If the US can't take care of Walter Reed how will a Socialized Heathcare Program be?

If the US Government can't take care of Walter Reed Hospital how will a Socialized Heathcare Program be in the US?

www.abcnews.go.com...

Walter Reed Hospital is for America's heroes and right now our government is turning their back to those people. This is a huge scandal because it shows us once more that the Bush Administration would rather turn its back to the American worker than actually do something. WHY THE HELL SHOULD WE TRUST OUR GOVERNMENT WITH OUR HEALTHCARE CHOICES? I do not trust our government and I strongly believe that a socialized healthcare program is a way of signing your life and rights to it over to the government. There will be more bad presidents like Bush in the future, don't let them kill you legally!



[edit on 6-3-2007 by Low Orbit]

Supporters of socialized healthcare dont want to look at the blatent failure of other government programs. They pretend that somehow it will all work out wonderfully. They stand in line for 4 hours at the DMV and think how wonderful it will be to wait this long for a doctor with a knife in your shoulder. They complain that government schools are dumbing down their children but believe that government hospitals wont "dumb" down the care they recieve. Theyve watched more and more and more money get thrown at problems and just ignore it when the sacred formula of more money=solutions fails them.

Im sure theyev also heard the testimonials of those from Canada and Europe who say "dont do it America, youll regret it" and tell us theyve been bought by bug-medical or that theyre the exception to grand rule.

Its okay my father dies waiting 6 months to have an ache in his leg looked at that turns out to be a clot. That ones just an exception.

I hear all the time about kids with no insurance and sob stories about costs and insurance over and over.
I have yet to hear one story about sombody who was refused treatment. I havent heard one story about the poor kid who was turned away at the ER because he had no insurance.
I hear alot of stories about parents who let their kids die because they dont have insurance and about people who die because they never went to the hospital to get something looked at because they didnt have insurance.

Nobody will be denied the services they need.

Illegals get medical care all the time and citizens cant? I dont think so. These people are either just misinformed or perhaps ashamed of being poor.

They will not be denied care.

I dont understand where this push came from in the first place.
Its just politicians buying the dumb vote.

Here are some nice links I just found:
5,000 elderly killed each year
British healthcare rationed
red tape kills cancer....drug

These and more are here.

It just seems to be somebodys collection of articles so I suggest each one be scrutinized before claims of "fact" start to fly. Interesting none the less.

[edit on 6-3-2007 by thisguyrighthere]

I just want the same kind of health plan my congressmen and Representatives have. Who pays for their health coverage?

Well, the congressman pays for his healthcare I guess, with his 150-250k a year paycheck that his constituents have willed, not to mention the kick backs he gets for being a congressman. Maybe if we paid our congressmen less they would be forced to have the same healthcare as us?!

Did you hear about the husband selling his wifes kidney to a doctor in Pakistan and the wife didn't know what was going on until after the kidney was removed. Yea, he did it to get a tractor. We can relate this story to the wife being the American people, the husband being the US government and the tractor being an example of an abuse of power and how ABSOLUTE POWER CORUPTS ABSOLUTELY.(The doctor would still be the doctor, his role would not change in either example, )

Originally posted by whaaa
I just want the same kind of health plan my congressmen and Representatives have. Who pays for their health coverage?

We pay for it. We pay their salaries. They have insurance just like the rest of us. Just like the police we pay for, the firemen we pay for, the aldermen we pay for, any government employee we pay for.

If you want me to pay for your healthcare go get a government job. Or you could work for me directly but since the minimum wage hike Ive had to let a couple people go.

Do you want the retirement plan they have too? You know their retirement is privatized and unrelated to social security? But thats a different post.

comparing walter reed to a hypothetical nationalized healthcare system is comparing apples to oranges. MANY nations have a succesful socialized healthcare system, a great example is the island nation of malta. it's been ranked as either #1 or #2 in the world for providing QUALITY healthcare to the people. americans, do you honestly think MALTA can do a better job than you?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
do you honestly think MALTA can do a better job than you?

Yes, for one simple and obvious reason. Compare the population and size of Malta to that of the U.S. A socialized health care system in America is going to be tremendously larger and more complicated. Room for far more errors and corruption. Understand what I am trying to say?

Malta= 400,000 people.

Malta was pushing bankruptcy until it joined the EU.

How about this, America will socialize its healthcare if we can suck off of the collective EU tit to pay for it. Then we'll be just like Malta!

Have any of you guys ever actually been to a VA hospital, or just judging everything off of the Walter Reed story? My step-Dad uses the VA hospital in Florida all the time, I've been there twice, and it's great!

Most private hospitals can only dream of the futuristic medicine Dr. Divya Shroff practices today. Outside an elderly patient's room, the attending physician gathers her residents around a wireless laptop propped on a mobile cart. Shroff accesses the patient's entire medical history--a stack of paper in most private hospitals. And instead of trekking to the radiology lab to view the latest X-ray, she brings it up on her computer screen. While Shroff is visiting the patient, a resident types in a request for pain medication, then punches the SEND button. Seconds later, the printer in the hospital pharmacy spits out the order. The druggist stuffs a plastic bag of pills into what looks like a tiny space capsule, then shoots it up to the ward in a vacuum tube. By the time Shroff wheels away her computer, a nurse walks up with the drugs.

Life in a big-name institution like the Mayo Clinic? Not hardly. Shroff, 31, a specialist in internal medicine, works at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington, where the vets who come for the cutting-edge treatment are mostly poor.

If you're surprised, that's understandable. Until the early 1990s, care at VA hospitals was so substandard that Congress considered shutting down the entire system and giving ex-G.I.s vouchers for treatment at private facilities. Today it's a very different story. The VA runs the largest integrated health-care system in the country, with more than 1,400 hospitals, clinics and nursing homes employing 14,800 doctors and 61,000 nurses. And by a number of measures, this government-managed health-care program--socialized medicine on a small scale--is beating the marketplace. For the sixth year in a row, VA hospitals last year scored higher than private facilities on the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index, based on patient surveys on the quality of care received. The VA scored 83 out of 100; private institutions, 71. Males 65 years and older receiving VA care had about a 40% lower risk of death than those enrolled in Medicare Advantage, whose care is provided through private health plans or HMOs, according to a study published in the April edition of Medical Care. Harvard University just gave the VA its Innovations in American Government Award for the agency's work in computerizing patient records.
TIME Magazine

I think Walter Reed is getting so much press, well, yeah it was terrible, but also because it's supposed to be the flagship hospital, and that is where returning Iraqi war vets go. I wouldn't go so far to say that is the norm of all VA hospitals, and from the article above and personal experience, VA hospitals are great!

What I know for certain Curme, is that the doctors and nurses are top notch that come out of the military. They are some of the most educated, disciplined, hard-working, and reliable medical professionals in the US. I know this because I use to be a nurse recruiter.

Where VA facilities get themselves in trouble is when they start trying to cut corners. Another way of putting this is when the big wigs on the base are too stubborn to ask for funds actually needed instead of what funds were actually given. This makes the problem a systemic one since the mistakes are coming from the leadership at the top.

What I fear with a socialized healthcare program is that the power of authority over your choices will be given to the doctors and the US government instead of remaining with that of the patient.

Originally posted by Low Orbit

What I fear with a socialized health care program is that the power of authority over your choices will be given to the doctors and the US government instead of remaining with that of the patient.

Comparing that with no health care at all.....

What do you think people will chose?

Still I'm all for letting the states to decide what kind of health care they provide for their citizens.

Originally posted by whaaa

Comparing that with no health care at all.....

lol, there is healthcare in the US right now, isn't there. It's just ran by the Private Sector and regulated by the government. I'm not saying it's perfect but it definately could be a lot worse.

There are huge problems within the healthcare industry that need to be addressed such as how are we going to take care of all these baby boomers in 10 to 30 years? The system isn't broke because we have businesses running hospitals it is broke because a large portion of our population is getting up there in age.

I see socialized healthcare as a big umbrella to protect all Americans from the rain, which sounds great in theory. However, what if that great big umbrella gets a tiny hole in it, or a tear and then the wind starts to blow? How effective is that big umbrella now? Would it not be better to sometimes have many smaller independant umbrellas rather than one uber one? So when the !@$# hits the fan we don't all have to take it. I think the concept of this is risk allocation or something like that.

On your second point whaaa, I think you are spot on, states should have the right to decide for themselves which kind of health care system they want to have. This would be another great way to encourage more competition amongst health care corporations. And you know what they say about competition, well I forgot what they say about it but I know it's a hell of a lot better than oligopolies! DEATH TO BIG BUSINESS!

[edit on 7-3-2007 by Low Orbit]

[edit on 7-3-2007 by Low Orbit]

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
Malta= 400,000 people.

Malta was pushing bankruptcy until it joined the EU.

yeah, that's really stretching the truth. malta was at worst financially vunerable.

400,000 people, that's about right
and i get the argument about possibility for errors.
but why don't we leave it up to the states to run it and the fed to come up with standards?

How about this, America will socialize its healthcare if we can suck off of the collective EU tit to pay for it. Then we'll be just like Malta!

now you're outright insulting malta. you should feel a bit embarassed

Originally posted by Low Orbit
If the US Government can't take care of Walter Reed Hospital how will a Socialized Heathcare Program be in the US?

It'll freak'n stink. Take a long hard look at Walter Reed .. that is what we could expect from socialized healthcare ... or Hillarycare... in the USA.

Originally posted by Low Orbit
What I know for certain Curme, is that the doctors and nurses are top notch that come out of the military.

When i was in the Army, during relative 'peace' time, my health care STUNK. The doctors were awful. The facilities were crappy. It was worse than an HMO.

That was 20 years ago, so things may have changed.
But back in the '80s .. it was awful.

Walter Reed was privatized, not "socialized".

The committee wants to learn more about a letter written in September by Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi to Weightman.

The memorandum “describes how the Army’s decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was causing an exodus of ‘highly skilled and experienced personnel,’” the committee’s letter states. “According to multiple sources, the decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed led to a precipitous drop in support personnel at Walter Reed.”

The letter said Walter Reed also awarded a five-year, $120-million contract to IAP Worldwide Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official.

They also found that more than 300 federal employees providing facilities management services at Walter Reed had drooped to fewer than 60 by Feb. 3, 2007, the day before IAP took over facilities management. IAP replaced the remaining 60 employees with only 50 private workers.
Army Times

Then again look how the Haliburton people is handling Iraq, is anyone surprised one of their own would treat Walter Reed the same way?

When the postal service began to talk about RFD the delivery of mail to everyone's mailbox, congress argued it could not be done, it was impossible to deliver to every household everyday, (except Sunday of course), it was too expensive and would not work, how could they pay for such a thing? Now we take mail delivery for granted.

Other countries have managed to have healthcare for every citizen and no it is not perfect, anyone know anything that is perfect? But, universal healthcare is more perfect than over 43 million people having no health care access at all, having no insurance if one loses their job, sometimes having to stay tied to a job to not lose health insurance. Healthcare bills is the number one reason many people have to file bankruptcy.

People often think it is the only the poorest among us or unemployed that have no health care but that is not true, it also includes people working for small companies that can't afford to provide health care coverage for their employees, these companies also usually pay lower wages, try paying for healthcare for a family on minimum wage. Many lower income areas have plenty of companies like these and no moving is not always and option for there is only so many jobs in any given area and where do you get the money to move an entire family when you have no money due to low income and often times depend on extended family for survival in many ways.

The list of people not having healthcare includes people in between jobs, (due to many companies closing anyone who has a job right now could easily fall into this category) often times it takes 3-6 months of being an employee at the company before one qualifies for their health insurance, also usually there is a years waiting period before existing illnesses will be covered which is why many people have to stay in a company to keep from losing their coverage.


I just saw on one of the major new outlets where they did a survey and most Americans said they would pay higher taxes to have healthcare for everyone. I think basically the insurance industry fights this idea tooth and nail (with lobbying and ads) to keep from losing their industy and jobs, of course what will most likely happen is the government will contract with them to cover certain areas so they would not lose out, probably they would grow since there would now be more people to cover.

When I retired the first time, I found myself without health care. I MISTAKENLY went to the VA Hospital to address an issue as I am a USMC Veteran.

NEVER again.....

First, I don't think that just because I served in the Marines I should just lay back and let someone else pay for my health care, but that is a personal thing.

More importantly the hospital I went to was, how do I say this, not up to any standard I was used to.... The hallway was lined with drunks and I was asked for spare change 4 times before I just up and left...

Yeah, sure, Socialized Health Care.... Government subsidized health Care.....

Not for me thank you...

Semper

semperfortis
First, I don't think that just because I served in the Marines I should just lay back and let someone else pay for my health care, but that is a personal thing.

But everyone who is paying taxes would be paying for it, that list includes the working poor, the middle class and the wealthy. I would assume that you would fall under one of these groups so yes you would still be paying for it.

I hope when they and if they ever do universal healthcare it should be required that every Senator and Congressman and their families should have to use the same healthcare system we do, then I don't think you would have to worry about substandard health care.

BTW I think marines are great, I am married to one.

[edit on 10-3-2007 by goose]

Semper Fi!!!!

Goose.....

Semper