Originally posted by: SirStev0
Originally posted by: EXman
SNIPPED
Well I am happy to see that you can be honest about it being a huge shit sandwich!
There are a few points where we disagree and I say you are flat wrong. But rather than taking it point by point I'll just point out the obvious statement that is wrong.
We are hemorrhaging money in our current system and we have shitty care. Go ahead and quote anecdotal evidence about Canadian Waiting Periods for care, but the fact is that statistical evidences shows that their waits are almost exactly the same as ours in almost every category. The kicker is that they significantly pay less (even taking into account taxes to pay for UHC) and everyone has access.
I have 1st hand knowledge of three reasons why that is not correct.
1st reason: I used to work for a canadian company. Guess what people came to our U.S. based part of the company to visit while they were on one of their 4 paid weeks of vacation? Healthcare. Yup they would come down here get a procedure done stop by our place to say hi and see how the Yanks were doin then go home. in 5 years I saw maybe a dozen people I know of in a small company do this. 12 isn't much but that is just the ones that I know of.
2nd reason: My father-in-law needed knee replacement surgery. He is a veteran. He has UHC as a part of DVA. How long did it take to get the MRI? 20 days. How long did it take to get the knee replacement? almost 3 years. They are backlogged and well younger vets get first priority. No kidding they tried to talk him out of it since he was to old late 50's.
3rd reason: My Kiddos are covered by our state run Schip. UHC for poor kids. Since I make alot by thier standards I have to pay for it and it is CHEAP! Guess what you get what you pay for. No doctor will take my kids and if they do they try and diagnose from the phone or give you a 2 minute office visit. Yea I said 2 minutes! Oh and guess what? You have to go through a bureaucracy to get it and you never talk to the same caseworker twice. They treat you as sub-human. They lose your paperwork. They deny paying for benefits and then guess what I have to end up paying the doctors cash due to the bureaucratic scumbags F'ed up as usual. So now the Cheap insurance costs a fortune and the sevice is on par with a post office late in the day. And since they are a government entity you cannot complain. No one cares! Thier jobs are safe! Doctors often get stuck with the bill and refuse to see patients that have our governments UHC for kids. You think you have Shitty service now? You have not seen anything! UHC is the most frustration thing I have ever delt with in my entire life and i'm married!
I am glad to share that with anyone. Really I do not think everyone knows we already have UHC for kids and vets. It sucks. It sucks huge! Remember when dealing with bureaucrats you are going to lose every time. There is no benefit for them to be nice to you. There is no sense of urgency to get you proper care. Good doctors are hard to find. Finding a bureaucrat to care is impossible. You're screwed!
I have a HSA and I have to shop for a good deal on all medical expenses. My care is completely better in every way. Doctors love me cause I pay in cash (A HSA debit card) and I can get discounts.
As someone pointed out this is again anecdotal evidence, but to be completely fair even one bad experience is too much.
I truly believe that at this day in age in a country as great as ours we should consider great healthcare (not adequate, not good, great) as a right and not a privilege. I realize this is incredibly naive but I feel that pessimism about the system is one of the major contributors to how bad it is. You have to believe we can do better to actually make things better.
With that said, I 100% agree with you about veteran services. They are horrible. It is despicable how this country takes care of veterans and almost every story I hear about it is stomach churning. However, the problems with veteran's services run much much deeper than what can be blamed on UHC. In fact part of the problem is the fact that aren't really universally covered.
The biggest problem is the lack of investment in the program. It is quite sad to say that our country is much more interested in blowing the shit out of things than making sure those that do that dirty work are taken care of.
Fuck if you think the medical care/physical well being is bad I would highly suggest putting your fingers in your ears and jamming your head in the ground if anyone starts to talk about psychological health. The Veteran's affair service completely turns their back on these people. One of my first calls as an EMT when I was in undergrad was to pick up a recently discharged Iraq War Vet. He was denied 4 times to be psychologically evaluated, so he did what any person would do and started to self medicate with whiskey. It was truly a sad sad case. I chuckle every time I see a "Support our Troops" ribbon.
The problem with Veteran's affairs is veteran's affairs. Maybe if we really supported our troops like we pretend we do, we'd stop producing million dollar fighters that just sit around and start pumping money into taking care of them.
With that rant done, I'm interested as to what state your children are covered in? For the most part CHIP/SCHIP/etc. programs are usually praised as fairly decent coverage. There are bad examples but for the most part I understand it is much better than Medicare.
Finally this all goes back to what I originally said. American's are too stubborn and politicians are too corrupt to give ourselves a great Health Care system. We won't fix it. We will eventually get a Psuedo-Socialized system, which will suck and we will ride that until it starts to be as shitty as it is now.
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