butthead aka 216

healthcare in the us is a sham in so many ways. hospitals sign contracts with companies who make healthcare equipment, those companies jack up prices to 20X the original price, the hospital knows but doesnt care cause they are gettin government money and guess who else is footin the bill?? citizens who get sick or injured.

i realize you cant put a price on savin a life but my brother was in a car wreck like 7 years ago and his bills were well into the hundreds of thousands. its just such a daunting amount of money.

but we keep putting insane money into the miitary so we can keep getting funding for a defense budget we completely dont need and keep unemployment as low as possible since the military is one of the countries biggest employers

ranting a little but healthcare costs are just too insane lol. its why i never go to the doctor.

Burning Down

Pharmaceutical companies and corporations who manufacture healthcare machinery (ultrasound machines, MRI's, etc), are only concerned with the bottom line and making a huge profit. They don't give a rat's ass about patient health. It's no different here, except that the government regulates these companies more heavily than the US does.

Also, our healthcare may be universal, but you are still charged for your hospital stay, drugs, dentist, vision care (unless you have a pre existing or genetic condition), and some other things. If you don't have adequate insurance for these things you will pay through the nose.

Astronomer

Over here you don't even have to pay for your hospital visit or drugs. I was in hospital for 2 weeks and on a huge series of what are expensive drugs in parts of the world where you have to pay for them, and I didn't even have to pay for a cent. It was all included in my public hospital stay.

We do, however, have to pay for optical, dental, "extras", and other random things like sufficient obstetrics care... Which is why I opted for and pay for private health insurance to cover obstetrics, like $100 a month I think it is, just as a security blanket. I still have to pay full price for optical and dental though.

Interesting to hear how things work differently in other parts of the world.

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hip hop bunny hop

The underlined is hilarious because it is indicative of the general ignorance I'm dealing with in this thread. Yes, if you were to combine two completely different aspects of the Federal budget they would become larger than any one category.

Unless, of course, we had a category called "Entitlements", which amounts for a whole 45% of the budget for Medicaid & Social Security alone. These two items account for 23% & 22% of the 2012 budget, are insolvent, and are set to expand dramatically in the years upcoming.

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Have mercy on the poor.

djchameleon

Where did you get those percentages? Entitlement programs account for less than 5% of the budget.

Those large percentages are highly inaccurate.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

Astronomer

Yes I am somewhat ignorant because I don't live in the US. Your whole tax and healthcare system is foreign and illogical to me so I don't really understand it. I apologise for this. If US citizens are happy with the level of public healthcare they currently have and content with the way their taxes are distributed, then so be it. I'm just happy with the fact that where I live I have affordable healthcare with minimal taxes and that I don't have to worry about any medical bills, whereas I hear constant struggles from people who live elsewhere.

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hip hop bunny hop

Astronomer, I'm glad to hear you admit you don't know the basics about the subject at hand. Now, kindly, please rethink how you could constructively participate in this thread.


Wikipedia. CNN gives similar figures (edited 'cuz it stretched the width)

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Have mercy on the poor.

Freebase Dali

I think he got his from The New York Times.

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Astronomer

No worries. I know more than enough about the subject currently at hand (being public healthcare systems), I just am not familiar with US system. I thought I'd contribute to the thread as an individual living in a country with a public healthcare system which allows healthcare to be affordable for every single citizen. I never claimed to know everything about how the system works in other countries, in fact I clearly stated in my original posts that I was actually baffled as to why in some countries people can't afford appropriate healthcare and that I wasn't sure how it worked.

Regarding US tax dollars, I got my information from The Center of Budget and Policy Priorities which states that, in this order, US tax dollars go towards:

1. Defense and international security assistance
3. Interest on debt
3. Social security
4. Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP (however unfortunately these programs do not seem to service most of the general public as it seems? I am not sure. Feel free to correct me on this. Like I said, and I have to say multiple times, I am not claiming to know everything but am instead merely just contributing to the discussion with my opinions, questions, and experiences.)
5. "Other"
6. Safety net programs

Australia's tax dollars are spent in this order, according to our equivalent data organisation:

1. Social security and welfare
2. Health
3. "All other functions" (not really sure what this means)
4. Education
5. General public services
6. Defense

Just for comparison. Clearly the tax spending priorities of different countries are very different and it will have various affects on the way society operates and what people can afford. I just thought that in the wake of all these new healthcare acts emerging worldwide, it is interesting to look at the way tax dollars are spent in different places with different healthcare programs.

EDIT: Obviously Australia is doing something right in terms of livability (which includes health and public services) if 4 of our major cities are included in the top 10 list of most livable cities according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Same goes for Canada, Finland and New Zealand who have similar healthcare programs. I don't understand why so many people are against this kind of system in the US. (I'm not criticising their stance, I'm saying I actually don't understand).

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hip hop bunny hop

It was from CNN Money. I don't know how DJ got the 5% figure, unless he was looking at some chart that had a very unusual way of saying what discretionary spending was. Anyways, here's a link to a simple Google image search on the subject.

Oh come on, Astronomer. We both know that correlation does not mean causation; besides, if you wanted to be lazy and go that route I could offer up cities straddle state borders and have dramatically worst outcomes in the state with more welfare (such as East St. Louis).

As far as this, "oh I don't understand the oppositin " bull**** - knock it off. Drop that line as often as you want, your actions show you don't ****ing believe it. I fail to see why someone who claims complete ignorance to the opposing viewpoint would continually drop nonfactual statements and inane arguments in the thread.

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Have mercy on the poor.