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..::Poll::.. Health care and the movie sicko.


Destino

What do you think of the new site?  

63 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you think of the new site?

    • Amazing
      30
    • Cool
      24
    • Could be better
      5
    • A letdown
      5

This poll is closed to new votes


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I think that the biggest cost is that there is an entire second level of administration and profit making between the health care and the consumer - the insurance company.

BINGO!

I loved Sicko but I wish it would have gone into a little more detail into the lives of the executives of these "health plans". We're talking some seriously, seriously, wealthy ****s.

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I work in the healthcare system as a pharmacy tech and know just how ****ED up this system is. It clearly needs a lot of work.

Moore's movie had a lot of good points but it was a poorly made movie in my opinion. There are flaws in the universal healthcare system in other countries which moore just glosses over. There are waits for costly procedures because the government can't just supply them at will. However everyone gets treatment at some level and it is usually very good.

The system that needs to be used in this country is universal healthcare at the basic level with an option of having private healthcare available if one needs to bypass waitlists for procedures that are needed.

I cannot understand how anyone is against universal healthcare

The only question that should be considered regarding healthcare is 'Do you believe that everyone deserves the right to life?'

If that answer is yes then you cannot possibly be for this current system and against universal healthcare, you just cannot.

TJ said it best "everyone reserves the right to LIFE (first and foremost), liberty, and prosperity.

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About 9 months ago I got really sick. Throwing up, couldn't keep anything down. Put up with it for a couple days but couldn't stand it anymore. I went into the ER. They hooked me up to an IV to get some fluids in me and to get some medication in me. I gave them my insurance card and everything and I checked out that evening feeling much better. About 2 weeks later, my insurance writes me and tells me that my hospital is "no longer in my network." In fact, no hospital within 250 miles was in my network anymore. The whole reason I picked them is because they assured me my hospital WAS in my network. They refused to pay for any of my medical bills. On top of that, they sent me a processing fee bill. My insurance paid nothing but charged me for having them as my insurance. I am still receiving bills from that hospital visit in the mail.

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I voted that I haven't seen Sicko and that the system needs serious work.

I want to see Sicko, I just haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. You have to watch Moore's documentaries with a grain of salt, there's some good info but you really have to dig through the BS to get it.

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I think that the biggest cost is that there is an entire second level of administration and profit making between the health care and the consumer - the insurance company. That entity does not compete with anyone and has no real incentive to keep prices down. In fact, they have an incentive to keep prices UP to maximize their profit margin.
Government just makes it less clear, more complex, and much worse.

You both are right. The doctor-patient relationship has been destroyed by the federal government and insurance companies

I don't see how hard that is to see.

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About 9 months ago I got really sick. Throwing up, couldn't keep anything down. Put up with it for a couple days but couldn't stand it anymore. I went into the ER. They hooked me up to an IV to get some fluids in me and to get some medication in me. I gave them my insurance card and everything and I checked out that evening feeling much better. About 2 weeks later, my insurance writes me and tells me that my hospital is "no longer in my network." In fact, no hospital within 250 miles was in my network anymore. The whole reason I picked them is because they assured me my hospital WAS in my network. They refused to pay for any of my medical bills. On top of that, they sent me a processing fee bill. My insurance paid nothing but charged me for having them as my insurance. I am still receiving bills from that hospital visit in the mail.

:doh:

I'm sure you're pissed... I'm pissed for you.

WTF kind of shifty practice would do that?

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You both are right. The doctor-patient relationship has been destroyed by the federal government and insurance companies

I don't see how hard that is to see.

True, to a point. However, there are some situations where the government necessarily must play some role because market forces do not operate properly. Government environmental regulation, for example, is necessary because it is always more profitable to pollute if you can get away with it. We can argue about the degree of regulation that is optimal, but we all agree that SOME government involvement is necessary.

The same is true here. Ordinary market forces do not apply as the current system operates. The government must set up a better system, even if it is only a system that forces actual competition into the healthcare market.

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True, to a point. However, there are some situations where the government necessarily must play some role because market forces do not operate properly. Government environmental regulation, for example, is necessary because it is always more profitable to pollute if you can get away with it. We can argue about the degree of regulation that is optimal, but we all agree that SOME government involvement is necessary.

The same is true here. Ordinary market forces do not apply as the current system operates. The government must set up a better system, even if it is only a system that forces actual competition into the healthcare market.

We first need to find out why they do not operate properly before we get into them. Thats usually the step missing every time. Government can't set up a better system for healthcare, the corporations own it right now.

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We first need to find out why they do not operate properly before we get into them. Thats usually the step missing every time. Government can't set up a better system for healthcare, the corporations own it right now.

Sure it can. The corporations have an inordinate amount of influence on the government, but its not just a master/puppet relationship. Sometimes corporate interests are defeated in Congress.

Heck, sometimes different corporate interests even oppose each other. :)

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Sure it can. The corporations have an inordinate amount of influence on the government, but its not just a master/puppet relationship. Sometimes corporate interests are defeated in Congress.

Heck, sometimes different corporate interests even oppose each other. :)

Sometimes isn't enough, they shouldn't have been in there in the first place. If there was a problem it should have been solved by now.

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True, to a point. However, there are some situations where the government necessarily must play some role because market forces do not operate properly. Government environmental regulation, for example, is necessary because it is always more profitable to pollute if you can get away with it. We can argue about the degree of regulation that is optimal, but we all agree that SOME government involvement is necessary.

The same is true here. Ordinary market forces do not apply as the current system operates. The government must set up a better system, even if it is only a system that forces actual competition into the healthcare market.

Certainly healthcare, much like the environment is an example of market failure

YET, just like the environment, the government is a major cause of that market failure. The insurance companies themselves are very much to blame as well

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A couple years ago I went to a local clinic around midnight for the same thing, although I had no insurance at the time. All they did was give me some fuids, a medication to stop my vomitting, and a blanket. I was there for an hour, hour and a half, max. How much did this cost? A grand. Yes, one thousand dollars. No joke. 750 dollars and hour. Great country, huh?

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I voted No I did not watch Sicko. US health care needs serious work.

It needs work, but some aspects of it are the best in the world. Its not cheap, it doesnt cover everyone and all that, but if you have something wrong with you, you cant find better doctors to fix you than in the US.

Edit: All polls should be public.

Bingo!!!!

I work in healthcare and PB is right on the money. Yes it needs work but it is not as bad as many think because honestly most of the public is ignorant on what they actually have regarding coverage.

People are going to be in for a large shock regarding types of coverages. Many companies are moving to a consumer based plan, what this means is what you do to yourself will impact how much you pay. If you go to the dr's a lot then you will be paying more then those who do not.

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i just want to quantify my response, while i think our health care needs work, the work it needs is to become more privatized, not socialized. i think i would have been more fair to include options for both instead of forcing people with opposing opinions on change to share an option.

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  • 1 month later...

I work in healthcare and PB is right on the money. Yes it needs work but it is not as bad as many think because honestly most of the public is ignorant on what they actually have regarding coverage.

That's because the Healthcare companies write their policies with so much fine print you need an Attorney to decipher it.

I think it's WORSE than most people think because the Healthcare companies are making money hand over fist and can decline someone at any time, for just about any reason. Insurance companies don't really care too much about helping people, which is why they spend MILLIONS of dollars to reject claims. Most people don't know this, but there are some big name insurance companies out there that will cancel your policy if you get cancer. How sick is that?

I happen to work in the Insurance business and I study policies all the time. Nevermind the fact that Companies will raise your rates every year for no reason at all (15-20% is normal), but what about the list of conditions that companies WON'T cover you for? What if you have decent health today, and somewhere along the line you get strep throat two years in a row? The insurance company can determine you UN-insurable and you'll be out on the street with nothing.

I should show you the Underwriting guide sitting on my desk from Humana Insurance. :laugh: It's 500 pages of spooky language, clauses, and restrictions on who can/can't get a policy. Common conditions like asthma are open to interpretation, and not by the policy holder;).

Other policies don't cover certain conditions within three or five years of taking out the policy. Imagine getting in a car wreck only to find out your policy doesn't cover Air-Evac for the first three years, and then you get a bill for $35,000. Air ambulance isn't cheap, you know. Next thing you know your credit score is down the tubes, and you can't stay in your home because your income dropped after being in the hospital for a month. You can't buy another home because your credit is messed up due to the Hospital sending you to a collection agency because the Insurance company won't pay.

I am not a big fan of Michael Moore, but Sicko is accurate and disturbing.

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Michael Moore might not have been the ideal messenger but you would be a fool to ignore the message.

Somewhere between both sides (socialized medicine/Americans dying needlessly) lies the best answer. It is up to Americans to figure it out because politicians are just gonna pit both sides against each other for their benefit while Americans continue to suffer.

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I voted for I like cake. Why can't I have not watched Sicko and feel like the US health care needs SOME work? It might in fact need serious work. I'm just not sure.

There are some simple things the goverment should do and then see what happens:

1. The goverment should create a resource that allows people to EASILY figure out how much they pay for different drugs and procedures and at different locations for all the different levels goverment bueracracies there are. If medicare pays one cost for a drug and the military pays for another, I should be able to find that out and compare it to what different local pharmacies are going to charge me. I should be able to put in my zip code into a web page, get a list of local hospitials, select a list of procedueres and see what are the cost the goverment pays for them as compared to what the hospitial charges a patient walking in off the street.

This would at least allow people that were serious about being informed control their cost some.

2. We need to make a decision about the parmaceutical industry. Is it a regular industry that is there to make a profit or isn't it? If it is, we need talk to the WTO and other countries that now essentially set prices through their federal goverment about changing their practices. The US federal goverment doesn't negotiate a price for champagne. If it isn't, then we need to move to a system like the other countries, but if you do that, then you have to realize that a number of things are going to happen, including the R&D in drug research is going to dry up, that means there will be fewer well paying jobs for people in that industry (the vast majority of pharmaceutical companies are US companies, and they still do most of the real R&D in the US), and the production of new drugs is going to slow.

3. We need to have a larger debate. As things like gene therapy and stem cell treatments come on-line, there are going to be more personalized types of treatments. These are going to be more expensive simply because the money needed to develope them was expensive, but to even give an individual treatment is going to be more expensive (due to things like rejection you'll never be able to mass produce stem cells and some of the things needed for gene therapy the way do a medice for cholesterol). Realistically, what are we going to do as we move to that? Are we going to ban certain procedueres in the US? Are we going to attempt to keep the playing field pretty even and pay for people that can't afford it to have such procedueres?

Depending on what the answers to those questions are dictates what else needs to be done.

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I don't want the government any where near my health care.

But here's the problems:

1. No money in a cure

2. Doctors charge premium because Government or Insurance will cover it

3. Prices go up because people are never "healed" and doctors charge premiums

4. Insurance starts trying to save money, cutting people off

5. Savings accounts don't work because we don't save

6. People who don't pay taxes get free care

7. Some that do pay small taxes get free care

8. As a result, we encourage people to get free care

9. We then think the only option is to offer free care because we are too lazy to change the system and too dumb to see the ramifications of the costs all around

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I haven't seen it, and I won't watch it. Though I do believe the US Health Care System needs serious improvement.... mostly by having the government get the hell OUT of the process entirely.

HEALTH CARE IS A PRIVLEDGE, NOT A RIGHT, FOLKS!!!!

So what happens to the people who can't afford that privledge?

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