How Would Ted Kennedy's Health be affected if we had his plan 5 years ago?

[tennisnr]

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I was just wondering.

Do you think Ted Kennedy would have been able to receive the urgent, quick, neurosurgical care he ended up receiving if the only health care plan available was the one he has proposed?

 

[starsop93]

I was just wondering.

Do you think Ted Kennedy would have been able to receive the urgent, quick, neurosurgical care he ended up receiving if the only health care plan available was the one he has proposed?

Absolutely. He's wealthy. This is America. No matter what form of universal coverage happens here, it will allow those who are rich to receive better care than those who aren't. To a large degree, even poor people in this country seem to want rich people to have better opportunities than they have, on the off chance that they might get rich one day.

 

[aphistis]

I was just wondering.

Do you think Ted Kennedy would have been able to receive the urgent, quick, neurosurgical care he ended up receiving if the only health care plan available was the one he has proposed?

Of course he would. He's a Kennedy.

 

[jwk]

I was just wondering.

Do you think Ted Kennedy would have been able to receive the urgent, quick, neurosurgical care he ended up receiving if the only health care plan available was the one he has proposed?

Don't think for a second that Congress won't carve themselves out an exception to insure their own premier medical care at our expense.

 

[leviathan]

I was just wondering.

Do you think Ted Kennedy would have been able to receive the urgent, quick, neurosurgical care he ended up receiving if the only health care plan available was the one he has proposed?

Urgent / acute care is not the problem you get in publically funded systems.

 

[onyX]

i often wondered about that... and then going to Duke in North Carolina??? Isn't the Harvard system good enough? And closer?

as an aside... is anyone finally telling their patients (in the old paternalistic way) to quit smoking, quit eating so damn much, and quit doing drugs?? Because I am finally up to here with the obese population that expects everything to go by the normal 70kg standards... and CMS saying wound infections are our fault... how the hell when they can't even clean their own pannus??? Can we start suing patients for the back pain they cause moving them from table to table? Pneumonia because of poor pulmonary toilet because they can't breathe against the 10 kg of man boobs and wanting to go smoke??? CHF 'cause they just couldn't put down the extra salty restaurant style chips and salsa at On the Border?? I'm so disgusted with that crap. Why is healthcare cost going up?? Because americans aren't accountable for their actions... and want to decrease our reimbursement to decrease overall costs? 👎

 

[proman]

All the cases that you describe will be cancelled (by the surgeons) under the new system. The risk just isn't worth it.

 

[ProRealDoc]

Here's the problem I have with the democratic leaders. While they tell everyone else to settle for being middle class and just getting-by, I don't see the filthy richClintons, Al gore and Kennedys giving out their cash to the poor to help them out. They want us to bite the bullet and give them our hard earned dollars so they can realize their utopian dreams of a perfect society. If they want it so bad they should use their own g*ddamn money. I want to see them become middle class too before they ask me to remain there for the rest of my life.

 

[badgas]

Here's the problem I have with the democratic leaders. While they tell everyone else to settle for being middle class and just getting-by, I don't see the filthy richClintons, Al gore and Kennedys giving out their cash to the poor to help them out. They want us to bite the bullet and give them our hard earned dollars so they can realize their utopian dreams of a perfect society. If they want it so bad they should use their own g*ddamn money. I want to see them become middle class too before they ask me to remain there for the rest of my life.

 

[Dimoak]

as an aside... is anyone finally telling their patients (in the old paternalistic way) to quit smoking, quit eating so damn much, and quit doing drugs?? Because I am finally up to here with the obese population that expects everything to go by the normal 70kg standards... and CMS saying wound infections are our fault... how the hell when they can't even clean their own pannus??? Can we start suing patients for the back pain they cause moving them from table to table? Pneumonia because of poor pulmonary toilet because they can't breathe against the 10 kg of man boobs and wanting to go smoke??? CHF 'cause they just couldn't put down the extra salty restaurant style chips and salsa at On the Border?? I'm so disgusted with that crap. Why is healthcare cost going up?? Because americans aren't accountable for their actions... and want to decrease our reimbursement to decrease overall costs? 👎

I agree. This is really something that flies under the radar of the European-style system proponents here; we just don't have the same population demographics, both from a socioeconomic standpoint, as well as just a general "health" standpoint. Borderline-morbid obese patients with pack-a-day smoking habits and cHTN complaining that their medical bills keep acruing and those darn doctors and money-grubbing pharmaceutical companies just keep charging but not "fixing" them even though they refuse to deny themselves that second double bacon cheeseburger and get on something other than a couch. Then they drill the ED MI team every 2 weeks for their diffuse angina expecting the "big one" and wonder why their hospital bill is so high even though the ED "didn't do anything" (not that they were going to pay for it anyway). Yes there are many people out there who truly have fallen on hard times, and I completely support doing my part as a citizen to help them through, especially given how expensive healthcare can be (especially if their illness isn't completely due to their own lifestyle decisions and unwillingness to change them), but there is invariably a rather large population that consistently abuses the system, and by blanket-accomodating that subset of the population, the quality of healthcare that can be provided for everyone suffers.

 

[Mman]

i often wondered about that... and then going to Duke in North Carolina??? Isn't the Harvard system good enough? And closer?

He wasn't dissing the "Harvard system", just choosing the best surgeon in the world for his condition. That's what $$$ and a Kennedy name let him do, so that's what he did.


If I had the same problem and the same resources, I'd do the same thing.

 

[onyX]

Here's the problem I have with the democratic leaders. While they tell everyone else to settle for being middle class and just getting-by, I don't see the filthy richClintons, Al gore and Kennedys giving out their cash to the poor to help them out. They want us to bite the bullet and give them our hard earned dollars so they can realize their utopian dreams of a perfect society. If they want it so bad they should use their own g*ddamn money. I want to see them become middle class too before they ask me to remain there for the rest of my life.

i think i love you.

the public doesn't realize or appreciate the extra DECADE of our life we spend for training to take care of people (strangers, really) who don't take care of themselves. And again... want the rich doctors to lower their costs. How can the politicians continue to devalue the science/art of saving lives?