Healthcare in America

[freedogger]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

Insurance was a key component in choosing where I work when at a crossroads and now I'm damn glad I chose the way I did.

Seems like an employer's wet dream. If you quit or get fired, you and your dependants are SOL.

[#22]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Here's a little tidbit from a Harvard study. 62% of all personal bankruptcies in the US are medical related. And of those, 78% had some form of health insurance.

That is one scary set of statistics. Bad enough to deal with health problems, but to lose your house and / or cripple your family and loved ones with financial burdens like that? Wow. Yeah, our system is not perfect, and no, we should not accept it the way it is blindly, but man oh man, we should get on our knees and be thankful we at least have what we have here in Canada.

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by Azure

And I've had friends that had to go to Mayo Clinic in the states for major surgery because living with a herniated disk pressing against his sciatic nerve for 6 months while he waited for surgery here in Canada simply wasn't an option. Strangely enough, his doctor told him that was the only option.

For all the people that have had great results with our system, there are many more that have had nightmares, but I suppose that is alright if you had major surgery and it went well.

Not trying to pick on you, but it annoys the hell out of me when people complain about our healthcare system and the WELL documented waiting lists for a lot of different things, and the reply they get is 'well I've had great results.'

If 6 people have great results and 4 people suffer, is that a successful system? Because that is how it goes in Canada.

I don't know about the averages that you said but I like the idea of 6 people who can't afford healthcare 6 of them can get it.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Table 5

62% of all personal bankruptcies in the US are medical related. And of those, 78% had some form of health insurance.

Yeah, but I'm inclined to agree with Azure; most of them were relieved that there was no single-payer system that the federal government would screw up.

[Rockin' Flames]

Since there seems to be a lot of stories in this thread about how horrible the US healthcare system is I'll just give my own personal story. While living in Canada I was scheduled for an MRI and waited for 6 months in order to get the MRI. Not bad, and kind of what I was expecting in the US.

Well instead after I moved to the US I needed to get an MRI again. I was scheduled for the MRI within a month and it was determined I should have my gullbladder removed. Less than a month later I had my surgery and everything was good. The only bill I received was a $150 bill for the portion of the anesthesia my insurance company didn't cover.

So really in my own personal life I'd say I prefer the US healthcare system. That being said there are problems with both systems. Canada really needs to do something about the wait times and the ballooning costs the governments are faced with to fund the system. The US does need to do something about some of the costs for individuals and having coverage denied for people conditions.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by freedogger

Seems like an employer's wet dream. If you quit or get fired, you and your dependants are SOL.

I would think an employer's wet dream would be one in which they don't have to pay a large portion of their employee's health insurance premiums.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Rockin' Flames

Since there seems to be a lot of stories in this thread about how horrible the US healthcare system is I'll just give my own personal story. While living in Canada I was scheduled for an MRI and waited for 6 months in order to get the MRI. Not bad, and kind of what I was expecting in the US.

Well instead after I moved to the US I needed to get an MRI again. I was scheduled for the MRI within a month and it was determined I should have my gullbladder removed. Less than a month later I had my surgery and everything was good. The only bill I received was a $150 bill for the portion of the anesthesia my insurance company didn't cover.

So really in my own personal life I'd say I prefer the US healthcare system. That being said there are problems with both systems. Canada really needs to do something about the wait times and the ballooning costs the governments are faced with to fund the system. The US does need to do something about some of the costs for individuals and having coverage denied for people conditions.

Your US insurance covers 100% of an MRI? That's a nice plan.

[HELPNEEDED]

God Bless Canada.

Have you ever met under-privalaged Jimmy who works a couple offices over from you, the one that constantly complains about his money being spent on sick people he does'nt know? The one that says border protection is all a country should provide to its citizens.

Without education and healthcare alott of people are put at a disadvantage, i.e. the states, where poor families stay poor for generations because they cannot afford healthcare and can't get a good eduction. Further, depriving our own people of education will reduce societys IQ and ability.

/ RAnt

FYI: an MRI in india costs $60.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by valo403

Your US insurance covers 100% of an MRI? That's a nice plan.

Just got a statement from my insurance co for a surgery and 4 day hospital stay last month for my wife. $44K . We owe $250.

Granted I have paid some deductable early in the year but so far we have paid less than 5% of what was billed for this year.

Not done yet either unfortunately.

[HELPNEEDED]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

Just got a statement from my insurance co for a surgery and 4 day hospital stay last month for my wife. $44K . We owe $250.

Granted I have paid some deductable early in the year but so far we have paid less than 5% of what was billed for this year.

Not done yet either unfortunately.

How much is your monthly premium?

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by HELPNEEDED

How much is your monthly premium?

If I include vision and dental which are separate plans for me my premium is about $450 monthly.

[joe_mullen]

Originally Posted by Azure

Considering how incompetent the US government is, are you all really surprised that Americans don't want them running a universal health care system?

People love to bury their head in the sand, and us Canadians aren't much better considering we're running into a major spending problem with our health care system, and we prefer to re-elect the governments that silence the doctors that speak out against the government and how the health care system is being run.

When I have to sit for 6 hours in a waiting room to get 6 stitches for a minor cut, I certainly won't get up on any pedestal and brag about how much better our universal public health care system is.

This may sound insensitive, but the reason for a 6 hour wait is called triage. Showing up at a walk in clinic, urgent care center or your family doctor's office (assuming you have one, which IS a MAJOR issue) would lead to a much shorter wait, less cost to the system and just as good (if not better) outcome. Now going totally off topic, the fix for our system lies in better access to primary care so people with problems like this don't have to seek out emergency services.

[undercoverbrother]

I have family that live down in the states. They are Canadian and moved there about 6 years ago. They go on and on about how good the health care is down there and how fast he could get back surgery. When i reminded him that he makes around $300K and negotiated full payment of his insurance into his contract he is not so quick to talk.

The US system is good/great......that is if you can pay for it.......I wonder what percent of the population can't.

Before you all start, I like America.

[joe_mullen]

Originally Posted by Azure

Lame excuse. The 'clinic' I was at doesn't preform life saving treatments. If went to a major hospital I wouldn't expect to get treated for something so minor. But that is why clinics exist. That is why you're supposed to be able to go there, get treated, and leave within a reasonable amount of time without holding anyone back from having their 'life' saved.

I'm not expecting the system to be perfect. But I'm not seeing an attempt to make it better either. All I'm seeing is arrogant excuses of how I should quit complaining and accept the 6 hour wait because no system is 'perfect.'

missed this post when i wrote my previous response (apologies). nevertheless, emergencies do happen even in family doctors offices (i know from personal experience). our system is not without fault and would benefit from a much greater focus on primary care as oppossed to focusing on arbitrary targets like MRI wait times, emergency wait times or surgical wait times. those all stem from primary care access. that being said, those same targets have no actual impact (or minimal) on determinants of health for a population, and when it comes to determinants of health, canada trumps the usa in almost every conceivable way. should we be looking for change to the system, absolutely, but the usa system should be the last place we look at for advice. if anything, we should be looking towards systems in scandinavia, france and japan (just some examples).
/rant

[Street Pharmacist]

Maybe this deserves a new thread, but here is my two cents on how to improve healthcare

-take a harder look at what is covered and what is not on the surgery side. Many surgeries are done by the specialist deciding if they need to be done. This is a pretty clear conflict of interest. Elective orthopedic surgeries are a great example.

-shift doctors workloads in family practice to those issues that need it and use healthcare practitioners whose knowledge its not being used efficiently. Ie primary care facilities, nurse partners,etc. They work very well at reducing backlogs. Unfortunately, the CMA (and therefore AMA, BCMA, etc.) is VERY powerful and has worked hard at skirting the purges of diminishing physicians role in simple primary care.

-Diagnostic procedures should have more stringent guidelines on when they are used.

-Private diagnostic clinics are useful in the provinces that have them (MRI, etc.)

Some other wasteful things I've noticed:
-the use of ondansetron in hospitals is astounding. Gravol works just fine in many nausea cases, but ondansetron is widely used in many hospitals instead because it is more effective in some types of nausea. Gravol is ~$0.02 per pill, ondansetron is ~$8.00 per pill. Hundreds of dollars per day on some hospitals and thousands in some bigger hospitals just in ondansetron.
-antibiotic overuse is rampant. In the Interior Health Authority (the region I work in) alone: 70% of people who were diagnosed with acute bronchitis (bronchitis in a healthy person) received a prescription for antibiotics. Bronchitis is > 99% viral, meaning NONE of those patients should have received antibiotics. For acute sinusitis (sinus infection that is less than 4 weeks in duration, no complicating factors), 65% received antibiotics. Acute sinusitis is bacterial in <2% of patients, therefore antibiotics are NOT recommended. This has a direct cost of millions just in this health authority. Add the indirect cost of people seeking medical help due to allergies and Antibiotic Associated Diarrhea.

[The Yen Man]

I think what it boils down to is, the US Healthcare is good if you are rich or have the right insurance policies to cover everything. It's bad for anyone who can't afford it.

Canadian Heathcare for essential services is the same, whether you have money or not, and thus why people who have money go down to the States sometimes to get treatment. I actually think its good that rich people are willing to do that. It helps alleviate our system up here.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Well, now it's pretty obvious what happened.

Your first problem? Going to a clinic in rural alberta and expecting them not to be busy. Tough luck though that they made you wait for 6 hours and not everyone else.

Personal experience in Calgary: 20 minute wait with a massive ear infection to get antibiotics. One year to the day later, same time period (morning), 3 hour wait. Guess what? They were busy. It's not hamburgers, it's healthcare, and if you can't wait to get your finger stitched up, go to another clinic or do it yourself.

You know what's a huge relief when you're sitting in a hospital waiting room by yourself holding a towel over your eye? Not having to think about how much this experience is going to cost you, aside from your eye. You don't think about it at the time, but, reading threads like this reminds me. It would have sucked contemplating being blind AND in debt for tens of thousands of dollars. Thinking about the injury at hand was worse enough.

Chalk that up to my anecdote vs. your anecdote I guess.

That is fine and all, except I never went to a 'rural' clinic. I went to a clinic in a town with 15,000 people.

People abuse the system by going to the emergency room for every single problem, so the clinics are probably understaffed because of that. Of course, there are ways to solve that problem, like user fees, but no one wants to go down that road it seems.

[joe_mullen]

Originally Posted by Azure

That is fine and all, except I never went to a 'rural' clinic. I went to a clinic in a town with 15,000 people.

People abuse the system by going to the emergency room for every single problem, so the clinics are probably understaffed because of that. Of course, there are ways to solve that problem, like user fees, but no one wants to go down that road it seems.

i'm not aware of any evidence that user fees work. if anything, one could argue that they will prevent at risk populations for accessing health care for relatively mild problems before the balloon into big problems, hence, costing the system even more. if there is evidence otherwise, i stand corrected. i truly believe that the solution to what ails our healthcare system is to improve access to all, regardless of the problem. also, in my experience, patients are awful at judging the severity of their own medical problems (another arguement against user fees).

[Azure]

Originally Posted by fotze

If the wait time for every other thing was 1 minute, it would be wildly inefficient and wasteful. You don't design things so you can get 3 AM service at 5PM demand, it would be incredibly wasteful

It can get frustrating when you are the only person in the waiting room and it takes an hour of waiting there for some odd reason. I do think some of the front liners purposely drag things out as a bit of a protest. It just comes with the territory though. You just won't get top notch service if you feel you are underpaid.

No, its beyond frustrating when you're the only person in the waiting room for 6 hours waiting for a procedure that a nurse could easily do in 5 min. Because that is all it took.

Next time I'll just use crazy glue and been done with it.

I know people love to bash the American system, and rightly so, but there are many people in Canada that could tell you horror stories about our system as well.

I had a friend that died from acute aortic dissection a few months ago. He sat in the waiting room for 4 hours in the middle of night screaming in pain while nobody did anything. They finally took x-rays, and told him that it would be two weeks before the results would be available. Before those two weeks came around he was dead. The guy was 21 years old. Would the x-rays have shown anything? Nobody knows, but the fact still remains that he went to the hospital in severe pain, and there was no help available.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by joe_mullen

This may sound insensitive, but the reason for a 6 hour wait is called triage. Showing up at a walk in clinic, urgent care center or your family doctor's office (assuming you have one, which IS a MAJOR issue) would lead to a much shorter wait, less cost to the system and just as good (if not better) outcome. Now going totally off topic, the fix for our system lies in better access to primary care so people with problems like this don't have to seek out emergency services.

I did go to a walk-in clinic. But like I said before, emergency room abuse where I live is pretty significant, so there is an obvious severe lack of resources available.

My whole point is exactly what you said. Better access to primary care so people who just need stitches are not a burden at all to the emergency services. Are nurses even allowed to put in stitches? Seems to me having to wait for one of the 5 doctors in the hospital for stitches, is rather inefficient, when one of the 20 nurses could help me instead.