Quote:
Originally Posted by tony404
Fix healthcare and get money flowing again. If people cant get a car loan, then no one is going to buy any car. And its time to fix healthcare, we cant compete in the global market when they dont have health care costs and we do. But with healthcare Im planning on them going timidly and fucking it up.
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Healthcare is an intensely complex problem, although off topic, let me try to put something down.
Here's something very long that you might find interesting, and that I wrote to the only other board where I write, it's not a porn board, it's normal people there.
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Let me try to be honest and describe what I know or what I expect.
I expect the US healthcare system to be (I never used it):
PLUSES:
+ luxury / greatly equipped facilities for the patients (do not confuse with quality)
+ much better wages for workers in health care, which should theoretically also improve the quality of their performance, their number and availability
+ shorter waiting times, more control over your treatment
+ much investment into research (this has another dark side as well as it obviously supports the drug marketing madness)
MINUSES:
- overpriced meds (about 10 - 15 times more expensive than here as I noticed)
- problematic approach of insurance companies that can cover just a part or even decline a treatment, not even insure you
- extreme lobby of the pharmaceutical and health insurance companies that are turning great profits
- massive marketing of the drugs in media (never seen anything like this apart from US) that pushes people solve problems they might not even have
Here's a short characterization of the, and I start to love the word already - "SOCIALIZED" health care system as I'm using it (well not that much, I was never hospitalized for example):
+/- mandatory insurance (you can always go private but you have to be insured) the standard plan is about $ 70 a month
+/- is the BILLION DOLLAR question to answer
PLUSES:
+ can't get the treatment denied, everything is covered including the most serious cases such as injuries or various long term diseases
+ meds are extremely affordable (unless you buy some overpriced placebo in a nice package)
+ the quality of specialists (surgeons etc.) is extremely good, I was thinking about the reason - here's my thesis:
It's a circle:
there is very few that would go private insured so the best specialists still have say 90 pct. of their work in the government subsided hospitals,
this works the other way too - why would you go private if you get the same service from the same person with regular cheap insurance?
(it's the only real part of the mentality of this country - to fuck with everything)
MINUSES:
- there are indeed longer waiting times with geronts in the waiting rooms coming for a chat to the doctor
- the quality of the underpaid personnel (I'm not talking about specialists) is not that bad, but it's going to decline, as far as there simply aren't money available and improving the effectiveness and organization is something absolutely unrealizable with the national mentality here
- there is a lot of overtimes with the specialists and they also, although they make a good living (say they have a mortgage and drive a little bit above average shitty economic car), are underpaid, unless they know someone rich, who will bribe them a little bit or something
- there are big differences among different cities - they get paid from the insurance company for the number of treatments provided, if they don't have clients they get less money and the quality of the staff lowers, therefore if you want a good treatment with something serious, you better hit some of the cities with medical universities and lot of patients
- the main insurance company with the majority on the market is grabbing everyone by the balls - the government and the hospitals - as far as they keep say 80 pct. of the patients and they hold the money
So how to find a compromise?