ahalpert
Major Contributor
We wouldn't wait as long. We spend way more on Healthcare.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-42950587.amp
https://medical.rossu.edu/about/blo...itute for Health,per person according to CNBC.
Writer's Guild Going on Strike
- Thread starter Paul F
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We wouldn't wait as long. We spend way more on Healthcare.
Well sort of. As a manager during desperate times when we had to slash and burn, we all got in a room and yes, we looked at a spreadsheet with all the names (no numbers). I have to say, it was all rather detached. There was no emotional attachment to any one person, no matter how nice they were. We just evaluated everyone's value as it related to helping us survive as a division. If we had to chop 20%, that's what we did and I have to say it was remarkably unaffecting. The same when I was involved with company acquisitions..... How many heads could we chop to reduce costs. It was all rather cold and matter-of-fact.
Aside from the fact that everyone has access to health care in England where here in the US 30 million citizens do not have health care And yet the US still does worse than England in best healthcare in the world as well as procedures costing more than twice as much than England . https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world
Yes, indeed. Those are the tradeoffs. The US does have a gap in coverage. The old get Medicare (I have it and it's great - a $66,000 procedure cost me $540) The poor (under about $35k income if I recall correctly) in the US have full access to free healthcare - good healthcare. Between $35k and about $60K, Obamacare made healthcare cheap and virtually free for those with children. There is a gap above $60k where, if you are not covered by your employer's insurance, ouch, it's a real problem. The cost of healthcare for people earning above $60k and let's say $100k? is un-affordable, as in, the payments will consume a substantial part of your income. That's the gap.
Who are the 30 million you are referring to? Do you have a reference? I'm not picking on you. I really like to read up on stuff. As you can see, I like facts and figures.
As to best healthcare ratings, read the English newspapers for 6 months and see what articles are written about the NHS and form your own opinion.
So while everyone gets coverage in England and Canada, it's not coverage I would want.
Who are the 30 million you are referring to? Do you have a reference? I'm not picking on you. I really like to read up on stuff. As you can see, I like facts and figures.
As to best healthcare ratings, read the English newspapers for 6 months and see what articles are written about the NHS and form your own opinion.
So while everyone gets coverage in England and Canada, it's not coverage I would want.
If you could tell me what specifically I am misinformed about, that would be helpful.
Why the name calling?
The reason I ask about the 30 million is that the purpose of the Affordable Care Act was to make healthcare available to everyone. So I'm interested to know who and why 30 million don't have healthcare. I know I already showed that for some people, it's simply not affordable. But if you have some further reading about the 30 million, I'd like to learn more.
Why the name calling?
The reason I ask about the 30 million is that the purpose of the Affordable Care Act was to make healthcare available to everyone. So I'm interested to know who and why 30 million don't have healthcare. I know I already showed that for some people, it's simply not affordable. But if you have some further reading about the 30 million, I'd like to learn more.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Where do you see that? I'm paying $450/month for the cheapest plan they offer me (34 year old, no subsidies, nobody else on the plan). And I recently got a letter saying the plan is going up to over $600/month next year
Sorry for the long rant....but I don't think so. I speak from personal experience and I like to talk about this as often as I can because I've experienced it first hand and most Americans I speak to usually only know what's they've heard through filtered sources.
And here's some data.
"A common misconception in the U.S. is that countries with universal health care have much longer wait times. However, data from nations with universal coverage, coupled with historical data from coverage expansion in the United States, show that patients in other nations often have similar or shorter wait times."
https://worldpopulationreview.com/co...mes-by-country
Let's look at health outcomes vs money spend. Considering the US spends so much, surely we have the BEST health in the world? Err maybe not...
https://infogram.com/mirror-mirror-2...h7g6k09y7mzo2o
So even though the US by far SPENDS the most at 16.8% of GDP, compared to the UK at about 10% look what an outlier the US is compared to the rest of the world.
The US BY FAR as the worst infant mortality rate of almost any western nation. By all numbers the outcomes for the same conditions are worse in the US than the UK and other similar countries.
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/sit...21.pdf#page=31
Of course the media, especially if you read tabloid UK press with sensationalize everything, but it's all relative.
I'm living in CA, but I've sadly had experience with the NHS in the UK, the Canadian system and the Australian system.
Americans are terrified by universal health because it's been politicized and associated with socialism. Nevermind there are plenty of socialized services provided in the US that don't get the same associations.
Firstly this idea of choice that we all think is the advantage of the US system.... Well no, not really in practice. Sure, I can choose anyone I like, but if it's not in-network I have to pay. Either more or a LOT more. In-Network means you actually do not have a choice.
In Australia, my wife and I changed OBG's three times till we found one my wife was comfortable with. No consideration of the hospital, the money, nothing. We tried two in the same hospital and then we changed after a recommendation from a friend to the third one. I think we had a co-pay of about $40 for each visit to each of them and you never get another bill. The number of times I go to a place here in CA, I pay the co-pay on the day, ask if there's anymore and THEN weeks or months later you get another bill!!! It's maddening. They can't tell you how much anything is when you finish the consult. It's always more than they say it will be. Why is that?
Oh and by the way, we were looking at IVF at the time. In LA a cycle would have been 60K with all the tests and genetics for our circumstances. Then subsequent cycles are about 10K each. Reproductive health like IVF is generally not covered by most US health insurance at all.
When we looked at Australia they cover the first three cycles. Statistically most couples that are successful with IVF are pregnant within two cycles. The Australian health system covers three. Then it was $6k AU (or about 4K US) per cycle after that.
And again you choose which provider you want to go to.
While we were doing fertility testing in the US we went to an IVF clinic and they did a bunch of what we learned were unnecessary genetic tests on us. (Basically as if we were Ashkenazi Jewish) and even though we'd already had extensive genetic counselling and testing they insisted on these huge number of tests and this one alone they billed us more than 2K for. Guess what!? Our insurance said that one was unnecessary and refused to pay. So then they are now sending our bill to a debt collector and they're still calling my wife every two weeks to make her pay. We have tried disputing it and they just keep reducing the amount we "owe". I think it's down to $155.... Which begs the question. How much did the actual test "cost" and what kind of markup is there on medical procedures like this? How are we supposed to know as the customer buying a test that it's not necessary? Why are we the ones arguing that it wasn't necessary when we are not medical experts?
I went to a specialist cardiologist in LA. I have a strange situation with cholesterol. I have a reasonably good diet, I don't smoke, drink really, eat well, modest exercise, not really high BMI or overweight. BP is actually pretty low. But I have insanely high cholesterol scores. I'm 50. They did this amazing "calcium" test where they scan your heart and look for signs of build up. They score you from 0-100 with 100 being bad. I got zero. No other signs of cardio issues but the doctor still wants to put me on statins. I'm resisting because I don't want to have to pay for and take a pill everyday, and with everything else being GOOD except this one test, do I need to deal with it? So off I go to a very amazing cardiologist and he runs a special cholesterol test that works differently. Instead of the basic number it measures the actual number of particles and is a far more accurate score and shows that yes, eventually this is bad for me, its because of conditions beyond my control (lifestyle wise) and I should do something about it. $1200 test. It shows that I'm so high, even the highest dose of statin might not be enough to bring my score down. And my insurance won't pay for it because they think it's unnecessary. I wanted to throughly exhaust the options before making an important lifestyle change like that. Something that presumably saves them money if I don't have as many cardio issues later. I guess it was my choice?
You just don't have these kinds of conversations or debates with an insurer in Australia or the UK.
I recently had to wait nearly three hours in emergency at 2 AM for a wound that needed stitches in a hospital in California.
As someone in the medical profession once said to me, most specialist doctors in the US get paid per procedure. The rest of the world they tend to work on a (good) annual salary...It's like having a cop get paid based on the number of tickets or arrests they make.
And that's the difference. In the US everything is for profit. Health is for profit.
In much of the rest of the western world, healthcare is a basic human right. In the US it's a privilege and it's also tied to employment. Those are two significant differences I've noticed since being exposed to other systems.
Now that we're on strike, my health insurance runs out in the middle of next year if I can't work 400 hours by then.
*edit. And now that I think about it, I'm sure it's the same in the UK, but in Australia where I have more experience, each person pays though their annual tax return a levy for healthcare. So instead of having an employer pay into a fund, individuals pay into a central fund based on their income. Higher earners pay more, if you earn less then you don't pay as much. So it's paid for by taxpayers, but instead is not run for profit.
**You can still get private health insurance in Australia. But you know what? it's a LOT less. Even the top tier is only about $126 US per month!!!!
And that's because most of the basics are covered by the universal services. With private, all it gets you is a better room, and maybe less wait time on some optional procedures.
https://www.finder.com.au/health-insurance/private-health-insurance-cost
*** what's even more interesting is that my wife isn't even a "tax resident" in Australia so hasn't been contributing there for years and she still is entitled to the same healthcare that everyone else gets and as her spouse, so am I.
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I went to the Covered California web site. I entered the following: 50 years old, $70,000 income, two in household need insurance. Bronze coverage, which has a high deductible and co-pay. I didn't try the silver. You can play with it here - https://apply.coveredca.com/lw-shopandcompare/
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Hmm I wonder if there's some state subsidization happening here. I checked on that site and I could get something for like $265/mo, but looking back at my New York site confirms that the cheapest plan I can get is $466/mo. (And it's not like it's useful insurance since I have to pay everything out of pocket if I ever went in. I got it for car accidents so that my bill would be capped at whatever, $5k or $10k for the year instead of $60k+.)
That's good information Doug. Yes, exactly. The stuff I read about England and Canada have me not wanting it. I've never talked to anyone who actually has it. So perhaps the filter of the press has had the effect they were looking for.
As to health insurance in the US, I just won't put up with it. It's a nightmare. I have Kaiser, which may be available in LA. I think it is terrific. Much like a national health service, it takes care of everything. And like Stanford or UCLA medical centers, it does a lot of research. Now if the English healthcare is anything like Kaiser, I'm in. Yes, I've heard complaints from Kaiser clients, but I've had nothing but great service. I broke my hip on a Sunday. Monday was Memorial Day. I was in surgery Memorial Day at 10:00am and I was walking at 12:30; well, walking with a walker. The visit to a local non-Kaiser hospital, the ambulance ride from the local fire department, automatic delivery of my daily prescriptions to my hospital bed from the hospital pharmacy on time without me saying anything, the head of the hospital and the head of surgery doing a bedside visit, 2 nurses monitoring me at all times, physical therapy in less than an hour after surgery. Everything was taken care of by Kaiser and I got one piece of paperwork that said my emergency room visit to the non-Kaiser hospital was taken care of, the ambulance ride was taken care of, nothing for me to do but send them a check for $540. Good stuff.
As to health insurance in the US, I just won't put up with it. It's a nightmare. I have Kaiser, which may be available in LA. I think it is terrific. Much like a national health service, it takes care of everything. And like Stanford or UCLA medical centers, it does a lot of research. Now if the English healthcare is anything like Kaiser, I'm in. Yes, I've heard complaints from Kaiser clients, but I've had nothing but great service. I broke my hip on a Sunday. Monday was Memorial Day. I was in surgery Memorial Day at 10:00am and I was walking at 12:30; well, walking with a walker. The visit to a local non-Kaiser hospital, the ambulance ride from the local fire department, automatic delivery of my daily prescriptions to my hospital bed from the hospital pharmacy on time without me saying anything, the head of the hospital and the head of surgery doing a bedside visit, 2 nurses monitoring me at all times, physical therapy in less than an hour after surgery. Everything was taken care of by Kaiser and I got one piece of paperwork that said my emergency room visit to the non-Kaiser hospital was taken care of, the ambulance ride was taken care of, nothing for me to do but send them a check for $540. Good stuff.
Run&Gun
Veteran
I don't know how many Brady had before Leon, but it was nothing close to that. He is interesting and a little quirky. But a good story teller and a great dude.
Run&Gun
Veteran
Yes. It's all just so heartless, now. More now than ever, it's all about how can they make one cent MORE.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
if true, it would craft an industry not worth joining. either way, it's an indicator of how new terrain of rights and limitations is being hashed out in the current negotiations
cpreston
Veteran
I was listening to the "The Business" on KEXP and they were talking to either an actor or writer rep. The rep said that the reason the unions were constantly harping on AI taking over work is because it was the only thing that resonated with the average person on the street. Most people don't understand residuals or writer rooms, but they do understand the fear of having your job taken away by AI.