The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

[St. Clown]

Well, many other countries do have lower infant mortality rates and a longer life expectancy and often spend less than half of what we spend per capita.

What can we learn from other countries? That is not to say we need to copy their model exactly, but many countries have been aggressive at reducing costs and realizing efficiencies. It's time to drop the "America! **** Yeah!" attitude and realize maybe we aren't always the best at everything. Maybe we can learn from the experience of others.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/bu...care.html?_r=0

It's hardly that attitude. We bring a lot of expenses upon ourselves- just take trip to Walmart sometime. Obesity jumps up our national costs, as does poverty, which often go together like fat men and pies.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

To reduce poverty and wealth inequality. Among the developed nations, the more a country embraces laissez faire and leaves its less fortunate citizens to the wolves, the less healthy the country is overall.

So basically success is not something we should attain, because it gets stolen from us and given to the failures. Real way of motivating people to successful there.

[BassAle]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

There are a lot of similarities to our country. The emergency department is filled with people who are told the specialist they want to see is a 2+ month wait.

My wife needs to see a specialist. In our town it is a 3-4 month wait. She's going to drive an hour+ away to see someone sometime this summer rather than wait that long.

My primary care doctor's office called a few weeks ago to say it's time for my yearly checkup. They were booking in November. For a primary care doctor. (who I need to change anyway because I moved and now it takes too long to get to his office.)

[Jimjamesak]

So basically success is not something we should attain, because it gets stolen from us and given to the failures. Real way of motivating people to successful there.

Last time I looked there's still plenty of rich, successful people in Europe. Even in places like Sweden.

[St. Clown]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

My wife needs to see a specialist. In our town it is a 3-4 month wait. She's going to drive an hour+ away to see someone sometime this summer rather than wait that long.

My primary care doctor's office called a few weeks ago to say it's time for my yearly checkup. They were booking in November. For a primary care doctor. (who I need to change anyway because I moved and now it takes too long to get to his office.)

I have never experienced anything like that here.

[SonofSouthie]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

There are a lot of similarities to our country. The emergency department is filled with people who are told the specialist they want to see is a 2+ month wait.

Emergency room also filled with people that have a cold but they have Mass Health so they don't have to wait to see their PCP or cough up(pun intended) a co-pay.

[Jimjamesak]

I have never experienced anything like that here.

How about not being able to see the only specialist in your state because he's not in your insurance network and you can't afford the upfront cost? (Happening with my wife)

[busterman62]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

Emergency room also filled with people that have a cold but they have Mass Health so they don't have to wait to see their PCP or cough up(pun intended) a co-pay.

Since Pence has joined forces with tDonald most will think he and his policies are evil too. However, this is an interesting experiment. Time will tell if it's successful or not but a 42% drop in ER visits is amazing.

[walrus]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

.

My primary care doctor's office called a few weeks ago to say it's time for my yearly checkup. They were booking in November. For a primary care doctor. (who I need to change anyway because I moved and now it takes too long to get to his office.)

is that Doctor affiliated with EMMC, I'd bet on it.

[walrus]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

Since Pence has joined forces with tDonald most will think he and his policies are evil too. However, this is an interesting experiment. Time will tell if it's successful or not but a 42% drop in ER visits is amazing.

Did I miss something? What did pence do to get that drop?

[WisconsinWildcard]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

I have never experienced anything like that here.

It varies greatly by specialty and by area. When I was back in Wisconsin, it was a 3-4 month wait at minimum to see a pediatric neurologist. In Cleveland, there are three large health systems and there is a lot of fractured care (people seeing specialists from all three systems) because of different wait times for different specialties.

[busterman62]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

Did I miss something? What did pence do to get that drop?

It's kind of in the linked article. (Just looked and see I didn't highlight it. here it is again: http://khn.org/news/in-conservative-...s-poorest-pay/ )
TLDR version: Medicaid Pts have a flex spending account. They have to contribute their own $ based on income. Can upgrade coverage with PCP visits and screening. Can lose upgrade and coverage for missing appts, not paying in, inappropriate utilization, etc. Providers are paid a competitive rate and paid rapidly.

[William Blake]

I like the state by state approach because you can individualize it to see what works. Since VT tried single payer a few years back, would love to see them for example apply some lessons learned and take the lead on state based public option. Mass could do it I suppose but we already lead the nation in coverage. Also, I think the latest effort here is on efficiencies since expansion is now a done deal.

We've got a bill or proposition on the ballot in Colorado this year for single payer, I think. Not sure if it'll pass, though, it's an easy thing to scare people away from trying

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

We currently have the most expensive healthcare in the world. What we have now is a money pit.

That is a bit misleading because you are not correlating cost to quality.


To some extent, parts of healthcare are a luxury item: in other countries, you have a hip problem, you get a cortisone shot and a bottle of advil. Here, you get a hip replacement. The latter is much more expensive than the former, but if it was your hip and you had the money available, which would you choose?


People complain that healthcare is too expensive yet wail and gnash their teeth when you try to restrict usage, which is how the governments in single-payor plans reduce costs.

It is a phantom reduction: maybe the cost in dollars goes down, the real cost is incurred through waiting longer to see someone and suffering much more in the interim.

[Kepler]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

We've got a bill or proposition on the ballot in Colorado this year for single payer, I think. Not sure if it'll pass, though, it's an easy thing to scare people away from trying

Colorado seems like Oregon. Camel distribution with one hump of educated liberals and another hump of rural conservatives, and not much else. In OR the war is over: the liberals won. CO still seems to be teetering, but you'll get there soon.