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Thread: Medicare for All

  1. #21
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by theflashunc View Post
    I meant more the bigger stuff that Medicare was never designed to cover things like pregnancy, neonatal care, or pediatric health issues. But those are also valid.

    Whatever results would be more a Medicare/Medicaid chimera single payer system.
    It's written to be comprehensive, and to get rid of all duplication.

    Medicare for All Senate Version, full text

  2. #22
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by summilux View Post
    Ummm, not really. For all practical purposes, the provincial governments have a monopoly on providing nearly all medical services. It is illegal for a physician to charge patients for services covered by the province. Things like cosmetic surgery that are not covered by the government system are private and you pay for everything yourself. There are a few libertarian-minded organizations and physicians that sporadically test these laws, but so far none of them have been very successful. Perhaps you are thinking of UK or the Republic of Ireland, where a state and a private system function together.

    For the wealthy in Canada, the typical way to bypass the Canadian system is to go to the US. I have a friend who is high up in a Canadian bank and when he became an executive, they sent him to Manhattan where he a got a day of MRI and other tests to make sure he was healthy. People who want experimental therapy that is unapproved in Canada often turn to charities or other fundraising efforts to help pay for treatment in the US. Some Canadians also resort to medical tourism in the Carribean, Mexico or India for things like stomach stapling if they are deemed in ineligible in Canada.

    Another way to do a system work around is to use social or business networks. When we moved to Ottawa, we could not find a family physician ourselves but someone in the Faculty of Medicine, where I work, helped us find one. And just recently, my wife developed a skin rash that stumpted our family doc. The wait time to see a dermatologist was 6 months but one of my wife's friends had a friend who is a dermatologist and this person saw my wife a week later.

    The Canadian system is not perfect. If your life is in danger, you will get world class health care immediately and your outcome will be amongst the best in the world. For other things, i.e. hip replacement or ACL surgery or skin rashes, you wait. Maybe a year or more.
    That’s right, I always reverse the systems. Thanks for correcting me.

    Jon

  3. #23
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by ericpmoss View Post
    There are indeed lots of gaps in the current Medicare. The first step in the legislation is to fill all the gaps and simplify it for the end-user. So, all medically necessary things are covered -- eyeglasses, hearing aids, home health care, pharmaceuticals. No patchwork of coverage and year-long lock-ins.
    ^^^ That. A thousand times that. We can make it what we want it to be. I have no patience with folks who opine that it can't work, it won't work, it's too expensive, my needs are unique, it's socialism, whatever. There are simply too many examples of single payer and nationalized systems providing world class care while being more cost efficient.

    How on Earth anybody can look at the Byzantine, Balkanized patchwork quilt of underwriting/funding systems in the USA's HC "system", never mind the ridiculous flaws and lottery-esqe characteristics, and think that our system could possibly be cost efficient is beyond me; and I've seen a lot of stupid shit in my lifetime.
    John Clay
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  4. #24
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by jclay View Post
    ^^^ That. A thousand times that. We can make it what we want it to be. I have no patience with folks who opine that it can't work, it won't work, it's too expensive, my needs are unique, it's socialism, whatever. There are simply too many examples of single payer and nationalized systems providing world class care while being more cost efficient.

    How on Earth anybody can look at the Byzantine, Balkanized patchwork quilt of underwriting/funding systems in the USA's HC "system", never mind the ridiculous flaws and lottery-esqe characteristics, and think that our system could possibly be cost efficient is beyond me; and I've seen a lot of stupid shit in my lifetime.
    We've been fed bullshit capitalist propoganda for 70 odd years.

  5. #25
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by JJohnson View Post
    We've been fed bullshit capitalist propoganda for 70 odd years.
    It also frankly didn't matter as much when you worked at the same company for 40 off years, had a great pension and a golf watch at the end and affordable benefits in between.

    But labor got kneecapped and bargaining power weakened and here we find ourselves.

  6. #26
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  7. #27
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by SteveP View Post
    They should gradually reduce the age of qualification...
    it's 65 now
    make it start at 60 for 2-3 years
    then reduce to 55
    as they build staff, etc
    It's a question of what are you optimizing for. If for maximum coverage for those who needs it, start to reducing the age.
    If for maximum sustainability while you build, do it the other way around: start by adding 20-30s, then 30-40s, etc. The older you are, the more (on avg) your health costs are. Only population skewing those are babies.

  8. #28
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by JJohnson View Post
    We've been fed bullshit capitalist propoganda for 70 odd years.
    My uncle was fired a week before retirement, thereby negating his pension that he had signed onto many decades before. Left him with finding an entry level job at 65 yo to support his family. Capitalism is really good for the people on top.
    Mark Walberg
    Building bike frames for fun since 1973.

  9. #29
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    What a British cycling acquaintance sent in reply to a recent email wherein I noted how fortunate the UK is to have the NHS, and how much they need to keep the US out of it:

    "Yes, the NHS is a godsend. The whole country was doing a weekly hand clap to celebrate it Thursday evenings, and all the car horns were sounding off. Weirdly good feeling, to be honest. Now it looks like the Oxford vaccine is going to be a success and that we should have enough jabs between three vaccines that have been pre-booked to inoculate the whole population but late spring, starting with NHS workers and other key workers in late December. The end may very nearly be in sight."

    He also noted that the products of stem cell research, which many of our social/religious conservatives vehemently opposed, were vitally important to someone close to him.
    John Clay
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  10. #30
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by jclay View Post
    What a British cycling acquaintance sent in reply to a recent email wherein I noted how fortunate the UK is to have the NHS, and how much they need to keep the US out of it:

    "Yes, the NHS is a godsend. The whole country was doing a weekly hand clap to celebrate it Thursday evenings, and all the car horns were sounding off. Weirdly good feeling, to be honest. Now it looks like the Oxford vaccine is going to be a success and that we should have enough jabs between three vaccines that have been pre-booked to inoculate the whole population but late spring, starting with NHS workers and other key workers in late December. The end may very nearly be in sight."

    He also noted that the products of stem cell research, which many of our social/religious conservatives vehemently opposed, were vitally important to someone close to him.
    I hate the whole nightly hand clap thing: too much symbolism with too little action. This, after all, came on the heels of the Tories having spent the previous ten years knee-capping the NHS and imposing some seriously odious rules (e.g. foreign, non-EU NHS workers having to pay a fee rendered by the NHS).

    Someone (aka the populace of England, Northern Ireland, and Wales) elected Tory MPs (and their allies) into office in the first place, and the ruling coalition led by the Tories was then able to effect the aforementioned knee-capping. And now a few rounds of applause for your troubles, when NHS workers have seen their pay frozen for two years and capped at 1% increase for another five? Victorian morality at its finest: we promise to be dressed in the finest attire while we take your land/resources/pay/etc.

  11. #31
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    I worked for the NHS in the UK for forty two years until I retired last week and my wife is still a nurse in the NHS. We both caught, and tested positive for, Covid-19 during the first wave. At the time I did not perceive the weekly hand clap to be a political symbolism as a substitute for action nor did I vote for the party currently in government. I still have not forgiven Boris Johnson for his role in the Brexit debate before the vote four years ago.

    The NHS has many faults and I have lived with them as both a provider and a consumer but I am still glad that we have the NHS in the UK and dearly hope that it survives in something like its present form as I enter the final decades of my life.

  12. #32
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    Default Re: Medicare for All

    Quote Originally Posted by echappist View Post
    I hate the whole nightly hand clap thing: too much symbolism with too little action.
    I see your point, but it’s something to see people in country after country applauding professional roles that were largely taken for granted. This may be the small start that leads to a genuine re-evaluation of (and revised compensation for) the roles we care about most. We should start applauding teachers, too.
    Dan Fuller, local bicycle enthusiast

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