Healthcare

[jtwhite]

What do you think about all this healthcare stuff? I expect this to be a rather heated debate. Do any of you have jobs in the medical field, how do you, specifically feel about this new bill?

[DeadBattery]

I think it's ridiculous.
Many Americans strongly oppose it; now they are still trying to ram it through.
I think they should start from scratch on the thing but that's never going to occur. Obama should listen to the public, not what his party has been longing to do. He should start focusing on jobs and not the battle over healthcare reform.

[kinley3]

I agree with DeadBattery. They won't win anyone over by going against the general public's wishes. It's an easy way to keep themselves from getting re-elected.

[jtwhite]

I totally agree with the above two posts. I believe that in order to gain more public approval, the congressmen need to listen and exactly as DeadBattery said not do "what his party has been longing to do."

Public option is vital, I really don't want the government totally controlling something as important as health care.

Polls overwhelmingly show the public is against this... Do you think the public will revolt if they force this through?

[fractalfeline]

lol Yes! I got my shotgun here and I'm a-gonna go storm the guvner's house! yeeeeee hawwwwwwww

Seriously though, I don't know enough about it. I'll type out a more coherent response when I can dig up the details. Do any of you have them, btw?

If there's anything I'm sure of, it's that the current system NEEDS reform. But I don't know enough about the Obama plan to say whether it might fix the problems or make them worse.

[jtwhite]

Yes, I would agree that we need reform, such as promoting nationwide competition to drive costs down. That's one thing that Obama's plan doesn't include.

[fractalfeline]

Well, alright. So I'm a medical student, and for the last year or so I've been out of the loop with regards to news, mostly because I don't watch TV anymore. I spend a lot of time studying, and the rest of the time not studying doing mindless things like argue with people on forums lmao

I can tell you what's wrong with the current system, because I'm familiar with How Things Are. I can tell you what the Canadian system is like, because I've spent time over there. But as far as current politics goes, especially about the Obama plan, I have no idea what's going on. I tried looking it up online, but all the news articles talk ABOUT the Obama plan, but don't describe what it IS. There's a lot of dancing around the bush but no going into detail about what's in the bush, if you follow.

So far I've got this: http://blog.taragana.com/health/2010...plained-19688/
Is this pretty accurate?

It's starting to sound a lot like mandatory auto insurance, like they have here in Texas. And um, yeah, sure that works. More often than not, I get smacked from behind by some dude on a cell phone who doesn't have insurance even though they're supposed to. And that's assuming it isn't an illegal who learned to drive in Mexico City.

It sounds like to me: they're making filing taxes more complicated than it already is, and still forces buyers to get their insurance via their employer. This is supposed to help the economy? It seems to do nothing to curb out-of-control healthcare prices and things like malpractice reform.

Am I missing something here?

[xav0989]

Healthcare is vital, I believe. Where I live, they sorted that option by creating a public healthcare system (not in it's best shape, but it's working) alongside a private one. If someone doesn't have a private healthcare, they are automatically assigned to the public one, so most of the population is with the public one. This is great as most medical things are free, as the cost of the healthcare is taken directly from the taxes.

I believe that the solution for the healthcare in the US is to take a look and learn from the public/private healthcare system from your neighbours up north.

[jtwhite]

Healthcare is vital, I believe. Where I live, they sorted that option by creating a public healthcare system (not in it's best shape, but it's working) alongside a private one. If someone doesn't have a private healthcare, they are automatically assigned to the public one, so most of the population is with the public one. This is great as most medical things are free, as the cost of the healthcare is taken directly from the taxes.

I believe that the solution for the healthcare in the US is to take a look and learn from the public/private healthcare system from your neighbours up north.

I heard that you guys have to wait weeks or even months for a broken arm? We don't want that to happen here. The United States has the least waiting time for healthcare right now. I would like that to stay the same. I don't want to have to wait hours for an emergency visit for something like a heart attack.

[fractalfeline]

I heard that you guys have to wait weeks or even months for a broken arm? We don't want that to happen here. The United States has the least waiting time for healthcare right now. I would like that to stay the same. I don't want to have to wait hours for an emergency visit for something like a heart attack.

No offense, but you've heard wrong. If anything, it's faster there than it is here.

When I was up there, I was in and out of a clinic in about half an hour, if that. But I've never used the emergency room.

My fiancee, on the other hand, is a native Canadian. I asked him since he knows better. He's been through the EM about 4 times (injuries, motorcycle accidents), and he's like "what wait time?"

I wonder why that rumor is going around. It's utter lies. I smell pro-insurance company agenda.

lol I remember when my fiancee tried to purchase insurance here via his job, and his insurance agent was trying to convince him of "Canadian wait times." He came home laughing about it.