Neither should the GOVERNMENT. All they care about is fleecing the tax payer to subsidize their best buddies business interests.
Allopathic medicine has been promoted as the only choice and promoted to look like a success when it has largely resulted in failure, with just a few miracles and lots of promises just to string people along. Allopathic medicine cannot keep up with the ever increasing rates of cancer, heart disease, degenerative diseases, environmental diseases. First Do No Harm? Allopathic medicine is the number one killer in the US, surpassing heart disease or cancer. Chemotherapy destroyed your liver? How about demanding a liver transplant so you can suffer a few more months? Allopathic medicine largely offers a band-aid method that will only slightly delay the inevitable. Allopathic medicine has become absurdly expensive as it tries to deal with the damage it has created upon the human body. Allopathic medicine, government and the insurance companies have created a monster that suppresses cheaper and more effective alternative healing methods. But that's what most people want. Most modern illnesses are a result of life style choices and the environment we live in. People expect a quick fix that does nothing to address the underlying cause of their illness. True health and disease prevention takes a lot of work and self-discipline. I have seen the huge difference. I have seen what allopathic medicine has done TO people. I have seen what the alternatives have done FOR people.
Buffett is for socialized medicine? I can see him and Bill Gates waiting for six hours in line to see a doctor. Cigna didn't handle this situation too well, but why give the doctors and hospital a free ride? They could have gone ahead and saved the girl's life and worried about getting paid later. Kind of like they would have done if she had been an illegal immigrant with no insurance. Instead, they let her die rather than incur the cost. You're better off not having any insurance it seems if it comes to something like this.
"Cigna didn't handle this situation too well, but why give the doctors and hospital a free ride?" _________________________________________ I will only guess but it would not surprise me if it is not allowed due to insurance/liability reasons. Do you suppose you could get a liability policy and state you will be doing surgey for no pay? It is a commercial policy "for pay". Pro bono is probably another risk category with additional premium. What if I paid as an individual for the operation? Do you suppose I could get sued if the procedure failed? I'd be willing to bet the answer is yes.
Buffett is for socialized medicine? I can see him and Bill Gates waiting for six hours in line to see a doctor. I don't know if he is for it, I was assuming based on nutmeq's post that he was. And why would not he, I mean he knows we have socialized military, socialized police...Why the hell not socialized medicine. We are the only civilized country without Universal Health care, we are the only western country where corporations decide who will live and who will die. In fact Buffet knows that "socialized" health care would actually be less socialized than the military or police as doctors, hospitals and drug companies unlike soldiers and cops would not be government employees. The only thing that would be "socialized" is the distribution of medical services and it would be based on the patient's needs, not profitability. He also knows better than to believe in "six hours in line to see a doctor" lies. Cigna didn't handle this situation too well, but why give the doctors and hospital a free ride? They could have gone ahead and saved the girl's life and worried about getting paid later. Kind of like they would have done if she had been an illegal immigrant with no insurance. Instead, they let her die rather than incur the cost. Fair enough, although it's probably not reasonable to expect doctors to pick up the tab every time insurance companies refuse to chip in. Anyway, the whole concept of for-profit medicine sucks. The objective should be saving lives, not increasing profit margins, unfortunately these two objectives are often mutually exclusive.
THE HORRORS OF SOCIALIZED MEDICINE ...What? Italian health care? An Italian hospital? An Italian doctor? Do they even have modern medicine in Italy? All my ethnocentric fears of being ill outside of the U.S. had me wondering what kind of hellish experience I might be facing. The shipâs agent had a taxi ready to take me to the hospital where I waited for about 20 minutes to see a doctor. The doctor had a kind and professional bedside manner and spent about a half an hour asking questions in English before he diagnosed the problem. He got on the phone and made an appointment with a radiologist who agreed to open thirty minutes early in order to conduct an ultrasound. Much to my surprise, the doctor told me he would meet me at the radiologist and sure enough there he was consulting with the technician who performed it. There was no waiting and no line. He interpreted the results, made his observations and wrote a prescription. His fee was $100. Expecting the radiology bill, I asked if they took American Express. I was able to pay the $150 bill for the ultrasound with cash. The taxi driver drove me to the only open pharmacy in the afternoon (everything closes in the afternoon in many European countries, but thereâs always a pharmacy open by law.) As I paid the $15 bill for my prescription, the radiologist walked into the pharmacy with all the medical paperwork I had mistakenly left behind at the radiology office. The taxi driver drove me back to the ship and the rest of the trip was restful and uneventful. Granted, I may have gotten special treatment because I needed to get back on the ship, but nonetheless, this was still an astounding look at what healthcare's like in Europe to an outsider. Letâs recap what weâve learned so far. A radiology bill in the U.S. would be in the thousands of dollars and my co-pay would have been as much as the TOTAL bill in Italy. I was able to get an ultrasound on the SAME DAY it was prescribed. The last time I had an ultrasound in the U.S. I had to wait a weeks for the appointment, wait in an overcrowded room for them to call my name and then waited a week for the results. My Italian doctor ACCOMPANIED me to the ultrasound procedure and instantly gave me the results. The Italian radiologist left his office to deliver something to me I had left behind. My regular monthly prescription in the U.S. has a co-pay of $50. When I left for my vacation, neither the pharmacist nor my physician were able to get my HMO to give me 60 days worth of pills. Finally, my doctor rounded up all the free samples he had in the office so I would have enough while on my trip. The TOTAL price of my medicine in Italy was $15. What would have taken me two to three weeks to get done in the U.S. was all done in ONE day. Many people say we have the best healthcare system in the world. Many people are afraid of having "socialized" medicine like they do in European countries. The next time I visit my doctor or go to the pharmacy or have a medical procedure like an ultrasound, Iâll remember a day I spent in a foreign countryâs healthcare system and wish I could get some of that good stuff here. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/22/18353/172/480/425637 Oh, and lest we forget the wonders of the American Healthcare system: "Although all of my out-of-pocket expenses were supposed to be reimbursed, we fought the healthcare company for three months to get that reimbursement, because, we were denied three times. They said finally, that we had sent our forms to the wrong department each time. Actually, it seemed to us that they were playing a war of attrition. Finally we were reimbursed for about 2/3rds of the cost, the amount we paid out of pocket in Italy was not reimbursed."
The French Healthcare Horror story ...my (then 4 years old) son was diagnosed 2 and a half years [ed - now 3+ years] ago with a brain tumor. He underwent surgery, then chemiotherapy for a year and a half. Early last year, he appeared to have been cured, but the tumor reappeared last autumn, and he underwent radiotherapy this winter. He was first diagnosed by our pediatrician, a private sector doctor, who sent us to the (public) specialised pediatric hospital in Paris for additional exams. We did a scan and a MRI the same day, and that brought the diagnosis we know. He was hospitalised the same day, with surgery immediately scheduled for two days later. At that point, we only had to provide our social security number. Surgery - an act that the doctor that performed it (one of the world's top specialists in his field) told us he would not have done it five years before - actually took place the next week, because emergency cases came up in the meantime. After a few days at the hospital, we went home. At that point, we had spent no money, and done little more than filling up a simple form with name and social security number. Meetings with the doctor in charge of his long term treatment, and with a specialised re-education hospital, were immediately set up, and chemiotherapy and physical therapy were scheduled for the next full year. Physical therapy included a few hours each day in a specialised hospital, with a varied team of specialists (kinesitherapy, ergotherapy, phychologist, orthophonist) and, had we needed it, schooling. As we lived not too far away, we tried to keep our son at his pre-school for half the day, and at the hospital the other half. Again, apart from filling up a few forms, we had nothing to do. My wife pretty much stopped working to take my son to the hospital every day (either for reeducation or treatment) - and was allocated a stipend by the government as caregiver, for a full year (equal to just under the minimum wage). Had we needed it, transport by ambulance would have been taken care of, free of charge for us (as it were, car commutes to the hospital could also be reimbursed). During the chemiotherapy, if he had any side effects (his immune system being weakened, any normal children's disease basically required him to be hospitalised to be given full anti-biotic treatment), we'd call up the hospital and just come around. Either of us could spend the night with him as needed. We never spent a dime. After a year at the specialised hospital, ongoing re-education was moved to another institution specialised in home and school interventions. In practice, a full team of 5 doctors or specialists come to see him over the week, either at home or at school, to continue his treatment (such follow up, possibly less intense than at the beginning, will be needed until he reaches his adult size). Of course, they manufacture braces and other specialised equipment for him and provide it free of charge to us. Check up exams take place every 3 months, with all the appropriate exams (usually including a MRI), and we've never had to wait for the appointments. Again, no cost for us, no funds to be fronted. When he relapsed, our doctors considered all available options. In the end, the most promising technology was in another Paris hospital. Such technology, linked to nuclear research, exists only in 3 places in the world, one in Boston and one in Switzerland, so the French system itself was able to provide a cutting edge option. But had we needed to go to Germany, the UK or even the USA for treatment because that's where the best hope was, the costs of that would have been covered too by French social security. Now that our son is in first grade, he has the right to special help for handicapped children at school (a fairly recent law), and he now benefits from part time help - a person who is around about 20 hours per week to help him do his work and catch up when he is absent for his therapy. This is paid by the city of Paris and the ministry of education. Oh, and as he is officially handicapped, I recently discovered that we actually benefit from an additional tax break (in France, the taxes you pay are roughly divided by the number of people in the family; the handicap counts as an additional person for that purpose). So, we did not have to spend a single cent. We got support to be available for him. He gets top notch treatment. We never had to wait for anything. And this is available to absolutely everybody in France, irrespective of your job, age or family situation. If you are badly sick or injured, you simply do not have to worry about money at any time, nor about lack of care. An interesting twist to that story is that we do have private healthcare insurance in France. Basic healthcare is covered by social security, but only partly: except for the poor (under a certain income level), there are co-payments for most expenses like medecine and doctor visits, and doctors are also allowed to charge you more than the official tariff (and you have to pay the difference, in addition to the co-payment on the official price). Thus many people buy private (or mutual) insurance to cover that difference partly or fully. Such insurance is often provided by your employer. But whenever you have "major" expenses, you switch to 100% coverage of expenses by the public system - except that, if you had a private insurer, it has to pay to the public entity a portion of the costs. In my case, as I had a good insurance via my bank, this is what's happening, and thus the private sector bears a portion of "catastrophic risk." (And they have no say in what care is provided. They just pay an agreed fraction of it.) Thus there is solidarity across the sytem. :: :: This is not to say that all is well in French healthcare. As in other countries, costs are barely under control, spending increases every year, and there are many ways the system could be improved for doctors, nurses and patients. But the fact remains that if you are badly ill, you will be taken care of; you will not need to give up your job (or if you do, you're helped); you will not need to sell your house; and you will not be denied healthcare (see my second comment below). It's been tough enough to deal with a sick child; I simply do not want to imagine what it would have been like if I had to beg for care or to scurry around for money in addition. It's just inconceivable. And thus, I was happy to pay taxes before, and I'm really, really happy to pay taxes now to provide that level of care for those that really need it. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/22/153152/64/538/425595