Regional news:
Group lets victims of goverment-run health care speak
May 12, 2009 :: Posted by Tony Ondrusek, Publisher
Filed under: Tools of the Trade.
Tony Ondrusek, PublisherThe CPR (Conservatives for Patients’ Rights) posted a short video on its website allowing those who have had to beg the governments of Canada and England for health care a chance to speak their mind. During the very short video, one woman states that there is only so much money “in the pot” for health care for its citizens, so those who are likely to die will not get care. Click here for its website.
The video release is important as Congress is preparing to “reform” health care in the U.S., and many fear (rightly so) that creating a government-run plan for all or parts of health care will lead to rationing and government control of citizens’ health. In the latest news, IFAwebnews.com reports that health insurers have promised to stem premium increases to make health insurance more affordable for many Americans.
If all else fails, and the U.S. does end up with a public health care system, we do indeed have some serious issues ahead of us. Two videos on YouTube should be required viewing for anyone who honestly thinks a public health care system is better than the private sector when it comes to health care. Both are a few years old, but their impact is not diminished.
The first one (titled “A Short Course in Brain Surgery”) is about five minutes long and is anecdotal, but speaks volumes.
The second one is about 25 minutes and shows what Canadians really think about their country’s form of socialized medicine.
An interesting footnote to the first video deals with a medical care broker — an interesting industry that has cropped up in Canada, where brokers actually search in other countries for basic medical care that Canadians cannot obtain in their own country. The medical care broker is worried that if the U.S. adopts single-payer health, he will have no where to send Canadians for quality and timely health care.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 11:25 am and is filed under Tools of the Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:05 am
As counterpoint to the fear mongering in this article, you should take a look at an article on the ScienceBlog (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/elderly-medicare-beneficiaries-give-their-coverage-higher-ratings-do-those-esi-21008.html) that summarizes the Commonwealth Fund 2007 Biennial Health Insurance Survey. That survey found that; “Elderly Medicare beneficiaries are more satisfied with their health care, and experience fewer problems accessing and paying for care, than Americans with employer-sponsored insurance.”
May 19th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
As a counterpoint to the naivety of this comment - You need to understand the entire picture before trying to use Medicare as an example. Medicare beneficiaries may be more satisfied, but they’re benefiting from the cost shifting that’s assessed on Independently Insured individuals by the medical community to recoup the cost of getting underpaid by the government for these Medicare beneficiaries’ claims.
Example - A knee replacement’s actual cost is around $28,335 after PPO repricing in Sun City, AZ. The government will only reimburse around $9,647 for the procedure. As such - the medical community had to increase the cost for independently insured individuals in an attempt to recoup the cost of dealing with Medicare patients.
***Off Subject - Fear mongering? Is this a joke