Universal Health Care!

[Lynx]

Health care is a huge issue in the coming election, with Medicare for All being proposed by Warren and Sanders. There is no doubt in my mind that lack of health care is a danger to ones life and well being.

The years of my life when I had no health care, the threat of something happening (a serious accident, terrible medical condition) hung in the background, destroying any feeling of security I had from squirreled away funds.

Both of my pregnancies we had no insurance. Not having insurance can change the kind of care you get and influence your choices. Even people who have insurance are vulnerable.

John Oliver's recent show (expletive laced - if you know Oliver, he is colorful in how he gets his points across) attacks the arguments against national health care, which revolve around cost, wait time, and choice. He also blew holes in the "medicare for those who want it" argument.

Summarized at the DailyKos:

John Oliver DESTROYED every argument against M4A tonight.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/16/1919769/-John-Oli ... -M4A-tonight

[GPIG]

I absolutely agree there is no reason in this country we can't do something for all the people in terms of heath care. It should be equal and good, the best even. We are the richest nation in the world, we give out trillions to other countries in terms of aid, we go to war every few years, etc etc etc.

Medical care for all Americans is something we can and should do.

[rjespicer]

Coming from a country that has Universal Health Care I couldn't understand why the US didn't have it.
The NHS has its issues in the UK but that is largely because the government has diverted funding from it.
When my Dad was ill during a trip out here when he had to get a prescription with no insurance it cost him $800 for one months worth of medicine.
The same medication in the UK was free.
When my Stepdaughters Boyfreind had to go in to hospital in Thailand he was seen straight away, they had a bed for him, he was examined by a western trained doctor, he had X-Rays, Ultrasound, Blood Tests and medication and the whole bill, without insurance, came to about $200.

Health Care in the US is a lucrative business and the charges bear no relation to actual costs.

[Bookfan]

To me the problem is how to get from here to there in US. Might have to have a Dem. House, Senate & pres.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the NHS started in the 1950's. I don't know what it was like in UK, but I don't think many people in US had health ins.at that time(any of you who were around in the 50's remember?) My point is, it would have been a lot easier to start from scratch (few people with ins.) than to change abruptly from an entrenched insurance system (some people I know have great ins. through their jobs and they won't take kindly to having the gov't take it away for something new & untested.).

Don't get me wrong. I want universal coverage. I'm paying ~$370/month with a $10,000. deductible for my daughter. If the R's or the (expletive) in the White House manage to get rid of Obamacare, she will be uninsurable because she has preexisting conditions. She was in the ER & hospitalized for 3 days last year. We paid ~$3000 for the hospital part of the bill. It would have tens of thousands if she wasn't covered by any insurance.

[Lynx]

Do (if you don't mind John Oliver and his tendency to use the f word) watch that video. He addresses this and so much more.

As Warren has explained, you will get the same care, the same doctors. The only thing that would change is who pays the bills and that MORE types of services would be covered.

[Bookfan]

I did watch John Oliver. I LOVE him. I want universal health care for my family - you're singing to the choir. It's getting it through Congress & "selling" it to enough of the people. I just read somewhere a couple of hours ago (it's completely gone from memory) that private healthcare/insurance? is allowed in UK. I'm sure it's used by the well-off. I wonder how it all works together. Maybe the NHS is so popular that most people use it so it has large numbers of people to make it work? There are other countries that have a private option and a robust state-run setup - Japan & Germany?

OK, I'm going to editorialize. The way I see it is it's a lost cause when there's a Republican majority. They want small gov't. - less taxes for them (but not for many of their constituents). A lot of their constituents need universal care but haven't figured out that's what the politicians they vote for are working against - using outright lies and smooth double talk & spin. What really gets me is we got Obamacare and ever since the Republicans have been trying to undermine it in sneaky ways to make it fail.

[rjespicer]

I may be old but I wasn't around in the 1950s but yes maybe it was easier to start from scratch

However prior to the 1973 HMO act wasn't US healthcare less commercial and profit driven and therefore more affordable?

[Lynx]

Can't answer your question, rjespicer, but indeed, health care was much more affordable years ago. I vaguely recall a $500 bill for the birth of my son 40 years ago when I had no insurance (pre-existing pregnancy?). His cost were picked up because my husband had just gotten a job with insurance (we had just moved to Virginia). Daughter, no insurance 31 years ago, chose to find a midwife and have her at home. Reasonable payments to doctor for routine pregnancy checks to make sure my health was okay. I remember him being really mad when he found out I did not go to the hospital for a delivery but had her at home (less expensive to have her at home). I believe costs were much more transparent years ago.

[Bookfan]

Healthcare available in the 60's was also much more limited: no MRI's or CT scans, just x-rays for example. That's one thing that kept costs down. I needed minor surgery in the mid 60's and I remember our doctor being shocked that we had no insurance. My dad thought we could pay out of pocket for what we needed. That's what everyone did pre-1960's. I'm sure healthcare overall was much cheaper. I don't think it was all that common for companies to provide ins. - not sure when that started. But I do think at some point the availability of fairly cheap (depending on who you worked for) insurance, heavier use of healthcare because of insurance and the tech. explosion in medicine intertwined to drive up costs. And one thing led to another.

"costs transparent" Whoa. Trying to decipher hospital bills is impossible.

[bpatters]

I worked in hospitals for years in the '60s and '70s. Hospital costs were strictly regulated, and care was "rationed" in the sense that companies had to get state approval to purchase certain kinds of equipment. The hospital I worked at wanted a scanner, and the amount of paperwork and justification that had to be submitted was horrendous.

I was in charge of setting up the hospital patient education TV system, and we had to go through the same process to be allowed to charge $1.00 per day per TV to cover the cost of programming.

Technology didn't really take off until those restrictions were lifted, because there wasn't any serious money to be made from the machines. But boy! what a Pandora's box that opened!

[Bookfan]

Interesting.