The Observation Deck

With us spending money like drunken sailors I was thinking.

Health care for every American was put at $186 billion.

Leading cause of bankruptcy is health care cost.

Are we still happy getting another sub-prime loan from China for $2.1 trillion dollars to pay China? And not fix one problem here.

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The U.S. ambassador to China was on the City Club radio broadcast yesterday. At first I thought he was George W. Bush because of the sound of his voice and how well spoken he was.

He said China is our biggest Fan because we owe them so much money. He said they raise our standard of living by allowing us to be bigger consumers.
Earlier I had been in McDonalds and I realized many of the fixtures and interior decorations may have been made in china. the happy meal toys and packaging were probably made in china or taiwan. the disposeable cups may have been made in China. Outside automobile traffic was moderately high. It was difficult to go more than 15 seconds without a car with very high volume speakers cranked up rolling by: those speakers were probably made in China, or there components were. The celebrity-licensed clothing of the drivers was probably made in China.

The Ambassador mentioned exports to China had tripled. These exports may include raw materials for them to make into things to sell us. and old american manufacturing technology. and scrap metal and junk computers for them to strip the copper out of.

This doesn't seem congruent with any kind of policy to rid ourselves of dependence on imported oil. Increasing the distance all the merchandise travels just so we can consume more junk doesn't seem congruent with any policy of energy "independence".

I'd be happy with that Jim. And you know I'd even be happy to pay something for my healthcare. I went into more depth in my other posting about how people not having preventative care costs us a ton more. There is no reason that this country should be falling behind so many other countries for our quality of healthcare. We need to cover everyone.

And before someone says "Do you want the government controlling your healthcare?' I'll say yes and cite my recent experience with government provided healthcare. Sorry in advance for my ramblings.

Two weeks ago my son fell at school and fractured his arm pretty badly. We took him to Lakewood ER and they x-rayed it and said that he would need surgery and transferred him to Rainbow. Yes we were able to go from a Cleveland Clinic Hospital to a University Hospital. Once we got to Rainbow they got him up to his room and made sure he was comfortable. He ended up having minor surgery on his arm the next day. They were wonderful and kind to him. He hadn't been able to eat for about 27 hours so he was happy to order whatever he wanted, they serve food like room service which please a terrified 10 year old. After he left the hospital we had an appointment with his orthopedic surgeon to have an x-ray done and to put on the hard cast. So for all of that I made no phone calls for pre-approval. I had no arguments about switching healthcare systems. I was able to go to the pharmacy and get his pain meds for nothing. And I paid no co-pays for any of that. And the reason why it was so user friendly is because it is government sponsored healthcare for children. Adults who qualify receive the same great care. Preventative care is easy because the send reminders about when children should see the doctor. It covers no only healthcare, but dental and vision also. My son needed braces because he had severe problems with his bite and because it was considered medical it was covered. Two of my boys see specialists on a regular basis and we have never had a problem having those appointments covered. My kids have wonderful care and I am grateful for it. I think all children should have this coverage. I don't think that when a child is injured their parents should have to worry about calling the insurance company, their parents should be free to comfort their child.

So I don't think government healthcare sounds like a failure, well at least not here in Ohio.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:With us spending money like drunken sailors I was thinking.

Health care for every American was put at $186 billion.

Leading cause of bankruptcy is health care cost.

Are we still happy getting another sub-prime loan from China for $2.1 trillion dollars to pay China? And not fix one problem here.

.

I hope that you are sitting down.... I agree

Danielle, I know what you're talking about.

People who cry wolf to many times get eaten alive.

Isn't it wonderful that your son got that care. He could have lost the use of his arm if he didn't have that care.

Grateful, I am sincerely grateful and wish everyone was able to get the same.

I seem to recall that there are about 200 million of us, so the 186 billion figure you cite is about $900 for each of us. Its been quite a few years since medical care coverage cost that little, which makes me think the 186 billion is just the cost of coverage for those of us who do not have coverage. (Note that the medicare premium is now greater than $900 a year).

So I think decent coverage for all of us would cost far more than 186 billion a year, but all the politicians and involved people have their own agendas, so accurate figures are probably hard to find. How many of us would continue to pay for our own coverage if "free" coverage was available from the government.

I think our system is far from perfect, but I am not convinced that plans in other countries that are superficially attractive would work here. Norway, for example, has what appears to be an attractive plan, but they also have a ton of money from North Sea oil, and while they are wise enough to be investing a lot of their income, rather than spending it immediately, eventually they will lose that source of income, and it is far from clear that they will be able to continue their extensive social programs without that income. Canada is often cited as having a good program, but in Canada health care is just another budget item in the provinciial budgets, and when they have to choose between budget items, often health care loses, and services are reduced to absolutely necessary care, and many procedures are deferred until the next fiscal year. This has led to the strange situation where Canadians are coming here to pay for these services themselves, while busloads of us are going to Canada to get cut-rate drugs. The late USSR had government sponsored health care, but they paid their doctors so little that one questions the quality of care (your doctor cannot see you today because he is moonlighting as a taxi driver).

My wife recently got an infection in Amsterdam, and we were able to see a neighborhood doctor with only a short wait, and he prescribed an effective medicine, all at a very reasonable price; but I noticed that there was far less equipment in his office than in an office here, and he didn't do some of the lab work that is routine here. My belief is that our physicians practice a very defensive type of medicine, probably due to their fear of being sued if anything goes wrong. They can do this because our insurers cover the extra procedures, especially the government insurers, such as Medicare, which apparently will pay for anything as long as the doctor gets the coding right. Certainly there have been tremendous strides in the science and practice of medicine, and many of us survive events that would have killed us ten or twenty years ago, but those improvements have come at a price, as has the medical insurance industry (with the government leading the way).

This makes me think that a program of universal coverage will be far more expensive than we are being told (what government program isn't?).

A major concern is that the same college of clowns that has been shown to be incapable of effective oversight of virtually everything, most recently our financial system, would be providing oversight of a federal health care program, which would mean no effective oversight and out-of-control costs.

If we have a mixed system, where some of us pay for our own care and, through taxes, a large part of the care of those who use government care, I think there will be real problems when the costs soar. I think all of us have probably heard someone complain about being in line at the grocer to buy hamburger, while the person in front of them is buying steak with food stamps. People who are struggling to keep up their own house reasonably resent public housing built in their neighborhood, and maintained by CMHA, at little cost to the residents. What should our feelings be when someone chooses to buy a car or two, a color TV, a freezer, a computer, rather than buying health coverage for his family?

I've known a few people who were on, to use a general term, the dole, and one characteristic they share is inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to effectively manage their resources. I think we cannot allow this to continue if we move to having all the necessities of life provided by the government, or risk a taxpayer revolt where those of us who pay more and more in taxes, demand decrease in the services, or quit our jobs and get on the government roles. Since I think everyone should have certain basic services, including health care, I think we should set up a system where those who choose to partake of government largess give up their economic independence, and have a conservator appointed

Dole - are you in jolly old england mate?

Wow - all I can say is wow and not in a good way.

You have so many things wrong in your post that it would take 40 days and 40 nights just to go over each and everything.

Let me just tell you this. If you think that the American system of medical coverage is better under private insurance than other countries, start looking and mortality rates. Maybe the doctors offices didn't have as much equipment as many of ours do it could be because many providers here do unnecessary procedures to pad their bills.

If you think by having private insurance you have choices, think again. Health care in this country is managed by corporate American. We all know how well they do. Check the WSJ lately. How about that Dow Jones. You really need to do a little more research before you give opinions like you just did. You just show how much you don't know.

We are the only industrialized nation besides S. Africa without universal health care. We are not the best in the world at providing anything anymore, except for empty rhetoric.

Will Brown wrote:....

An episode of King of the Hill covered some of this. Hank agreed to take care of a soldier's Pet while the soldier was in Iraq. Hank was disappointed to discover the pet was a cat. He took the Cat to the vet. the vet ran many tests and gave Hank an enormous bill. It was discovered that salesmen kept selling the vet more expensive diagnostic equipment, and the veterinarian had to run many expensive tests to pay for the equipment. It may even have been necessary for the vet to sign deals to continue buying more expensive machines as part of the financing for the previous machines.

Health insurance is a relatively new thing.

Are we still happy getting another sub-prime loan from China for $2.1 trillion dollars to pay China? And not fix one problem here.

Jim, I wouldn't worry too much about the loan from China. Bush has a plan...

two days before he's out of office, he's going to officially close the country, declare bankruptsy, then one day later, re-open as "the United American States", and stop taking calls from the middle east and Asia.

Just like in corporate America, I'm pretty sure all we need is a good name change and a few good lawyers and we can completly walk away from any fiscal debt responsibility.

Am I seeing a cognitive Bret?

Has a miracle happened, an epiphany? Marvelous.

[quote="sharon kinsella"]You have so many things wrong in your post that it would take 40 days and 40 nights just to go over each and everything.

Let me just tell you this. If you think that the American system of medical coverage is better under private insurance than other countries, start looking and mortality rates. Maybe the doctors offices didn't have as much equipment as many of ours do it could be because many providers here do unnecessary procedures to pad their bills.

If you think by having private insurance you have choices, think again. Health care in this country is managed by corporate American. We all know how well they do. Check the WSJ lately. How about that Dow Jones. You really need to do a little more research before you give opinions like you just did. You just show how much you don't know.

We are the only industrialized nation besides S. Africa without universal health care. We are not the best in the world at providing anything anymore, except for empty rhetoric.[/quote]

I knew you were lying when you said "Wow - all I can say is wow and not in a good way."

I did look at mortality rates, and the study I saw said we are 24th of 191 countries in terms of disability adjusted life expectancy, but the authors also pointed out that mortality rates are not necessarily a good way to measure quality of health care, as it can be affected by factors such as victims of homicides and auto accidents, which would, unfortunately, have a relatively great impact in our country. Also, voluntary activities, such as smoking and obesity would affect the mortality rate, but are outside the effective control of the health care system (sure, your doctor can tell you to lose weight, but cannot do much if you choose to continue your unhealthy diet).

It would seem to make more sense to look at availability of care (certainly a problem in many of our rural communities) and the quality of care (often hard to measure as no two patients have identical physiology and attitude; hospitals that do a lot of charity work often have abnormally high mortality rates, not because of inferior care, but because their patients come to them in worse shape). We seem to get a lot of sheiks and other foreign dignitaries coming here for some procedures; perhaps they don't know as much as you, perhaps they know more.

Your conclusion that universal health care is essential because everyone else has it reminds me of lemmings. I would rather see us craft a system that would suit us, rather than copy one that suits someone else. I'm not convinced that health insurance would solve the problem of people who don't seek treatment until a problem becomes severe, then go to the emergency room. As it stands today, they don't pay because they don't have the money; how will making their care free change that? I recall reading that Mrs. Obama tried setting up a program to get indigent people to use clinics, rather than emergency rooms. I think that is a fairly new program, and I would be interested in seeing how it worked over time. Just to jack your jaws, I would point out that this was set up by a CORPORATION, without a universal health care program.

Your rant about corporations makes no sense. If corporations are so evil, perhaps you would want to remove from your life everything made by a corporation. You would have a lot more time to stew, because you wouldn't have any software, nor a computer, nor electricity. With my own healthcare, I have a choice of about 20 plans, all offered by corporations that compete for my patronage. Depending on how much I want to pay in premiums, I can select anything from a number of HMOs, to a number of PPOs, to a number of virtually unlimited plans where I can select any provider who has a license. We have never had to call our insurer to get permission for any treatment, although with some programs I have looked at, there were limits on certain types of services; dental, vision, drugs, and mental illness come to mind.

I don't have the time nor the inclination to debate this with you. Go ahead and have the last word. Try to make sense for a change.

The problem Mr. Brown is that you can choose between several plans. Many people who are self-employed or have pre-existing conditions do not have that choice. This country can do better. We are the best in the world and mediocrity in our healthcare is unacceptable. While you have access to wonderful healthcare, I do not. Yes many people are getting wonderful care, but many are not. It disgusts me that some people think that just because they get good care that everything is hunky dory. Everyone deserves decent healthcare, it seems to me it's a basic human right. Something needs to change, our current system is broken and as a country full of brilliant people I am sure we could have the best healthcare system in the world if we tried.

Mr. Brown - You are arrogant and foolish. Obviously you sneer at those who are not priveleged as you and have no real understanding of compassion or caring.

I suggest, that while you are not on the "dole" you are a dolt.

I don't suffer fools gladly so I am more that happy that you will not debate me and are graciously allowing me to have the last word.

WOW!!!

Sorry Sharon, I am not going to let you have the last word.

Here is an interesting op-ed piece from the New York Times that talks about the candidates healthcare ideas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opini ... =permalink