OT: Do you want a public healthcare option for all?

I used the "over 85" thing as a crude example of the hard choices we as Americans need to make about what "healthcare for all" should look like -- a talking point, if you will.

If we continue to allow defensive medicine (for some), too many tests (for some), too many expensive, ineffective drugs (for some), and overtreatment (for some) -- while of course everyone else gets the opposite end of the pendulum & no care at all -- then the naysayers will be right, and national healthcare will bankrupt the country.  Universal healthcare needs to be SO much more efficient than the current system to be economically feasible.  That means some hard decisions about what will be paid for and where lines will be drawn.  Is that called "playing God" or is that called doing the best possible job, for the most possible people, in an imperfect world with limited resources?  You decide.  It's easy to denounce such collective decisions of a society as "playing God," but think about it.  How does God feel about the uninsured under the current system?  Is their plight really His will, or is it society's failure to do what it can?

Who will be the ones to make those decisions about who qualifies for what level of care? Who decides what is overtreatment? The things that I am hearing and reading about these proposed changes scare the pants off of me, quite frankly. I am very leary of what will happen when this government sponsored "health care" starts making lump payments for disease processes and regulating what tests can and cannot be ordered. Those decisions should be made by qualified medical professionals, not a government official.

For example, a woman is pregnant. She is diagnosed with a bacterial Group B strep infection (can be lethal to an infant if they contract it). She receives antibiotics immediately prior to delivery. The baby is born, standard bloodwork is done, and some minor red flags are raised that show possible infection. But, because the baby doesn't seem fully septic, the health care system designates that the baby should receive a short course of antibiotics (5 days), and denies more thorough testing to look for all potential infection (specifically, a spinal tap) since the bloodwork is okay. Baby gets the antibiotics, goes home, and is readmitted a week later with full-blown Group B strep meningitis, which is life-threatening, and very likely lethal.  Who is responsible for the lack of treatment?

Once you start rationing healthcare and allowing the government to decide who qualifies for treatment, and what treatment is to be given, you are on a very slippery slope. It's not a huge step from saying that an 85 year old no longer qualifies for government sponsored healthcare to deciding that preterm babies who would die without medical intervention should be allowed to just die rather than spend $$$ in an attempt to allow them to survive. From there, what about children born with heart defects or Down Syndrome? Do they deserve treatment? What about forced amniocentesis and abortions for women who's babies have genetic disorders or other disorders such as spina bifida? What about euthanasia for advanced cancer patients? Alzheimer's patients? No treatment for smokers, obese people, those with the breast-cancer gene? Some of those are extreme examples, but ones that I could easily see happening if the government is allowed to decide who "deserves" to be treated while saving the healthcare system $$ for the greater good of all...


**eta- I don't mind paying more in taxes to have some form of healthcare for everyone. The system we have does not work. I DO have a problem with any system deciding what testing/treatment should be made available. Leave the medical decisions to the medical professionals**

I am FOR it and I agree with Lorelei that we need to cut out the middleman - insurance companies.  We need a complete revamp of our system.  As for paying for it - we ALREADY pay for the uninsured now one way or another - mostly through other taxes.  Other civilized countries have made this work and we can, too.

If it had not been for me having Medicare I wouldn't have been able to have WLS at all.  I am for it.  Everyone needs some kind of insurance because so many are turned away from hospitals and drs now because they don't have insurance.  My son broke his foot in March, and the drs turned him away because he didn't have insurance.  One hospital wouldn't see him either.  That is so sad. 

Against. First and foremost the country cannot afford it. We are so far in debt now with bailouts and now a government ran car industry that we are screwed. This plan will plummet us even further. Did you know that they are fixing to start taxing health benefits you get from work? Taxing the value of your benefits from your employer. So, in my case the State of Texas pays approximately 300 or so dollars per month for my insurance. I will soon be paying taxes on that. So much for the pledge not to raise taxes on those that make less than 250k huh? As I recall a former president wrote his own political death sentence by making the pledge, "Read my lips, no new taxes." Another reason is that I dont want to pay for someone elses health care that isnt working. And thats who will be paying for public health care is the working class.

Do you have another solution? For working poor families, not the "welfare deadbeats" some seem to be afraid of...the ones who can't get insurance or can't afford it. The ones with pre-existing conditions, the ones with small employers who can't afford to offer care, etc.

Also, if you work for the state, curious, how did you get your surgery funded? It is my understanding the State of Texas has a specific obesity treatment exclusion (my mother and two friends of mine work for the state).

How would you solve this issue of "underinsurance" too? Would you mandate a base level of coverage for all?

Wasnt working for the state when I had my surgery.

And no I dont see another solution. Its been this way for years.

Here is also a problem. People will eventually be "prioritized" on a "need" basis. Older people wont get care they need. They will save that for younger.

Another thing, think about all those jobs lost of those people in the healthcare business.

I make more than 250k. I am self employed. I will gladly pay more taxes to reap the karmic benefits from helping this nation become a happier, healthier nation that the world actually respects again.. and dreams of their nations being.

There's plenty we've WASTED money on in the last 8 years.. that no one was complaining about... padding the pockets of greedy Houston  neocons... faking like cowboys but really from the depths of Yale, Harvard and more...

I will gladly pay higher taxes to make this nation a better place....

Taxes we were paying in the last 8 years were supporting things like Saudi Oil.. and the lovely, charming people like James Baker and the Carlisle Group.....

I'd like to see those tax dollars going to help people other than the nation's top elite...


But see.. I wasn't old enough to be around for those lovely NeoCon videos that Reagan used to put out to brain wash people about communism and universal healthcare...

Well, if your making more that 250k you can probably afford to do that. I live from payday to payday so taking extra money from me and mine isnt exactly a pleasant thought.