universal. single payer. all of these fancy words. here is what i want in health care...

[1]

i feel bad. i call a doctor's office. i schedule an appointment. i am seen by a doctor. my needs are met. my prescriptions are filled. follow-up care and subsequent prescriptions are filled until i am better. and i don't have to pay anything out-of-pocket for this care.

let's start from this basic premise. i don't care what you call it (is there a name for it?)

how do we implement this. is it that difficult?

(all of the threads on du seem to dissolve into this odd discussion of the terminology of this concept. whatever. what do you call the above solution?)

/end of rant...

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I have MaineCare (medicaid) and it works more or less like that. I do have to pay

a couple of bucks here and there in co-pays. And I do mean literally $2. I like it. It works for me and my family. I think it is less complicated or expensive as the Anthem we had when hubby was teaching.

Honestly, I wish everyone had this available to them and I told the ER nurse so. She certainly agreed that our health care system is messed up and only getting worse.

[1]

3. thank you. i might just move to maine!

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. LOL Well, let's hope it holds out in our dire economic circumstances these days. :^( *&^@#%!$ GWB!

What an absolute disaster he has left us all in.

[leftstreet]

2. K&R Call it what you want, that's What We Want!

:thumbsup:

[CC]

5. We have employer sponsored insurance.?

We pay 92.00 a week for two of us. Copays are 15 for primary, 30 for anything else. Drugs vary from 15 to 50.00. Hospital stay a minimum of 225.00 per night. We qualify for medical deductions every year. To do that your medical bills have to be 7% above your gross pay. Our copays etc. go up every single year. I'll take universal health insurance for all and even be willing to pay higher taxes for it. Call it single payer or whatever, just take the profit motive out of the equation all the way around. For profit hospitals, doctors, drug companies and insurance. and people wonder why so little cost so much. Some things should be beyond profit.

[Ms. Toad]

6. I just had a daughter diagnosed with a condition

that is likely to max out any health insurance policy we ever have.

When people ask how they can help - since there isn't any concrete thing they can do for her - I tell them:

Please work to make access to health care de-linked from employment, ability to pay, health status, or ability to maintain a full time student status. (I figure that might allow even those opposed to something called single payer - which includes people who do want to help my daughter - to work to support something that would achieve the same goals.)

(The other things they can do - unrelated to this thread but which I would be grateful if you all would do - promote organ donation and research into autoimmune disorders.)

[Mira]

7. Yeah ! That is what we want - 10 days ago my mother fell and broke her hand

she lives in Germany.
She is 84 years old.
She was treated in the hospital on the day, x-rayed, break set. Evaluated the next day. Put into the hospital and operated on with local anesthesia because of her age, the break was a bit more complicated than originally determined.
She was kept in a fine room with a private phone for 5 days.
This will cost her nothing.
And it is not Medicare-Medicaid, it's her insurance company that pays without any hassle.

They re-did her teeth to the tune of thousands of Euros last year.
She would have long come to live with me in the States, but can't because her health insurance is too important.

I on the other hand, though I am insured for almost 500 bucks a month with very high deductibles, can get coverage of my poor ass in exactly the same way a hospital gown handles the subject.

My rage about this system has made me do what I should not do, pay no attention to preventive care at all, and I don't even get checkups.
It just makes me too mad to pay so much, and then everything else costs anyway.

GRRRRRRR

[JDPriestly]

8. You want single-payer, government healthcare.

That's what you are describing. That's what I experienced when I went to doctors in Europe. I got to go to any doctor I wanted. I just called for an appointment or dropped by to see if the doctor was available. A nice lady (maybe a secretary, maybe the nurse) in the doctor's office took down my information. The doctor applied for the payment.

If the doctor gave me a prescription, I took it to the pharmacy. The pharmacist took it, filled it and charged me a small co-pay. Same for the dentist although back then, I had to pay extra for Novocaine or something like that when I went to the dentist. The "extra" for the painkiller wasn't much. Believe me, if we could afford it, it was next to nothing. The doctors were great. The care was great. My children, my husband and I remained in excellent health.

My husband had a fairly serious accident and broke his femur. That created a serious problem, but the same kind of difficulty could have arisen in the U.S. That is the only time we had a problem. The European doctors would have handled the complications with my husband's leg, but we came back to the U.S. before they had a chance.

[aquart]

9. Dentist? EUROPE HAS DENTAL CARE??????

Uncle Sam should die of shame.

[Naturyl]

10. That is single-payer universal health care.

Five words are more convenient than describing it in detail, no?

[BzaDem]

11. Under single payer, you would be paying a lot in taxes

but you wouldn't be paying for individual visits.

[ejpoeta]

15. this is the part i try to explain to people who seem to NOT understand the idea.

We pay for our health insurance. How much on average do we pay for health insurance through our employer or ourselves? We would be paying that in taxes for a single payer system. I wonder how much the difference would be. We were paying $600/mo until january when we switched to a high deductible cheaper insurance and switched the kids to child health plus. Could we get folks to understand if they could see what they would be paying towards healthcare if we switched to single payer. people understand money. I know we pay more in this current system because with the uninsured it is like when a pipe burst in town and they had to get a temporary fix when they were going to redo the whole thing in a few months anyway.... it cost half of the cost of the whole job just to repair that one part. It's insane!! Is there anywhere that one could find some kind of comparison?? Of course, the other scare tactic against it is government bureaucrats deciding what your doctor can do. Don't we already have that with a person working for the insurance company who gets bonuses for NOT covering things??

[ejpoeta]

17. but we are already paying a lot for insurance. that's the thing.

wouldn't it be less if we were all paying into the same system, instead of different pools?

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. What you've described is "free care"

The relevant discussion is how, behind the scenes, you get to paradigm. Did you pay an insurance premium? Was it funded through taxes? Was your doctor a government employee?

You can do it simply indeed; nationalize the medical industry top-to-bottom. Every hospital, every clinic, every doctor and every nurse are all now government properties and government employees.

The challenge is understanding all the ramifications and deciding if the disease merits the cure.

[newfie11]

13. No one is forced into bankruptcy because of health problems

in Europe/Canada. I am willing to pay more in taxes for something this important. Why this country cannot help the average person is ludicrous.
Our health care is not the best because many people are priced out of it until a disaster strikes. Then they loose it all.
I have worked for a hospital in Michigan that threated elderly patients if they did not pay the deductible on medicare they would take their homes.
At another hospital in Illinois I saw an elderly woman that came into ER with one lung filled with fluid and having trouble breathing. She was examined and sent home because a surgeon needed to put in a drain would not come in at night (8 pm)because she was on medicare. She had to return the next day.

Now many doctors are refusing medicare. What in the hell is wrong with this country!

Oh yeah I have 40 years in the medical field.

[Vinca]

14. I want everything the OP wants, but it can't cost $12,000+ a year.

Actually, if an insurance company actually paid for everything it would be a whole lot more than that. We need a nonprofit system, whatever it is. I remember having Blue Cross/Blue Shield in the late 1960's, early 1970's when it was a nonprofit organization. It cost very little (all paid by an employer)and covered everything except prescriptions. In retrospect, we really took it for granted because you never, ever gave it a moment's thought. You knew it was there, you didn't dwell on healthcare and whether or not you would get it. Those were the days when I got yearly check-ups and didn't try to mend bad cuts with butterfly bandages.

[ejpoeta]

16. wow!! i wonder what it's like not to worry about healthcare!! if the focus were

on prevention i think it would be a lot less expensive overall.

[Vinca]

18. Exactly. I remember being treated for a pre-cancerous cervical

condition when I was about 20. Today I'd never be able to afford that kind of care out of pocket. It's crazy.

[eridani]

19. It's difficult because private insurers make a lot of money by withholding care

--and killing people.

[NightWatcher]

20. you describe something crazy......like the VA

I love the old vets who criticize us hippies for our desire for free healthcare, but then they take their happy asses to a huge incarnation of such a system. Sure it may not always be the prettiest building, but it serves the need.

[WhiteTara]

21. I am on CMSP

and that is how it works.