Everything Nurses >> Nursing Politics/Activism >> Is Universal Health Care the Answer?
Is Universal Health Care the Answer?
|
Posted 9 months ago The idea of having national universal health care is a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail. Britain has had this kind of system for over fifty years, but many nurses don't like it. Would it work in the U.S.? What sort of effect would it have on nurses? |
|
| Posted 9 months ago The state of Massachusetts just made it mandatory as of 1 July 07 that everyone will have health insurance, or they would lose their exemption of $200 on the state income tax. I think its great that everyone have insurance, but at what cost. They are sayaing that it everone must bear the burden, but what comes first insurance or food on the table. Health care in this country is off the charts and something has to be done. Does anyone have the right fix, I really don't know, but it sure is going to be interesting finding out. |
|
| Posted 9 months ago I don't think we we ever come to a appropriate decision about who should fund health care. There are pros and cons to both government funded health care and market driven health care.. Funds for the uninsured have got to come from somewhere and right now a lot of the burden is being placed on the insured via higher premiums. Mandating health insurance just as we now do with car insurance is maybe the right way to go considering the other options such as government funded health care which, to me, is definitely not the answer. However, I do believe that the the health care industry and the insurance companies have proven that they are unable to handle "it" alone. So, I do agree with the actions by the government of taking action when necessary to protect the health and the interest of the people. An example would be the ban by congress of drive through mastectomies, which the insurance companies tried to get away with years ago. |
|
|
| Posted 9 months ago REAL SIMPLE ANSWER TO THIS TOPIC! JUST ASK YOURSELF ONE QUESTION , JUST ONE QUESTION : DO YOU WANT TO LIVE ? NOW ANSWER THAT QUESTION! I'M ALL FOR -" HELL YEAH!" NOW GO BACK TO THE TOP AND RE-READ THE TOPIC again and again........... |
|
|
| Posted 9 months ago I heard a great one about Hillary's perfect fix on the insurance/health care issue the other day. Hillary is claiming that her plan to insure the 48 million americans that lack health insurance will not involve the government. My first thought to this comment was where in the heck is the money going to come from to give millions of us insurance if the government is not going to get involved.??? Is she going to provide the funds? Probably not, so my next thought would be higher taxes!!! Isn't that the same thing? |
|
| Posted 9 months ago The Clinton-Edwards-Romney-Schwarzenegger Health Plan There’s no doubt that Hillary Clinton unleashed her healthcare plan with a better pr campaign than any other candidate…just as there’s no doubt that many of the plans being pushed by politicians look alike. We’ll take a look at where the healthcare debate has gone since Hillary turned the heat up……cross-posted at the [http://www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org/blog National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s] Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model. Consumer advocate Jamie Court argues that we’re criminalizing patients and enriching insurers] by mandating the purchase of insurance: The average health insurance premium for a family of four is just over $12,000. What middle-class family making, say, $60,000 per year can afford that bill, much less the deductibles and copays to follow? Blogger Bookgrl counters that Hillary Clinton’s plan is a back-door end-around way to achieve guaranteed, single-payer healthcare: Hillary's plan ensures that private insurance companies will have to compete with one of the most successful government programs you've never had access to before. ..To me, the understated Medicare opt-in is all that really matters. It's a path to single or quasi-single payer healthcare if ever there was one. Paul Krugman on the other hand] doesn’t think Clinton’s plan—and all the ones that are similar to it--will lead to single-payer healthcare, but he does think it’s the best we’re gonna get: These plans may disappoint advocates of a cleaner, simpler single-payer system. But it’s hard to see how Medicare for all could get through Congress any time in the near future, whereas Edwards-type plans offer a reasonable second best that you can actually envision being enacted by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic president just two years from now. Barbara Ehrenreich agrees ClintonCare won’t be the stepping-stone to single-payer…and suggests we gird our resolve and steel ourselves rather than give in so quickly: Bow your heads and raise the white flags. After facing down the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, the U.S.S.R., Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, the United States has met an enemy it dares not confront -- the American private health insurance industry. With the courageous exception of Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic candidates have all rolled out health "reform" plans that represent total, Chamberlain-like, appeasement.
For context on the healthcare crisis, a new report finds it’s worse than we thought: one-third of U.S. residents have been without health insurance for some period over the last two years. Yikes. And the Wall St. Journal, evangelists of the free markets, reports a poll finding that 65% of the American public] wants the government to guarantee healthcare…as happens in single-payer systems succeeding around the world. To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/ GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association. |
|
|
| Posted 9 months ago The G.M. Strike: It’s the Healthcare Stupid You probably know that the UAW has called a national strike against GM. This is the first auto strike since 1976, the first strike against GM since 1970...and the first strike since the AFL endorse a "Medicare for All" style guaranteed healthcare plan. The UAW’s strike against GM is not just about their members' healthcare...but also about the healthcare of millions of people not represented by a powerful union. .. No one keeps the stats, but about 90 percent of strikes are caused by the issue of healthcare. The labor movement remains at the heart of the movement to protect and expand access to healthcare for all people, while employers are looking to get out of the healthcare field. And guess what? It’s only going to get worse. Just like GM will try to dump their U.S. employees out of the healthcare system, and end their own interest in solving the healthcare crisis, many of the healthcare reform proposals being floated by politicians will encourage the same thing to happen. Let’s look at the emerging deal between Schwarzenegger and the legislature in California: Employers spend between 12% and 15% of payroll on average for health care, and CNA fears either the 4% or 7.5% plan would encourage them to move to high-deductible insurance policies with limited services, Communications Director Chuck Idelson said.
Zenei Cortez, RN, a member of the Council of Presidents of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee on the UAW strike:
to read more go to the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.
|
|
| Posted 9 months ago Okay so we have established that the system is broken. But I have yet to hear one logical and workable solution. There will be no easy answers. This is not a multiple choice question with 4 right answers with one more right. We are asking the wrong questions and the answers are wrong also. Yes, we want to believe everyone can have good quality health care at a reasonable price. We can not buy good quality groceries at a reasonable price people. How do you expect someone who is trying to make sure there are lights on, rent/mortgage paid, and food on the table to pay 12,000 dollars a year for health insurance? I don't make $60,000 a year more like $21,000 and pay 357 dollars a month for health insurance. With a $500 deductible and co-pays I rarely go to the doctor, I have insurance and am afraid to use it (how will I pay the bills). We are going to have to ask some hard questions and think outside the box on this one folks. Plenty of intelligent people out there seem to care about the questions. Lets figure out how to care about the answers without caring who comes up with the right ones. |
|
| Posted 8 months ago I think all insurance is a rip off. Car, medical, etc. With car you pay and pay, then you are in a wreck and they will raise your rates, drop you, or argue over paying. Health ins. is the same way. Paying until you get sick and then they want to argue again about paying certain things and possibly not pay at all. Then you are sometimes not even covered for certain procedures you need done or the ins. co. says it is too expensive. I don't know the right answers to who should and should not be ahead of the ins. companies however, whether it is the gov't or the companies themselves we still are going to get screwed either way. |
|
|
| Posted 7 months ago vickielee1970 said: well said, ditto |
|
| Posted 6 months ago Universal Health Care is proposed for the good of all, the "common man". Britain has had it for years, and if you ask the common Nurse in Britain this type of system definitely has its draw backs. Back when Clinton was first out on the Presidential Campaign trail, been awhile, he was big in the proposition of Universal Health Care. They held Medical reviews and hearings for days. Does anyone recall the testimonies of the Canadians??? This is OUR WARNING!!!
No Doubt there are problems with our current Healthcare system, but Universal or Socialized medicine is NOT the answer. Perhaps caps placed on DRG's would improve the picture. Or, perhaps the insurance companies that dictate DRG's need a review and overhaul?......Perhaps regulations in these areas and limits would improve our system??? Everyone deserves healthcare and everyone can receive it. Insured or Not. The ramifications of such, vary depending on the individual's circumstances. I could go on and on. But, in essence I don't think Universal Healthcare is the way to go, and I'm afraid the whole campaign for it is just a marketing strategy for their political stance anyways.
|
|
| Posted 6 months ago I couldn't agree with you more. Name one thing that the goverment was in charge of running that turned out to be a winner? They will tie the system up so bad it will never work again. If you want to see how well the goverment will be at running healthcare, just take a look at ANY veterans hospital or talk to wounded soilders returning from war and ask how their treatment was...yep, their right on top of that...what a joke. Don't get me wrong, it is not the doctors and nurses fault at these places but the bureaucracy that oversees them. I think in the future more and more large employers will begin setting up their own clinics for their own employees staffed by NP's...my dad's company has this and it lowered their health care cost, plus the coverage is better because all employees can now be referred to doctors through their clinic and stay "in-network". Also I hear that places like Wal-Mart, CVS, Walgreens, etc..are looking to add NP's to their pharmacy areas. Although I am not a nurse yet, I would recommend all of you nurses do your homework and research this universal healthcare thing, stick together and don't vote for anyone who is for goverment ran health care. I am not going to let the goverment control who can have what and where. They dress it all up in a humanitarian effort to get us on their side and then WHAMO...it turns into something else that THEY have control over and then THEY get to decide who gets it and who don't. Scary huh? Hey look, back at Thanksgiving I was hospitalized for 3 days in ICU and a couple on the floor and I'm telling you, insurance or not I got top notch care by people who loved their job and regardless of what it ends up costing me I am here to tell you that my LIFE was worth what ever the cost will be...I dont' want CHEAP healthcare, I want GREAT healthcare and I want it at ANY cost...:) |
|
| Posted 4 months ago I would advocate a system like that in the Netherlands... there is a basic coverage by the government for everybody (ie one general check-up a year, one Pap smear/mammogram for women, and one hospital visit), but there is a lot of freedom in choosing your own private coverage plan with greater benefits and generally better health care. America has one of the best health care systems in the world, and it would be a shame to compromise that, but we have millions of working, uninsured people and that simply isn't fair. I work, go to school, and cannot afford insurance... I'm always terrified that I will get sick or break a limb and not be able to afford the costs. |
|
| Posted 4 months ago I couldn't agree with Vickilee more, that we need to think outside the box on this one. We have the best CARE in the world, but not the best system for delivering that care. Many solutions have been proposed (Universal, National, etc); but think of the size of the countries with SUCCESSFUL systems like that. Yep, I think Denmark likes it's system, but it is MINISCULE in size when compated to the US. How about the UK? And the taxes? Canada has a National System, and is similar in size; but a good number of Canadians come here for their care. That kind of tells me something. I'm just not sure that UHC or a single payer system is the answer. I really think with EVERYONE tweaking, not just politicians, but the people getting involved and learning what THE PROBLEM REALLY is and what studies have been done, what they've shown and become in potential solutions, we, the COLLECTIVE, every American should get involved. I think nurses can lead the way here. Americans rely on nurses, they trust nurses. Why not take that one step further and use it to our advantage? We'd all like to see the healthcare problems solved. Well, let's roll up our sleeves and be part of the solution, not part of the problem. |