Obama

[enthusiasmcurbed]

Am watching the programme on BBC2 about his fight for health care. I don't understand why the Americans don't like this. Believing in free care at the point of access, I don't get why Americans think this is a bad idea. And why it is so Socialist. Can anyone shed some light?

I don't know, but for instance our family insurance costs 26k per year (and we still have copays) and we pay a portion of "tax" for the Medicare system too...

It's just a really different attitude in the states. I don't fully understand it - I don't think it's as bad as we think it is though.

They don't have a history of providing a benefit system. It baffles me. I don't see how people can object to it. My brother is a doctor and he was chatting to some Americans who couldn't understand why they should have to pay for someone else's health care

It's the fact that so many people think it's so bad. Why do they think like this. Especially when they are, historically, a country of poor immigrants looking for a better life.

I don't know much about it, but it seems that's Americans who have good insurance generally get a better standard of care than they would on the NHS. They can self refer to specialists rather than have to go through a GP for everything, and if that's what they're used to and it's always worked for them then it's understandable why they don't want that to change.

But what about poor people?

Poor people might be the first to object. Taxes would have to go up to pay for the healthcare system, and this would impact everyone but especially the low paid.

Yes healthcare had a quick turnaround for tests and you can just pick up the phone and see who you need to see without referrals.

I'm happy to pay the med tax, I'm not a citizen here and have no horse in the race, but from what I see it's very much a country that wants everyone to succeed by their own hard work. And as healthcare and insurance is so damn expensive here, they quite rightly feel, why should they pay for someone else. We have enough trouble paying our own medical bills as it is.

America believes itself to be a meritocracy, so if you rise to the top, it is due to your ability/'you deserve it'.
The consequence of this argument is that failure to rise to the top is also your own fault, and therefore you do not deserve support.
They also think, generally correctly, that governments waste money, so provide the same service more expensively than the private sector.

America believes itself to be a meritocracy, so if you rise to the top, it is due to your ability/'you deserve it'.
The consequence of this argument is that failure to rise to the top is also your own fault, and therefore you do not deserve support.
They also think, generally correctly, that governments waste money, so provide the same service more expensively than the private sector.

What about the mentally ill, the disabled. All those people who are very vulnerable and poor? Do they get 2nd rate care?

And here we go. Abortion into the row.

time.com/money/4044394/average-health-deductible-premium/

Taxes would have to go up to pay for the healthcare system, and this would impact everyone but especially the low paid. More than $1300 a month? I doubt it.

The fact is that healthcare is expensive and we all pay for it. Even the Americans pay taxes to provide healthcare, because they haven't quite got to the point of letting people drop dead in the street and rot if they don't have insurance. Almost but not quite. Infectious diseases have to be dealt with. Prevention is cheaper than cure so all those screenings and smears we get in free healthcare countries don't get done in the US and people get those diseases and they don't get caught.

And don't think that money and good insurance protect you. A member of my family with good insurance, in the States, who was very rich, got cancer. He died penniless with his family members coming into the hospital and dropping cheques for medications because he could no longer afford them. Insurance companies try not to pay. They are businesses.

Fundamentally they don't trust the government to run a health system.

And frankly, having seen the US government at work, I think they've got a good point.

Also having seen how the NHS is being defunded, I think they're scared of their own system being similarly defunded.

I don't know what their care is like tbh. I know my obgyn didn't accept Obamacare or whatever they call it, patients.

A lot of the hospitals where we are are not for profit. I'm assuming everyone's bills get bumped up for those who can't pay.

What about the mentally ill, the disabled. All those people who are very vulnerable and poor? Do they get 2nd rate care

Actually the poor tend to get help with the costs of their healthcare (with some exceptions). It's the middle that struggle.

the mentally ill, the disabled. All those people who are very vulnerable and poor

1 million people homeless. 2 million incarcerated.

Dp and I have just been talking about it. I can not understand it at all. The documentary just said that 45,000 Americans had died that year because they didn't have health insurance.

Dp is a researcher and he used to work with an American doctor and researcher. The condition they studied resulted in children being born blind/partially sighted and the doctor was working on a treatment. It was part of her funding that to get on a drugs trial (to save their child's sight) a percentage of the children had to be uninsured. This was some ridiculous lip service to the poor. It meant that families who had some health insurance but the cover wasn't comprehensive enough to cover the drugs they needed had to relinquished their health insurance in order to get on the trial and get the drugs.They then lived in fear of needing any health care at all.

Does anyone know, what happens to insurance if you have been diagnosed with a disease since first taking out the insurance? Is it like here where your premiums go through the roof and some illnesses make you uninsurable?

I love this guy. I haven't checked his facts but I can believe it. It is old.

I don't think anything Terry

But I do know things are not black and white, it isn't 'good UK, bad America'.

American's believe in meritocracy, despite the fact that they have the lowest social mobility of any rich nation.

You can sell the dream to fools.

I don't know in that scenario. The whole system is so bewildering to me. My last boss (60+) kept working as her husband was very ill, for the insurance. I think it would depend on the quality of your insurance whether they keep paying or cut you off.

God.that's grim. Why do people in the Northern States of America go to Canada? Free health care?