your healthcare provider for egregious malpractice because they're a governmental body and are thus subject to the same citizen-sues-state rules as law enforcement or any other public service, I fear for the quality of our healthcare.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#46

Post by bitcartel »

rdouble wrote: post #10
bitcartel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend at Google with probably the best insurance plan in the country, broke an ankle, and after seeing doctors and physios, still had to pay out-of-pocket close to ten thousand dollars.

Cool story, but what does that have to do with my comment?

Just clarifying your point about the system bankrupting people. Lots of folk outside the US are under the impression that once a person has healthcare insurance everything is hunky dory. The truth is, the current system can bankrupt anybody, regardless of insurance.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#47

Post by GiraffeNecktie »

danso wrote: post #8

Some excerpts: He was a charming, damaged, charismatic, fiercely intelligent, dissolute individual, who lived entirely on his own terms. As a professional gambler, it is unlikely he paid much if any tax in 37 years. He had no will, no funeral plan. He never did fill out the forms necessary to vote in the last election, or the one before that, as I discovered. He just hated forms. I could sympathise. Had he stayed in…

But the nice thing about a publicly financed health care system is that early interventions become much more likely when people aren't forced to make decisions like "Should I spend my paycheck getting this lump in my breast checked out or should I spend it on groceries for the family."

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#48

Post by philwelch »

For what it's worth, my father spent a lot of time in hospitals towards the end of his life, died, and the only consideration made towards payment or insurance was when he was first admitted. I honestly don't even remember the details that well, though I vividly remember a lot of other things about it. I also received reams of "explanation of benefits" papers afterwards in the mail, but we never had to pay a dime.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#49

Post by VLM »

danso wrote: post #8

Some excerpts: He was a charming, damaged, charismatic, fiercely intelligent, dissolute individual, who lived entirely on his own terms. As a professional gambler, it is unlikely he paid much if any tax in 37 years. He had no will, no funeral plan. He never did fill out the forms necessary to vote in the last election, or the one before that, as I discovered. He just hated forms. I could sympathise. Had he stayed in…

"But the reason why it doesn't happen is because of cost"

The most peculiar part of the whole situation is service cost and individual personal wealth is never an issue WRT national military "defense" or police coverage or fire department coverage or admission into a church or the (admittedly failed) K12 education system or EPA enforcement or OSHA enforcement or ... thus the real question is why cost should be a concern almost exclusively for sick care. My point being that you need to convince not merely that cost is an issue, but that cost should only be an issue for healthcare specifically.

Re: This is how you healthcare: American Death in London

#50

Post by rdouble »

bitcartel wrote: post #46
rdouble wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool story, but what does that have to do with my comment?

Just clarifying your point about the system bankrupting people. Lots of folk outside the US are under the impression that once a person has healthcare insurance everything is hunky dory. The truth is, the current system can bankrupt anybody, regardless of insurance.

That is a big problem with even attempting reform. All viable options build off the existing insurance system, which is terrible.
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