Agreed. If I was livingin Canada right now then I would like their system (had I not heard any news stories about how ****ty it is) because I've been healthy my whole life for the most part. If I had some chronic illness that caused me to need to see doctors quite a few times per year then I would hate it. In the US you don't need to wait around forever to be seen, and when you're seen the treatments are usually the best in the world. WHen you go to the doctor, however, it may cost you an arm and a leg. In canada you have to wait around forever and chances are they have some protocol for the treatment of each disease that doesn't unclude the best (most expensive, usually) treatments available to US citizens. The thing that Americans need to realize is that our healthcare is the most expensive in the world because we've demanded to have tons of research and cutting edge technology to tackle the diseases that plague us. As long as you're on the higher end of the innovation curve then all of your products are going to sell at a higher price. The more expensive it is the harder it is for companies/individuals to afford healthcare, so the tradeoff is that we have a lot of people who don't have insurance. Also If you look at Michael Moore's video Sicko (if you can stand to see his fat face) you'll see that he tries to compare the US to some 3rd world countries whose entire GDP is less than the cost of a Divinci robot. They may have great preventative care, but thats because their people can't afford to be as unhealthy as most Americals. The population needs to actually be concerned about their own health and want to take the initialtive to prevent disease before any sort of socialized medicine program will be useful and not more expensive than our current system.
Amen. If people don't take responsibility for their own health, then throwing money at their health problems will only give them license to live a more unhealthy lifestyle.
We need a single payer: the patient.
If healthcare has to be free for people to utilize it then by definition it has no value to them. People need to accept responsibility for their own health. The best way for that to happen is for them to have to pay for it.
As a dental student, I see a whole lot of the world's most prevalent chronic, infectious disease (tooth decay). BTW it is about 99.9% preventable. Almost all of the risk factors are modifiable. Unfortunately for 95% of patients it takes a freakin' miracle to get them to floss their teeth, and they would never even consider discontinuing their habit of sucking down sugary beverages all day long.
Then when a tooth rots out and the pulp finally gets infected, it hurts a lot. All of a sudden they need a root canal and a crown. These procedures are technically difficult and expensive. A lot of patients act like it's some great injustice that you are asking them to pay a couple thousand dollars to fix it, or even better they say "doc I don't have insurance; so I can't afford to get it fixed." Well they could afford three sodas a day for the last 10 years. Without those they would have a lot more money and a healthy tooth.
The situation is similar for a lot of chronic disease with modifiable risk factors (e.g. type II diabetes, hypertension, etc). The individual not the government should take responsibility for the person's health and health care.
There should be (and already is) affordable, high deductible, private
insurance that simply
insures against major medical expenses due to unforeseen circumstances (injury, cancer, etc). It's not a payment plan to cover all your medical expenses. Patients should be responsible for routine care and chronic disease care.
