RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events A right to Health Care

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Jim Jackson said:
You're splitting hairs, don't you think?

I could make the argument that having a national defense provides a financial benefit to each and every U.S. citizen.

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Jim Jackson said:

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wannabuyamonkey said:
[True, but there are some people who are offended by teh use of the Lord's name in vain even though we don't complain openly. I'm not going to tell you what to say or not, but consider that some people are offended before being flip about it.

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We're all big boys and girls here. If stuff like that bugs you, good lord, this is the wrong place for you to post.

And I've known plenty of godfearing people who tossed out "goddamnit" and "Jesus Christ" without a second thought. Yeah, I know, they weren't real Christians, yadda yadda. Let it go.

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the G-man said:
Actually, the framers were very explicit that the first ten amendments did not create rights. They simply recognized them and said that they shouldn't be abridged or violated.

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Furthermore, none of those are examples of what I asked for, to wit, "the 'right' to a financial benefit."

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Darknight613 said:
I really don't understand why you're trying to pin anything about financial benefits being in the Constitution to my comments.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
You read so much into my posts.

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Does it bug me? yea acctually it buggs me, but have I ever brought it up before? no, I haven't I didn't even bring it up this time, I just tailed onto what someone else was saying and even then I wasn't making a big deal about it. i am a big boy and I can take it, but look at what you're ssaying, you're implying that I shouldn't fell the way

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No, I am not implying that at all (here's the part where you're erroneously reading something into something I've said...it's ok, I'm a big boy).

You may find that a use of "Jesus Christ" is offensive to you. While it isn't my specific intent to offend you, it is my intent to express a level of emotionality in my remarks. And that's a good way to do it.

What I am always saying is that if one finds themselves getting easily offended, frankly, this is not the appropriate forum for them to participate it. We're all guilty of unintentionally offending. Why? Because we talk about issues in these forums about which we feel a great deal of passion and interest. We talk about things that matter to us. Naturally, our feelings will come through, and sometimes, those feelings will offend others.

I find G-Man's "four more years" line to be offensive because of my feelings about our current President. But what's the point of carping on it anymore? I don't see that he's put those words to deliberately offend me. And even if he did, so what? I can get past it and still have intelligent discourse with him.

And you can, too, with me, even though I said "Jesus Christ." If I've taken the name of your Lord in vain, well, that's between me and Him, isn't it?

And frankly, your typos often bug the heck out of me because it means having to work harder to decipher what you're saying. But life goes on and they don't make me think any more or less of what you're trying to communicate.

My response about "get over it" just means that there's little point in calling something out everytime you get offended by it.

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the G-man said:
However, we are discussing personal rights, or individual rights, such as the right to free speech, etc.

The "right" to National Defense is not an individual right, exercised by a single person. I can't, for example, call up the US Air Force and cause them to bomb Iran.

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the G-man said:
A slight digression here...

You often hear that "socialist" European nations have very little poverty.

However, a fair amount of that is attributable to the fact that they define poverty differently than we do.

Many "middle class" Europeans have less than our "poor"

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Thats is true, if Denmark was a state in US it would be the must poor of them all. . A little of a shame.

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the G-man said:
However, we are discussing personal rights, or individual rights, such as the right to free speech, etc.

The "right" to National Defense is not an individual right, exercised by a single person. I can't, for example, call up the US Air Force and cause them to bomb Iran.

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Jim Jackson said:
I don't dispute any of this.

But none of what you have said prohibits the consideration of health care as a basic right in the United States, regardless of its cost.

As I've said, the Constitution doesn't specifically deny health care as a right, so therefore, we can in 2005 and beyond, consider it and argue for (or against) it.

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Darknight613 said:
Ah...so this is about the creation of new rights as opposed to the recognition of existing rights?

Okey-dokey. This is the kind of discussion/debate I originally wanted to have.

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My response about "get over it" just means that there's little point in calling something out everytime you get offended by it.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
wednsday is black?

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shhh......don't say that out loud....he just thinks he is really tan!

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the G-man said:

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Darknight613 said:
Ah...so this is about the creation of new rights as opposed to the recognition of existing rights?

Okey-dokey. This is the kind of discussion/debate I originally wanted to have.

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Me too.

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Battlekruse said:

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the G-man said:
A slight digression here...

You often hear that "socialist" European nations have very little poverty.

However, a fair amount of that is attributable to the fact that they define poverty differently than we do.

Many "middle class" Europeans have less than our "poor"

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Thats is true, if Denmark was a state in US it would be the must poor of them all. . A little of a shame.

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Leslie Burke, 45, who suffers from cerebellar ataxia, a degenerative brain condition, won a landmark case last May granting him the right to stop doctors withdrawing artificial nutrition or hydration (ANH) treatment until he dies naturally.

The Department of Health, backing the [General Medical Council's] attempt to reverse the ruling, said that if that right were established, patients could demand other life-prolonging treatments. The department argues that this will create a culture in which patients request treatments "no matter how untested, inappropriate or expensive, regardless of doctors' views."

Philip Sales, for the Health Secretary, told a panel of three appeal judges, headed by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers: "A general right, as identified (in the High Court), for an individual patient to require life- prolonging treatment has very serious implications for the functioning of the NHS.

"It may be interpreted as giving patients the right to demand certain treatments, contrary to the considered judgment of their medical team, that would lead to patients obtaining access to treatment that is not appropriate for them, and to unfairly skewed use of resources within the NHS."

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Captain Sammitch said:
I am not in a big hurry for the US to lose its edge in quality medical care just because a small percentage doesn't want to get the money together to pay for things themselves.

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A sustained economic recession and escalating health insurance premiums could raise the number of uninsured to 51.2 - 53.7 million in 2006. This represents an addition of at least 10 million Americans to the ranks of the uninsured.

Most Americans have health insurance through their employers. But employment is no longer a guarantee of health insurance coverage.

As America continues to move from a manufacturing-based to a service economy, employee working patterns continue to evolve.

An increasing reliance on part-time workers means fewer workers have access to employer-sponsored health insurance coverage. And due to rising premiums, many small employers cannot afford to offer health insurance. Companies that do offer health insurance often require employees to contribute a larger share toward their coverage. As a result, an increasing number of Americans have opted not to take advantage of job-based health insurance because they cannot afford it.

Facts on Health Insurance Coverage

Who are the uninsured?

Approximately 45 million Americans, or 15.6 percent of the population, were without health insurance coverage in 2003. The number of uninsured rose 1.4 million between 2002 and 2003. (Carmen deNavas-Walt, Bernadette Proctor, Robert J. Mills, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2003,” U.S. Census Bureau Report, August 2004.)

The number of people who got their health insurance coverage through their employers fell by 1.3 million between 2002 and 2003, while the number of people covered by government health insurance programs (such as Medicare and Medicaid) rose by 3.2 million. (Carmen deNavas-Walt et al, Ibid.)

The number of uninsured children in the United States remained constant between 2002 and 2003, remaining at 11.4 percent of all children, or 8.4 million on 2003. (Carmen deNavas-Walt et al, Ibid; Robert J. Mills and Shailesh Bhandari, “Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2002,” U.S. Census Bureau Report, September 2003).

Although Medicaid insured 13.3 million poor people, another 10.1 million poor people had no health insurance in 2001. They represented 30.7 percent of the poor, unchanged from 2000. (Robert J. Mills and Shailesh Bhandari, Ibid.)
Young adults (18-to-24 years old) remained the least likely of any age group to have health insurance in 2001. More than 28% of this group does not have coverage. (Robert J. Mills and Shailesh Bhandari, Ibid.)

Based on three year averages, American Indians and Alaska Natives were the least likely of the major racial groups to have health insurance. (Robert J. Mills and Shailesh Bhandari, Ibid.)

“Nearly 58% of currently unemployed adults and 21% of employed adults aged 18-64 had been uninsured for at least part of the past year, and one third of currently unemployed adults had been uninsured for more than a year.” (Robin A. Cohen and Hanyu Ni, “Health Insurance Coverage: Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, January-June 2003,” National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control, January 2004).

According to Ron Pollack, director of health care advocacy group FamiliesUSA, the Census Bureau underestimates the number of uninsured by measuring only those people without insurance at the time of the survey. Pollack estimated that if the report counted people who were uninsured for any part of 2001 or 2002, it would have demonstrated that “many more people are uninsured – 74.7 million over 2001 and 2002.” (“Census Bureau Numbers Too Low, Pollack Says,” Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 16 October 2003).

Why is the number of uninsured people increasing?

“The number and percentage of people covered by employment-based health insurance dropped in 2003, from 61.3 percent to 60.4 percent, driving the overall decrease in health insurance coverage.” (Carmen DeNavas-Walt et al, Ibid.)

“Health insurance premiums are rising at their highest rate of increase since 1991. Real increases in health insurance premiums are associated with decreases in health coverage.” (Joel Miller, “A Perfect Storm” National Coalition on Health Care, November 2001)

“As costs rise and as coverage falls, more costs will be shifted to employers who currently provide coverage to pay the costs of care for the uninsured. Ultimately, those costs will be passed along to employees in the form of lower wage increases, reduced benefits, or higher out-of-pocket costs. This inequitable cost-shift will force more employers to drop or cut health insurance or go to defined contributions, and the erosion of the employment-based system will increase,” (Statement by Dr. Henry E. Simmons, President, National Coalition on Health Care, 2001)

“Insurance premiums jumped 15.5% this year for firms with fewer than 200 workers.” (Jim Hopkins, “Rising health costs take bite out of small biz,” USA Today, 6 October 2003).

“Baucus said only 7 percent of the unemployed can afford to pay for COBRA health insurance, the continuation of group coverage offered by their former employers. ‘That is not surprising,’ Baucus said. ‘Premiums for this coverage average almost $700 a month for family coverage and $250 for individual coverage, a very high price given the average $1,100 monthly unemployment check.’” (Mary Dalrymple, “Senators Seek Tax Credit for Unemployed,” Associated Press, 9 October 2003.)

How does being uninsured harm individuals and families?

Uninsured U.S. children face a higher risk of developmental delays than those with health coverage (Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America, Institutes of Medicine: National Academies Press, 2003)
The uninsured are more likely to seek care in health clinics and the emergency room than those with insurance. (“Access to Care for the Uninsured: An Update,” Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, September 2003).

The uninsured are more likely to put off seeking care; to not receive care when needed; and to not fill a prescription or get a recommended treatment because of the expense. (“Access to Care for the Uninsured: An Update,” Ibid).
The uninsured are more likely to have problems paying their medical bills, change their way of life significantly to pay for medical bills, or to be contacted by a collection agency. (“Access to Care for the Uninsured: An Update,” Ibid).

The uninsured are more likely to be hospitalized for a preventable condition than the insured. (“Access to Care for the Uninsured: An Update,” Ibid).
Uninsured adults who have been hospitalized for heart attacks are over 25 percent more likely to die while in the hospital than privately insured adults. While the uninsured are just as likely to improve blood flow to their hearts in the acute stages of their heart attacks, they are less likely to undergo further costly diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. (“Access to Care for the Uninsured: An Update,” Ibid).

Uninsured adults hospitalized for a traumatic injury are more than twice as likely to die in the hospital as insured adults – even after controlling for the severity of the injury. (“Access to Care for the Uninsured: An Update,” Ibid).

Economist Helen Levy found that the diagnosis of a serious new health condition, including cancer, diabetes, heart attack, chronic lung disease, or stroke, reduced the wealth of uninsured households by 20 percent. Insured households in which a similar diagnosis was made suffered a 2 percent decline in their overall wealth. (“Helen Levy, “The Economic Consequences of Being Uninsured,” Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured, ERIU Working Paper 12, October 2002).

Economist James Smith found that insured households paid an average of $26,957 in total medical spending after the diagnosis of a serious new health condition; uninsured households paid $42,166. (James Smith, “Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation Between Health and Economic Status,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 13(2): 145-166. Quoted in Levy, Ibid).
What costs are created by the uninsured population?

In 2001, the cost of medical care for uninsured residents totaled $98.9 billion. (“Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America”, Ibid.)
United States spends about $35 billion per year to provide uninsured residents with medical care, often for preventable diseases or diseases that physicians could treat more efficiently with earlier diagnosis (Bloombert/Hartford Courant, 18 June 2003: “Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America”, Ibid.)

The estimated 41 million U.S. residents who lack health insurance cost the United States between $65 billion and $130 billion per year in lost productivity (Institute of Medicine, Bloomberg/Hartford Courant reports, 18 June 2003)

Each uninsured U.S. resident loses between $1,645 and $3,280 per year in lost wages and benefits and in the value that improved quality of life and longer lifespan would provide. (Institute of Medicine, Bloomberg/Hartford Courant reports, 18 June 2003)

The cost of state health care programs “fall disproportionately on the local communities where care is provided.” (“Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America”, Ibid.)

High rates of uninsured residents can affect the financial viability of providers in local communities and can result in reduced access to medical care. (“Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America”, Ibid.)

http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml

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the G-man said:
... "no matter how untested, inappropriate or expensive, regardless of doctors' views."
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This sounds like an HMO.

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unrestrained id said:

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Captain Sammitch said:
I am not in a big hurry for the US to lose its edge in quality medical care just because a small percentage doesn't want to get the money together to pay for things themselves.

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There are no words for this kind of callousness and complete lack of empathy. And you call yourself a Christian yet have this "fuck em" attitude?

May I be around to see the day when you find yourself without medical insurance and you or a loved one have a catastophic illness. Sound harsh?

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When George Zeliotis of Quebec was told in 1997 that he would have to wait a year for a replacement for his painful, arthritic hip, he did what every Canadian who's been put on a waiting list does: He got mad. He got even madder when he learned it was against the law to pay for a replacement privately. But instead of heading south to a hospital in Boston or Cleveland, as many Canadians already do, he teamed up to file a lawsuit with Jacques Chaoulli, a Montreal doctor. The duo lost in two provincial courts before their win last week.

The court's decision strikes down a Quebec law banning private medical insurance and is bound to upend similar laws in other provinces. Canada is the only nation other than Cuba and North Korea that bans private health insurance, according to Sally Pipes, head of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco and author of a recent book on Canada's health-care system.

"Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," wrote Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin for the 4-3 Court last week. Canadians wait an average of 17.9 weeks for surgery and other therapeutic treatments, according the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute. The waits would be even longer if Canadians didn't have access to the U.S. as a medical-care safety valve. Or, in the case of fortunate elites such as Prime Minister Paul Martin, if they didn't have access to a small private market in some non-core medical services. Mr. Martin's use of a private clinic for his annual checkup set off a political firestorm last year.

The ruling stops short of declaring the national health-care system unconstitutional; only three of the seven judges wanted to go all the way.

But it does say in effect: Deliver better care or permit the development of a private system. "The prohibition on obtaining private health insurance might be constitutional in circumstances where health-care services are reasonable as to both quality and timeliness," the ruling reads, but it "is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services." The Justices who sit on Canada's Supreme Court, by the way, aren't a bunch of Scalias of the North. This is the same court that last year unanimously declared gay marriage constitutional.

The Canadian ruling ought to be an eye-opener for the U.S., where "single-payer," government-run health care is still a holy grail on the political left and even for some in business (such as the automakers). This month the California Senate passed a bill that would create a state-run system of single-payer universal health care. The Assembly is expected to follow suit. Someone should make sure the Canadian Supreme Court's ruling is on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's reading list before he makes a veto decision.

The larger lesson here is that health care isn't immune from the laws of economics. Politicians can't wave a wand and provide equal coverage for all merely by declaring medical care to be a "right," in the word that is currently popular on the American left.

There are only two ways to allocate any good or service: through prices, as is done in a market economy, or lines dictated by government, as in Canada's system. The socialist claim is that a single-payer system is more equal than one based on prices, but last week's court decision reveals that as an illusion. Or, to put it another way, Canadian health care is equal only in its shared scarcity.

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magicjay said:

Toyota pulls U-turn, heads north

By PAUL KRUGMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST, New York Times

Modern U.S. politics is dominated by the doctrine that government is the problem, not the solution. In practice, this doctrine translates into policies that make low taxes on the rich the highest priority, even if lack of revenue undermines basic public services. You don't have to be a liberal to realize that this is wrong-headed. Corporate leaders understand quite well that good public services are also good for business. But the political environment is so polarized these days that top executives are often afraid to speak up against conservative dogma.

Instead, they vote with their feet. Which brings us to the story of Toyota's choice.

There has been fierce competition among states hoping to attract a new Toyota assembly plant. Several Southern states reportedly offered financial incentives worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

But last month Toyota decided to put the new plant, which will produce RAV4 mini-SUVs, in Ontario, Canada. Explaining why it passed up financial incentives to choose a U.S. location, the company cited the quality of Ontario's work force.

What made Toyota so sensitive to labor quality issues? Maybe we should discount remarks from the president of the Toronto-based Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, who claimed that the educational level in the Southern United States was so low that trainers for Japanese plants in Alabama had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech equipment.

But there are other reports, some coming from state officials, that confirm his basic point: Japanese auto companies opening plants in the Southern U.S. have been unfavorably surprised by the work force's poor level of training.

There's some bitter irony here for Alabama's governor. Just two years ago voters overwhelmingly rejected his plea for an increase in the state's rock-bottom taxes on the affluent, so that he could afford to improve the state's low-quality education system. Opponents of the tax hike convinced voters that it would cost the state jobs.

But education is only one reason Toyota chose Ontario. Canada's other big selling point is its national health insurance system, which saves auto manufacturers large sums in benefit payments compared with their costs in the United States.

You might be tempted to say that Canadian taxpayers are, in effect, subsidizing Toyota's move by paying for health coverage. But that's not right, even aside from the fact that Canada's health care system has far lower costs per person than the American system, with its huge administrative expenses. In fact, U.S. taxpayers, not Canadians, will be hurt by the northward movement of auto jobs.

To see why, bear in mind that in the long run decisions like Toyota's probably won't affect the overall number of jobs in either the United States or Canada. But the result of international competition will be to give Canada more jobs in industries like autos, which pay health benefits to their U.S. workers, and fewer jobs in industries that don't provide those benefits. In the United States, the effect will be just the reverse: fewer jobs with benefits, more jobs without.

So what's the impact on taxpayers? In Canada, there's no impact at all: since all Canadians get government-provided health insurance in any case, the additional auto jobs won't increase government spending.

But U.S. taxpayers will suffer, because the general public ends up picking up much of the cost of health care for workers who don't get insurance through their jobs. Some uninsured workers and their families end up on Medicaid. Others end up depending on emergency rooms, which are heavily subsidized by taxpayers.

Funny, isn't it? Pundits tell us that the welfare state is doomed by globalization, that programs like national health insurance have become unsustainable. But Canada's universal health insurance system is handling international competition just fine. It's our own system, which penalizes companies that treat their workers well, that's in trouble.

I'm sure that some readers will respond to everything I've just said by asking why, if the Canadians are so smart, they aren't richer. But I'll have to leave the issue of America's comparative economic performance for another day.

For now, let me just point out that treating people decently is sometimes a competitive advantage. In America, basic health insurance is a privilege; in Canada, it's a right. And in the auto industry, at least, the good jobs are heading north.

Paul Krugman is a columnist for The New York Times. Copyright 2005 New York Times News Service.

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• No one likes the current system. Only the insurance industry is an enthusiastic supporter of the status quo. Doctors hate it, Nurses hate it, Hospital administrators hate it and most importantly, patients hate it.
  
  
• Managed care is only good if you're healthy. When you're sick you want access to the very best care. Murphy will tell you that the very best specialists are never part of your HMO.
  
  
• The low cost administrator is Medicare. 3 cents of every healthcare dollar goes to administrative costs under Medicare. With private carriers that cost is 25-30 cents of every dollar.
  
  
• The insurance industry spends a huge amount of money each year convincing you that you will suffer greatly under a single payer health plan.
  
  
• In addition they spend huge amounts of money on lobbying efforts and campaign contributions to protect the status quo.
  
  
• Critical healthcare has never required a commitee approval for my treatment under Medicare. When my MD refers me for something, all I need do is make the appointment.
  
  
• I have been denied health care by an HMO. The FDA approved a chemotherapy regimine that was considered 'state of the art' on the grounds it was 'experimental'. Not to mention expensive.
  
  
• You really don't want to fight for care when you're already quite ill.
  
  
• I now see world renowned specialists. Were I still with my old HMO, a local internest would be the best I could hope for.
  
  
• Don't get me started on the drug companies!

People who are grossly overweight, who smoke heavily or drink excessively could be denied surgery or drugs following a decision by a Government agency yesterday.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) which advises on the clinical and cost effectiveness of treatments for the NHS, said that in some cases the "self-inflicted" nature of an illness should be taken into account.

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Captain Sweden said:
What I don't get is how Americans don't want free healthcare 'cause it cost too much, but they don't seem to mind the cost of B-52's, ICMB's, atom and hydrogen bombs, SDI/"Star Wars" which cost shitloads of money and will hopefully never be used anyway. The Cold War is over.

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Captain Sweden said:
What I don't get is how Americans don't want free healthcare 'cause it cost too much, but they don't seem to mind the cost of B-52's, ICMB's, atom and hydrogen bombs, SDI/"Star Wars" which cost shitloads of money and will hopefully never be used anyway.

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