Huge study about safety can be misinterpreted by SUV drivers

Yes, a policy which was rapidly adopted by all medical insurers. Look
up 'Diagnosis Related Groups', 'Groupers', and 'Risk Adjustment'.

That has been a valid criticism of the way we do medical care since
the beginning: 'Doctors only get paid when you get sick, not when you
stay healthy'. All the more reason to prefer systems like Canada,
which use reimbursement rates to push cheap routine primary care (i.e.
vaccinations, prenatal vitamins, prompt and cheap treatments for
problems in their early and mild stages) over the American system,
which steers physicians to expensive glamorous secondary and tertiary
care (specialists and hospitalization); with obvious success in terms
of reduced rates of disease and death.

All quite true, but the piece you omit is that private healthcare
plans have even less of a clue about how to measure quality, as
distinct from disease severity and patient mix, and what to do about
it. In fact, it's usually Medicare that leads the industry in things
like reimbursement strategies (see reference to DRGs, above), and
quality vs risk adjustment, and the private health plans that follow
where Medicare has broken new ice. It's hard to swallow the argument
that a single payer national healthcare plan will eliminate medical
research, when in fact all the medical policy research for decades has
been done by Medicare. Similarly, an explicit aim of Medicare had been
to funnel funds to those institutions of medical research and
education which therefore had higher costs for treatment. Private
plans decided quite a while back that they could save money by sending
patients to hospitals which did not have these expenses. And now that
the 'Tax Cuts Uber Alles!' folks have gotten their way, Medicare has
followed suit, so prepare to enjoy the fruits of massive cutbacks in
medical research and education, after the few years it takes for the
effects to travel down the pipelines.

Of course, I repeat, the one area in all these international
comparisons of outcomes where American medicine is at or near the top
in quality is in medical care for the elderly, especially the extreme
elderly, who are all covered by Medicare, the same state-sponsored
plan which you are referring to above.
For all those Americans under age 65, none of whom have Medicare, the
quality of their medical care compares with the worst in the
industrialized world.

Yeah, like better medical care.

How would the cheap and easy availability of food in America relate to
the fact that America has rates of low birthweight and infant
mortality that look like what you'd find in Bangladesh? Other factors
involved, like lack of prenatal medical care for pregnant women?

Do you think folks in Canada, for instance, are going hungry? They
have Macdonald's and Burger King up there too, not to mention Tim
Horton's Donuts. However, they do have more primary doctors bugging
the people at every visit to eat right and exercise and keeping tabs
on them when they start to enter the danger zone, and make it
easier/cheaper for everyone to get annual checkups, instead of letting
the "poor people who have so much to eat that they are overweight" but
can't afford medical care just deteriorate until they hit the
emergency rooms needing massive, expensive, and continual care for the
rest of their lives.

You do realize that that tells you absolutely nothing about how US
care compares to care anywhere else, don't you? When my father needed
care, Canada flew him to Toronto where he got excellent care from one
of the world's best cardiac surgeons, who has refused several offers
to go to the US and make more money because he's not exactly hurting
for money, even under the Canadian payment schedule, because he feels
he can help more people in Canada rather than just the subset of those
who can afford it in the US, and because he feels that the Canadian
system is less restrictive than American insurers on his ability to
innovate and improve procedures, enabling cardiac patients from all
over the world (including Americans) to sponge off the benefits of
research paid for by the Canadian system.
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...details_term=(david te[au] AND notpubref[sb])>

 

Not familiar with the concept of a 'thread', are you?

 

In most provinces, charging extra for a "covered service" is illegal.
If a service is not covered, then you can charge whatever the market
will pay (ie, purely cosmetic surgery, etc). Most physicians that wish
to increase their income work for an emergency department or after-hours
clinic. The employer charges the province for the service, and the
doctor gets paid either by salary or by the hour.

Dan

 

And you think that this care is somehow 'free'? Talk about
fantasyland. You think that the large cost of the emergency C-section
for the pregnant woman who can't afford to see an obstretician or get
prenatal vitamins aren't a cause of the average American paying twice
as much total for healthcare as the average Canadian, so it must all
be because American medical care is twice as good?

 

I've never known there to be any shortage of penises that would
volunteer for just such a mission(ary)!

|>))

Dan

 

But what do you call fully funding the development of say 3 x-planes by
three different manufacturers to fulfil a need for a fighter? All of
the technology of flight that is developed goes back into their
commercial applications at relatively little cost.

Dan

 

I've never suggested otherwise. I have however seen people say gays
shouldn't get married because they can't have children.
--
Brandon Sommerville
remove ".gov" to e-mail

Definition of "Lottery":
Millions of stupid people contributing
to make one stupid person look smart.

 

And the rights that Americans view as "God given" are derived from the
original framework of what America is. Under that agreement that
formed the state were some rights that the state is not allowed to
take away. Remove the state however and those rights no longer exist.
--
Brandon Sommerville
remove ".gov" to e-mail

Definition of "Lottery":
Millions of stupid people contributing
to make one stupid person look smart.

 

No. That's because I have an American health insurance plan. Like
most, it penalizes doctors who send too many patients for expensive
things like MRIs so they ration them, to coin a phrase, to the
patients who obviously really need them. When my knee went out to the
point where I couldn't walk from my parking spot into work without
having to stop at least once halfway, I had to go to my 'gatekeeper'
primary care physician, who got me an appointment with a specialist 8
weeks later, who got an X-ray that showed absolutely nothing, and told
me to come back in two weeks if it didn't get better. This is a state
with several medical schools, many health insurers competing with each
other, medical centers in every two bit town, and one of the highest
qualities of medical care in the US, as best as anyone can measure
these things. The underlying fact is, of course, that as in most cases
there wasn't really anything the doctor could do for me in the end
except prescribe pain meds which were less effective than over the
counter Aleve, and just wait for whatever the hell it was to get
better on its own. Any MRIs would mostly be for his benefit, so I
couldn't sue him for negligence if it turned out to be cancer or
something.

 

Like a stopped clock, DTJ is sometimes right and his math in this case
is correct. His assumption (he's good at making an ass of himself) is
that 80% of failed marriages are due to liberals divorcing.
--
Brandon Sommerville
remove ".gov" to e-mail

Definition of "Lottery":
Millions of stupid people contributing
to make one stupid person look smart.

 

"The Ancient One"

See, case in point; obviously, the American medical care system has
kept this individual's body alive long after his brain has ceased
functioning, to everyone's detriment.

 

No, the problem of overly-Conservative governments has hit us in the fan
(face) and we see them all too clearly!

Dan

 

Not a subsidy.
Businesses learn by doing.
What they learn by doing one job can be used on other jobs, unless
that new technology is otherwise protected.
Whether it's the government paying for the new job, or just another
client, doesn't change that.
The fact that it's the gov't paying means that there's more money to
pour into the job, that's all.

 

But that's not "equal access to health care".
That's access for all.
Two very different things.

 

Gee, you could start another crossposted thread commenting on
crossposted threads.
Maybe we could protect all the folks who are terribly bothered by
having to see topics they're not interested in showing up in whatever
newsgroups they happen to be reading. Since they don't seem to be able
to identify which newsgroup it is that is giving them such sorrow, I
guess everybody posting to the thread will have to identify what
newsgroup they are posting from, so that we can help these poor
suffering souls.
Hope that makes it all better for you.

 

I have no first-hand experience with Canadian healthcare, so I ask
questions.
When Branden wrote, "What you *don't* get is the right to skip to the
head of the line because you've got more disposable income if you need
or want a non-critical procedure", that seems to say that money won't
get you medical care any faster than what the government system
provides.
You're saying the opposite.

Unless "the line" means the line for the government's system only, and
the line for care outside the system is a different line those with
more money can get into.

 

So the right to life is dependant on the existance of a government?
More particularly, the American government?
I have a hard time understanding how that can be said.

 

The 'conservative' point of view; healthcare has nothing to do with
keeping people alive, its only function is as an investment vehicle;
and a single payer government sponsored nonprofit healthplan would
louse that up for them, so what's the point of keeping people healthy
and alive longer?

 

Well golly, I just can't seem to find anything by that name in the CPT
book. I suggest you try to send a letter to your healthcare insurer
asking if they reimburse for a 'Partial Birth Abortion' and see what
kind of answer you get.

 

Who? Where? I can't afford an angioplasty without a health plan paying
for it, can you? Why are there so many Canadians who can? Are they
that much richer than Americans? I've been asking this question for a
year and nobody can come up with anything concrete. It's just another
rightwing myth.
On the other hand, there are certainly Americans going to Canada to
get pharmaceuticals, and in some cases cheaper medical care; and also
to Mexico.