Covid-19 and Medicare for All

[chez]

Utter nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about.

Who would I rather have my back, my government ( people ) funded insurance or some private insurance that has profits as their motivation. Hmmm....give me a second to think about it.

[Alan Klein]

Utter nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about.

What the government gives.  The government can take away.

[Robert Roaldi]

What the government gives.  The government can take away.

You are obsessing.

The government is you.  A private insurance company is your best friend while you pay the premiums and your sworn deep-pockets adversary the instant you make a claim.

[Jeremy Roussak]

The point with government insurance is you're dependent on them.  Bureaucrats control your destiny.

Utter nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about.

It's one of his more charming attributes, Robert.

Jeremy

[Alan Klein]

Who would I rather have my back, my government ( people ) funded insurance or some private insurance that has profits as their motivation. Hmmm....give me a second to think about it.

The government took away some of Rob's health benefits that he would have had if he went with a private insurer.  That's what we were discussing.  Profits and competition get you the best, and most cost effective products.  Look where digital photography is today?  When Kodak film dropped the ball, they were bypassed and pushed to near extinction. The government didn't invent the Nikon and Canons and others.  How come you trust private in everything else?  Home insurance is private.  Life Insurance is private.  Your photo editing company is private.  You purchase a reputable company and like anything else, if you're not happy, change.  You can shop around.  You can't shop around when government provides it. Everything the government provides sucks. At least in America.  Maybe you have better bureaucrats than we do.  But I doubt it. 

[Alan Klein]

Utter nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about.


It's one of his more charming attributes, Robert.

Jeremy

Oh great.  Now I have to fight with the umpire.

[chez]

The government took away some of Rob's health benefits that he would have had if he went with a private insurer.  That's what we were discussing.  Profits and competition get you the best, and most cost effective products.  Look where digital photography is today?  When Kodak film dropped the ball, they were bypassed and pushed to near extinction. The government didn't invent the Nikon and Canons and others.  How come you trust private in everything else?  Home insurance is private.  Life Insurance is private.  Your photo editing company is private.  You purchase a reputable company and like anything else, if you're not happy, change.  You can shop around.  You can't shop around when government provides it. Everything the government provides sucks. At least in America.  Maybe you have better bureaucrats than we do.  But I doubt it.

Well maybe that is your corrupt government. The US spends twice the amount on medical care per capita than Canada...yet so many people in the US cannot get the care they need. Yes private at times can be better...but they can pick and choose who and what to cover so that they maximise profits. If you so happen to be in their target group...great...but if you are a high risk...well you better be ready to pay for it. Unfortunately, many high risk people are in their retirement years with no company sponsered insurance and they cannot afford the every growing premiums on their constantly eroding pensions...so they just need to suck it up...like my friend at age 72 being forced to continue working in order to afford the medical care his wife requires.

[Craig Lamson]

Alan is (technically) wrong about paying 1.45% of my income for Medicare -- since I'm self-employed, I pay 2.9% of my total income, just as I pay 15% (up to the limit) for Social Security, because I'm self-employed. So the situation there is a little worse than he suggests, in terms of costs.

Yea you pay it up front but you get half back as a tax deduction, actually a reduction to your base earnings and is taken as a line item in calculating your adjusted gross income

As to just a multiple of 2 to your current medicare tax, do you really that little is going to cover the full cost of medicare for all for everyone?  How about a multiple of say 6-10 or more?

[Craig Lamson]

Well maybe that is your corrupt government. The US spends twice the amount on medical care per capita than Canada...yet so many people in the US cannot get the care they need. Yes private at times can be better...but they can pick and choose who and what to cover so that they maximise profits. If you so happen to be in their target group...great...but if you are a high risk...well you better be ready to pay for it. Unfortunately, many high risk people are in their retirement years with no company sponsered insurance and they cannot afford the every growing premiums on their constantly eroding pensions...so they just need to suck it up...like my friend at age 72 being forced to continue working in order to afford the medical care his wife requires.

In the US, at 72, your friend has access to medicare for medical coverage.  It covers 80% of your medical costs, (if hte treatmetns are approved) and it pays the provider at a negotiated rate.  Unless his wife is less than 65 years old, she too can get medicare.  You pay $144.60 per month for this coverage.  Your deductable is $198.  If oyu choose you may buy a suppliment plan to pick up th 20% medicare does not vover.  Cost of these plans vary but all plans must offer the exact same coverage.  Look at between $80 and $120 bucks a month at age 65 for these plans. 

For coverage for drugs you need yet another paln, called a part d.  These plans pay a graduated amount for drugs and have a hole in the middle where you will be required to pay a substantial amount for your drugs. its complicated but you pay a co-pay up until a certain amount and then you fall into the hole.  Until you have spent $5,018.75 out of pocket you remain in this hole. after that, Medicare pays for 95% of the cost of your drugs. Coverage costs $30-490 per month depending on wht deductables and pharmacies you select.

Quite frankly I thnik the system is way too confusing, at a time when the customer is getting older and perhaps not as aware as they could be.  But its a much better deal than buying individual insurance.  My costs for a husband/wife priviate plan was nearly $25k a year before we went on medicare.

[Rob C]

Well maybe that is your corrupt government. The US spends twice the amount on medical care per capita than Canada...yet so many people in the US cannot get the care they need. Yes private at times can be better...but they can pick and choose who and what to cover so that they maximise profits. If you so happen to be in their target group...great...but if you are a high risk...well you better be ready to pay for it. Unfortunately, many high risk people are in their retirement years with no company sponsered insurance and they cannot afford the every growing premiums on their constantly eroding pensions...so they just need to suck it up...like my friend at age 72 being forced to continue working in order to afford the medical care his wife requires.

Chez, he still doesn't get it; I have concluded that he doesn't want to get it, but prefers endlessly repeating the same garbled - and now most patently obviously - intentional misrepresentation of what happened to me via Brexit, which has zero to do with the UK NHS provisions for its citizens nor with what I actually write.

In fact, I think his sole purpose is to be a shill for the American Republican Party, and to spread as much misinformation as he can. Stuff giving him any more oxygen.

[Alan Klein]

Well maybe that is your corrupt government. The US spends twice the amount on medical care per capita than Canada...yet so many people in the US cannot get the care they need. Yes private at times can be better...but they can pick and choose who and what to cover so that they maximise profits. If you so happen to be in their target group...great...but if you are a high risk...well you better be ready to pay for it. Unfortunately, many high risk people are in their retirement years with no company sponsered insurance and they cannot afford the every growing premiums on their constantly eroding pensions...so they just need to suck it up...like my friend at age 72 being forced to continue working in order to afford the medical care his wife requires.

Apparently, your Canada has awful problems of its own.  The following is Les's comment from the other thread.  I hope he doesn't mind if I copy it.

Quote: "For people who can watch CBC, there is a good discussion on TVO about the hospital backlog and challenges how to clear it. 75,000 surgeries postponed just in Ontario, 12,000 new postponents added each week. It is a very serious and complex problem, people are dying because they can't get the treatment and hospital staff is getting burned out. While most of the beds reserved for the virus patients are unoccupied. The table below show that only 10% of the reserved beds are presently in use and operating rooms run on half-capacity. No doubt, most beds are empty due to the early lockdown, but OTOH that's also a tremendous waste. Clearing the backlog may take a year or longer."

https://www.tvo.org/video/getting-ontario-to-the-post-covid-hospital
 

[Alan Klein]

...and that's on top of normal delays in Canada for health services that don't affect the USA.

[Robert Roaldi]

Apparently, your Canada has awful problems of its own.  The following is Les's comment from the other thread.  I hope he doesn't mind if I copy it.

Quote: "For people who can watch CBC, there is a good discussion on TVO about the hospital backlog and challenges how to clear it. 75,000 surgeries postponed just in Ontario, 12,000 new postponents added each week. It is a very serious and complex problem, people are dying because they can't get the treatment and hospital staff is getting burned out. While most of the beds reserved for the virus patients are unoccupied. The table below show that only 10% of the reserved beds are presently in use and operating rooms run on half-capacity. No doubt, most beds are empty due to the early lockdown, but OTOH that's also a tremendous waste. Clearing the backlog may take a year or longer."

https://www.tvo.org/video/getting-ontario-to-the-post-covid-hospital

Nobody said Canada's system was perfect. Or I never did anyway. Those backlogs are because of the Covid-19, they are probably occurring everywhere. It's a balancing act to manage regular medical care at the same time as the Covid-19 response. Many countries are experiencing this and those problems have nothing to do with whether there are multiple insurance companies involved or just one payer. There are no government bureaucrats throwing wrenches into the system, that's just something you keeping repeating.

[Robert Roaldi]

...and that's on top of normal delays in Canada for health services that don't affect the USA.

That's a big assumption you just made there.

From things that you have said in the past, you seem to think that when Canadians need health care they need to check with a government bureaucrat first and be assigned a place in the queue. This is not how it works. It has never worked like that. You don't understand a thing about it. You have it wrong. Wherever you read that bullshit, they were lying to you.

[chez]

...and that's on top of normal delays in Canada for health services that don't affect the USA.

Well my friend in Georgia has been waiting 5 years to get his knees replaced...but just cannot afford it along with his wife's medical costs. So yeh...if one is privileged, you might get the surgery done quicker...but if you are not the few privileged... you might die waiting. In Canada...there is not this privileged elitist versus the poor when it comes to medical care.

[John Camp]

Well my friend in Georgia has been waiting 5 years to get his knees replaced...but just cannot afford it along with his wife's medical costs. So yeh...if one is privileged, you might get the surgery done quicker...but if you are not the few privileged... you might die waiting. In Canada...there is not this privileged elitist versus the poor when it comes to medical care.

Well, actually, there is a privileged elitist group in Canada, or at least in Ontario and Quebec. There are a couple of hospitals in Cleveland where they can go and simply pay for whatever procedure they want; the clinics are largely used by  Canadians, and are set up specifically to service Canadians. As I understand it, this is usually done to jump the lines in Canada, where for elective procedures, the waits can be quite long. And you really do't want to be standing between a Canadian lady and her facelift.

I will say that Canadian public hospitals are very good -- a couple of decades ago, my daughter needed a very rare nerve splicing procedure which was done only at two hospitals in North America, one in Texas and one in Toronto. After checking them out, we went to Toronto and were quite happy with the doctors and the outcome. While we were there, we met a man who'd suffered from severe frostbite in far northern Canada the winter before we were there, and had lost all his fingers and toes, but they'd managed to save his feet and hands. He was there getting some really odd and advanced (for the time) prosthetics. l'd done some medical reporting during my newspaper career, and I was extremely impressed by what they were doing for the guy. I don't believe it would have been done better in the US at any cost.

 

[chez]

Well, actually, there is a privileged elitist group in Canada, or at least in Ontario and Quebec. There are a couple of hospitals in Cleveland where they can go and simply pay for whatever procedure they want; the clinics are largely used by  Canadians, and are set up specifically to service Canadians. As I understand it, this is usually done to jump the lines in Canada, where for elective procedures, the waits can be quite long. And you really do't want to be standing between a Canadian lady and her facelift.

I will say that Canadian public hospitals are very good -- a couple of decades ago, my daughter needed a very rare nerve splicing procedure which was done only at two hospitals in North America, one in Texas and one in Toronto. After checking them out, we went to Toronto and were quite happy with the doctors and the outcome. While we were there, we met a man who'd suffered from severe frostbite in far northern Canada the winter before we were there, and had lost all his fingers and toes, but they'd managed to save his feet and hands. He was there getting some really odd and advanced (for the time) prosthetics. l'd done some medical reporting during my newspaper career, and I was extremely impressed by what they were doing for the guy. I don't believe it would have been done better in the US at any cost.

There are elitist in every society...look at how quickly sports figures get fixed up. But the bottom line, they had to go to the US or quite often Mexico to get this elite service...not in Canada. Here by and large medical service is provided on an on need basis...not how thick one's wallet is. My Dad who lived off of CPP and OAS got into the hospital the exact day he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Now it was quite advanced and restricted his esophagus passage to the point they had to directly feed him into his stomach...but he needed the care right away and got it. He was not a rich guy by any means.

[Alan Klein]

That's a big assumption you just made there.

From things that you have said in the past, you seem to think that when Canadians need health care they need to check with a government bureaucrat first and be assigned a place in the queue. This is not how it works. It has never worked like that. You don't understand a thing about it. You have it wrong. Wherever you read that bullshit, they were lying to you.

Apparently there are significant wait times in Canada for medical services.  I know in the US, you can get an MRI or CT Scan the same or next day.  Many Canadians come to the US because they can't wait. Wait times seem to be getting worse over the years.  The reports below are indicative of those statistics before coronavirus.  Delays are going to be even more extensive because of it.  There are advantages and disadvantages to every nation's health measures.  Each country has to make a decision on what's best for themselves.

"This edition of Waiting Your Turn indicates that, overall, waiting times for medically necessary treatment have decreased since last year. Specialist physicians surveyed report a median waiting time of 19.8 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment—shorter than the wait of 21.2 weeks reported in 2017. This year’s wait time is 113% longer than in 1993, when it was just 9.3 weeks.

...Patients also experience significant waiting times for various diagnostic technologies across the provinces. This year, Canadians could expect to wait 4.3 weeks for a computed tomography (CT) scan, 10.6 weeks for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and 3.9 weeks for an ultrasound."
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2018

[LesPalenik]

Apparently, your Canada has awful problems of its own.  The following is Les's comment from the other thread.  I hope he doesn't mind if I copy it.

Quote: "For people who can watch CBC, there is a good discussion on TVO about the hospital backlog and challenges how to clear it. 75,000 surgeries postponed just in Ontario, 12,000 new postponents added each week. It is a very serious and complex problem, people are dying because they can't get the treatment and hospital staff is getting burned out. While most of the beds reserved for the virus patients are unoccupied. The table below show that only 10% of the reserved beds are presently in use and operating rooms run on half-capacity. No doubt, most beds are empty due to the early lockdown, but OTOH that's also a tremendous waste. Clearing the backlog may take a year or longer."

https://www.tvo.org/video/getting-ontario-to-the-post-covid-hospital

Alan, how do the American hospitals deal with elective surgeries and cancer treatments? Still performing them or putting them on hold?
Do you have any data on such backlogs in NY and NJ? If so, how many elective procedures are performed normally per week in each state?

[chez]

Apparently there are significant wait times in Canada for medical services.  I know in the US, you can get an MRI or CT Scan the same or next day.  Many Canadians come to the US because they can't wait. Wait times seem to be getting worse over the years.  The reports below are indicative of those statistics before coronavirus.  Delays are going to be even more extensive because of it.  There are advantages and disadvantages to every nation's health measures.  Each country has to make a decision on what's best for themselves.

"This edition of Waiting Your Turn indicates that, overall, waiting times for medically necessary treatment have decreased since last year. Specialist physicians surveyed report a median waiting time of 19.8 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment—shorter than the wait of 21.2 weeks reported in 2017. This year’s wait time is 113% longer than in 1993, when it was just 9.3 weeks.

...Patients also experience significant waiting times for various diagnostic technologies across the provinces. This year, Canadians could expect to wait 4.3 weeks for a computed tomography (CT) scan, 10.6 weeks for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and 3.9 weeks for an ultrasound."
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2018

Alan, if you have no medical insurance in the US, how do you get that MRI test? The US has 28M people with no medical insurance and most likely growing as people get laid off and losing their insurance. Another tidbit...the number one reason for personal bankruptcy in the US is dealing with medical bills.

Personally I'd wait a few months for my elective surgery than filing for bankruptcy to get it sooner. Like I said, the elite have no issues on either system...it's how the poor are dealt with that really separates the two medical systems.

Again, my friend in Georgia is forced to work to pay for his wife's medical...with nothing left over to get his knee replacement. He's been in this situation for the last 5 years...that's some wait list.