health care inflation

[ASRG]

The purpose of public healthcare should be to provide a safety net so you don't lose everything you have if you get sick?
A simple deductable system could keep the system sustainable. For example you pay everything up to say $2,000/year and then after that public healthcare kicks in? This could be adjusted to your level of income.
Another simple solution would be a users fee? You want to see the doctor you pay a fee...say $10...this would stop all these "social visits".
At the end of the day, we had better come up with some solutions, or we will not be able to afford public health care.

[ColevilleH2S]

If our socialist medical system is so great, why are there laws preventing doctors from setting up private (what the lefties always call) for profit, practices and MRI clinics.

Are they scared a bit of competition will point out the literally 'fatal' flaws in out top-down managed system.

I'd be more than willing to pad the wallet of a doctor if I didn't have to wait 3 years for a surgery, or spend 5 hours behind the wheel, driving for a simple check-up appointment.

[oneoff]

And just what makes anyone think that a functional insurance based health care system can be affordable to anyone but the comparatively wealthy and those who are currently employed and covered by their employers significant contributions. Lose that job though no fault of your own (eg. sickness) and you will soon have reason to worry about your coverage. Similarly don't have any pre existing conditions; and don't let your troubles drag on too long; or you will be relying on Medicaid; which I understand is just another name for a paleimage of a government subsidized Medical system. image of

I can just see the enthusiasm of an employer paying for premiums of part time minimum wage earners.

This unthought, unplanned suggestion may well work for rednecks; bvut even a good proportionof them would end up losing their farms to Trinity Hospital etc. etc. continuing to make such instiutions one of the largest landowners in the State of North Dakota.!!!

[oneoff]

Just contemplate how a newly confirmed US president could campaign on "Obamacare" ... and win in the face of a mighty powerful health care insurance industry and lobby. Not even mentioning their 50% support and apologist and wannabe leaders.

And yet we hear the cries of ill informed Canadians who hold that our medical system is more broken than the US model.
Here's part of my suggested solution.

Get out of that rut of falling for pleadings of donations to Telemiracle for $10,000 wheel chairs. Instead, let those who can afford the Rolls Royce`s do what ever they feel necessary on their own. And let noone ever say that I am against making sure that everyone who needs mobility devices should have immediate acces; no matter what their circumstances.
For the rest of us; lets make do with sub $100.00 wheel chairs that are coming on sale at Canadian Tire on November 16,2012. And as a society lets lower our expectations to sustainable solutions.
And those funtional, affordable wheelchairs do have foot rests that the last wheelchair I saw in a Sask hospital did not have. And just what would be so wrong to adapt those $100.00 wheel chairs to have any additional functionality that certain patients might well require or desire.

Judging functionality and decent quality by price alone can be very misleading. For instance, would you claim that a GMO trait in a similar seed in another country on the other side of the world is NFG; just because it is available for a fraction of what US and Canadian farmers are being ****d for. Or would you more likely complain that those competitor farmers should have to pay the same as you; but which you absolutely feel is exhorbitant.

Back to real health care solutions...We also have a health care associated SAIL
organization (Sask Aids for Independent Living) that provides all sorts of appliances at no cost to any resident who has been assessed as that they would benefit from the provision of nesessary equipment. And just what is so wrong as personally looking after (or helping to look after) someone who took care of families and relations for a good chunk of their own lives.

Sure it might put a crimp in some vacation plans; even your pocketbook; but I`d suggest that we all consider a supposedly socialist based idea (or not) that society both in the US and Canada needs a good dose of something to get rid of the defeatist attitudes; self centered mentality and even whining and snivelling that some have mentioned.

And if we could only sift out the poison from the steady diet of lies and deception of the powerful influence of lobbyists, apologists and propagandists of those businesses and industries we are subjected too every waking minute. Those powerful interests are bent on maintaining their near absolute control on society. By regaining some control; then we might well all enjoy better life styles.

But that requires critical analysis and long term planning. Who has time for that; or the desire to pursue those ideals.....

[cottonpicken]

feel free to check my math,current health care costs
are over 6000 dollars per person in canada,a third
party pay insurance system has its own problems but
so does state run.

I'm also guessing but i think the education budget is
also about the same size so a family of 4 pays 48,000
per year to the state to look after being taken care of
but some end up paying more than others.

Some people need to pick up a copy of animal farm.

[ASRG]

cotton: You are certainly right! Not sure what percentage of costs go to healthcare and education in Sask., but in Alberta it is over 50% of the total budget.
When Ralph Klein tried to introduce some common sense reforms into our public health system he got a real ass kicking, but he was on the right path! He said " Well how much is enough? Is 50% enough? Is 70%? when do we say that's enough?"

[cottonpicken]

And just how much money should the government
spend on your behalf?

[checking]

The Dalai Lami, when asked what surprised him the most about humanity answered, "Man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then, he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result that he does not live in the present or future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never really lived."

All of you need to sit down and have a conversation about who got it right on Animal Farm.