Say it isn't so!! Talking sense about individual responsibility and health care

[Sheerin]

there should still be a system of coverage to prevent victims from going bankrupt, a combination of insurance and health savings accounts (similar in principle to RRSPs).

  What would happen to those individuals who can't afford RMSP (Registered Medical Saving Plans... lets see if i'm the first one to coin it! lol)?  Same goes for those who can't afford private insurance, does the government step into to help them and if the do will the level of treatment be the same? 
Secondly what happens when certian insurance companies start putting up a fight about paying for medical treatment?  This already happens with other types of insurance.

 

[aluc]

Tax break for people wishing to attend a gym or health clubs is a half decent idea. As you can imagine this would help out lower income families and young people that would like to exercise at a proper facility.

 

[Cloud Cover]

How about a tax break for buying healthy food, and increase taxes for crap food. 

 

[Springroll]

We aren't taxed on essential foods as it is, so why not ask for the prices to be lowered?

 

[Marauder]

On health care, even my family is not exempt. My wife thinks nothing of bringing one of our children to the clinic for even a basic fever. "Well, it's free, and better to be safe than sorry" she states. Egads!

We all think nothing of pumping $50 or more into our cars to fill them. $50 minimum to take a family to the movies. $50 for a dinner at Boston Pizza. $50 or more to renew your driver's licence, ect, ect.

How about $50 to visit your family doctor? Annual family cap at say $1500. Provisions to waive the fee for no income or if the Doctor signs a waiver stating extraordinary circumstances.

Urrrgh. There's afew different points in there I'd want to address, but I'll stick to the healthcare sphere. Firstly, I think it's a bad idea to drop the dime on someone who is going to a family doc/pediatrician for their primary, non-emergent healthcare. If you go to the ER for the sniffles or a papercut, yeah, you ought to get hammered and told to top wasting oxygen. But with office docs it is already bad enough if you miss an appointment (80 fucking dollars for one dermatology appointment, and I could go on). And there are tons of things you pay for besides that. The docs are already making some good scratch off you for coming in, no need to discourage people from using their primary care doc when they deem it appropriate.
Secondly, having worked a peds unit, I could tell you some really shitty stories about what happenes when parents ignore what their child is relating to them about boo-boos and owies and Junior winds up on an OR slab or on high-potency IV antibiotic therapy. Never forget that sometimes overreacting with kids... isn't.

Last, just because you permit Famous Players(*optional* entertainment), Boston Pizza (*optional* eating out, and dont let GO catch you sucking in the transfats there), and the dickheads at the MTO overcharge you because the general herd lets them get away with it shouldn't give the government carte blanche to leech from you for doing the responsible thing and using a primary health care provider as your entry to the system instead of tying up ERs and Urgent Care Clinics.

And as far as who gets treated for what in the system, some people who do all the "right" things still end up in hospital needing the expensives testing and services. That's why everyone is treated universally, not just because they fit someone's notion of being a desirable patient.

 

[a_majoor]

I'm just going to repeat a general observation that I have made on this forum before: There is no "crisis" in dentistry, because in Canada, dentistry is provided by the private sector.

How often do you hear about waiting lists for dental procedures, complaints about the quality of dental care, a "Brain Drain" of Canadian dentists moving to the US or of Canadians going to the United States of India to get a dental procedure that they cannot get in a timely manner in Canada?

 

[bbbb]

I think it's wrong for the taxpayers to be paying for this kind of infection. Infections during body piercings are rare but can happen. Obviously the body was never desgined with those kinds of things in mind. Common sense should prevail.

 

[Long in the tooth]

Dental Care is prompt because we pay by cash.  In terms of health care, why can't the money just follow the individual?  The health care act does not prevent that.  In terms of funding, left wingers would have you believe that funding would just disapear.  According to my tax return I spent $18000 on health care last year - pretty expensive for one emergency visit for my 8 year olds' peanut allergy.

Wake up socialists!  Just because $110,000,000,000 isn't funnelled through you doesn't mean it's not spent on health care.

Why can't we put the patient first instead of the bureaucrat?

 

[a_majoor]

Dental Care is prompt because we pay by cash.  In terms of health care, why can't the money just follow the individual?  The health care act does not prevent that.  In terms of funding, left wingers would have you believe that funding would just disapear.  According to my tax return I spent $18000 on health care last year - pretty expensive for one emergency visit for my 8 year olds' peanut allergy.

Wake up socialists!  Just because $110,000,000,000 isn't funnelled through you doesn't mean it's not spent on health care.

Why can't we put the patient first instead of the bureaucrat?

This is exactly the idea behind Health Savings Accounts (where people put money aside in the same manner as an RRSP), or School Vouchers in a slightly different context. Government monopolies put the bureaucrat first and formost every time.

 

[Fry]

Personally, I think healthcare should be privatized. Lower taxes, and we pay insurance. That way, I don't have to wait 18 hours bleeding to see a doctor. (Actually happened). Or wait 3 days on a stretcher, EXTREMELY ill and weak from Mono.(Also actually happened.) Or even wait months on end to get an MRI test done.(Truth as well).

Just my opinion. I have family who moved to the USA, and they said the system is great. No wait times at all... Only bad point is that those who decide not to get insurance... maybe be in a pickle.

However, I'm sick of paying tax dollars to treat illnesses in patients where it could have been avoided, (Lung Cancer from chain smokers) for example... Or piercing infections (as previously mentioned).

 

[GO!!!]

However, I'm sick of paying tax dollars to treat illnesses in patients where it could have been avoided, (Lung Cancer from chain smokers) for example... Or piercing infections (as previously mentioned).

.....HIV infections in persons who work in the sex trade or engage in unprotected, high risk behaviours....

 

[Cloud Cover]

Just my opinion. I have family who moved to the USA, and they said the system is great. No wait times at all... Only bad point is that those who decide not to get insurance... maybe be in a pickle.

But what about those who can't get insured [i.e. someone with a genetic disroder, CF, CP etc?] ... or ... can't afford insurance. [you know.. soldiers and their families]

 

[Fry]

So I should suffer because someone else can't get insurance? I'm sick of our healthcare system being overburdened with people who pretty much bring the illnesses on themselves...*Cough smoking*, AIDS, injured drunk drivers, etc.

For some of us with valid medical issues, waiting any considerable amount of time is just unacceptable. Because someone decides to smoke and then develops lung or throat cancer, emphysema(typo), etc. doesn't mean that I should have to suffer.

 

[monika]

Just my opinion. I have family who moved to the USA, and they said the system is great. No wait times at all... Only bad point is that those who decide not to get insurance... maybe be in a pickle.

It isn't just those without insurance who are "in a pickle." My brother-in-law has lived in the US for 10 years, works for a top automaker, and even with what is considered excellent benefits, he still has to pay something like $200.00 for his portion of premiums, plus high deductibles, plus very low lifetime maximums. Since they can only use specific health care providers, they still end up waiting because several thousand people are trying to get in.

 

[Cloud Cover]

I've got news for you Fry. Under a private medical system, your "medical issues" may be the very thing that disqualifies you from obtaining or maintaining private insurance. It's called risk assessment and insurance companies hate risk, unless they are purposely looking to lose money for tax reasons.

I am personally in favour of a blended system of private care and public care. I would prefer to spend my own money on a plan that does not provide treatment, but enables rapid, accurate diagnosis and chart out a course for treatment that may involve radical treatment, but I certainly couldn't afford treatment for a serious illness without uncapped insurance- public or private [very unlikely in a private system]. Unless you're a millionaire, I doubt you could either.

If there was some competition in the systems, services should improve. A private diagnosis system just might do that.

Never mind all the asshats who smoke or other self inflicted diseases- there are plenty of people who become terribly ill or injured for one reason or another. 

 

[Fry]

A blended system wouldn't even be so bad. I still frown upon those asshats though