Supreme Court Health Care Decision Thread

[Foolmewunz]

1 & 2 - I'm aware of medical tourism, and I did see the links you mention, but I'm looking for numbers. I have not heard of Americans hopping the border into Canada for medical treatment, and I'm curious to see how often this really happens. My whole point/question is do we really wants Canada's system when it seems they have plenty of flaws...even after it's been around for so long? I find it odd that even the Prime Minister of Canada would come to the States for a procedure that is readily available in his country: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/09/the-canadian-patients’-remedy-for-health-care-go-to-america/

Um, the "Premier" of Newfoundland / = the "Prime Minister of Canada". You're quoting a blog and getting the information contained therein wrong. Further, said blog does not link back to sources. They cite informal "surveys", not studies.

3 - Yes, yes...I agree with you. I didn't think I had to spell it out again. I'm not arguing that our healthcare system doesn't suck. I want to discuss why you think we should adopt something similar to Canada when it seems flawed...enough so that Canadians abandon free care to pay for services here.
(ETA - I'm seeing some links online that suggest that, even though Canadians pay for the services up front, they are reimbursed by the Canadian government. I have to give this some thought.) <snip>

What evidence do you have for this assertion. You seem to have missed my post, above. The linked study is in a peer reviewed journal. A little over 1/2 of 1% of Canadians seek care in the USA. How is that "abandoning" the Canadian system.

Whoa! I'm as fond of a good anecdote as the next guy, but this one would be better if it started off with "So these two Canadians and a duck walk into a clinic..." That way I'd know there was an actual punchline coming instead of the dogmatism.

You're citing your own anecdotal knowledge of some Canadian people who go to the US for treatment? Do you have any actual statistics to back that up? What would the figure be? 20% (6,000,000) of all Canadians? 10% (3,000,000? 5% (1,500,000)?
How about .61%? No, that's not 61%. It's 61/100ths of 1/100th(per cent). 18,000. In short, 99.39% do not opt to travel to the US for health care or medical services.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/21/3/19.full

There's a whole lot more of the population than 18000 people in Canada who could afford to buy health care or medical services in the US. They don't do it. Your anecdote is superficial and incorrect.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I was the one who originally brought up medical tourism. I did provide a link that shows that Americans do go to Canada to get health care. http://www.findprivateclinics.ca/res...al-tourism.php

I will revise my statement then, it's still an unfair comparison because such fee for service care in Canada would not be as well known as fee for service care in the US.

It goes to show how people oversimplify very complex issues in order to make sense of them. The result is that people draw incredibly faulty conclusions.

 

[gnome]

Mentioning waiting lists in Canada... I have to wonder if people are making an apples-to-apples comparison... for example, the "waiting" for someone who has no medical insurance is probably rather long.

I'm willing to bet that Americans wait longer for care than Canadians on the average, if you factor that in.

It is interesting how many supposed defects of various kinds of health care reform are already happening, or worse, without it.

I am willing to stipulate a possibility for medical "tourism"... it is quite possible that American care is superior for those who can afford it. That doesn't make it an ideal system.

 

[JFrankA]

A very good point, and more than a quibble in my opinion. No state is getting exempted from the ACA. All the insurance reforms apply, even if the state allows the Feds to handle much of the implementation.

As of 2014, regardless of your state:

You will be subject to the mandate if you don't have qualified coverage. You will be eligible for premium subsidies if you're below 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. You will not be turned down for pre-existing conditions.

JFrankA - While I applaud the effort, I think your chart focuses on the wrong thing. What you're really showing is whether the feds or the state will be running some of the day to day operations of the ACA, not whether the ACA itself will be enacted.

I'm was about to improve the chart when, (after reading your post more carefully - I think), it struck me that in other words, the states that are "opting out" of the ACA will, in effect allow the government to run their health care? Am I reading this correctly?

 

[JFrankA]

Some illegal aliens do use fake SS numbers to get jobs, some percentage of them will have perfectly valid insurance from their workplace. But under US law, emergency rooms are required to treat anyone who shows up, regardless of ability to pay. Illegal aliens who show up at the emergency room will continue to be treated. And hospitals will continue to shift the cost onto the bills of paying customers.

Do we really want to have a society where emergency rooms do a wallet biopsy before attempting to save a life?

Oh, I agree.

On a side note, I explained that to my father, and his reaction was, (of course) "So what good is 'Obamacare' anyway if we're paying for illegal aliens?"

...*sigh*

 

[ZirconBlue]

Kaiser Family Foundation has put together a pretty good quiz here:

Health Reform Quiz



I thought one of the questions was poorly worded and got it wrong, but I got the rest right.

Thanks for sharing that. I got 100%.

 

[pgwenthold]

kaiser family foundation has put together a pretty good quiz here:

health reform quiz



i thought one of the questions was poorly worded and got it wrong, but i got the rest right.

10/10!

 

[The Mutha]

Missed one, dang it!

 

[Kestrel]

10 out of 10.

 

[boooeee]

I'm was about to improve the chart when, (after reading your post more carefully - I think), it struck me that in other words, the states that are "opting out" of the ACA will, in effect allow the government to run their health care? Am I reading this correctly?

Calling it "Health care" is too broad, in my opinion. They're allowing the federal government to run the exchange which at its core, is just a quoting system for health insurance rates. It also handles other functions like subsidy determination, risk adjustment, and possibly rate negotiation with insurance carriers.

Bu that's a far cry from running "health care".

 

[Foolmewunz]

Kaiser Family Foundation has put together a pretty good quiz here:

Health Reform Quiz



I thought one of the questions was poorly worded and got it wrong, but I got the rest right.

1/10 I are with the Tea Party.

(Or at least I responded as Hannity, Trump, and O'Reilly would have me respond. I'm hooked on Fox News Channel since I've finally been able to view it after getting cable in Thailand. I'd never seen it before. )

 

[gnome]

Calling it "Health care" is too broad, in my opinion. They're allowing the federal government to run the exchange which at its core, is just a quoting system for health insurance rates. It also handles other functions like subsidy determination, risk adjustment, and possibly rate negotiation with insurance carriers.

Bu that's a far cry from running "health care".

Shh, don't tell anyone, then you won't be able to call it a socialist takeover.

 

[Kestrel]

1/10 I are with the Tea Party.

(Or at least I responded as Hannity, Trump, and O'Reilly would have me respond. I'm hooked on Fox News Channel since I've finally been able to view it after getting cable in Thailand. I'd never seen it before. )

Fox News is an alternative reality show.

 

[JFrankA]

1/10 I are with the Tea Party.

(Or at least I responded as Hannity, Trump, and O'Reilly would have me respond. I'm hooked on Fox News Channel since I've finally been able to view it after getting cable in Thailand. I'd never seen it before. )

Oh no! The infection called Fox News is spreading world wide!!!!

Remember, the cure for Fox News Disease is truth.

 

[Meadmaker]

10 out of 10.

Me, too. Which is, according to the last page, better than 99.6% of all Americans.

Whis is kind of scary in a way. There were a few tricky questions, I suppose, but I would like to think that at least 1% could get all ten right.

It does say good things about JREF that I'm fairly confident our perfect score rate is certainly much higher than 0.4%.