Tasha Tudor has died...

You did. And in countries with national health plans and national retirement plans, the working population is taxed to pay for those plans. They're not free, you know.

Elizabeth

The definition of 'socialized medicine' can't be 'you can't choose your doctors or where and how you are to be treated'. After all, I've been reading for years that our Canadian medical system is 'socialized medicine', and I've always been able to choose my doctor and where and how I'll be treated - and what limits there are are created by the doctor. I can't choose to consult a GP who has decided not to take new patients, or get my routine eye checkup done by an ophthalmologist who only sees patients with serious retinal problems. The doctors (not the government!) would refuse. I can and did find GPs by making an appointment with one who was taking new patients, and any time my current GP thinks I need a referral, she says 'I think you should see a specialist in X. Do you have any preferences as to which one?'

Admittedly, at that point, I usually say 'It doesn't matter, which one would you recommend?', but I do have choice in both the initial GP and any further treatment or consultations.

I also strongly support the comment earlier in the thread about the problems resulting from parallel private and public systems. You need either extreme restrictions on the private system (as we've traditionally had) or to limit the amount that can be charged in a private system to the amount paid by the private system (as I believe is done in some European countries) to minimize problems of access and wait time in a universal publicly-funded health care system.

Cheryl

I wasn't complaining about paying.

I happily collect social security and I am on Medicare. I wish it went further then it does, and I do complain bitterly about the perfectly awful drug plan, but Medicare and an AARP supplement works perfectly for me.

Lucille

I didn't think you were. I was just pointing out that socialized medicine and retirement programs in other countries are also supported by taxes.

Elizabeth

Medicare hasn't been around for 52 years. Are you mixing it up with something else? Plus, I believe the only people under 65 who are enrolled in Medicare are those on full disability.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Same here. When I was married, my insurance allowed me to go to the ER which is both the County Trauma Center and the County Indigent Care. Waits there are incredibly long even at best, and on weekends (bar fights, drunk driving, etc.) you may wait 24-36 hours just to see a nurse if you aren't bleeding to death. Conversely, my spouse's insurance (which I was also covered by) was with Kaiser, which *only* sees Kaiser patients. I could go in their ER and be examined in the time it took a messenger to run to the Records Room and grab my file. After we moved to this neighborhood, it was a longer drive to Kaiser, but I'd be in and out in a jiffy.

Helpful hint: rural DMV offices have no lines. The one nearest home, which is most convenient for everyone who works downtown, you'll stand in line for 3 hours. Drive 20 minutes to the suburbs and the line is only 30 minutes. Pack a picnic and drive out to the boonies, and you'll be the only person in there. Sure, it requires taking the same half-day off work, but it's a much more pleasant way to spend the afternoon: pretty drive, nice picnic in a historic town, 10 seconds to renew your license... And the ladies in the rural offices are polite and helpful, as opposed to the overworked snarling ones in the city.

Amen to that. HMOs (at least the ones around here) are constantly being sued because some bean-counter with no medical training at all has overruled the doctor's decision on what would be the best treatment. People have died while waiting for a judge to order the HMO to approve what doctors describe as "your only chance".

If the HMO bean-counters had their way, even the ER would treat everything with generic aspirin and bandaids.

The most egregious of them in this area, the CEO said plainly that he was more concerned with maximizing profit for the shareholders than with what was best for the patients. Apparently, we were simply an annoying problem of his business plan, and he'd be perfectly happy to refuse authorization for us to get any treatment at all, so he could turn all the premium payments over to the shareholders without paying a dime for doctors.

Hey Cheryl ! That's you isn't it ? Too, too long no see lol

We very definitely pay for our medicine but I am more than willing to do so. It varies somewhat by Province, in NS we have a tax on purchases (not food etc) that used to be called Hospital Tax, so the more consumer goods you buy, the more you contribute. Seems fair to me.

Some use the system heavily as my husband did, others like me have been very cheap, so we average out.

When Hillary was trying to bring in a health system I would see the scare ads on US television promoted by insurance companies that kept saying, "Would you like the government in your medical files?" So, so foolish. Like any level of our government can go through the files ha ha there are just too damn many and fishing out one person would not be realistic if you wanted to snoop.

Once (before people realized the only safe way to wipe an HD was with a hammer) a hospital puter was let go with info on it, but that could have happened with health care or no health care.

I can only say, I am happy with our system, feel totally cocooned and know that there will not be a day when I can't afford whatever it is I need.

I truly wish we had something similar here, but since we don't, Medicare is a big help for most seniors. The more needy people with low incomes can get decent treatment and some supplementary help and those who want to can spend more and go to the bigger shot doctors who won't accept Medicare assignments, even when combined with a supplementary policy that pays the extra 20%.

It's far from perfect, and I do like your system better, but it's sure better then nothing at all.

Now if we could get a remotely decent prescription plan my world would be much better, but as long as the U.S. government is owned by the pharmaceutical companies that won't happen.

L.

But I heard on the radio this morning that unless Congress gets a bill passed PRONTO (and a veto-proof one, at that), payments to physicians will go down 10% very soon - and if that happens, they'll leave the system in droves. This seems to happen repeatedly... the system is so broken it needs band-aid patches repeatedly.

My own physician is in private practice and is very up-front with his patients about how very difficult it is to be a private practitioner these days and not part of a hospital-sponsored group in which procedures and rules are dictated by some (usu. for-profit) "company." DH's physician just left a private practice to become a practitioner in just such a group. There are very few practitioners left who are not practicing "corporate" medicine...and even they are, because it's the insurance companies dictating the rules.

sue

Well I suppose you could say we have government running ours but on balance if I have to trust one or the other, I prefer government (aka elected officials) over money grubbers - at least our politicians are aware that health care is a sacred cow and they desperately crave re-election lol (The politicians, not the sacred cows)

Hey to you! I haven't been doing much needlework or any posting in ages

- real life gets in the way - but I lurk from time to time.

Cheryl

The Medicare drug plan was and is a big joke. I know seniors who still can't get many of their prescriptions filled using their Medicare Drug Plans. I don't know how it functions, but I hear a lot of bad things about it. It's really a shame too. We just spent almost seven hundred billion dollars on war. Every senior could have been given every drug they needed for the rest of their lives, as well as not being strapped for cash. It really is so sad.

It's been around since the 60s when President Johnson signed it in to existence. My main point was that I have Medicare and I did say I had it as part of my SSD which is Social Security Disability. I've been disabled for most of my adult life. It doesn't mean I didn't work. I worked up till about 15 years ago, but have been on SSD since 1983. When I felt okay to work, my benefits stopped, then if I became ill again I'd start my benefits again. I am declared disabled for life.

You are right about nobody under a certain age unless they are on disability. But you are wrong about the age. It's 63. They tell seniors to wait to claim benefits until they are 72 with the lie that they'll get more in the monthly check. I told my mother when she turned 63, 11 year ago, to get her checks. If you do the math of the difference she'd never live long enough to recoup the higher amount which would start at 72. I may be off by a year or so.

But you are correct. People under the eligible age are on SSD or SSI which is for people born with disabilities who never paid in to the system or people who are on welfare, but who cannot work. It's called Supplementary Security Insurance.

Oh just admit it, you are stalking me! :)

That's for social security, not for Medicare. For Medicare you must be 65 or disabled. I know because I had to wait even though I was collecting widows social security before I was 65. I was paying an exorbitant amount to get medical insurance until then. People thought I was nuts when I was thrilled to turn 65, but they didn't realize the reason was because I would then have Medicare and save a fortune in insurance fees

I have a close friend who was getting SSD and even that changed. When she reached 65 they switched her over to regular Social Security and Medicare.

Lucille

You don't need to tell me how bad it is. I've been in what they call the Donut Hole since April and must pay 100% of all my meds now until I reach a very large amount out of pocket. I'm taking a chance that I would never reach that amount this year and I'm ordering some of my meds from Canada, where I can save approximately $200 every month till the end of the year.

So tell me`````what's wrong with this system ???? Or should I say````what's right with this system?

Now Vic, that sounds paranoid lol