Kevin, out of all the people, I shouldn't have to point this out to you. The reason the populace doesn't want heath care has nothing to do with the quality of care we won't be receiving, or the increased costs, or the lack of choice. No, people don't want it because Obama simply has not explained how wonderful it will be. Period.
Look for the upcoming HBO Miniseries featuring Obama and his push for what's best for you.
I am surprised he CAN come here to get medical care. I think, for some time, Canada forbade that, or at least they tried. Part of why his doctors may have recommended coming here was not just quality, but timeliness. Though I suspect both are at issue. It can take a very long time to get medically necessary surgery there. I am not sure if their politicians get VIP treatment or not, though I suspect they do, one way or another. Oh well...
On the other hand, perhaps we should bar Canadians using our resources? Nah, this guy is probably full self pay, supporting some of those who can't or don't pay here in the U.S. I suppose I just get petty about some things. Is he a conservative? I haven't bothered yet to check. If not, he should be forced to use the system he or his forced on everyone else. That's the ticket.
I noticed Danny Williams and his media friends carefully avoided the topic of timeliness. The average peasant would still be waiting for his "free" treatment up there. If you die while waiting, that's a big savings for the country.
It's not illegal in Canada to go anywhere else in the world to get health care. You just have to pay for it out of your own pocket. My birth country hasn't descended into the morass of nanny state socialism that Britain has. And more than few Canadian do come here for it and pay full price. Especially anything involving cancer.
I grew up in Canada with it's Wonderful(TM) health care system. My grandfather went to the U.S. for treatment of his prostate cancer, which tells you all you need to know about said system.
What I can't fathom is that any country, save North Korea and Cuba, would forbid someone to leave the country and obtain health care elsewhere on their own dime.
I'm surprised all the medical collectivists haven't acted in concert with the UN to close the "International medical care loophole", to prevent these heinous sprees of "medical tourism".
It's not illegal to leave Britain - or to pay for your own treatments.
But once you pony up, say, to get a callus removed, then anything to do with that callus removal is on you. Gets infected? Your dime, you gotta find people to treat you and etc.
And what's been happening (from what I've been reading) is then you run the risk of anything else being categorized by the NHS as "related to" what you paid for... and thus is on you.
So you paid for cataract surgery, now you're having heart problems. NHS says that's due to that cataract surgery, your problem. Not theirs. You're still paying into the NHS, but you're blocked from all services, essentially.
You're at the whim and whimsy of bureaucrats. And they say "torture" is illegal in England.
Ah, that clears that up. So not officially illegal, but they make it as unattractive as possible. Which, from a pragmatic point of view, doesn't make sense. Wouldn't you prefer people with means to get care elsewhere and place less of a burden on your already burdened health care system?
Apparently, what happens is though you're at the risk for anything after you get treated on your dime being labelled as a direct result of that - and so it's 100% on you to deal with it.
(One case I heard of, cataract surgery paid for in the US was cited as the proximate cause of a heart attack 5 years later, and the NHS was refusing to pay.)
At the whim and whimsy of bureaucrats. And they say that "torture" is "illegal" in England.
Hmm, we're always being told that American's pay more for health care than other countries, but I wonder if these statistics take into account the instances of medical tourism.
I keep hearing reports and anecdotes about how expensive health care AND health insurance are in the US.
Well I have an anecdote for you:
I am an Australian. I have a wife and two children. We travelled as a family to the US for two months on vacation. Naturally I bought travel insurance. As well as events related to travel, this insurance covered us for ALL possible health costs associated with illness or accident - including special transport home if necessary. The term of the cover was one full calendar year - all of which could have been spent in the US without additional costs or charges.
Total cost - AUD$672.
I understand that the risk profile of a tourist family is different to local residents, but I can't imagine that the insurance company was losing money on this class of policy. If US health care was TRULY as fearsomely expensive as is claimed, I would expect the price for this type of cover to be SIGNIFICANTLY higher.
It's pretty expensive, and going higher, almost by the minute.
I'm not trying to tell you that your premium for the policy that you bought is necessarily expensive, but it isn't very reflective of, for instance, my situation, comparatively.
I'm also not ill of health, nor am I in a age demographic (yet) that pushes my rates way up. Nor am I suffering from family history of any sort, like heart disease. I eat right. I don't smoke. I exercise regularly. I am only 160lbs and am 5'10", so I can't be classified as fat, either. STILL, my insurance rates are, in my opinion, too high.
What's to be done about it?
Not sure I have an good answer on that, but one thing I KNOW is that I don't want the Gummint, and definitely not Barry, doing anything even remotely close to sticking his fucking fingers into the mix, attempting to "fix" it. If anyone needs any evidence of what the results are when this kind of thing takes place, look at the recent credit card law that was enacted.
It didn't do a GOD-DAMNED THING it was intended to do, and instead made rates go up!
Yeah, I know the feeling - we have the .gov's fingers in health care here, and the results are not good.
I just found it amazing that I could be overseas for a year with my family, and for less than $2 per day, I could be covered for ANY medical problem, in ANY country in the world.
FWIW, I pay more than that PER MONTH for private health cover while we are in Oz - despite the existence of a "free" medical system, and the fact that I am not covered for what the .gov won't pay per medical service provided. (The private policy allows me choice of doctor, and the option of getting treatment ahead of the .gov service wait.)
Just one point, Sendarius, you didn't USE that insurance. And I don't think it would cover, say, cancer treatments if you fell ill here and were diagnosed while on vacation. Accident? Sure. Food poisoning? OK. Lung cancer? Not so much.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
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JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2010/02/quote-of-day-back-off-edition.html (21 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
*Sigh*
Kevin, out of all the people, I shouldn't have to point this out to you. The reason the populace doesn't want heath care has nothing to do with the quality of care we won't be receiving, or the increased costs, or the lack of choice. No, people don't want it because Obama simply has not explained how wonderful it will be. Period.
Look for the upcoming HBO Miniseries featuring Obama and his push for what's best for you.
The daily mandatory viewing of Obama will help clear things up, too. His 2 minutes of love will be a wonder to behold, citizen!
I am surprised he CAN come here to get medical care. I think, for some time, Canada forbade that, or at least they tried. Part of why his doctors may have recommended coming here was not just quality, but timeliness. Though I suspect both are at issue. It can take a very long time to get medically necessary surgery there. I am not sure if their politicians get VIP treatment or not, though I suspect they do, one way or another. Oh well...
On the other hand, perhaps we should bar Canadians using our resources? Nah, this guy is probably full self pay, supporting some of those who can't or don't pay here in the U.S. I suppose I just get petty about some things. Is he a conservative? I haven't bothered yet to check. If not, he should be forced to use the system he or his forced on everyone else. That's the ticket.
I noticed Danny Williams and his media friends carefully avoided the topic of timeliness. The average peasant would still be waiting for his "free" treatment up there. If you die while waiting, that's a big savings for the country.
Under the British system its illegal to go anywhere else or pay extra for better care. Don't know about Canada - probably is.
These two-faced hypocrites remove that choice for all the normal people - then try to be all principled and noble about themselves.
Kill the Bill!
It's illegal to go anywhere else to get better care? WTH? Even if you pay for it yourself?
It's not illegal in Canada to go anywhere else in the world to get health care. You just have to pay for it out of your own pocket. My birth country hasn't descended into the morass of nanny state socialism that Britain has. And more than few Canadian do come here for it and pay full price. Especially anything involving cancer.
I grew up in Canada with it's Wonderful(TM) health care system. My grandfather went to the U.S. for treatment of his prostate cancer, which tells you all you need to know about said system.
What I can't fathom is that any country, save North Korea and Cuba, would forbid someone to leave the country and obtain health care elsewhere on their own dime.
Cue the idiot with his usual bullshit about "The plural of anecdote is not data," or whatever other horseshit he's attemping to blather on about.
theirritablearchitect:
Don't worry. He doesn't understand any part of that concept, so he's never used it.
I'm surprised all the medical collectivists haven't acted in concert with the UN to close the "International medical care loophole", to prevent these heinous sprees of "medical tourism".
Wait.
It was illegal, but the Canadian supreme court overturned that a few years ago.
It's not illegal to leave Britain - or to pay for your own treatments.
But once you pony up, say, to get a callus removed, then anything to do with that callus removal is on you. Gets infected? Your dime, you gotta find people to treat you and etc.
And what's been happening (from what I've been reading) is then you run the risk of anything else being categorized by the NHS as "related to" what you paid for... and thus is on you.
So you paid for cataract surgery, now you're having heart problems. NHS says that's due to that cataract surgery, your problem. Not theirs. You're still paying into the NHS, but you're blocked from all services, essentially.
You're at the whim and whimsy of bureaucrats. And they say "torture" is illegal in England.
Ah, that clears that up. So not officially illegal, but they make it as unattractive as possible. Which, from a pragmatic point of view, doesn't make sense. Wouldn't you prefer people with means to get care elsewhere and place less of a burden on your already burdened health care system?
Apparently Echo ate my comment.
Echo is a piece of shit.
Anyway.
It's not illegal to leave the NHS.
Apparently, what happens is though you're at the risk for anything after you get treated on your dime being labelled as a direct result of that - and so it's 100% on you to deal with it.
(One case I heard of, cataract surgery paid for in the US was cited as the proximate cause of a heart attack 5 years later, and the NHS was refusing to pay.)
At the whim and whimsy of bureaucrats. And they say that "torture" is "illegal" in England.
Hmm, we're always being told that American's pay more for health care than other countries, but I wonder if these statistics take into account the instances of medical tourism.
Talking about tourism ...
I keep hearing reports and anecdotes about how expensive health care AND health insurance are in the US.
Well I have an anecdote for you:
I am an Australian. I have a wife and two children. We travelled as a family to the US for two months on vacation. Naturally I bought travel insurance. As well as events related to travel, this insurance covered us for ALL possible health costs associated with illness or accident - including special transport home if necessary. The term of the cover was one full calendar year - all of which could have been spent in the US without additional costs or charges.
Total cost - AUD$672.
I understand that the risk profile of a tourist family is different to local residents, but I can't imagine that the insurance company was losing money on this class of policy. If US health care was TRULY as fearsomely expensive as is claimed, I would expect the price for this type of cover to be SIGNIFICANTLY higher.
Sendarius,
It's pretty expensive, and going higher, almost by the minute.
I'm not trying to tell you that your premium for the policy that you bought is necessarily expensive, but it isn't very reflective of, for instance, my situation, comparatively.
I'm also not ill of health, nor am I in a age demographic (yet) that pushes my rates way up. Nor am I suffering from family history of any sort, like heart disease. I eat right. I don't smoke. I exercise regularly. I am only 160lbs and am 5'10", so I can't be classified as fat, either. STILL, my insurance rates are, in my opinion, too high.
What's to be done about it?
Not sure I have an good answer on that, but one thing I KNOW is that I don't want the Gummint, and definitely not Barry, doing anything even remotely close to sticking his fucking fingers into the mix, attempting to "fix" it. If anyone needs any evidence of what the results are when this kind of thing takes place, look at the recent credit card law that was enacted.
It didn't do a GOD-DAMNED THING it was intended to do, and instead made rates go up!
And Barry just HAD to have that law.
Stupid motherfucker.
Yeah, I know the feeling - we have the .gov's fingers in health care here, and the results are not good.
I just found it amazing that I could be overseas for a year with my family, and for less than $2 per day, I could be covered for ANY medical problem, in ANY country in the world.
FWIW, I pay more than that PER MONTH for private health cover while we are in Oz - despite the existence of a "free" medical system, and the fact that I am not covered for what the .gov won't pay per medical service provided. (The private policy allows me choice of doctor, and the option of getting treatment ahead of the .gov service wait.)
Just one point, Sendarius, you didn't USE that insurance. And I don't think it would cover, say, cancer treatments if you fell ill here and were diagnosed while on vacation. Accident? Sure. Food poisoning? OK. Lung cancer? Not so much.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>