How SHOULD Health Care Work?

[vern_humphrey]

hows that? government refelcts society, that doesn’t mean funding for abortions, euthanasia etc. is inherent in such a system.

Of course not!! There are no abortions in America!! (Are there?) Abortion isn’t legal in this country!! (Is it?)

Follow the logic – Single payer = only way to get health care = only way to pay for abortion = court decision that the single payer must provide abortions.

 

[Ma.Eugenia]

Overseas doctors are actually a form of exploitation - a ‘brain-drain’. Partly it’s a matter of overseas students choosing to remain in the country where they’ve studied rather than going home to work in the country that paid to educate them and partly it’s because ‘converting’ foreign qualifications of qualified doctors to host country qualifications costs a very small fraction of the years of training costs of home students.

It’s capitalism at its best, really. Pretty deadly for the countries of origin, of course.

I agree with you here. In the Philippines, where I live, there is a “brain-drain”. There is a joke that goes around here***–“Only in the Philippines is studying Medicine a pre-requisite of Nursing.”*** Sad to say, the exodus of professionals in my country is very,very true.

I know this for a fact because I am a dentist who is studying Nursing for the purpose of working abroad. I am finishing next year and intend to leave immediately–not because I want to leave the country (Philippines) that I love very, very much–but because it is the practical thing for me to do. I have tried to work here in my country and found that the working conditions and wages aren’t worth staying for if I want stability. Someday, I might return and retire back in my homeland.

I have friends who are anesthesiologist, dermatologists, pediatricians, lawyers, etc… who have taken Nursing too. In my class in school alone, a big percentage are professionals. One is even a lawyer in the Supreme Court, would you believe!

Many of my classmates aim to go to the US, Canada, New Zealand, England and the Middle East (particularly Dubai). At least, that’s what I have surveyed so far.

Many professionals, even medical doctors, shift courses because Nursing is the course that is very much in demand and the fastest way for us to find a job that would allow us to support our families better, something that is so hard to do, if we stay in my country.

 

[emily47017]

Don’t forget to say thank you to the rest of us who are paying for it.

let it never be said that i’m ungrateful… and as i’m also a tax payer, i’m also grateful to myself.

 

[vern_humphrey]

let it never be said that i’m ungrateful… and as i’m also a tax payer, i’m also grateful to myself.

Are you getting more out of it than you put in?

 

[emily47017]

Are you getting more out of it than you put in?

as a taxpayer, you’re getting more out of medicaid than you put into it, too. consider:

i have several co-occuring conditions, any one of which prevents me from holding down a steady job, i.e. paying for my own medical care, either through insurance premiums or the proposed MSA. without medicaid, i’m:

1. 
   *]living on the streets, possibly depending on catholic charities for food and shelter (that’s your weekly offering, isn’t it?)
   *]depending on drug companies offering the medications for free (jacking up your prices)
   *]getting all of my health care needs met in the ER (jacking up your prices)
   *]spending unknowable amounts of time either in the hospital (your prices) or jail (your tax dollars)
   *]eventually committing the sin of suicide (and i do hope i didn’t just feed you a straight line )
   these are not things i’m speculating on; these are things i know for sure. so my current yearly expense to the rest of the country as a whole (visiting a nurse practitioner a few times a year and keeping my medications stable) would be exhausted in, oh, let’s say one month. one penny spent is eleven pennies earned!
   
   i pay my share when i work, and to the rest of y’all i tip my hat and thank you for your prudent investment. :tiphat:

 

[vern_humphrey]

as a taxpayer, you’re getting more out of medicaid than you put into it, too. consider:

If** everyone** is getting more out of medicare and medicaid which is a different program) than they put in, then someone has invented an economic perpetual motion machine!

In fact, you get out less than you put in because:

1. Most people paid into Medicare for many years in which they drew no benefits.
2. The economic value of those payments (reasonable return on the money) far exceeds what you will draw between the day you turn 65 and the day you die.

i have several co-occuring conditions, any one of which prevents me from holding down a steady job, i.e. paying for my own medical care, either through insurance premiums or the proposed MSA. without medicaid, i’m:

1. 
   *]living on the streets, possibly depending on catholic charities for food and shelter (that’s your weekly offering, isn’t it?)
   *]depending on drug companies offering the medications for free (jacking up your prices)
   *]getting all of my health care needs met in the ER (jacking up your prices)
   *]spending unknowable amounts of time either in the hospital (your prices) or jail (your tax dollars)
   *]eventually committing the sin of suicide (and i do hope i didn’t just feed you a straight line )
   these are not things i’m speculating on; these are things i know for sure. so my current yearly expense to the rest of the country as a whole (visiting a nurse practitioner a few times a year and keeping my medications stable) would be exhausted in, oh, let’s say one month. one penny spent is eleven pennies earned!
   
   i pay my share when i work, and to the rest of y’all i tip my hat and thank you for your prudent investment. :tiphat:

1. 
   I understand that you benefit from the system. But that just means that many more of us pay in more than we can ever get back.
   
   And there are many ways of providing care for those who cannot pay their own way – a monosopny/monopoly is not the only way, and definitely not the** best** way.

 

[emily47017]

I understand that you benefit from the system. But that just means that many more of us pay in more than we can ever get back.

argh! you don’t understand! i’m more expensive to you without medicaid!

 

[vern_humphrey]

argh! you don’t understand! i’m more expensive to you without medicaid!

Okay, we’ve gone from:

as a taxpayer, you’re getting more out of medicaid than you put into it, too

to

i’m more expensive to you without medicaid

(Although I think you actually mean Medicare, rather than Medicaid).

Can you prove it?

And can you show that Medicare (or Medicaid) is the best, most economical way of all possible ways?

 

[emily47017]

(Although I think you actually mean Medicare, rather than Medicaid).

oh, fer cryin’ out loud, i can read what it says on my card. :banghead:

i give up. let’s just let our votes cancel each other out.

 

[vern_humphrey]

oh, fer cryin’ out loud, i can read what it says on my card. :banghead:

I was under the impression you were over 65 and on Medicare.

In any case, how can Medicaid or Medicare give each of us back more than we put in?

 

[Kaninchen]

I know this for a fact because I am a dentist who is studying Nursing for the purpose of working abroad. I am finishing next year and intend to leave immediately–not because I want to leave the country (Philippines) that I love very, very much–but because it is the practical thing for me to do. I have tried to work here in my country and found that the working conditions and wages aren’t worth staying for if I want stability. Someday, I might return and retire back in my homeland.

It really is terribly sad but there just doesn’t seem an answer beyond the rather ritual observation: “further economic development” - which the ‘brain-drain’ continuously undermines, of course.

 

[vern_humphrey]

It really is terribly sad but there just doesn’t seem an answer beyond the rather ritual observation: “further economic development” - which the ‘brain-drain’ continuously undermines, of course.

Despite what some would have us believe, America was not settled by “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” America was settled by people who came here for economic opportunity, and who by and large were the most ambitious, most able and most adventurous of their peers. .

That’s how it was 400 years ago, and that’s how it is now.

 

[Kaninchen]

Despite what some would have us believe, America was not settled by “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” America was settled by people who came here for economic opportunity, and who by and large were the most ambitious, most able and most adventurous of their peers. .

And the desperate who could afford the tickets as opposed to the desperate who couldn’t.

The suggestion that the ‘most ambitious, most able and most adventurous’ of Europe left for America rather ignores the fact that Europe itself gave birth to things like the Industrial Revolution and had many centers of scientific, economic and technical development. Some, particularly the UK and France had empires which swallowed up large numbers of able and ambitious people. Had you said "some of the most ambitious . . " I wouldn’t disagree with you.

That’s how it was 400 years ago, and that’s how it is now.

Despite what some people would have us believe, America wasn’t and isn’t the only destination for the ambitious. Just thought I’d point that out.

 

[Trader]

I am afraid this may become a book-length thread, but here goes:

We need to go way back to basics in medical science, economics and practical morality.

1. We need more choices not less. We are all different. A single plan for everyone will be a disaster for almost everyone.
2. We need a lot more personal responsibility from doctors, lawyers, the insurance companies, government officials, and especially from consumers of medical care “patients.”
3. Economics is about scarcity. There will never be enough resources available to any society so that everyone can have all he or she wants.
4. Insurance is contract between two willing and able parties. It does not lower the cost of anything-it actually increases the total cost. It is worth the cost for freely contracting parties because it provides for the sharing of risks among people with similar risk profiles. It will be disastrous when you combine parties with widely different risks and charge the same premium for those different risks. Suppose your insurance agent told you that because homeowners who built mansions on the Florida Coast or on landfill atop known earthquake faults in San Francisco had really high homeowners insurance premiums, we would just charge everyone the same premium, regardless of your known risks. Doesn’t that sound really stupid? Welcome to Medicare.

I have read very little here about the duty consumers have to behave better. If you are still smoking after 43 years of continuous warnings from the Surgeon General and even the package itself, why am I required to subsidize that foolish choice?
If you have cardiac damage from abusing cocaine, am I obligated to pay the cost of a heart transplant for you? If you are sexually promiscuous, who should pay for the cost of treating your AIDS?

If we have mandadory health insurance like Massachusetts, will it be fairly priced according to the risks we choose to take? Or will I be forced to pay higher rates to cover the choices other people make that are foolish, immoral, or even criminal?

 

[vern_humphrey]

And the desperate who could afford the tickets as opposed to the desperate who couldn’t.

The suggestion that the ‘most ambitious, most able and most adventurous’ of Europe left for America rather ignores the fact that Europe itself gave birth to things like the Industrial Revolution and had many centers of scientific, economic and technical development. Some, particularly the UK and France had empires which swallowed up large numbers of able and ambitious people. Had you said "some of the most ambitious . . " I wouldn’t disagree with you.

Every demographic study shows the immigrants were more ambitious, more adventurous than those who stayed at home.

Perhaps this explains why the United States was part of the Industrial Revolution, too – with people who could walk through an English cloth-making plant and memorize the machinery, then reproduce it at home, or develop the first submarines to be used in combat, or develop things like the cotton gin.

Despite what some people would have us believe, America wasn’t and isn’t the only destination for the ambitious. Just thought I’d point that out.

Who would have us believe that?

 

[Kaninchen]

Every demographic study shows the immigrants were more ambitious, more adventurous than those who stayed at home.

First of all, that’s not what you’d said originally:

America was settled by people who came here for economic opportunity, and who by and large were the most ambitious, most able and most adventurous of their peers. .

I pointed out that Europeans were going all over the place and, not only that, they were busy doing things back home.

Meanwhile “Every demographic study” undertaken by whom and of whom - who is it who has shown that a starving Irish peasant of the 1840’s with enough money for the passage was “more ambitious, more adventurous” than his/her compatriot without enough money for the passage? Who has shown that an English apprentice who emigrated was “more ambitious, more adventurous” than his fellow apprentice who started up his own workshop?

Who was doing the interviews and the follow ups of individuals and peer groups?

Every society has its well-loved foundation myths but one that suggests that ambitious and adventurous Europeans shipped themselves across the Atlantic leaving behind the unambitious and unadventurous is beyond its ‘sell-by’ date.

Perhaps this explains why the United States was part of the Industrial Revolution, too – with people who could walk through an English cloth-making plant and memorize the machinery, then reproduce it at home, or develop the first submarines to be used in combat, or develop things like the cotton gin.

Interesting to find out where the money was coming from - I expect there’s a strong case for arguing that the USA was more rewarding for England when she didn’t have to bear the cost of running the place and English investors could just take the dividends of the general ‘opening up’ that independence brought. Governmental relationships are one thing, economic relationships quite another.

By the way, the crucial piece of machinery in the cotton mill was not the “gin” (which is at the more ‘agricultural’ end of production) but the “loom”. If I remember my American history correctly, Lowell went to Lancashire and, on his return, adapted/copied British designs.

Who would have us believe that?

People too attached to their foundation myths.

 

[vern_humphrey]

First of all, that’s not what you’d said originally:

Originally Posted by vern humphrey (originally)
America was settled by people who came here for economic opportunity, and who **by and large **

So? How does this relate to health care, and how does it somehow “refute” what I said?

 

[Kaninchen]

What part of “by and large” didn’t you understand?

What part of "Had you said “some of the most ambitious . . " I wouldn’t disagree with you.” did you fail to comprehend?

So? How does this relate to health care,

You introduced “America, land of the ambitious and the home of the adventurous” in a conversation about brain-drain in healthcare, not me.

and how does it somehow “refute” what I said?

You haven’t made a case to refute, it was just a bit gratuitous Grand Old Flag-waving.

 

[vern_humphrey]

What part of "Had you said “some of the most ambitious . . " I wouldn’t disagree with you.” did you fail to comprehend?

You introduced “America, land of the ambitious and the home of the adventurous” in a conversation about brain-drain in healthcare, not me.

You haven’t made a case to refute, it was just a bit gratuitous Grand Old Flag-waving.

Let me know when you get all the flyspecks separated from the pepper and you’re ready for a meaningful debate on Health Care.

 

[Kaninchen]

Let me know when you get all the flyspecks separated from the pepper and you’re ready for a meaningful debate on Health Care.

Gosh.