some things never change.

[crackers]

the other night i watched a documentary about our national health service and the battle to get it started in 1948.the main opponents were the elite of the medical profession,consultants,surgeons down to general practitioners.they were doing very nicely,thank you,as the system stood and didn't want it to change regardless of the fact that the vast majority of people couldn't afford proper medical care.the mortality rates of babies was shocking.the opponents waged a campaign of scare stories and smear attacks against aneurin bevan,the politician whose brainchild it was.it was the first step on the road to communism,doctors would be told by the government who to treat and not treat,bevan was being paid by the russians.in the end it was the people who decided,who when given the choice between seeing a nhs doctor for free or their old doctor,chose in their hundreds of thousands the nhs.the opposition crumbled and the rest is history.
then tonight i watched a news report on the bbc about the opposition to obama's plans for health care changes in the usa.i'll be honest and say i don't know what his plans are but what struck me was the similarity of the oppositions tactics to that of 1948.the scare stories regarding communism and socialism.the right wing media and their smear campaigns.it seems to me that the ones who oppose these schemes the loudest are the ones that don't need to use them.i find it amusing that those who defend the "let the market decide"system were the first with their hands out when the banks were collapsing on a daily basis.tax payers money is good enough for them but not for the healthcare of ordinary people.
anyway i wish mr obama good luck and i hope the good people of america get a scheme that looks after them.
john.

[Sangye]

I hear ya. It's pretty ugly here right now. I just hope we can settle on something that helps everyone.

[GeorgiaInOhio]

I am on the Obama email list and get emails on a weekly basis, and honestly I stopped reading them a few months ago because it eventually became like spam (LOL) so I havent been up to date on his health care reform. The things Ive seen on yahoo kind of scare me, I thought he was going more for the let the government control your healthcare, even tho it would be free, so I dont know. I could be wrong. I hope im wrong.

I do hope its not like his school proposal, all government run schools, no private schools. I dont know about you but where I live, I am very fortunate to have a "public/private" school, where the local town pays for our school system in conjuction with government funding. It is #2 in the state for education. The public-- all government run schools in the citys around me (where I getsdid my edumication darnit!) are among the lowest in the state. I know its that way everywhere. If his plan goes thru for this, the schools in my area will become government run, funded, and taken over. All teachers will make the same- great for those who are not paid well now, but bad for the great teachers who work at the schools, who are hired for their excellence, paid out of their budget for it, and know they have to work hard to meet the standard to keep it!

its very complicated and lots of issues in there so i wont go into it. Ill have to research his medical agenda more... now youve got me interested. Heck, I campaigned for him, may as well see what he's doing now. He just threw me when about 50 things changed after he got into office. I just kind of switched off the obama support to, "uh, i dont know this guy" lol. Lets hope he is on track and gets health care the way it should be!

[jola57]

As a strong proponent of health care for all being a canuck, I see private health care merrits too. To many a time my husband and the surgeons can't operate because the quota for the day is done, or there are no more money in the kitty. They go around it by saying it was an emergency or the case was started before the end of the day just so that they can operate on as many as they can. Government controll is fine and dandy when there is money to spend but badly falters when there is none and essential services are cut. Waiting lists for surgeries are at least 3 to 9 months long. for hart patients or other urgent cases this it's impossible

[Jack]

Surgery here is determined by clinical need, but they also have a cap at 3 months (I think). The target for cancer patients is 2 weeks. However, as with anything involving politics, claims vary wildly! I can only report things as I have experienced them.
In my own case, I've always received treatment within a few weeks and in one case of a questionable skin cancer, the following day! (turned out to be nothing ) I am currently waiting to hear about my ear grommets op, but I'm expecting to have to wait a while. Even I don't consider it to be that urgent.

[Sangye]

The idea of "rationing" health care understandably scares the pants off everyone. The thing is, we're already rationing health care with our current system.

State medical assistance is nightmarish. It takes MONTHS to see a specialist, even with quite serious and life-threatening problems. When I had Arizona medical assistance, I needed an infected molar surgically extracted during my early days with Wegs. (Good thing, because AZ medicaid only pays for tooth extractions, not fillings or anything else. So poor people have to have healthy teeth pulled all the time--even kids)

The nearest medicaid oral surgeon was a 3 hr drive across mostly desert. They offered to provide "transportation" in the form of a regular guy in his regular car (ie, no medical training), but it would take a few weeks to get it scheduled. None of my docs, dentist, etc...would okay any of that. I was still on oxygen and in dicey shape. The surgery was extremely high risk. Medicaid wouldn't authorize a local oral surgeon to do it, and non-medicaid surgeons weren't even allowed to treat me even if I paid myself. For 2 weeks, I had a painful, infected tooth and I was on heavy immunosuppressants. They wouldn't budge. Finally I had to go to a local one and just forgot to tell him I had medicaid. I put it on a credit card. I wrote the governor and explained what I had been forced to do.

Rationing also happens with private insurance. Most insurance won't authorize Rituxan unless everything else has failed, because it's so pricey. Sometimes not even then. Insurance companies have caps on how many visits you can have in a year for certain types of treatment (eg, physical therapy, chiropractic, psychotherapy). There are lifetime policy caps. I live in fear of all those things every day, and I have what would be considered excellent private insurance.

Denial of services is a major problem, too. I have a permanent fracture on the underside of one kneecap, due to a fall 20 yrs ago. I fell last year and it's substantially worse. I can barely use the knee. But because it's a pre-existing condition, I have zero insurance coverage for it.

I think a lot of people with good insurance are content because they don't really have to use it. Get something like Wegs and reality hits. I also think a lot of people don't know how it is to be uninsured or underinsured. There was an excellent story on NPR last week about a mobile medical assistance team. I did a blog piece on it if you're interested (not to promote my blog or NPR-- it was just a good example of how uninsured people live).

I do believe we can find a way to work together. Everyone wants good health care, and I don't believe anyone truly wants anyone else to suffer for lack of it.

[germaine]

I was away when I started to hear about the resistance to the health care plan. I never wanted to talk about the benefits I have received from medicare in Canada because I felt sorry for those of you that have to pay so much more. I have been able to regularly see three specialists, as needed, an ENT specialist, an opthamologist, and the internist. My GP didn't know what was wrong, and when I went back to a clinic, I got an Xray and urine test, but only after I went to emergency as my problems weren't going away was I sent to a ENT specialist. I went Saturday morning, saw the specialist Monday. He got the ANCA test done as he suspected the problem. Results back to him Thursday, he called me AFTER hours and left me a message to come to his office first thing in the morning, Oct 31, I saw the internist Nov 6th. (I could go on.) A blood test every week for months. For all of this, all I pay is $96.00 per month. My province charges a monthly fee to help defer some of the cost of medicare, Most of the other provinces don't charge anything. Here those who do not have adequate income get it prorated down according to income, or free if need be. People do complain about delays sometime, but generally I am extremely grateful for the coverage I have gotten. They are trying to organize it better as medicare does take up a lot of tax dollars, but NOBODY in Canada ever seems to suggest we don't want it. In fact if you are a politician and suggest doing away with it, you can be pretty sure you will NEVER get elected. We all love our health care. Everyone is insured Germaine