I am still surprised by physicians who are in support of socialized healthcare. Why are there so many foreign physicians in this country? As both an MD and a person with chronic disease, I will never support the mediocritization of our health care system. Today the US boasts the most advanced treatment of many different diseases. Medications commonly used here are not covered by socialized plans in Canada and England. Perhaps its selfish to want to remain somewhere that I have a list of options and my treatment plan is devised based on efficacy, as opposed to cost-effectiveness. Ask someone from Canada or England what they think of their country's health care. I have a person from each country in my family and they both hate it. The Englishwoman's family purchases private insurance to enable them to see physicians in their country that can prescribe better treatments.

How is it that so many people in this country have digital cable or satellite television, Playstations, nice cars, plasma tvs, and all of the amenities but balk at the idea of investing in something like health care? Some people cannot afford it, and for them there is Medicaid. For the others, I firmly believe that they should be required to purchase emergency health insurance like they do liability insurance for their cars.

I'm interested to see others' thoughts.

I think our own health care system is becoming mediocre in its own way. There is definitely rationing here, though it is not done as openly as it is in other countries. Doctors are having to see more and more patients in a day to make up for declining pay. I think most people agree that there is a crisis here. The big question is what to do about it. :scratchchin: I think it is a very complex problem and there is no easy solution.

there is no doubt about the health care crisis. I also believe that too few people invest in their own health insurance. Many people have lots of nice things but balk at paying for something so necessary. For instance, my family of 3 lived on less than 30k/year (student loans) yet still manage to pay for health insurance for all of us. Granted it is high deductable with no maternity, but a decent policy. It is a change in lifestyle that so many are resistant to. I think there should always be a safety net and coverage for every child, but I also feel like premiums should be affordable and necessary things should be covered.

In the american system, many companies will not pay for certain meds, and others only in specific indications (despite what the doctor thinks) and that is wrong. There is rationing of care here too, to those who can afford it and denial of treatments for others.

out of time...will continue later...

I don't have insurance and my husband may never qualify for it since he suffered a TBI last summer and had many critical injuries. He is doing GREAT now..in fact you would never know if it wasn't for the scares or slightly less than normal appearance of his eyes. Our daughter qualifies for healthy families, which even has dental and vision.

I guess where I am going with this is I have had to pay out of pocket for doc appts. Luckily, the clinic I go to gives me huge discounts, but a simple little procedure will cost at least $150 if not more. I think this may be a reason why so many people are abusing the use of ER's. They don't have insurance and they know that ER's can't turn them away so they will sit in a waiting room for 8 hours to be told they have a cold when they already knew that but just wanted a prescription for something.

I am from Canada, and I will forever be grateful that I never have to worry about getting medical care.

We do have problems with our system - non critical care does require a wait time, however when my grandmother had a heart attack, the ambulance was there in 4 minutes, and she was in the hospital being treated by a cardiologist in less than 10 minutes. Never was there any question about which hospital, which level of care she received. She was told the procedure that she required, not based on the cost of the procedure or her ability to pay, but on the basis of what would be the best for her. She ended up with a triple bypass, which she received the next day.

My mother decided to have a hysterectomy. Our family has a history of ovarian cancer, and she decided to remove everything rather than worry about a time bomb. As a non critical case, she has to wait for it. The wait time is 40 days. For us, that is a completely acceptable wait time.

When in the US on holiday, I got a strep infection and had to go to a clinic. The cost of the doctors visit, and the prescription was over 700$ US. For a traveler to Canada, that cost would have been about 70$. 55$ is the standard clinic fee, and an antibiotic prescription about 15$.

I am not saying out system is perfect, but I know that everyone in our country will get a good standard of care. And if we don't like it, we can pay to go elsewhere. The hysterectomy in the US would have been about 40,000$ if we decided we couldn't wait the 6 weeks.

Well here in the United States, rationing occurs every day when insurers decide what treatments they will pay for. And there are wait times in the United States as well, because of scheduling issues or when demand exceeds supply of physician services. The only difference I see is that here, most medical care is paid for via third party payers who are largely unregulated and, being for profit, take a huge cut of what the patients pay for their medical care.

I have to agree with KPZR, the rationing is definitely happening here. It is still a have/have not thing and always will be. There are wait times and lack of access to care. And we don't have the best healthcare in the world-our per capita spending is ridiculously high, and our infant mortality rates still suck, and here in this 'great' country there are still kids who aren't getting immunized. I fully support a baseline health insurance which would give people access to a baseline level of care and emergency care. I think people should have to pay for health insurance, for a basic coverage, like auto insurance. Those who have more money would still be able to afford 'the best' but at least everyone would have access to care with some standard. Of course, we need more docs to have this happen. And we need less 'medicine with eye on the profit'. And it would probably still happen that if you had some rare illness you would be treated at the academic centers and have access to that, similar to what it is now. The problem is huge but needs to be dealt with, or things will just get worse.

HAM-I would also add that yes, we have advanced treatment of rare diseases-if you have a rare or complicated case, the US is the place to be...but having a baby, sned me to the other 26 countries that are higher on the list for infant mortality. So I don't think socialization would necessarily mean mediocritization-our social system just isn't set up to allow that to happen. You have to have baseline coverage though, or everyone will continue to use the ERs and it will continue to cost us a ton of money...

That statistic on infant mortality is not exactly correct. Some of these countries count certain premature babies who die as stillbirths, not as live births. Some of it also has to do with our advanced reproductive technologies, which make our multiple-birth rate higher, and with that comes prematurity. And then certain demographics of our country are associated with higher preterm births, such as teen pregnancies, drug use during pregnancy, poverty, etc. All these differences are not caused by the US healthcare system but are being used to denounce it. The differences have been reported upon for years, yet inexplicably the statistic is still accepted as valid.

Think about it: do you really believe that the Czech Republic (ranked 8th) is so much better at saving babies' lives than the US? Are we really as bad as Slovakia (we tied with them)? It really defies common sense.

http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/060924/2healy.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus07.pdf#025

And regarding baseline coverage, if it pays so poorly that doctors won't accept it, then patients will still have problems with access and will still have to go to the ER. Isn't that the case in Massachusetts?

SAHMD-even when you account for preemies and multiple births and such, our infant mortality rates are still not where they should be. The insurance in MA for 'baseline' coverage is not paying poorly. The problem isn't that people don't accept the new insurance, it is that there aren't enough doctors (PCP's)to see all of these people who suddenly have insurance and want to be seen.