" Official figures show that senior citizens will make up 25 percent of the population by 2036. "

REALLY?

Calvin, y'all better start importing some of our (USA) illegal aliens very quickly in order to PAY for your future retirement!

Hint: get 'em to work and pay into the system without a chance of 'em ever collecting any benefits!

--Stitz--

Unless Obama makes them all legal.

Nick

oh no, nick -- that would be rude and crude!

we (republican types) wouldn't have anything to complain about!

hahaha. not a chance!

Hint: get 'em to work and pay into the system without a chance of 'em ever collecting any benefits! Is this some sort of republican humour? I don't get it!! :(

Yeah I've been reading about the cutbacks on generic drug prices. However the stats are a little flawed. All the stuff about health care budgets eating up a bigger part of the provincial budgets is due at least in part due to cuts in income taxes. Our health care spending/GDP has risen around 3% since 1975, and is lower than the US. We're spending 10 cents per dollar. Our mortality rates and life expectancies are lower and higher respectively. Granted we don't have to provide for as many people as you guys do down there. But we're also not as rich.

The whole idea of geriatric care driving the entire system into crisis mode isn't as simple, if you look at the stats. According to several reports in 1995, the majority of spending on 65+ was actually utilized by healthy seniors rather than seniors actually undergoing treatment.

Will privitization discourage these healthy seniors from excessively bleeding the system dry? I'm not sure...but values in Canada are different from the values in America. Ultimately that's all it boils down to. Because, actually, yeah, we do believe in taxing more heavily people who make more income to pay for everyone's health care. I'm not well researched in this area, but health care privitization sounds like a crude way to deal with a problem that can be effectively solved with better micromanagement of resources, in particular the area of geriatric health care.

I need to do a lot more reading on the health care debates in Canada and the US...Public or private health care are ideas. What I'm starting realize is that people tend to associate problems in the system with the idea itself. But the fact that the current system is abused or broken does not neccesarily mean that the idea isn't good; it means that the system should be improved.

==
One unrelated thing I was thinking about and then talking to my friend about..the entire debate between public single payer or privatized insurance:

Of the money spent on paying insurance premiums in the US, how much of that gets siphoned into admin and management, marketing and advertising? By common sense alone, doesn't it save money to have a single party manage all the insurance? Doesn't this simple change in itself save billions of dollars?

" ...doesn't it save money to have a single party manage all the insurance? "

"You can paint it any color, so long as it's black."
-Henry Ford in a discussion of the Model T

--Stitz--

I have 2 concerns with a single payer system., not sure if they are valid, but I still have the concerns:

1. Who will watch this company to make sure they aren't splipping in their coverage or making too much money? I don't necessarily think that a government agenency is the right thing.

2. I feel this removes competition. Without competition, the incentives to improve and innovate are mostly removed. This is my biggest concern!!!

As far as the dollars going to admin and advertising: Us Americans are sometimes like monkeys, we can be tricked by flashy things ;-) Truthfully, there is a boatload more from these companies going to lobbyists in Washington so that things 'go their way', wink, wink...

Bob

Bob those are good points - let me know if the following makes sense

1. This a huge concern if there is a single corporate insurance company, but if the government manages insurance, they are under better public scrutiny than any other company would ever be. I know that lots of people get mad when 'profit' is thrown around like a dirty word, but the point is that the government isn't driven to make profit the same way a company is.

2. Are you talking about innovation and improvements to health care, or to insurance coverage? There is a difference between socialized medicine and socialized insurance, which is what Canada operates under. Medical institutes are primarily privately owned and operated in Canada, and services are administered by the private sector. It is payment for these services that is socialized.

I don't understand the idea of competition between insurance companies. I mean, there are things like transit which I believe should be privatized (incredibly annoying in a city like Toronto) because with competition you get better trains, better service in stations, and you don't get union members being paid exorbitant amounts of money for doing nothing but ticket collecting.

But when it comes to insurance, what does competition accomplish, exactly? The cost of a procedure isn't being affected by competition between insurance companies; there is a disconnect between the actual health care service and the insurance company. So doesn't it just boil down to how much an insurance company/agency will pay? 10 private companies squabbling over paying 50%-60% of the procedure, compared to a single government agency with 10 times less admin and bureaucracy that can afford to pay for 65% of the procedure...isn't that preferable?

Calvin listening to sound bites about the rich not paying their fair share isn't correct, give the link below a read.

Currently 47% of citizens here pay no Federal income tax.

According to your words 'But the fact that the current system is abused or broken does not neccesarily mean that the idea isn't good; it means that the system should be improved.'

The system can be improved but not by a federal take over.

'1. This a huge concern if there is a single corporate insurance company, but if the government manages insurance, they are under better public scrutiny than any other company would ever be. I know that lots of people get mad when 'profit' is thrown around like a dirty word, but the point is that the government isn't driven to make profit the same way a company is.'

Yes I can have the fox guard the hen house but it would be foolish on my part. Who is going to monitor the government (the fox) except bigger foxes protecting their access to the hen house?

What happens when the private hospitals tell your government you aren't paying us enough to cover the procedure?

You don't understand the government regulations put on insurance companies. Each insurance company is licensed to operate in some states but not other states because each state has different requirements. If people could buy across state lines and open the market up for anyone to purchase the coverage they want from any company they want, competition would make the rates come down.

Your idea of a 'single government agency with ten times less admin and bureaucracy' is completely wrong. The government will have ten times more administration and unionized employees doing the work. Government employees are paid a much higher wage and much better benefits than private sector employees are now being paid. Who pays these employees - see my link posted.

To give you a better picture of those money grubbing private insurance companies - 80% of collected premiums must be paid out by law. The remaining 20% must pay employees and expenses to operate PLUS by law, have enough cash money in reserve to cover everything for a year if they never receive another premium. All of these are federal regulations. Not for profit insurance companies will probably be extinct in the next five years.

You need to slap those greedy senior citizens around and tell them to quit going to the doctor so much.

Brooke

Here is a link that might be useful: tax percentage

Thanks for that, Brooke. I didn't know that insurance companies are regulated in that way by the law to pay out 80% of collected premiums. I have to think about what you've said...this stuff needs a bit of incubation time in my head!

Calvin it is very hard to follow the complicated machinations regarding all the regulations.

When the new system goes in place, insurance companies will then have to pay out 85% of their premiums. With the current regulation of the 20% of cash on hand, the additional 5% paid out will come from the operating portion.

This country is famous for writing regulations and when those fail, we write more regulations to correct what they got wrong.

Brooke

"If people could buy across state lines and open the market up for anyone to purchase the coverage they want from any company they want, competition would make the rates come down."

AMEN!

There is no competition in the Medicare/Medigap coverage for me in the State of Maryland. Consequently, the fees are "fixed", in more ways than one!

--Stitz--

Calvin,

As far as: I feel this removes competition. Without competition, the incentives to improve and innovate are mostly removed. This is my biggest concern!!!

If the givernment takes over healthcare, they wil mandate how much a doctor (or other provider) can make. If you are limitied in what you can make, the best people are going to move to other areas where they are not limited on how much they can make. With the good people gone, there is no real 'competition' so thigs don't improve as fast or well as they should and with the government dictating coverages, IMO there is no reason to innovate because there is no reward for being innovative.

Bob

Well I'm still trying to figure out this issue which reading the other Canadian Drug thread is helping..or making it more complicated.

Brooke says: Who is going to monitor the government (the fox) except bigger foxes protecting their access to the hen house? So just so I understand the analogy, are you saying that by having competing insurance companies, they keep each other 'in check' whereas if it's just the government, they will over-pay and go into the red?

I do despise the idea of unionized government employees with their truckloads of benefits...

Bob - the point is that at least from my understanding, health care and insurance are separate issues. Doctors here (the majority) are not paid by salary, but by procedure. The better a doctor is, the more patients he/she has, the more he/she can bill the government for procedures performed. There is competition on the health care front for better procedures and better services. And that's where competition matters - where the doctor/patient are concerned. If you're a crappy hospital with out-of-date equipment, no one will go to you, and you will get no money. The only difference is that in America, instead of going to the government for money, they go to private insurance companies.

The statement you highlighted means we have government regulators in all factions of commerce and when those regulators screw up we add another layer of regulators instead of correcting the existing problem. It has nothing to do with competing insurance companies.

I'm going to bow out of these discussions. If you are really interested you can find the answers to your questions on the internet. I also urge you to read the links I provided in another thread about our Constitution and the Bill of Rights - both are brief and define the powers of the Federal government.

My favorite founder of this country was Thomas Jefferson - here are some of my favorite quotes from him - think about them.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Most bad government has grown out of too much government.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.

AND MY VERY FAVORITE

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

These are part of the principles I was taught in school. I guess the old saying of not being able to teach an old dog new tricks applies to me.

Brooke

Very nice Brooke :-)

I also like Margaret Thatcher's quote: "...Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them."

Bob

Brooke, nice presentation!

--Stitz--

You're right Bob, another great quote and I also loved the Iron Lady - Great Britain could use her again.

Thanks Stitz, glad you enjoyed it.

Brooke

I have stayed out of this as I have said what I need to say in the other thread. Nobody however has addressed the fact that Canada, for significantly less money spent per person, gets much better results than the US. In nearly all parameters Canada is in the top 10 while the US is from 30 to 40 plus ranked world wide. Our cost per patient is at least twice what Canada spends.

Nick

Nick,

Our rank may be so low because of all of the un-insured and illegals who can't/won't get coverage. Generally without coverage/insurance you ignore early symptoms and wait until you absolutely have to deal with something. If you wait until the problem is bad, it is always more difficult and expensive to fix than if you had treated it earlier.

On another note: I see where there are many instances where Canadians come to the US for care, but not so much the other way around. Other than drugs that is... Why is that? Maybe better specialists, quicker turn-around, more likely to be done correctly in the US? I'm not sure why, but I know it happens often. Seems funny when Canada is supposed to be ranked so high in healthcare. Is it a matter of quality vs. quantity. If so, I'll pick quality every time.

Thanks,

Bob

" I'll pick quality every time. "

amen, brother!

--Stitz--

Give this link a read Bob - the WHO statistics have been debunked numerous times by many people.

Brooke

Here is a link that might be useful: debunking the WHO statistics

interesting article Brooke. thanks for sharing it.

I want to highlight the chart at the bottom of the article relating to cancer survival rates. Note that the heterogenous USA is at the top of the list? What's even more important is that other heterogenous populations such as Canada and Australia aren't even on the list, only homogenous populations!

--Stitz--