I've said it before, and I'll say it again....BUCK FUSH!!

Hey Georgie! Fungoo!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I have to admire Ted Kennedy on this one. As ill as he is, he showed up for a few minutes to vote on this bill to make sure Bush's veto was overridden.

Bush is the most despicable person I know. Doctors in my area have had to retire or seek other (inadequate) financial avenues to pay their costs because Bush has drastically cut back over the last 7 years on the already meager amounts physicians/hospitals were paid by Medicare. On this bill, Bush wanted to cut back even more. Bush's real goal is to destroy Medicare program altogether.

Bush's veto on this bill would also have jeopardized the health care for thousands of our active and retired military members(as if he cared) because the military health plan - TriCare - is also linked to Medicare.

The greedy SOBush doesn't think twice about spending millions of our tax dollars to kill and maim people in his war of choice in Iraq but ever since he got into office has constantly cuts back on payments to our physicians and hospitals who help cure heal the sick.

If this bill had not gone thru, 60% of ALL physicians said they would not be able to take any new Medicare patients next year. Millions of people would then find themselves without a physican in the upcoming years. Hospitals also would have to cut back and shut their doors.

You sometimes wish Bush and his entire family had no health insurance and one day, when one of them really needed medical care, there would be no medical care for him or his family.

cure heal - cure and heal

Oh My God!!!

A testicle! A baby testicle!

FF for Morris

Sounds like a good over-ride, but I thought this was funny:
"Let's send a message to the president his days of doing us harm are very, very limited," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat.

JoMa

You go girl!

ATTABOY VERM!

"You sometimes wish Bush and his entire family had no health insurance and one day, when one of them really needed medical care, there would be no medical care for him or his family."

Sometimes???

John mCsame will come out saying he strongly supported this Bill from the beginning, just like he did about the Veterans' Bill he forgot he opposed, but the four votes he missed on it interfered with his nap times.

that prevented an 11 percent reduction in government payments to doctors treating elderly Medicare patients.

So Bush in vetoing this bill wanted doctors to get 11% less for treating patients, or Congress in overriding the veto ensured doctors would get 11% less for treating elderly patients?

I'm kind of tired, and read it a few times... can't wrap my head around which way it went...

Bush vetoed an increase in Medicare fees. Doctors started putting up signs, "No new MediCare patients".

Congress overrode his veto.

Well good for Congress then... but this should be a warning to all the Universal Healthcare freaks out there...

Doctors started putting up signs, "No new MediCare patients".

This will happen in any universal healthcare system that fucks with doctors pay...

ROB

You should see a Medicare codes sheet sometime (payments for service).

Most of the doctors treating Medicare patients make a good living, but the prices they charge are less largely because Medicare actually pays them.

The rub I have with our system is that private insurers bombard docs with paperwork to try to get them to finally say, "I give!". It's a game.

Medicare administrative costs per dollar? 2-4 cents. Private insurers? 20-40 cents.

Medicare is good about paying in full and paying on time.

That's why 11% is a big deal. There's more to the story, but I believe part of that 11% were standing rates that were going to sunset.

"This will happen in any universal healthcare system that fucks with doctors pay..."

It also happens with some private insurance to, United Health Care, for example, is notorious for denying claims that the insured are definitely entitled to. It is idiotic to think that a for profit insurance company is going to be more willing to pay claims than the government is.
If the government doesn't pay it is probably a mistake, if the insurance companies don't pay it is not a mistake but a secret policy and they all have them. Don't kid yourself, these companies are all about profit.

Doctors started putting up signs, "No new MediCare patients".

This will happen in any universal healthcare system that fucks with doctors pay...

Yet canukistanis pay half what Amerians do, nationally for universal health care and still manage to live longer.

Go figure...

Medicare is good about paying in full and paying on time.

Posted by AMERICANUNITY

Medicare is relatively small...

If the system works, and the care my family and I get doesn't drop, then fine... everyone can have it... but if it forces doctors to go "Cash only" and waits to see doctors get much longer, then no, it has to be scrapped and the asshole responsible for the system has to be held accountable.

Yet canukistanis pay half what Amerians do, nationally for universal health care and still manage to live longer.

And yet when people get really sick, they can't get to America fast enough... hmmm... wonder why?

One of my friends has a practice that's probably 70% Medicare. He loves it. They don't question him on his treatment plans, they pay in full and on time, and his patients can go to a doc in hawaii if they're on vacation no questions asked.

It's the other 30% of his practice that drives him nuts, takes 2 full time people just to stay on the private insurance companies, who then usually go on to screw him out of half his bill just because they can and know he'll have to to through hassle to get paid. They hope he won't bother.

Medicare is the most cost effective, patient and doctor friendly, reasonably priced medical system in America. When you take the profit out of insurance you get more care for less money. Everyone comes out happy.

I'd guess most people don't know that most of the tallest buildings in American cities are owned by insurance companies.

There's a good reason for that. They try to pay as little as possible.

Private health insurance worked until HMO's and managed care came along. When some snot nosed untrained 24 year old in another state is making medical decisions about procedures and treatment plans based on their company's profits something's terribly wrong

ROB

Medicare's been working like a charm for a long time.

When the payer isn't looking to make a profit more of the available funds can actually go for care.

When private insurers take up to 40% of every dollar, patients pay huge premiums and co-pays, are told who they can see, doctors are told what they can and cannot do by untrained pencil pushers in faraway places (if you can get them on the phone), and the bottom line is to increase the bottom line at everyone eles's expense - including the doctor and patient - Medicare beats it by a mile.

My friend told me he has never had to call Medicare once for approval for a procedure. Any patient with a valid Medicare card can see any doctor in the United States for any reason.

It really is a very good system. If little old ladies can stay healthy on it with limited incomes, you know they're not being gouged in premiums either.

There were abuses of Medicare in the past by primarily medical equipment providers, but they really clamped down on that too.

It really is a very good system.

Because its small when compared to the rest of the population. There's no way to be certain a program like that will work with 300,000,000 people.

"There's no way to be certain a program like that will work with 300,000,000 people."

But what we do know for certain is that the present system definitely won't work for 300,000,000 people and that it is extremely expensive and wasteful yet still deprives people of coverage they have paid for.

But what we do know for certain is that the present system definitely won't work for 300,000,000

it works for 250,000,000 Americans...

Just out of curiosity what do you guys have for the thousands of Americans employed by the Insurance companies, besides a big, "Go fuck yourself?"

Just out of curiosity what do you guys have for the thousands of Americans employed by the Insurance companies, besides a big, "Go fuck yourself?"

Posted by Rob_The_A_Hole

They can join the Medicare Beauracracy, I guess.

Just out of curiosity what do you guys have for the thousands of Americans employed by the Insurance companies, besides a big, "Go fuck yourself?"

Posted by Rob_The_A_Hole

also, isn't that what we've told the thousands in manufacturing jobs?

"Doctors and the seniors' group AARP supported the bill and waged an aggressive lobbying effort to prevent the doctors' pay cut."

* * * *

You don't say.

Bush was stupid for taking on the world's two most effective lobbying arms. Who does he think he is?

"Just out of curiosity what do you guys have for the thousands of Americans employed by the Insurance companies, besides a big, "Go fuck yourself?"

They have the exact same assistance available as do those who have seen their jobs outsourced. BTW some of the jobs lost would be in India and personally I don't give a crap. In all honesty I have to admit I would actually enjoy seeing many of these scum bags lose their jobs, they have been assisting in the screwing of other Americans for years. A person does need to question the morality of their employer, if they knowingly continue to work for a company that screws their policy holders they deserve no sympathy.

Bush was stupid for taking on the world's two most effective lobbying arms. Who does he think he is?

A tool of big insurance companies.

Congress voted Tuesday to override President Bush's veto of a Medicare bill that prevented an 11 percent reduction in government payments to doctors treating elderly Medicare patients. The Senate voted 70-26 to overturn and the House of Representatives 383-41.

Wow, I had to re-read this summary three or four times and then read the actual article to figure out what was going on. I must not have gotten enough sleep last night :-)

So, Bush supported cutting Medicare payments by 11%. Congress blocked this and it was subsequently vetoed. Congress just now over road the veto, so Medicare payments will remain the same.

Is this correct?

Oh. Then I guess that would make the Congress . . . um . . . the tool of elderly whites and their doctors.

that would make the Congress . . . um . . . the tool of elderly whites --

And we elderly whites would greatly appreciate that.

Let me get this straight.

The bill would cancle a 11% pay cut to doctors.

That means that congress voted to spend more for each doctor visit. What am I missing?

Not missing anything Sniper. Whenever the American Medical Association teams up with the AARP, you can expect higher tax bills, cleverly disguised by the Dems as altruism.

"Not missing anything Sniper. Whenever the American Medical Association teams up with the AARP, you can expect higher tax bills, cleverly disguised by the Dems as altruism."

Not under Bush, under Bush no taxes are needed because "deficits don't matter." Just spend, spend, spend unless it might actually help an American.

So tell me how socialized medicine will reduce the cost of care? Isn't what Bush tried to do what is supposed to happen? The costs are forced down because you have a single payer?

So when Obama gives us socialized medicine all the Dr's have to do is refuse patients and they get a raise?

Wow, I want that job, where if I refuse to work they pay me more.

Maybe you should also stand up for all those overseers who lost their jobs when slavery was abolished, or for all those concentration camp guards who lost their jobs when Hitler lost.

How about all those poor farmers growing cocaine and opium around the world.

The fact is that the private health insurance industry cumulatively employs over 2 million bureaucrats - more than the entire civilian United States government. All the wingnuts want to get rid of the government bureaucracies without regard to the employees who have given their lives to public service, but whine pitiously when the thought that the callous for-profit health insurance industry that has given America by far the most expensive per capita and least effective healthcare system in the developed world should lose their jobs.

"So when Obama gives us socialized medicine all the Dr's have to do is refuse patients and they get a raise?"

Er...they didn't get a raise they just avoided getting a pay cut. Considering there is considerable inflation the docs aren't even breaking even. I want doctors to be compensated fairly so that they will be willing to accept Medicare, don't you??? Don't you have parents??

I guess that from reading much of the above that the AMA must be pushing for govt health care - lol!

Sawdust, you want an explanation of how socialized medicine would reduce costs.

What makes you think we are talking about socialized medicine here in the first place?

With the exception of England (which actually DOES have socialized medicine in their National Health system, where most hospitals are government funded and the doctors on goverment salaries), ALL of the other countries of the industrialized world have private hospitals, clinics, doctors, pharmacies, etc. ONLY the health insurance, not the actual practice of medicine, is run by the government as a single-payer system using tax money.

It's no different than the federal government-administered, taxpayer-funded, single-payer flood insurance that Republicans throughout the heartland are lining up to get after all of this year's flooding disasters. You'd think they would make a symbolic protest over this "socialized flood insurance" system and refuse their checks!

Or the federal government-administered, taxpayer-funded, single-payer insurance that protects the private individual's deposits in banks (FDIC) and savings & loans (FSLIC).

sawdust, could you take a stab at providing the economic definition of 'socialism' in a single sentence for me? You don't seem to understand what it means (any more than most Americans really understand what Communism means or Representative Democracy, or unregulated free market Capitalism means). Or are you merely one of the unthinking parrots who have been taught to squawk "Socialized Medicine. Socialized Medicine." whenever the rich and powerful, who are merrily looting the rest of the country see somebody fight back?

Bill Kristol, editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard and cofounder of the neocon Project for a New American Century put it bluntly when he said:

"[Among conservatives] there's been too much pseudo-populism, almost too much concern and attention for, quote, 'the people'.... After all, we conservatives are on the side of the lords and barons.... We...are pulling up the drawbridge against the peasants."

Lest you think this an aberration of the neocons and not a core Conservative principle, in the 1950s, President Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, echoed the same theme, "... somehow we find it hard to sell our values, namely that the rich should plunder the poor."

It is amazing how many average earning sheep line up so docilely to not only be sheared by "lords and barons," but to be skinned to the bone - all the while bleating "Down with Socialized Medicine, Down with Socialized Medicine."

Its enough to gag a maggot.

So when Obama gives us socialized medicine all the Dr's have to do is refuse patients and they get a raise?

There is no law saying doctors have to accept Health Insurance. They can make you pay cash up front if they want to and some do. When they heard that they were going to get an 11% pay cut they simply said they won't take medicare anymore.

If Obama gives us socialized medicine and it results in drastic pay cuts for doctors, they'll stop accepting it... and then the system will fail and we'll be right back here.

The conservatives on this sight might be interested (though I doubt it) to know that in most of the first world, the life expectancy of a child born today is between three and five-and-a-half years longer than in America. Their live-birth rates and child mortality in the first year of life are also far better. They benefit from cradle-to-grave private medical care (paid for by public insurance) and receive this high-quality care for at most 2/3 the cost per-capita that Americans are forced to pay for our erratic and substandard system.

And, lest you think they are sacrificing productivity over our wondrous free-market productivity engine, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (along with Singapore and Switzerland) are all counted among the top five most successful and economically productive countries in the world, while the United States has slid out of that top tier and is continuing to descend in a dozen different metrics.

It is a particularly amusing irony that all these social democratic "nanny states" are now out-competing Friedman/Reagan/Bush/
Grammonomics and leaving us in the dust of second-rate status.

We sit behind our self-constructed wall of "American Exceptionalism" and continue to tell ourselves that we are still the best country in the world, even as our health care; education; transportation, electric, communications, and water infrastructries; even our atrophying technology continue to deteriorate and now rank in the middle of the pack with the second-world countries.

Our drastic decline in technology as compared to the rest of the world is in itself a shock that most Americans never get to see unless they spend some serious time out-of-country and see how dramatically we have been left in the dust. We are now a net importer of technology and a net exporter of agriculture.

Oh, geez, rightiswrong and the rest of you, can't you understand even the simplest stories without trying to force them into an already twisted two-dimensional ideology?

no wonder a recent poll showed that one in five Americans (Republicans, no doubt) believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth, while another poll revealed that almost half of all Americans can name all five characters in the cartoon Simpson family, but fewer than 1 in 1,000 could name all five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment (no, I'm not going to tell you - look it up), and that only a minority of Americans even know how many Senators we have.

Bush has run up the cost of medicare dramatically by farming out some of it to private HMOs, which charge the government higher rates than standard Medicare - which are in turn subsidized by the Bush administration out of taxpayers' pockets. A hefty bit of socialized taxpayer-funded profits for his private cronies that nobody on the right every whinges about. Apparently, right-wing taxpayers don't mind their pockets being picked for people richer and more powerful than them, only for the needy.

Now, Bush wants to balance the books a bit more by cutting the amount of money the doctors who take regular Medicare patients are paid so his fat subsidies (at taxpayer expense) to the private HMOs can continue unabated.

You know, John Stuart Mill was right on the mark when he commented: "Not all stupid people are Conservatives, but most Conservatives are stupid people."

**** If Obama gives us socialized medicine and it results in drastic pay cuts for doctors, they'll stop accepting it... and then the system will fail and we'll be right back here.

Posted by Rob_The_A_Hole ****

......and thats why socialized medecine does not work in any country........

......oh wait.!!......

.......other countries spend less and get better outcomes......ooooopppsss.!!!

Hey Bluesun, take your pretyped monolouges somewhere else please...

No one types that fast, so take the stuff you've copied and pasted from other sites or things you wrote up earlier and go fuck ya mutha...

other countries spend less and get better outcomes

America has the best med schools and the best doctors... know why? Because in America its not unusual for the highly specialized doctors (truama especially in major cities) to make $800K a year. So we get the best candidates from all over the world wanting to come here... you fuck with that demand and reward and your going to see lesser care.

If you can afford it, America is the best country in the world for medical care.

Good posts, Bluesun, pretyped or not.

Rob-the-A-Hole

My wife is on permanent SS disability and I am a stage-three cancer survivor, so we have more than average experience with the American healthcare system.

As a self-employed computer consultant when I was diagnosed in 1997, I had a premium, gilt-edged $1,300/month POS health care policy. Despite this, the insurance company found so many ways to deny necessary treatment, medication, and testing (that I had to pay out-of-pocket) and then reneged on paying so many legitimate bills, that I'll be paying off my medical debts for the rest of my life.

On the other hand, my wife's specialists no longer take ANY private insurance. They tell her that the only way they can practice effective medicine and do what's best for their patients, unhindered by multitudinous bean-counters in dozens of bottom-line-obsessed insurance offices is to take ONLY Medicare patients and those who can pay their own bills. Where once doctors preferred private (not-for-profit) insurance, like the original Blue Cross/Blue Shied system, now they find that they simply aren't being allowed to practice the most effective medicine by any of the private insurers, whose primary fiduciary duty is to their stockholders, not the doctors or the sick patients.

I saw my own cancer surgeon last year for my final followup (I am officially cured), and the first thing he said to me is that he and all of his physician friends are telling everybody they run across to go see Michael Moore's SiCKO.

Government and private health and public policy analysts have compared the health care systems of Canada and the United States.[1][2][3][4] The U.S. spends much more on health care than Canada, both on a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP.[5]In 2005, per-capita spending for health care in the U.S. was US$6,401; in Canada, US$3,326.[5] The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 9.8%.[5] In 2004, almost 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 44.7% in the United States. Total government spending per capita in the U.S. on health care was 23% higher than Canadian government spending, and U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 87% of total Canadian spending (public and private).[6]

Studies have come to different conclusions about the result of this disparity in spending. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the U.S., in a Canadian peer-reviewed medical journal, found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent."[7] Life expectancy is longer in Canada, and its infant mortality rate is lower than that of the U.S., but there is debate about the underlying causes of these differences. One commonly cited comparison, the World Health Organization's ratings of health care system performance among 191 member nations published in 2000, ranked Canada 30th and the U.S. 37th, and the overall health of Canadians 35th and Americans 72nd.

........follow the money.........

.....Bush, McCain,Obama,Clinton, every member of the Senate and Congress have publicly funded SOCIALIZED healthcare plans that cover everything.........

......it's good enough for them but NOT FOR YOU .......

.....thats because you are not being bought off by the insurance companies........

(I am officially cured)

Good to hear, congrats...

and the first thing he said to me is that he and all of his physician friends are telling everybody they run across to go see Michael Moore's SiCKO.

Posted by BlueSun

My wife is a surgeon... They've all said that Medicare is a good system, but a lot of them don't think it can really be ran well if it or something like it is expanded to 300 Million people. A lot of doctors in Philly are already starting to say "Cash Only" and you deal with the refund... I'm guessing its not localized in philly. If it can be ran well, doesn't dimish the care of those who can afford it now, and doesn't fuck with Doctors' pay and doesn't wreck my taxes, then yeah, let's go for it... but I doubt it can work.

"Because in America its not unusual for the highly specialized doctors (truama especially in major cities) to make $800K a year."

Unfortunately though those doctors aren't going to be available to most of us who have HMOs are they??
I think what most Americans want is reasonable medical care provided at a lower cost than the insurance companies are providing. The profits of insurance companies, the high salaries of executives, the commissions on sales are all costs that run up the price of insurance but do nothing to provide care.

" but I doubt it can work."

That's because you are a "Republican't"

****** No one types that fast, so take the stuff you've copied and pasted from other sites or things you wrote up earlier and go fuck ya mutha...

Posted by Rob_The_A_Hole *******

......Rob.....you are proving Bluesun correct by answering his logic with rudeness........

****** America has the best med schools and the best doctors *******

.......this mentality is causing the country to decline, thinking that we have nothing to learn from others, when in fact, we have a great deal to learn........

......the facts do not support your obsessive opposition to public health care Rob.......

Sorry rob, but you are wrong again. The United States trails virtually the entire western world on virtually every health metric. We have the lowest life spans, the worst child mortality rates, the lowest Quality Of Life spans. We have some people getting gold-plated treatment, while many more (even with what they though was good insurance before they got sick) getting substandard treatment.

Nowadays, the new trend for Americans is to go to India for surgery, where Indian doctors and nurses (yes, trained in America) are performing higher quality surgery at hospitals that are better equipped, with more modern equipment and higher nurse/patient ratios, for a fraction of what we will pay here, even with our health insurance.

Many of these hospitals are like spas, and the entire family can come along and have a vacation while Dad has his speen taken out.

Heck, right now, it is Cuban doctors who are most sought-after in countries with inadequate medical staffs, not Americans. They are just as good as the Americans and are doing medicine for the love of doing medicine, not for the newest AMG Mercedes and the latest vacation home in Palm Beach.

When I was in college in the late '60s, I worked a school job at the university hospital. I overheard one eminent thoracic surgeon complaining to a colleague, "My wife is turning 40 this year and she has informed me that nothing will ease the pain of this transition except a Mercedes 450 SL convertible. I'm going to have to perform at least three or four more surgeries this month than usual to get the cash."

How would you like to be going to HIM for an opinion on whether you need heart surgery that month?

Hell, even now, Massachussetts General Hospital, the most prestigious hospital in the U.S., is having half of its x-rays, MRIs, and CAT scans read and interpreted by Indian radiologists (many trained here in the US) during the night hours here. In India, a radiologist earning less than a tenth of the salary a displaced Boston radiologist is able to sit at his computer half a world away and see exactly what the American radiologist in the room next to the CAT scanner sees.

They are even now talking about the technology to do surgery itself remotely.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that conservatives are smarter than liberals. More likely to be college-educated, more likely to earn more money, more likely to speak more than one language, more likely to be happier.

By the way, you do know that John Stuart Mill was talking about the Tory Party? and not Conservatives, per se?

Probably not. Funny post, though. "One in 5 Americans (Repubs, no doubt) believe the sun rotates around the earth"--uh huh. Kinda like when I see all those people a' faintin' at the Obama rallies, I think to myself, wow--those are some intelligent people there. No doubt they'd be unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos, or curing cancer, had Obama not shown up to give another big speech today, and given his audience the vapors.

So when Obama gives us socialized medicine all the Dr's have to do is refuse patients and they get a raise?

I'll admit that I haven't followed the subject as closely as I should but... Is Obama actually calling for a single payer system?

I was under the impression that his plan essentially makes private health insurance mandatory, and provides subsidized insurance to those who can't afford it (akin to the Mass. plan).

Hell, even now, Massachussetts General Hospital, the most prestigious hospital in the U.S. . . .

* * * *

Wow. News to me. Johns Hopkins? The Mayo Clinic? Cedars Sinai? Make room for MassGen!!!!

You're funny. I'm glad you're here. We don't have enough people like you around.

"Kinda like when I see all those people a' faintin' at the Obama rallies"

I attended a large Obama rally, no one fainted.

I believe you have confused McAncient's rallys where there are generally several deaths due to old age.

Unfortunately though those doctors aren't going to be available to most of us who have HMOs are they??

I don't see why not... the trauma surgeons in big cities are making massive amounts of money... you get shot, hurt in a car accident, etc that's who you're going to see.

Just because a doctor is specialized in a field with high demand doesn't mean you can't see them. Ortho surgeons make tons of money and people go to see them every day...

Is Obama actually calling for a single payer system?

Posted by katieberry

Hell no, he isn't.... what he's trying to do is make private insurance more affordable. To be sure, that won't cover everybody, but the ones that it won't cover probably don't vote anyway.

What it will do is buy off enough people for him to stay secure in his odds for the presidency.

Rob, you prove my point. It doesn't matter whether your wife's colleagues are accepting only Medicare and cash, or, as you say, only cash. Either way, what that says is that they simply can't give the best care to their patients with private insurance policies.

So, your wife's friends are saying that, if you've got the cash (I was lucky that I did when I was sick), you can get the treatment you need, not the treatment that earns the most dividends for Oxford or Horizon. Is that the system you are praising?

If medicare were to be freed of some of the damaging restrictions its enemies have put on it (like denying it the right to negotiate prices with the gouging pharmaceutical companies) and were to be extended to the entire country, it could be used to turn American health care into the world's best. Medicare has an administration cost of under 2%, while the private insurance companies usually run around 15% or 20% and as high as 35%. Medicare gives far more bang for the buck.

In addition, we would be replacing a hundred different private bureaucracies with hundreds of different forms and thousands of slightly varying plans with a single bureaucracy with only one plan.

Think of how many office staff in the average American private medical practice spend their entire day doing nothing but processing this myriad of different forms, conditions, referrals, deductions, and copays. In my hematological oncologist's office, she has one person whose entire job is checking to make sure that referrals from primary care gatekeepers are in order before your visit.

In Canada, there is basically one form - a half page long.

One last point. For a free market system to work, there has to be a direct relationship between provider and consumer. Only when the consumer is free to shop around for what he or she sees as the best deal or best policy do the providers have to compete by offering the consumer what he is looking for.

But most Americans get their insurance through their job, and the decisions are made by beancounters in the Human Relations departments. The best most people get is the ability to select between two policies, the company's inadequate HMO policy, or an indeosyncratic PPO with ever increasing deductables, copays, coverage limitations, and deductions from your paycheck.

Neither the seller nor the actual buyer of the policies is the ultimate customer, so the market forces are all skewed.

Heck, right now, it is Cuban doctors who are most sought-after in countries with inadequate medical staffs, not Americans.

think McFly, think... Why would a doctor leave America where he's making $300,000/year to practice in Haiti where he'd make 4 chickens and a cow?

They are just as good as the Americans

Not unless they've been trained in America... Hopkins, Sloan Kettering, Penn, Harvard, Yale, HHS, Duke, Rush, etc... the best doctors in the world come from these programs, not Cuban National University of Medicine and Farming.

and are doing medicine for the love of doing medicine, not for the newest AMG Mercedes and the latest vacation home in Palm Beach.

Doctors go through at least 8 years of schooling and then years in a internship/residency program where they work 80/hrs a week for around 35-40K/year... when they are done with all that they have typically over $100K in loans to pay off... so maybe you can cut them a little slack after all that that they would like a nice car.

Also, nobody goes through all this hell if they don't love medicine and helping people...

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that conservatives are smarter than liberals. More likely to be college-educated, more likely to earn more money, more likely to speak more than one language, more likely to be happier."

(Sigh) I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for the link on that one.

BLUESUN my daughter's job is insurance re-billing. Just the number of insurance company denials of claims that should be covered under the policies is enough to create an entire industry of people like her who go through hospital bills line by line and rebill the insurance companies. some companies are really bad about it, those are the ones she and her company prefer because there are so many claims denied that can be rebilled.

In addition, we would be replacing a hundred different private bureaucracies with hundreds of different forms and thousands of slightly varying plans with a single bureaucracy with only one plan.

Two thoughts come to mind here...

1) thousands of people out of work...

2) a single point of failure... if the system sucks, we're all fucked.

67 voted NOT to override the veto.

Wonder why?

Also, nobody goes through all this hell if they don't love medicine and helping people...

Posted by Rob_The_A_Hole

I'm going to beg to differ with you, rob... Doctors are human too. Many of them just do it for the money. Patiient care is just the widget to the funding/billing. I've accompanied my wife to too many Dr. dinners to think otherwise.

So tell me how socialized medicine will reduce the cost of care?

Ask the rest of the western world they seem to have figured it out.
It's hilarious that the Fighty Rightys pay for free Iraqi health care, but won't give it to their own kids. I expect if Clinton were in office, they'd be demanding an immediate withdrawl from Iraq (after having opposed it in the first place as the Kosovo liberation showed)and demanding a balanced budget and free medicare.

My attitude toward elderly folks who "can't chew the leather anymore" is the same as certain Arctic Circle tribes. Put them out on the ice to make an easy tasty meal for the local polar bears. I would call it Medicare part E and make it mandatory.

The greenies would be happy too because they are worried about all the starving polar bears.

I'm going to beg to differ with you, rob... Doctors are human too. Many of them just do it for the money.

Don't get me wrong, every doctor does it partly for the money and power, but you have to be really smart and driven to get in and get through this process to become an attending physician. You have to at least somewhat love medicine and practicing it to do this... trust me it is really freaking hard, and we've got 3 years left of this shit before it pays off.

Let's not forget, no other country supports the health care of it's military veterans as well as America either. God bless that president Garbage W. Trash and the Trash Administration.

"starving polar bears"

Rob,

One of the biggest problems in our medical system is that we have far too few family practice physicians or internists. Too many of our med school grads are drawn to the big, big money of specialty work. The front line of defense for your health is your family practitioner, but they simply don't make the megabucks.

Besides, you whinge about keeping costs down even as you laud the guys skimming the cream and keeping the costs high. Seems an oxymoron to me.

I had one of the top nationally-recognized colon cancer surgeons operating on me when I had my stage-three colon cancer 11 years ago. He put together a team of top specialists, including top-tier radiological and hematological oncologists. Given my less than 50/50 (very much less, as I had malignant cells in several guard lymph nodes already), I have no doubt that their expertise and dedication saved my life.

But it was my run-of-the-mill local family physician who, in the course of a regular prostate check, discovered an irregular lump that turned out to be a lesion and then sent me to this surgeon immediately for follow-up.

Since I was still well short of 50 (the year most physicians will telly you to start screening for colon cancer), this lowly family doctor and his diligence is the one who deserves the most credit for saving my life. Had I waited to 50 for my first colonoscopy, the best and most expensive specialists in the world would not have had a chance to save my life.

You have a very skewed view of medicine. The first priority should be to keep people healthy. The second should be to detect problems in their infancy. And only when all that fails, the high-paid specialists and expensive technology get thrown into the breach.

ER trauma practice, like the gunshots you mentioned is an entirely different animal, and most of that work is done by residents and house staff - it ain't exactly Park Avenue medicine, m'boy. There are some trauma surgeons who are cashing in big time, but most of the people (the EMTs, the nurses and orderlies, physicians' assistants, interns, residents, and house staff) who are working to keep you alive long enough to get you to that surgeon couldn't even afford to buy a new set of alloy wheels for his S500 Mercedes.

You seem obsessed with the aspect of six and seven-figure salaries. You seem to be a perfect case of the analysis one European gave to me about our country. He said, "You Americans know the price of everything, but the value of nothing."

[yeah, I know that's a 'learned' borrowing from Oscar Wilde, but it is even more true than his original comment.]

and we've got 3 years left of this shit before it pays off.

Posted by Rob_The_A_Hole at 2008-07-16 03:17 PM

Then you get kicked to the curb Wobby!

You seem obsessed with the aspect of six and seven-figure salaries. You seem to be a perfect case of the analysis one European gave to me about our country. He said, "You Americans know the price of everything, but the value of nothing."

Okay, now you've annoyed me a little.

Don't fucking talk to me like you know more about what goes on in a hospital then I do. My wife is in her 4th year of her ortho residency. I know all about the long hours and the shit pay and the work she does. I know all about having to cook every fucking meal, change every diaper, do every load of laundry, while she's at the hospital saving the lives of assholes like you who can't bitch fast enough about their pay and probably can't wait to sue.

Just cuz you got fingered by some doctor well ahead of when you should have and it so happens he got lucky does not mean he gets all the credit. That doctor, like most general practice and ER doctors doesn't have a fucking clue what to do in medicine except tell you what you have and pass it on to a specialist who actually knows how to treat it.

You're just looking for a handout because you and your wife got dealt a shitty hand in the game... fuck off...

Then you get kicked to the curb Wobby!

Posted by itsme

Okay, then I get half Itsy...

Europeans sure seem to know a lot about America. Maybe that's why so many of them send their kids to college here, and why so many of them stay. Yes, Americans know the price of everything. That's what a free-market economy and internet access will do for you. And the Europeans sure seem to recognize the value that's here--if college applications and foreign investment are anything to go by-- even if we Americans are too ignorant and dumb to appreciate it.

"trust me it is really freaking hard, and we've got 3 years left of this shit before it pays off."

You mean your wife has to put up with you for three more years.

Only kidding, don't have a hissy fit Rob.

RIR: And equally, lots and lots of American expatriates live in Europe. As for investments, of course Europeans invest a lot of money in America. After all we are still the largest economy in the world.
That being said, we have fallen a long way over the last eight years judging by the meteoric drop in the value of the dollar compared to the Euro.
So I guess I don't really see your point.

Isn't it amazing how this Fuck-head Presidents brain works?

We Spend $10 Billion Dollars a month in a fucking total bullshit war in Iraq and this asswipe has no problem trying to save nickles and dimes trying to cut elderly people out of health care.

Un-fucking believable that America could have such an ingorant fuck as this for a 2 term President.

Am I getting this wrong? Does Wob-The-Poophole, whose life apparently is financed by a medical spouse while he baby-sits and spouts wise on company time, whatever that may be, really knock a national health plan because it would throw insurance company employees out of work?

Wobbele surely would want me not to acquire a boot for my steering wheel because that would throw carjackers out of work. herm

"That's what a free-market economy and internet access will do for you."

Capitalism, the internet, an army which like locusts destroys everything in its path but brings home the oil, a president reaching new heights (lows?) in governing ineptness while stealing billions from a people he will soon abandon? A country with a union-achieved lifestyle being steadily eroded to Bangla Desh levels? A country that spies on its citizens in the name of a non-existent threat? I mean ... who the hell would bother to invade this country?

And anyone pointing it out will be accused of "hating America." What I hate is what someone like Bush has done to a country I love. herm

Hey Herm....You DO hate America!

FACTOLISHIOUS!

"You're just looking for a handout because you and your wife got dealt a shitty hand in the game... fuck off...

Posted by Rob_The_A_Hole"

I have no idea why some people seem not to like you.

My wife is on permanent SS disability and I am a stage-three cancer survivor, so we have more than average experience with the American healthcare system.

Posted by BlueSun

So you want me to pay your medical bills?

So you want me to pay your medical bills?

Posted by Sniper

That's exactly what he wants... he and his wife have problems, problems he can't afford, so he wants every other American to foot the bill. Lazy handout seeking douche...

I have no idea why some people seem not to like you.

Posted by Jomama

Antisemitism?

antiassholism?

Oh My God!!!

A testicle! A baby testicle!

~Morris

Pretty much THIS.

Congress finally shows the tiniest bit of backbone by over-riding a Veto by Bush & Co?

Woo Hoo!

How far is it from here to impeachment?

Take Pelosi "off the table" and git 'er done sez Spud.

Be Well.

/Spud would note the fact that Rob's practically sociopathic lack of empathy is once again in evidence on this thread but quite frankly it would be much more notable if it wasn't.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ON THE JEWS

From the written records of CHARLES PINCKNEY of South Carolina, of the proceedings during the drafting of the Constitution in 1789 concerning the statement of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN at the convention concerning Jewish immigration. (Original in the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.)

"There is a great danger for the United States of America. That great danger is the Jew. Gentlemen , in whichever land the Jews have settled, they have depressed the moral level and lowered the degree of commercial honesty. They have created a State within a State, and when they are opposed, they attempted to strangle the nation financially as in the case of Portugal and Spain."

"For more than 1700 years they have lamented their sorrowful fate, namely that they were driven out of the motherland; but gentlemen, if the civilized world today should give them back Palestine as their property , they would immediately find pressing reasons for not returning there. Why? Because they are vampires and cannot live on other vampires. They cannot live among themselves. They must live among Christians and others who do not belong to their race."

"If they are not excluded from the United States by the Constitution, within less than a hundred years they will stream into our country in such numbers that they will rule and destroy us, and change our form of government for which Americans have shed their blood and sacrificed life, property and personal freedom. If the Jews are not excluded, within 200 years our children will be working in the fields to feed the Jews, while they remain in the Counting House gleefully rubbing their hands."

"I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jew forever, your children`s children will curse you in your grave."

"Their ideas are not those of Americans. The leopard cannot change his spots. The Jews are a danger to this land, and if they are allowed to enter, they will imperil its institutions."

"They should be excluded by the Constitution."

67 voted NOT to override the veto.

Wonder why?

Posted by Petrous

I guess they thought the doctors were making too much money now.

This REDSOXFAN is posting the same lies all over Drudge today....hint...he's a fucking NAZI.

""BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ON THE JEWS

From the written records of CHARLES PINCKNEY of South Carolina, of the proceedings during the drafting of the Constitution in 1789 concerning the statement of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN at the convention concerning Jewish immigration. (Original in the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.)""

The late Carl Van Doren, a biographer of Benjamin Franklin made this report:

The speech against the Jews which Benjamin Franklin is alleged to have made the Constitutional Convention of 1787 is a forgery, produced within the past five years [1933-38]. The forger, whoever he was, claims that the speech was taken down by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina and preserved in his Journal. The forger presumably knew that, in a letter to John Quincy Adams dated December 30, 1818, Pinckney said he had kept a Journal of the proceedings at the Convention. But this Journal, if it ever existed, has never been found. The forger claims that Pinckney published the Journal for private distribution among his friends with the title Chit-Chat Around the Table During Intermissions. No copy of any such printed Journal has come to light. Not content with these two claims, the forger has further asserted that the original manuscript of Franklins speech, apparently from Pinckneys Journal, is in the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. The Franklin Institute does not possess the manuscript.

www.adl.org

I find it interesting that racist, antisemetic bastards are so determined to besmirch the reputation of Benjamin Franklin when we all know that FREEDOM OF RELIGION was one of the principle rights that were enshrined in our Constitution with no mention of excluding Jews.
Even in 2008 we must be always vigilant and be watchful as those who would still praise Adolph Hitler try to infiltrate American society and pollute it with their lies filled with hate.
Obviously REDSOXFAN is one of those who are such scum.

Redsoxfan, that speech is likely a hoax...

So you want me to pay your medical bills?

Posted by Sniper

That's exactly what he wants... he and his wife have problems, problems he can't afford, so he wants every other American to foot the bill. Lazy handout seeking douche...Rob the Asshole

Yes, we should pay their medical bills. You pay the medical bills of the members of Congress. Yall have paid my medical bills all my life, thanks assholes.
Father retired military, I am retired military, take it from me I love my socialized medicine.

trust me it is really freaking hard, and we've got 3 years left of this shit before it pays off.

Posted by Rob_The_A_Hole

I know, Rob.... I remember the nights talking to a sleeping intern on the phone and not realizing it until I heard the snoring (okay, I can talk alot), making dinner for 6pm only to learn at 9pm that it was going to be breakfast instead, sitting home alone ALOT, waiting for the off chance that I might get to see her....

We have more than an 8 month old in common.

That said, money.... its a real motivating factor to a lot of doctors who would be in some other profession otherwise.

Hagbard is Bizzaro Rob.

"I am retired military, take it from me I love my socialized medicine."

You're welcome, please let us know if there is anything you need. I mean that sincerely.

You're welcome, please let us know if there is anything you need. I mean that sincerely.

Posted by danni
* * * *

Looks like he needs a dictionary. If you're retired military, you don't have socialized medicine--your free medical care was a benefit of 20 years of military service. Just like your military pension isn't the same as socialized retirement. Socialized medicine would be if I were to ask for free medical care for life, serving only 9 years. Or others, who demand it merely by virtue of living here.

Interesting point, though: given that medical care for life is such a strong inducement for many to pursue a military career, wouldn't it be more difficult to encourage military service if EVERYONE gets the same coverage our retirees do? And, given what we know about the VA, is that really what we want anyhow?

Hagbard is Bizzaro Rob.

Posted by 101Chairborne

LOL!!! Sometimes I feel that way.

FF

Bizarro.... cool.