It didn’t take long to run into an “uh-oh” moment when reading the House’s “health care for all Americans” bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
And after that, they’ll make private billing from your doctor illegal, and private “for profit” diagnostics illegal, and well, there’s not a lot they won’t make illegal to ensure that you, your doctor, your technicians, and your nurses don’t desert the system for greener pastures.
And while you may not learn to love things like “doctor shortages”, “temporary acute care bed closures”, and “dying on waiting lists” right away, your children and grandchildren will, because politicians and union leaders and grade school educators – really, all the leading intellectual lights of your nation – will be hard at work from this day forward, instilling in them the conviction that the health care services they are prohibited from receiving are a cornerstone of your national identity.
So enough with the dissent.
As Canadians can tell you, it’s unpatriotic.
So far it seems that most of the MSM “journalists” have read as much of this bill as congress has. I guess it was too long to twitter.
The Media have read and analyzed the bill as much as they did the “porkulus” bill…as in not at all….they jump on the journolist talking points and off they go.
Is there a burning health care crisis in the US, as in one that hasnt been there for years and that coldnt be lived with for some more time while things were analyzed.
Let me answer my own question, yes there isa crisis, and its called the 2010 elections.
Undoing these things will be difficult and Rahm and Obama know it.
The US overpays on health care, as a percentage of the economy, they also have advanced care that leads the world. Nobody asks what the tradeoffs on any of this is. Maybe the nasty question should be asked, what care would Ted Kennedy have received under government health care and would he have survived?
Putting in rules making private insurance illegal will not stop professionals from opting out. They could leave the US to practice in other countries, or just stop practicing.
When Canadians access US health care they are offended that even an individual asperin is billed….but take the no wait excellant care for granted…..
Like a fellow yesterday complaining about how the cold wet weather affected his crops and then declared absolute faith in Gorical “scientific CO2 AGW……but then he definitively declared that there was nothing at the South Pole—no weather station….nothing….
If commentators were honest they would present the facts that for most cancers, for strokes, and until recently for heart attacks, US outcomes are better than Canadian outcomes. There is a reason for that.
As a physician when the majority of our treatment guidelines come from the US (blatantly copied by our own organizations here) I think there is a reason for that as well.
Well known among my colleagues is the fact that US general practitioners get paid less than Canadian ones. This is why I specialized.
At the end of the day when the US system becomes fully public, it will no be cheaper. There will be a multitude of organizations, including US general practitioners who will be ready to lobby the government for more money. Moreover all those folks who had private insurance are going to want the same treatment times, the same number of infinite tests, the same amount of heavy law suits… it won’t be any cheaper. Moreover doctors like me will have no incentive to not order a load of useless tests to avoid law suits.
I did a quick look at the public and private systems already in place in the US and the cost per user of each. The public system is massively more expensive, partly because it is “free” and partly because it contains both the elderly and the disenfrachised. Click Here.
But never underestimate the power of the illusion of something being “free” to increase the overall costs of said free thing.
Americans, the AMA and US health insurance industry won’t stand for this. They may allow the feds to run an alternative generic system but they won’t allow nationalization of the upper tier health care system with its specialty medicine and clinics.
Obama’s gone one bridge too far.
The Dems will face a virtual wipe out in the mid terms. This time the media which pimped the whole coup will suffer credibility loss.
A very timely piece, Kate, as a good friend of mine has just been informed that he will no longer be employed by the hospital he works for. The reason? The extra costs associated with running he operating room for the specialized surgeries he performs are too high for them. So a top notch surgeon is now unemployed, and his only job options appear to be across the border in the US.
“Americans, the AMA and US health insurance industry won’t stand for this”
I am curious how you think they are going to stop it?
“The Dems will face a virtual wipe out in the mid terms.”
Maybe, I am not sure they care. I think they are the scariest kind of Talibanesque true believers. You should have heard my congressman, Peter Welch on the radio this morning not answering questions. At the end the liberal hosts said “He seemed like he was against taxing health benefits”, the other said, “that was my impression”, but I listened to the whole interview, and he never said he would vote against it, which tells me, in his mind, he will vote for it.
The BC Government has cut funding of medical care by about $350 million this year with the result that one hospital region has capped it’s MRI usage at 15,000 this year. Think about that. The MRI can only be used 15,000 times. They already know how much it will be used, so if you happen to be in an emergency situation and number 15,001 comes up, well tough luck. The decisions are not being made based on medical necessity but on financial considerations, and no you can’t pay yourself as that would be unfair to the other guy.
Just wait until an American is told he can’t get his surgery because a needed diagnostic test is being rationed like BC rations. Texans aren’t nearly as laid back as the weed-addled BCers.
Those columns from the 2006 election were the subject of one of my few positive communications with the CBC. Have they called back recently?
I think the only chance we have is to point out to the elderly that Obama’s plan is a “Logan’s Run” approach. If you are over a certain age, your life is forfiet if it gets too expensive to care for you.
“Maybe the nasty question should be asked, what care would Ted Kennedy have received under government health care and would he have survived?
Posted by: Stephen at July 16, 2009 10:23 AM ”
Ummmmmm….been in Canada long,Stephen? We all know,as a politico,Kennedy,and every other one of his gubermint buddies,would be at the head of the line,receiving the best of all care,even if it meant bumping some other ordinary plebes.Must keep our ruling elites and better healthy,eh?
The ordinary Joe/Jane American will NOT stand for this,neither will the union employees. This may be the Zero’s biggest accomplishment,decimating the commie,socialist DemocRats!
Plus….I wonder how the Obamamots will like it when they are dying waiting on a list for surgery/diagnostic testing? Or will the Zero also make it so that he can haul out voter lists,and only service his fellow commies?
New bumper sticker “Logan’s Run, it’s not just a movie any more…”
Posted by: tim in vermont at July 16, 2009 11:07 AM
Sorry tim in vermont. At best, you folks down south are just the latest in a long line of sequels (i.e. Britain, Canada, etc.). 😉
A real shame you yanks didn’t learn from Canada’s experience with Trudeau back in the 60’s & 70s, a mess out of which we’re still climbing.
I am part-owner of a small Daycare in Ruston, Louisiana. Health Insurance for me, the wife and kid runs about $350 a month. (does not include dental) The Daycare employs about 15 People. So, let’s see what Obama’s Plan will do to us financially. If we have to pay 72% of $350 that’s $252, $252 * 15 employees is $3,780 per month and $45,360 per year. After we pay payroll, elec bill, water bill, gas bill, toy bill, insurance for the property, insurance for the kids, insurance for the Daycare Van to haul the kids around(and don’t forget it takes Exxon/Mobil/Texaco to get the Vans around), property taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, un-employment taxes, medicare, workmans comp, disability, pay for the La State Trooper Investigations for each employee, we pay for Life Saving Classes, Workshops, we also serve Breakfast, Lunch and a Snack in the afternoon. Along with Swimming on Mon, Tues and Fridays with Skating on Thur. Not to mention; the State mandates we maintain 4 inches of sand under all outdoor play equipment, along with a 6 foot chainlink fence around the whole property. We also have to maintian liability insurance, incase someone decides to sue the hades out of us.
We might clear $80,000 at the end of the year, split 3 ways. That $45,000 penality Obama is gona cost us pretty much kills our profit margin, and the desire to run a business for peanuts. I voted lastnite to shut the Daycare down if this Bill passes the Senate. Which means we will put 15 people on the un-employment line, which I may add is gona cost the State more than the $45,000 penalty they are trying to levy on the Daycare thru this Healthcare Ponzi Scheme by Obama and Company.
Obama said there ain’t no Free Lunch, but what happens when there ain’t no Lunch.
,
The upside for Canada is we’ll get a lot of our doctors back.
The downsides are many. Not limited to having further for cdns to go to get real healthcare, a halt in health innovation and the complete shutdown of drug and equipment research…
Note to the land of the free, home of the brave:
The former depends on the latter. You live in a land with more guns than people. Do what you gotta do.
But it was Bush who was the extremist…
Oh, I guess this is one of the reasons they want that latin commie Che-in-a-skirt wanker on the supreme court.
You already know the law won’t matter when she rules in favour of Obama and the communist hordes.
‘That $45,000 penality Obama is gona cost us”
Could Ratt or somebody else explain that bit please?
All insurance is a Ponzi scheme taking from new investors to pay off the old. Only difference with the gov’t model is the forced participation. All health care insurances meddle in the actual business of health care whether through political meddling in the gov’t model or changing the modes of delivery and fees in the “private” model. Insurance is parasitical in nature, your investment doesn’t actually exist unless there are new suck…er…”investors” to pay the old.
Be fair. I’m sure private, for-profit abortion clinics will still be allowed. And they’ll probably even be permitted to extra bill over the state’s base abortion fee.
Tim; I am curious how you think they are going to stop it?
Fire every rep who voted for it. The AMA and insurance industry have some juice they will put in the GOP camp and media counter spin to undo this mess in the next congress.
Also I’m not clear where the constitution allows the feds to nationalize any industry or run a public health system? The states could use a 10th amendment opt out.
Buffalo,
Obama is taking care of that pesky constitution thing right now.
He’ll appoint another few commies to the bench when given the chance.
Um, yeah.
Last fall I had one lead on my pacemaker completely fail and the function of another degraded severely. I was pasty white and couldn’t walk more than a block because of the lack of circulation. The doctor ordered me to stay home in bed, which I had to ignore because the Chamber of Commerce insurance plan told me to @#$% off when I applied for their benefits package.
My “emergency” surgery took over a month and got bumped once because the Royal Alex in Edmonton considers pacemaker surgeries “elective”. Silly me, all these years I didn’t realize that my body’s aerobic processes were a lifestyle choice.
So… Socialized medicine definitely sucks ass and gets things wrong. On the flip side, private insurance can suck ass too if you’re one of those unfortunate enough to have pre-existing health conditions that look bad on the actuarial tables. Never mind the fact that I’ve beaten the odds with all of my health problems and have been self-supporting for a long time – I’m a bad insurance risk and can’t get coverage.
Neither public health insurance nor private insurance coverage are perfect.
Just for comparison, I have a pacemaker that could probably be considered far more elective than yours, since I could live without it except that I might lose conciousness while driving a car. I haven’t lost conciousness since I got it 13 yrs ago. Anyway. I had the implant within a week of the diagnosis. Got the battery replaced within a week of them getting a low reading. You get the idea.
My daughter had a fetal ultrasound which showed a congenital heart defect. She had fetal cardiac ultrasounds every week or two until she was born reviewed by a pediatric cardiologist. At birth, after we held her for one minute, she was transported to a children’s hospital where she recieved cutting edge surgury within a day, performed by a Canadian refugee surgeon and recovered in the hospital for four months.
I am sure an abortion of my wonderful daughter would have been considered far more cost effective by a governmnet plan.
I wonder where all of those blue babies that I saw that were flown in from Europe and South America will go when hospitals like that get shut down?
not to worry….here is how it will work.
Americans will lose there health system and gain the Canadian system. The extra health care professionals created by the rationing will go into a for profit health business catering to foreign nationals (ie Canadians). Americans will naturally not have access to this evil for profit business.
As a new business oppurtunity, Canadian health care professionals will set up more for profit health care business to cater to the displaced Americans. Naturally, Canadians will not have access to this evil for profit business.
Therefore, rich (defined as anybody who works for more than minimum wage) Americans will come to Canada to use the Canadian for profit health care business, and rich (defined as anybody who works for more than minimum wage) Canadians will go to America to use the American for profit health care business.
I have had my run ins with our wonderful “health” care system, and have found it lacking and not because of the healt care providers trapped by the bureaucrats.
I could see Mexico, the Caribbean and Costa Rica cleaning up on establishing quick-service clinics right now. Medical tourism is gonna be big business indeed. And how about those hospital cruise ships, eh?
Congratulations Kate, you have taken my deep concern and actually turned it into fear.
Well, now Americans can catch deadly infections in hospitals that they didn’t have going in.
Just like in Canada!
If you want to control US health care costs kill all the f’ing ambulance chasing lawyers.
Please dont forget that the federal, state and local union and civil servant employees will not have to be under the obama care plan. Ditto the private sector unions.
Sean:
Please provide more info re your troubles with the C of c plan. I am an agent for them perhaps i can help/explain.
You all are failing the Root Cause Analysis of the situation.
Let a flipping idiot explain: lack of cash in the West is caused by outsourcing of manufacturing sector to China and India.
If those two countries were returning 100% of money made by them in the form of investments, there would be no issue. But they don’t! They spend 10% investing in the US economy etc, 20% pocketed by their corrupt politicians, 30% is spent building up their military and the rest is pissed away such and such. Cash is flowing away from the West to never return. The only way to replenish cash flow is to print money, otherwise there will be mutiny.
If you could only understand the next two verses!!!
Don’t stereotype grade-school teachers. I’m a veteran and a conservative. I do NOT line up obediently. I would be a Republican except that the Republican Party has ceased to have any you-know-whats.
Don’t stereotype grade-school teachers. I’m a veteran, a conservative, and a teacher. As an American I do NOT line up obediently for the Chicago thugs or anyone else. I would be a Republican except that the Republican Party has ceased to have any you-know-whats.
I think its great the Yankees are bringing in public universal health care. This means are doctors and nurses may elect to stay in Canada.
In my town another Doctor has left for greener pastures. We are now seven (7) doctors short and this leaves approx. 5000 citizens without a GP. These citizens are listed as “Orphans” when admitted to hospital.Orphans meaning patient has no GP.
If the US medical imbecility goes through we might get private health care in Canada. I’ve known lots of patients who have gone to the US for medical care. What the US has now that we don’t is an expensive system that makes patients feel like they’re being treated well. In every case that a patient of mine has gone to the Mayo clinic they’ve come back with the same diagnosis that I came up with but they were a lot happier with the process there because “they checked out everything doc” and thought the $20K they spent was worth it.
US doctors tend to over-order tests but at least they can get them done the next day. Right now where I work the waiting time for pulmonary function tests is 6-9 months, exercise stress tests have a 1 year wait, and for MRI’s most patients opt for a private MRI rather than waiting forever on the public list.
If the US private system is closed then either some other country will provide the medical care or there will be way more pressure on the Canadian government to ditch the totalitarian medicare system.
Gord, can we connect by e-mail? I’d rather not put too much info out publicly.
neutralhills [at] gmail [dot] com
mack hall. at some point we are going to have to fight our own. those who lack to courage to do so will follow the herd. today the courage that was evident during the second world war is almost gone. those who have it are so few in number they are helpless. the socialists are running over those who think that we should work and produce our wealth. we are losing.
I observed Canadian medical staff working, and no wonder it takes forever to do the tests. They take the time… and take time again.
Taking time is popular among those, who bill the government. They told my wife to show up for a test 15 minutes earlier with full bladder and managed to keep her waiting for 10 minutes after her appointment time passed. I don’t know how they avoided office massacre at my hands – she was in pain all that time and when she is in pain for no good reason, I become easily irritable. You should have seen the expression on their faces when they tried to explain that ‘the appointment time is approximate’.
It must be echoing approximate math that they learned while at school: 21 + 34 is approximately 50.
For those thinking that government centrally planned care in the US will result in Canadian ex-pat doctors returning to Canada, think again. Many left Canada not because they had a worse deal, but because in Canada they had no deal i.e. they could not get staff positions in hospitals if they were specialists, or because they could not make ends meet financially if they were GPs. I know two former colleagues who simply left medicine entirely, one to go into retail and another to become a fireman.
In the centrally planned system, more doctors and nurses simply mean more paycheques to be doled out. Service to the consumer is meaningless because an increase in service brings no increase in revenue, in fact the opposite, an increase in expenses. So there is no incentive other than the good will of the health care providers to improve service. And since there is no competition and no revenue generated by the users, there is no reward and therefore no additional revenue and resources for improving service or meeting surplus demand.
Where on earth we’ll send our overflow neonates or obtain our extra diagnostic radiology exams once the US system is collectivized is beyond me. Medical tourism in the carribean anyone?
Dr.D, I was just thinking about the medical tourism thing. I think this whole US socialized medicine thing could become a Great Thing for Canada.
Two things will happen immediately. First, all the overflow patients from Canada will have -nowhere- to go, and this will lead inevitably to a new private system. Two-tier [boo, hiss!!!] medicine will become the in demand model, because the alternative will be to let Grandma die.
People ain’t going to let Grandma die.
The second thing that will happen is Americans seeking relief from their newly f-ed medical system will come HERE instead. They will go to purpose-built private facilities that will spring up to service the demand.
Most likely all the operators in Buffalo, Vermont, New Hampshire etc. will nip smartly across the border and set up here in Canuckistan.
I fearlessly predict a brand new industry for the Indian reservations, which will let them diversify out of gambling and cigarette smuggling. Casinorama and Healthcare-o-rama coming soon to a rez near you.
Thar’s GOLD in them thar hills!
The House bill does not make private health insurance illegal.
The bill does add various legal requirements for health insurance, for example, that they not withhold coverage from individuals with pre-existing conditions. Instead of simply immediately requiring that all insurers change their structures and conditions, the bill allows existing coverage schemes to be grandfathered in.
Thus, if you already have an individual plan that excludes people with pre-existing conditions, you can keep that plan. But new enrollees cannot choose that plan. New enrollees can enroll in individual plans, but they will have to meet the new requirements.
In short, the editorial is, at best, extremely misleading.
Whatever you do, don’t bother to let the facts get in the way of a good fear-mongering rumor!
> People ain’t going to let Grandma die.
Grandma, no, but there are a few in-laws that might prompt me to forget how to dial 911.
*cough*
‘That $45,000 penality Obama is gona cost us”
Could Ratt or somebody else explain that bit please?
Posted by: Edward Teach at July 16, 2009 12:13 PM
Edward, please, go read the whole post @11:45 and then post again.
I’ve told this story here before, but it bears repeating. I was in a car accident in California in 2000. My injuries were a broken foot and a lacerated tongue (from the airbag). I was transported to the medical centre in Irvine, where all my vital signs – blood pressure, pulse, respiration, temperature – were normal. After setting my foot (which my Toronto orthopedist said was the worst job he’d ever seen), they proceeded to give me a CAT scan, an MRI, and another MRI with a nuclear contrast. Total bill for less than 24 hours was over $30,000 US (nearly $50,000 Cdn at the time). I was facing bankruptcy until I finally got my car insurance company to pay the bill.
All of those unnecessary tests were given to me so that I wouldn’t sue the doctors for malpractice. If the US would simply get some tort reform to prevent frivolous cases, the 16% of GDP they spend on medicine would drop dramatically. We moan about a lack of doctors in Canada, but there are places in the US where there are no OB-GYN’s because the malpractice premiums are so high, it’s uneconomic to conduct a practice. And that’s straight from GWB’s mouth – he complained about it when campaigning for the 2000 election.
And when I worked in Detroit, the Americans I worked with put up with incredible BS from their boss (for example, even though a 20 year employee was entitled to 4 weeks vacation a year, because Sylvia didn’t take more than two weeks, she wouldn’t authorize more than that for her workers). And why did they put up with it? Because they were deathly afraid of losing their jobs and, more important, their health care. As one woman, a single mom with three kids, told me if she got a new job, she’d probably have to go into an HMO which wouldn’t have provided near the coverage she got at Blue Cross.
I thought Jon Stewart made a good point last night – if you’re rich in the US, you can get the best care money can buy. If you’re poor, you can get treated for free. It’s the middle class who get screwed – not rich enough to pay for it, and not poor enough to qualify for free care. Until recently, medical bills were the number one reason for personal bankruptcy in the US. I may have to wait a bit for a knee replacement in a few years, but I’m not worried that it will cost me (you should forgive the expression) an arm and a leg.
The Phantom, that’s an interesting observation. Private hospitals to serve non-Canadians, mostly Americans. Our elites wouldn’t have a problem with this because of course Canadians would still be treated equally miserably. I mean Cuba provides excellent health care for — non Cubans.
loki: Thanks for your continuing input. When you say US doctors over-order tests, I’m guessing this is for two reasons: 1) over cautiousness due to the insane level of medical litigation and 2) that someone else is paying — not the consumer, i.e., company health care plans.
Whether the 3rd party payor is government or a company health plan, the economic problem is the same. The moral hazard of over-use.
Nicely put Kate. You summed it up pretty good.
The only thing I would add is this will explode with unintended consequence4s. As health care with Professional Dr’s & nurses, gets inevitably worse.
One will be quack Dr’s passing as legitimate or just a person who has some medical knowledge. Medicine will go underground. More Chinese medicine will be tried as well as herb & others types of therapy.
A lot of people I know don’t even go to a Dr anymore. Especially after the census we in Alberta who had family Drs. had to take. Asking personnel questions for a government site.
You get the care that a slave would as long as you produce or an identifiable protected group.
If nothing else Government only care has shown what a failure it is than last 40 years as it topples.
Free Dress make better physicians than government workers, who view us as meat.
JMO
Revolting against MSG and fluoride would cut health care demand in half.
Now waiting for another batch of insults. 3… 2… 1…
“Whatever you do, don’t bother to let the facts get in the way of a good fear-mongering rumor!”…
Posted by: Pither at July 16, 2009 5:41 PM
OK hot shot .. provide a link to the location of the documents that support your assertion.
If you cannot then we can safely assume that you are offering nothing but opinion and baseless at that.