Deseret News | U.S. trails rest of world in health care

Reader comments
My view: U.S. trails rest of world in health care

Baloney! | 12:24 a.m. April 24, 2009

I call baloney on this entire article! For anyone who believes it, I suggest you go to Mexico, or Cuba for your next doctor visit! Go to Canada if you don't mind waiting in line! I don't have any idea where the US ranks but it sure isn't anywhere close to where this article says! Baloney galore!

Raise Taxes Forever | 12:26 a.m. April 24, 2009

All the costs for these proposals have to come from somewhere. We are in a phase of spend now, find money later. It is high time that the lawmakers find ways to pay for all these grandiose schemes before throwing trillions of dollars at problems they don't even understand.

Before spending more moeny, something else must happen first. Nothing can change with the healthcare industry until the health insurers lobby is reined in. They are extremely well financed and their incentive is to maintain the status quo, because they are making money hand over fist right now.

It is not the doctors driving up costs, it is health insurance executives that receive obscene salary and benefits packages. Insurers must be taken out of a position where they can exercise undue influence over lawmakers.

Also, doctors are leaving primary care in droves (up to 50% of family physicians want to quit or retire in the next ten years because of rising work loads and falling salaries).

Absolutely no proposals can work if there are not primary care doctors around in sufficient quantities to see all of these uninsured patients who will get coverage. This must be fixed ASAP!

Baffled | 4:23 a.m. April 24, 2009

Baloney doesn't want to accept facts or do his own research. Obviously he has been fed too much balogne!

Comments continue below

Timj | 5:06 a.m. April 24, 2009

To baloney:
You're the guy who's putting his fingers in his ears, shouting "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!"
I haven't been to Mexico or Canada for healthcare. I do know that in Germany, you get quality care quickly and cheaply.
Something needs to change in the US. Healthcare costs continue to rise, and calling other people liars won't help things.
You're two steps away from losing healthcare. First, you develop a disease. Maybe you just have a mini-stroke. Second, you lose your job and can't find another one that offers healthcare benefits. No private insurance company will take you because of your medical history. Now all it takes is for you to get sick, and there goes your house, your life savings, and everything else.

b spoon | 6:34 a.m. April 24, 2009

Single payer health coverage eliminates unnecessary, greedy, amoral middlemen and utilizes efficiencies of scale. Everyone in one plan with one set of rules (instead of divided and conquered as we are now in myriads of plans where no one knows who is paying how much for what and we're all paying vastly disparate amounts) would create transparency and SAVE at least $370 Billion/year in wasted bureaucratic overhead alone, plus millions of innocent and currently devastated lives. Public health coverage utilizing private care providers would be the best economic stimulous we could possibly engineer, and wins all moral and fiscal arguments. Plus finally we could see any licensed provider if we were all united for our best interests. We pay for uninsured now, only too much.

With one out of every four Americans trapped in our private unsurance system currently rationed to zero with wait times until after it's too late, we win all the booby prizes for both rationing and wait times by FAR (especially in our emergency rooms where wait times are most critical).

Everyone who has done their homework as well as every civilized nation on Earth but ours knows this.

Remember this... | 7:13 a.m. April 24, 2009

America spends a lot MORE than other industrialized countries on health care, and yet gets a lot LESS health in return.

The current system is bankrupting our economy. Companies are spending more on health insurance for their employees than they are doing the thing they're actually in business to do. Case in point, GM spends more per car sold on employee health care insurance than it does on the steel in the car.

Employees are not participating in the job market to seek work that best suites their abilities because they can't obtain health insurance because fewer and fewer employers, especially startups, are able to provide it.

There's no such thing as "free market" principles in health care, so can we please drop the inane arguments about "socialized" medicine?

We need national, single-payer health care NOW.

Anonymous | 7:39 a.m. April 24, 2009

The U.S. system is very inefficient and does a poor job in distributing health care. The need is off the charts. Take, for example, the weekend free health care clinics offered last year in Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. People would could not afford or otherwise obtain health insurance were flooding to these clinics. The stories were heartbreaking. There is a great need. And those who denigrate other countries, I would rather wait for a non-emergency procedure than never have it for lack of insurance. Bureaucrats in insurance companies make medical decisions now, some of which defy the doctors. No, our system needs serious reform. For a change, let's put the needs of those who are not well off ahead of corporate profits. That is really what the debate is all about.

b spoon | 7:45 a.m. April 24, 2009

We already have "socialized" highways, parks, libraries, schools, fire/police/military/child protection, health coverage for everyone over 65, and lots of other things that were never mentioned in the Constitution (anything we work together on for the Good of the Whole), and we're not a "socialized" nation yet. Nor would we become one if we created health care justice and eliminated legal discriination against sick people in America.
Our health unsurance system profits by price gouging healthy Americans, denying desperately needed medical care to sick ones, and is unnecessarily and obscenely expensive as well as ANTI-SOCIAL. It pits doctors against patients, small businesses against larger ones, employers against employees, and everyone against everyone. If we all united, chipped in together to make sure medical bills are paid, eliminated unnecessary middlemen (like Medicare and Amish do here now), we would not have to continuously sue each other over who pays medical bills, save hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of innocent wasted lives.

Private health insurance is to Health Care Justice as Al Qaeda is to National Security or KKK is to Civil Rights. Its interests are perverse and contrary to ours.

ustraveler | 7:48 a.m. April 24, 2009

It's an interesting dilemma,we want healthcare to be available to all. We also want the best healthcare possible. Usually, one or the other has to give. The UK has a 50% survival rate with prostate cancer. The US has a 85% survival rate. The technology is available to both countries but due to cost cutting, one does not take advantage.

Personally, I'm afraid of what will happen to both our pharmaceutical and medical advances once the only nation in the world to actually invest in that type of R&D goes to a model where those who invest will never recoup their costs.

I'm not a fan of equal access to healthcare that never gets better. Perhaps the richest nation in the world should continue to help everyone else in this arena. We fund so many advances that are now available here and in many other countries. No one else will spend the money to improve healthcare. I guess it's up to us.

Cosmo | 7:49 a.m. April 24, 2009

How pleased are all of you with DMV, SSI, HUD, HEW,
DEPT. AG, IRS, ATF, DEA, Dept Energy, BLM, DOT. etc,
etc, etc. If you think that placing the complexity of the doctor/patient relationship, will improve,controlled by a faceless, bean counting bureacrat, in WA.D.C. I do believe you are delusional.

Karin | 8:01 a.m. April 24, 2009

Private health insurance companies & pharmaceutical companies have too much power, thanks to their lobbyists and big contributions to members of Congress. We'll see if Congress has the courage to do the right thing and rein them in.

Clark Newhall MD JD | 8:10 a.m. April 24, 2009

Cosmo and Baloney don't seem to understand and their 'see no evil' mentality is something they will never get over -- until they are without health insurance and need medical care. That is what happened to my Bush-loving "socialized medicine' former military brother-in-law. He got two cancers at once, then got laid off, then couldn't afford COBRA. All of a sudden, he is very much in favor of Medicare For All. The lesson here: Selfish motives trump all ideology. I doubt anyone will ever convince Cosmo or Baloney with facts. The only delusional people in this thread are those who, like Cosmo and Baloney, are unable to see facts until they are personally hit in the face with them.

hmmmm | 8:33 a.m. April 24, 2009

I have a right to the very best life.

Freedom from all bad things, mishaps, and misfortune.

Please...protect me from pain and trial.

Do not allow me to fail (or succeed)

This is my right...my entitlement.

Enslave me and keep me safe.

Take all I have or don't have but keep me fed.

Amen

Anonymous | 8:37 a.m. April 24, 2009

If you think keeping an opaque unsurance non-system that puts profits before people and money before morality in between us and our doctors is working, then you are delusional. Now we are at the mercy of a faceless, bean-counting, money-grubbing bureaucrat that has NONE. I'll take someone whose allegiance is supposed to be to the people in place of one who is only loyal to profits any time.

Ultra Bob | 8:49 a.m. April 24, 2009

Yea Chris Doherty.

b spoon | 9:12 a.m. April 24, 2009

The right to health care is the same as the right to life, not the very best life but rather life or death. It's extremely ironic for anyone who professes to care about lives that are not yet born to not give a crap about those very same lives once they are out of a womb.

And if you think we're not paying for the uninsured now, only paying far more than by any rights we should be because they end up far sicker than by any rights they should, you would be wrong again.

KM | 9:16 a.m. April 24, 2009

Baloney is right. Our leaders are in the process, they have been for decades, to nationalize our health care system. when the job is complete we will see how the smug leftists like what they have created. The govt. fails at every thing they try, with few exceptions. there is virtually nothing the private sector can't do more efficiently and better. The government will ruin our wonderful health care system, we should pray for better personal health going forward.

Be Truly Pro-Life | 10:08 a.m. April 24, 2009

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions." - John Locke, whose writings helped inspire a portion of the Declaration of Independence

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." - Thomas Jefferson, and others, in the Declaration of Independence

18,314 American LIVES are lost each year at the hands of corrupt/greedy health insurance providers. (Institute of Medicine statistic) Don't stand for this in America. America is better than that.

Invisible Hand | 10:14 a.m. April 24, 2009

Every time I hear someone claim that health care is a right I cringe. Rights don't cost money, and you don't need other people to provide them for you. Health care is a service that must be paid for somehow. We can argue about different models to pay for it, but don't call it a right.

The argument is really about how to ration health care. Should we have government beaurocrats decide if we can get care or is it better to have insurance executives decide? Do we want to wait our turn for care, or should we let those who can pay the most jump to the front of the line?

The advantage of a free market is when you introduce profit motive everyone benefits. For example, the Canadian government makes you wait in line (days, months?) for an MRI because those things are expensive. In the US, if people will pay lots of money for an MRI scan, then smart entrepreneurs will figure out cheaper ways to build and utilize them. It's a win-win: the entrepreneur profits, and more people have access to MRI.

Oh Please | 10:33 a.m. April 24, 2009

Chris is right. Our health care system is utterly unbelievable. My wife recently sat with my ailing mother-in-law in a doctor's office for 2 hours waiting for His Majesty to deign to see them for 5 minutes while he did business with his golf buddies over his cell phone. It was audible.

Jon W | 10:36 a.m. April 24, 2009

1) outlaw refusal of coverage for "pre-existing conditions" 2) For insurance purposes, eliminate multiple "pools" of patients - everyone shares the same risks. 3) eliminate punitive rewards from medical liability lawsuits.

Let's take just these simple steps and see how we're doing after a few years.

My sympathies | 11:15 a.m. April 24, 2009

Chris, for your condition. I ride the MS150 here in Texas and support your cause. However, I can't support your reasoning that because you have an illness that is worse than many others that you or anyone for that matter, have a right to lower costs, better care, faster treatment, etc. than others. Your case is unfortunate, but you have the choice to see doctors who are outside your insurance and get care.
It scares me that a group of physicians would like an expanded Medicare system to be the model for healthcare in the US. I don't think there is a more deplorable form of 'care' than medicare or medicaid.
As for the 48 million uninsured, that's a number akin to the 30 million homeless bantied about in the 70's. There are many in that number between jobs, or others who choose NOT to pay for insurance (but somehow have cell-phones and cable TV). At every hospital I've been to, medical care is seldom if ever denied because of income or lack of insurance.
My suggestion? Reduce tort cases and implement maximums on punitive awards.

RedShirt | 11:23 a.m. April 24, 2009

The interesting thing is that in most countries where they have socialized medicine they have made it very difficult to file malpractice law suits. Since that is a source of a lot of the expense in the US system, shouldn't that be fixed first before going after the people that actually provide services?

If we cut the costs of malpractice insurance, we can lower the cost of medicine in many ways.

First, the Doctor's rates will drop.
Second, the specialties that have been decreasing in numbers will stop decreasing, and may increase the number of doctors available.
Third, if you have more doctors available, especially for some of the more specialized areas, the cost to go to the doctor will go down.

Here the only people that lose out are lawyers and people playing the Medical Malpractice insurance lottery.

RedShirt | 11:40 a.m. April 24, 2009

To "Be Truly Pro-Life | 10:08 a.m." how can you say that health insurance companies are greedy when they make about 5% profits?

They make less than the 8% for oil companies, Ski resorts average 26.7% profit, Verizon recently posted a profit margin of 27.3%, grocery stores average 6%, power companies average 6% profit, major airlines average 9%, while regional airlines average 18% or more. It seems that there are a lot of companies out there that have higher profit margins, yet are not considered evil by you and others like you.

Response to My sympathies | 12:10 p.m. April 24, 2009

Thanks for your comment. My concern is not for myself. I am one of the lucky ones. I have insurance. My concern is for the millions that are not allowed to purchase insurance, and therefore health care, in this country, including innocent members of my own family.

My doctor prescribed me some $4,000 medication to prevent disability. My insurance denied me this treatment, even though their medical director agreed that it would prevent disability and save them money. Then I asked the hospital to administer the treatment and just bill me. They said they couldn't do it without my insurance backing me up. Then when the resulting disability ensued, my insurance was happy to buy me a $4,000 wheelchair for $12,000. Brilliant, just brilliant! Allow medical decisions to be made by bean counters rather than medically trained personnel, but pay three times the price for medical services.

I personally believe in capitalism, but this is a terrible use of it. If the government were wasting this amount of money we would be outraged. Medicare spends 3% on administration. Private insurance spends 31%. A travesty. Waste, waste, waste. Is this a good example of capitalism? No.

Melinda | 12:14 p.m. April 24, 2009

Most likely those of you who think are system is just fine right now have health insurance provided by your employer. Wait until you get laid off, can't afford COBRA so you decide to shop around for a private policy, maybe even a high deductible temporary policy to bridge that cap until you find another job with benefits. Then get denied because you have a "pre-existing" condition or stuck with a high deductible crap policy because you have a "pre-existing" condition such as Excema. That is what happened to my family. My husbands new job was going to charge $1200 for a family of three. So we shopped around, I was denied immediately because of Type 1 diabetes (go ahead and give me the eye roll when I mention diabetes and think I should lose weight or eat better, but this was type 1 diagnosed at 14 years old), my daugther was approved for a private policy only we were given a high deductible because of her being diagnosed with Excema. Then you selfish people will realize that our current healthcare system is broken and ran by greed.

Anonymous | 12:30 p.m. April 24, 2009

Chris, I'm truly sorry for your condition. I cannot imagine your pain and we are inspired at how you wrote this article to put your views across and initiate changes you feel would benefit the greater good.

Chris, I can honestly say that I feel America has the greatest health care system in the world. It is expensive, yes, but it is the best. Where else can you go and get the care you need immediately--without regard to your race or ability to pay?

Where else exists the variety of treatments, techniques, and medicines to diagnose and eliminate diseases and conditions?

It is true that there is much to be improved--but I feel health care is in very good shape. I hope that it is not ruined by a government who is already involved enough in it. Health care is not something that should be legislated.

In my view, Chris, the government has no right to tell you that you must have insurance to treat your MS. The government has no right to force you to go to certain doctors or do certain treatments.

If that happened, though, maybe I would start to agree with you, Chris.

To Melinda | 1:48 p.m. April 24, 2009

So, if your employer didn't pay for your insurance premium, and you were paid the extra in salary... If your employer didn't have to pay Social Security and you got the add'l 15% in salary... you'd probably think it was like a car payment or rent/house payment. And you'd get insurance, and you'd have a decent retirement.
Soon enough, insurance will be as expensive and as valuable as Social Security. Not a good thing.

obama minions | 1:55 p.m. April 24, 2009

Just keep on dreaming and spending money we don't have. We cannot have it all, nor can we afford it all. Less is more. Personal responsibility will again be vogue.

Captain Kirk | 1:55 p.m. April 24, 2009

Yes. The Healthcare system is broken.
But most of you are looking in the wrong direction to fix it.

It was the government that broke it. It was government legislation that destroyed the charity hospitals and pushed us towards a third party payer system.
Now you want the government to take it over completely. Not bright.

Of course ... that is the big government/socialist pattern. Goverment Creates a crisis through corruption and/or ineptness and then government steps in and saves us from the problem it created. Enslaving us and growing exponentially as it does so.

The real solution is to put consumerism back into the system and get government out of it.
Low co-pay medical plans and HMOs need to go away and we should move to HSA and High Deductible (catastrophic) insurance plans. Insurance should be insurance.
The charity hospital needs to be brought back. Tort reform is also a good idea. We should also look at the FDAs role in all of this.

RedShirt | 3:08 p.m. April 24, 2009

To "Response to My sympathies | 12:10 p.m." you said that you were willing to pay the $4000 for the medication to prevent disability. I was wondering, did you try to get treatment elsewhere? Did you look into malpractice to at least get the facility to treat you?

I would imagine that if somebody is willing to pay for treatment using their own money that if they were denied treatment that lead to a permanent disability that there would be some sort of liability involved.

@RedShirt | 4:06 p.m. April 24, 2009

Unless someone else is using your name, I am confused. Earlier in this thread you said we should curtail malpractice claims, but you advise "Response to My sympathies" to look into malpractice.

@ obama minions | 5:03 p.m. April 24, 2009

You said we should "keep on dreaming and spending money we don't have"

Right now we are spending 200% what the rest of the developed world is spending for health care, and getting worse treatment.

The average American spends $1,100 on insurance each month. Imagine what we could do if we did away with medical bankruptcies, improved our health care, and pocketed that extra $550/mo. that we are currently wasting.

to obama minions | 1:55 p.m. | 5:13 p.m. April 24, 2009

"...Just keep on dreaming and spending money we don't have..."

Hey Einstein, did you miss the part where we as Americans pay more and get lower quality coverage than every other industrialized nation, yet still have tens of millions of citizens without coverage.

Did you miss the part where our manufacturing sector is losing out to global competitors because of the additional human resource costs of health care.

The point of these arguments is that we can have a better system, that benefits US businesses, covers all citizens and costs LESS than our current system.

Heaven forbid another nation come up with a better way to do healthcare and then we actually model our system after it. Better to be too proud, stupid and wasteful than adopt a process we didn't come up with.

An Observer | 6:12 p.m. April 24, 2009

NO ONE is saying you can;t get good healthcare in other countries,

but NO one is leaving the US to get "better" healthcare,

why is that?

Because NO ONE truly believes they will get better health care else where.

The answer isn't more insurance, nor government health care,

the problem is insurance!

the answer is doing away with the evils of insurance.

The problems have increased the more we have embraced insured healthcare.

insurance for catastrophic healthcare that can destroy you financially is the only help we need.

RedShirt | 7:43 p.m. April 24, 2009

To "@RedShirt | 4:06 p.m." that was me. I never said to prevent malpractice, just make it so that it isn't a lottery based on junk science.

I would think that if somebody was sick, had money to pay for care, and needed the care. If a provider only said that they couldn't because of them not wanting to interfere with insurance procedures is not right.

Cuban health care | 9:01 p.m. April 24, 2009

"or Cuba for your next doctor visit!" Is this the same Cuba with a lower infant mortality rate than the United States according to both the United Nations and CIA? The same Cuba whose lower life expectancy of less than a year (something like 78 to 77 years) is negligable because they are the ones dealing with a murderous embargo that would destroy any other country? Yeah, what a horrible health care situation. EDUCATE YOURSELF!

Bill | 1:35 p.m. April 25, 2009

Is it just possible that a dictatorial communist state like Cuba could finagle their health care statistics? Get real. They only release stats that make Fidel look good. If their system is so good why are so many willing to risk their lives on a boat trip to the U.S.?

I'm very happy with our health care system. I do agree that limiting liability suits and awards would help reduce costs. And liability insurance costs for doctors would be greatly reduced. I know several very good doctors who have either retired or changed their specialty in order to escape the enormous costs of liability insurance. But since Congress consists mostly of lawyers, I don't suppose we will ever see meaningful tort reform.

Anonymous | 9:13 p.m. April 25, 2009

Just say the magic words "I don't have insurance" or "I don't have the insurance that your Dr. office takes" and you are out the door, unseen by any medical professional...suffering! Our country is a wreck in the health care department! Throw out all insurance companies! CROOKS!

The root of the problem? | 9:44 p.m. April 26, 2009

Third party payers. Pharmaceutical companies. In short, CAPITALISM! However, socialism is not the answer, nor would I advocate it in a million years. The answer is ethical capitalism. People before profit. Also, the public needs to take responsibility for its own health. People who eat junk food, smoke, and drink alcohol on a regular basis and then expect the hospital to magically cure their ailments are delusional at best. Insurance was originally conceived of as a great plan to help people struck with unexpected, catastrophic emergencies. It would still be terrific to have it around for that very purpose. However, once the insurance business got into the business of subsidizing every trip to the doctor, things went horribly wrong. The pharmaceutical company got in on the act, and things got even worse. Now, only the mega-wealthy insurance companies can afford to pay for a necessary surgical procedure, because prices are set on the assumption that a third party payer will foot the bill either on this patient or on the next one.

This is NOT a political problem, and it shouldn't be.

It is purely an ethical problem, and must be changed voluntarily.

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