What Should Be National?

...is what I understand. My international travel clinic in the US pretty much did the same things that your US brother's did.

I don't take anti-malarials here, though Jinotega has had malaria cases since I've been here. My impression from some of the things I'd read about Italy is that malnourished people are more susceptible (Italian malaria seemed to disappear when people became more prosperous), not always true, though.

The other thing is that most of the most useful travel meds are available over the counter here, and the local doctors are more familiar with the various reasons for gut problems than the average tourist, but the travel clinics won't get their kickback if you buy the drugs here.

I think the US system is just nuts. What a lot of people forget is that if the people on the lower income levels are ill and incubating diseases, just being rich doesn't protect you from that.

Rebecca Brown

KeyWest Pirate Writes:

Compare the massive fraud associated with the medicare program with the minimal losses suffered by private insurers. Would it not follow that if the government took over the medical insurance function in the US that fraud would proportionately increase?

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It is precisely the private managers of our various private health care provider corporations who are committing the fraud against Medicare, not its geriatric recipients or the government workers who administer their benefits. These private companies are massively over-billing Medicare in order to increase their profits and thus their CEO's bonuses.

I believe it was the Republican governor of Florida who was CEO of the private health care company that committed the largest fraud ever against Medicare. So now he is in charge of Florida's government, God only knows what crimes he is committing there. (One of the big problems with our government is that much of it is being run by former (and future) employees of the private companies that Key West Pirate lauds as being so "efficient".)

Look at our big private banks and financial companies. They were very, very efficient at defrauding both their customers and their investors. They thoroughly looted the economy, and then were "bailed out" by the politicians they had successfully installed in office with their campaign donations.

Key West Pirate also writes:

Average life expectancy does not tell the entire health care story. Until recently Canada had a very homogenous population with a homicide rate that was a fraction of that in the US.

What does a homicide rate have to do with a successful health care system? Once you are are "homicided" you don't need health care, and treating the average gun shot wound doesn't cost a fraction of what it costs to treat a heart attack patient who needs an expensive by-pass operation, a far more common occurrence.

Prohibiting discrimination in hiring based on race, sexual orientation, ethnicity or previous criminal status doesn't force any company to hire anyone in any of these categories, so it would have little effect on administrative costs.

The government's administrative costs for Medicare are in the neighborhood of 3% - 5%, while the administrative over-head for most private insurance companies are from 25 to 30% or more.. Meanwhile, the time wasted and administrative costs suffered by private doctors who have to deal with a variety of private insurers are enormous, frequently because the private insurers routinely refuse to pay for needed services and the doctors have to fight them to get their patients coverage. Single-payer would save a great deal of money.

Our Medicare and Veterans health care systems are much more efficient than private insurers. Medicare is more expensive than Veterans care primarily because the government is prohibited from negotiating volume discounts for drugs on behalf of its Medicare recipients, thanks to private drug companies lobbyists. Drugs for veterans are much cheaper because the government can negotiate volume discounts for their drugs, thus saving tax payers' money. The private drug companies' lobbyists prevented Medicare from enjoying similar discounts.

Meanwhile, taxpayers fund much of the research which produces our new drugs and technological break-throughs, which the private companies then patient and profit from. So taxpayers and consumers are effectively subsidizing these big private corporations. Welfare for the rich, free enterprise for the poor is the way our system works now.

The U.S.'s health care system might be great for the very wealthy, but the majority of citizens can't afford to access it, even if they have insurance because of the high co-pays.

The U.S. urgently need to change its economic system so its works for the whole population, not merely the top 0.01%.

NHS seems to work. Both countries have lower infant mortality rates.

If the doctors actually managed their professions, this would be one thing, but the professionals are now under HMOs, which have to be publicly regulated to prevent real problems.

The advantage of a single payer system, where the government owns the insurance company, is that the financial pool is large enough that cost can be kept down -- economy of scale and somewhat regulated by the voters.

Management doesn't work in several fields -- health care appears to be one of them. Academia appears to be the other. Agriculture fairs best when it's individual farmers, no corporate farms or collective farms.

Scotland has a higher drug use than the US -- compare infant mortality rates there -- if there's the same, your argument is valid. If not, as they say, you're on crack (slang for really really wrong).

Also, doctors often go for the health insurance plans that pay them the most, and will refuse to take patients on the wrong plan (a friend had his appointment cancelled when his doctor decided not to take his insurance and the office didn't bother to let him know; I've had doctors refuse to take a particular flavor of HMO). Single payer stops this, too.

Cuba seems to do quite well with what system it has, to the point of training and exporting doctors to the rest of Latin America (a doctor near me advertises that he was trained in Cuba, and even our crusty old British Tory says that Cuban-trained doctors are good).

Universities should be managed by scholars; health care should be managed by genuine health care professionals, not MBAs who couldn't get a job at a bank.

Private insurers are committing fraud as we speak, against the COBRA program. I had two different HMOs claiming me, tried to warn COBRA about it, and didn't seem to get anywhere. Once they had the federal supplement to draw on, they lied about who was and wasn't on their roles. One of the people claiming was the job before the last one I had. I suspect that insurance companies have their pet Congressional representatives to keep from having the money cut off. Nobody appears to have read what I said to them about the company that was fraudulently claiming. I bet this is huge now with so many people on COBRA.

Rebecca Brown