Bush wants billions for war while American children suffer

[Eki]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/22/war.spending/index.html


He contrasted the Iraqi funding with Bush's October 3 veto of a $60 billion children's health care bill that had bipartisan support and would have been paid for by an increase in cigarette taxes. Bush called the bill too expensive and a step toward government-provided health care.

"It's no wonder the American people are frustrated," Reid said. "We've been fighting for America's priorities, while the president continues investing only in his failed war strategy. He wants us to come up with another $200 billion and just sign off on it -- that's what he said today."

[rah]

Yeah its a criminal. Where are the priorities?

[SOD]

needs more people to be blown up for the president's amusement.

[Rollo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7026454.stm


"The focus of the government ought to be to help poor children and to focus on poor children. And the policies of the government ought to be to help people find private insurance, not federal coverage."
George Bush, October 3

What the hell? In the UK if you suggested this, then whoever was in power would lose office tommorrow. I mean for ****'s sake, even third world countries have grasped the idea that health care should be a basic right of their citizens.

America is the only western country in the world where if you happen to get sick and don't have private cover, then the government openly doesn't care. For the president to actually veto such a bill has just lowered him in my book to utter scum.

[Schultz]

Thing is, there seems to be a rather strong push within the the American society to make government even smaller. People like Ron Paul are starting to geta fair bit of suport and he wants to abolish the income tax. This surely, can only lead to increased prices for insurance and health cover, which trully makes me feel sorry for the American people.

I mean, we have had a bad run with John Howard, but atleast he is able to keep us in surplus.

[Daniel]

No one can complain about the Liberal's management of the economy. Other things you can complain about. But at least when I left the country was in safe hands economically :)

[airshifter]

Thing is, there seems to be a rather strong push within the the American society to make government even smaller. People like Ron Paul are starting to geta fair bit of suport and he wants to abolish the income tax. This surely, can only lead to increased prices for insurance and health cover, which trully makes me feel sorry for the American people.

I mean, we have had a bad run with John Howard, but atleast he is able to keep us in surplus.

The idea of doing away with income taxes is intended as a shift to consumption taxes. You have to buy to live, so nobody could cheat.

Don't feel sorry for me at all. With the much lower government imposed taxes I pay, my wages go much further than in most countries with public health care. Involving government does nothing other than take away my options. As it stands now smart use of those options makes health care much easier to afford, and since we have more or our paychecks in our pockets it isn't a big issue.

I don't want government to make my choices for me.

[schmenke]

If I had a choice I'd opt for private health care rather than this underfunded, inefficient government-provided system in our country :s

[Eki]

The idea of doing away with income taxes is intended as a shift to consumption taxes. You have to buy to live, so nobody could cheat.

Don't feel sorry for me at all. With the much lower government imposed taxes I pay, my wages go much further than in most countries with public health care. Involving government does nothing other than take away my options. As it stands now smart use of those options makes health care much easier to afford, and since we have more or our paychecks in our pockets it isn't a big issue.

I don't want government to make my choices for me.
Would you also like privately funded military? Everybody could pay a share of their income to support the military if they wish. Maybe sort of "adopt a GI" would be a good idea?

[Erki]

Would you also like privately funded military? Everybody could pay a share of their income to support the military if they wish. Maybe sort of "adopt a GI" would be a good idea?

Maybe this would be the only way to pacify the world. :up: Eki, if it was up to me, I would give you the Nobel peace prize. :cool:

What's "adopt a GI"?

[Eki]

What's "adopt a GI"?
A GI is an American soldier. The US has an "Adopt a Highway" maintenance corporation where people, companies or organizations can pay for road maintenance for name recognition:

http://www.adoptahighway.com/


Adopt A Highway Maintenance Corporation (AHMC) provides an opportunity for your company or organization to be recognized for sponsoring a section of highway. We do all the work and you get all the recognition!

[Crypt]

This bill did one of two things;

Passed: Help pave the way to "Hillary" socialized medicine. Very bad IMO.

Vetoed: Made Bush look like a jerk. Worked.

I just think there is a better path to a good healthcare system and this certainly wasn't it.

[Erki]

I just think there is a better path to a good healthcare system and this certainly wasn't it.

Yes. Like living in proper environment and eating proper food, for starters.

[Rollo]

If I had a choice I'd opt for private health care rather than this underfunded, inefficient government-provided system in our country :s

I wouldn't :angryfire :

Private health care in principle tends to divert funds away from the public system. Obviously if people think they can turn a profit, then they'll try to. The problem is that the profit motive is in opposition to the very nature of health care in the first place.
A totally private system would ensure that the best health care would go to those people who can most afford it. The problem here is that the poorest people can not afford it in the first place and drop out of the system entirely.

It re-inforces the point that poorer people are actually worth less to society, even though they're the ones more likely to be working in factories and producing actual products.

I would have thought that a properly funded public health care system was desirable and that decent health care was one of those things that should be a right.
I think that the system as it currently stands in the US in particular is disgusting, but it certainly proves what society thinks of its poorer people.

They can't afford decent health care, therefore they must deserve to die.

[rah]

I wouldn't :angryfire :

Private health care in principle tends to divert funds away from the public system. Obviously if people think they can turn a profit, then they'll try to. The problem is that the profit motive is in opposition to the very nature of health care in the first place.
A totally private system would ensure that the best health care would go to those people who can most afford it. The problem here is that the poorest people can not afford it in the first place and drop out of the system entirely.

It re-inforces the point that poorer people are actually worth less to society, even though they're the ones more likely to be working in factories and producing actual products.

I would have thought that a properly funded public health care system was desirable and that decent health care was one of those things that should be a right.
I think that the system as it currently stands in the US in particular is disgusting, but it certainly proves what society thinks of its poorer people.

They can't afford decent health care, therefore they must deserve to die.

Thats a damn good post.

[Camelopard]

Thats a damn good post.

I agree entirely.....

[Loobylou]

I'm not happy with the NHS, having been on the non-receiving end a few times too many... having to wait 3 weeks to get a GP appointment is ridiculous, as is waiting over a year for physio that gets cut short to what is recommended because of the length of the waiting list.

But, because I have had a back injury in the past, I cannot got reasonably priced private cover. Whereas if I wasn't paying full NI I could afford private insurance.

I think a tiered system could be looked at:

option a - you pay full NI & get full NHS cover
option b - you pay 'X' NI & get 'X' NHS cover & are expected to have insurance over & above 'X', this option could have several levels covering day care, non-invasive procedures etc
option c - you pay the bare minimum NI & as such only get emergency NHS cover, the expectation being that you have insurance as you have opted out as much as is possible

All of the above, would allow those that would prefer to go private (& are borderline at the moment) to do so whilst still ensuring they are paying something in for the occaision where they are involved in a car accident (for instance) & need emergency treatment. The status quo would obviously still exist for those that do not work, as being disabled & unable to work, should not exclude you from access to the system when needed.

[BDunnell]

I agree with Rollo.

Unfortunately, not everyone can get the chance to rise from being a humble President's son to become President themself.

[schmenke]

A few examples of the failing public health care system in this country:

Around here families are on a wait list to get access to a family doctor.
In order to bypass enormously long wait-times, patients are travelling across the border to the U.S. for treatment. This includes treatment for: heart surgery, hip-replacements, cancer treatment...
There have been several recent examples of patients being turned away from local hospitals here and having to be rushed across the border for emergency treatment.
A recent study reported that the average Canadian hospital walk-in wait-time is 15 hours ( :s ).
I have had to wait over 9 months just for a consultation with a specialist, then another three months for treatment.

Rollo has some good points, but I agree with Looby; a tiered system, or at the very least, a private system with perhaps government subsidies for the poor would work best.

[L5->R5/CR]

The whole world get to see how incompetent the US bureaucracy is with the war in Iraq.

Do you really think our government could run healthcare?


All I want as a US citizens, scared ****-less by not having health insurance in two months is for the government to get involved in cleaning up the malpractice field and HMOs. Doctors in the US spend upwards of 75% of their net income on insurance for their practices. Couple that with HMOs denying tons and tons of procedures, and only supporting a very select amount of preventative treatments, and doctors, on average, are only paid by insurance companies 60% of what they bill. Our doctors have to charge more, and more often, so they can get in the end what they would have been more than happy with in the beginning. They also have to have so many patients in their practice, to be able to generate the necessary net income, that when you are sick it can take days to be seen.

It is no wonder why so many good US doctors have gone to what they are calling the "boutique" model and patients that can afford it are flocking to it. Pay a large lump sum once a year and get unlimited in office treatment from your doctor with little to no delay in making appointments.

The US government is incapable of running something as complex and important as health care.


What we need in the US is to have our government afraid of the people so they truly feel compelled to serve our best interests.

[Malbec]

The whole world get to see how incompetent the US bureaucracy is with the war in Iraq.

Do you really think our government could run healthcare?


All I want as a US citizens, scared ****-less by not having health insurance in two months is for the government to get involved in cleaning up the malpractice field and HMOs. Doctors in the US spend upwards of 75% of their net income on insurance for their practices. Couple that with HMOs denying tons and tons of procedures, and only supporting a very select amount of preventative treatments, and doctors, on average, are only paid by insurance companies 60% of what they bill. Our doctors have to charge more, and more often, so they can get in the end what they would have been more than happy with in the beginning. They also have to have so many patients in their practice, to be able to generate the necessary net income, that when you are sick it can take days to be seen.

It is no wonder why so many good US doctors have gone to what they are calling the "boutique" model and patients that can afford it are flocking to it. Pay a large lump sum once a year and get unlimited in office treatment from your doctor with little to no delay in making appointments.

The US government is incapable of running something as complex and important as health care.

What we need in the US is to have our government afraid of the people so they truly feel compelled to serve our best interests.

I disagree. If you look at healthcare spending in the UK, 7-9% of GDP with a nearly fully state funded system and compare it with the US, 15% of GDP on healthcare as a whole and then compare healthcare markers such as life expectancy, life expectancy following primary diagnosis of cancer, rates of heart disease etc then there isn't a significant gap. Looking at it in those terms our much berated NHS is about 50-100% more efficient than your mainly privately run system. Believe me, when it comes to being inefficient the British government has the Americans licked. Despite this the NHS works pretty well, mainly because it is designed to operate at nearly 100% capacity at any moment whilst privately run healthcare systems tend to have a large amount of excess capacity.

There are reasons why the comparison cannot be made directly, those with the best healthcare cover in the US receive treatment far better than that available in the UK whilst those without cover obviously receive worse and therefore the extremes are much wider. There are also cultural gaps regarding the requesting of expensive investigations. In the US the medical culture is to fleece the insurance company and therefore initiate investigations that are not necessarily clinically indicated but are profitable for the hospital. In the UK and much of the rest of the world the medical culture is to only request investigations that are relevant to the patient you are looking at. Whilst this may sound trivial during the course of a hospital stay this difference in culture can save thousands of pounds or dollars.

The main reason why socialised medicine won't be well received in the US is because the medics there have an interest in maintaining the system as it is in order to protect their income. They are a strong lobby group in Washington and I suspect rather strongly they will 'convince' enough senators to water down any such bill.

[airshifter]

I wouldn't :angryfire :

Private health care in principle tends to divert funds away from the public system. Obviously if people think they can turn a profit, then they'll try to. The problem is that the profit motive is in opposition to the very nature of health care in the first place.
A totally private system would ensure that the best health care would go to those people who can most afford it. The problem here is that the poorest people can not afford it in the first place and drop out of the system entirely.

It re-inforces the point that poorer people are actually worth less to society, even though they're the ones more likely to be working in factories and producing actual products.

I would have thought that a properly funded public health care system was desirable and that decent health care was one of those things that should be a right.
I think that the system as it currently stands in the US in particular is disgusting, but it certainly proves what society thinks of its poorer people.

They can't afford decent health care, therefore they must deserve to die.


If there were any truth to this post, it would have merit. There isn't.

Medicare and Medicade provide coverage for those to poor to afford it. This is a public funded system for those with no other choice. From what people in other countries have said, it works similar to most public health systems. Long waits, often not the best care, and many hassles.

Having private insurance coverage and the wide choice of providers gives people much more choice and they won't tolerate such waits and hassles. The profits exist for the providers by competing with others just as with any other business. If they don't perform well, they lose clients and money.

Most insurance companies negotiate substantial discounts with providers, thus they pay less than an individual would, which is where a great deal of their profit is generated. To the contrary of your claim, they prevent overpricing services.


I can walk into any numbers of facilities in my area, right at this moment, and get attention for even minor illnesses within minutes. If you find that disgusting, then I can only assume you have doctors that come to your home on a moments notice.



If anyone would have read further into the reasons for Bush's veto they would find that he has pressed for making health care affordable to more people and helping them pay for it, in an intent to give them that choice. He is opposed to making it a public system as doing such then makes it more a matter of minimizing expenditures rather than maximizing care.

[Rollo]

All of the above, would allow those that would prefer to go private (& are borderline at the moment) to do so whilst still ensuring they are paying something in for the occaision where they are involved in a car accident (for instance) & need emergency treatment. The status quo would obviously still exist for those that do not work, as being disabled & unable to work, should not exclude you from access to the system when needed.

If you're on the bottom rung of society and can not afford any medical insurance and the doctors required to perform the surgery have already been siphoned off to the "private" system, then you still don't win.
Doctors will gravitate to where they can get the best pay; naturally if people are prepared to pay more then that's where they go.

In principle what you're advocating is choice - which is usually a good thing. By default, it hacks the bottom out of the system and I don't think in principle that's a good thing. Choice is all good and proper, but if everyone had acess to the best healthcare, then surely a social conscience has to be raised.

One of the functions of Government should be about protecting those people who most need the help. Incidentally that's why the original point was so scandalous - denying children the right to decent health care but benefitting the military shows no conscience and no heart from the US government at all.

I think it's right to complain about the NHS as well. As far a a big system goes, it's envied the world over but can always be improved.

[L5->R5/CR]

I disagree. If you look at healthcare spending in the UK, 7-9% of GDP with a nearly fully state funded system and compare it with the US, 15% of GDP on healthcare as a whole and then compare healthcare markers such as life expectancy, life expectancy following primary diagnosis of cancer, rates of heart disease etc then there isn't a significant gap. Looking at it in those terms our much berated NHS is about 50-100% more efficient than your mainly privately run system. Believe me, when it comes to being inefficient the British government has the Americans licked. Despite this the NHS works pretty well, mainly because it is designed to operate at nearly 100% capacity at any moment whilst privately run healthcare systems tend to have a large amount of excess capacity.

There are reasons why the comparison cannot be made directly, those with the best healthcare cover in the US receive treatment far better than that available in the UK whilst those without cover obviously receive worse and therefore the extremes are much wider. There are also cultural gaps regarding the requesting of expensive investigations. In the US the medical culture is to fleece the insurance company and therefore initiate investigations that are not necessarily clinically indicated but are profitable for the hospital. In the UK and much of the rest of the world the medical culture is to only request investigations that are relevant to the patient you are looking at. Whilst this may sound trivial during the course of a hospital stay this difference in culture can save thousands of pounds or dollars.

The main reason why socialised medicine won't be well received in the US is because the medics there have an interest in maintaining the system as it is in order to protect their income. They are a strong lobby group in Washington and I suspect rather strongly they will 'convince' enough senators to water down any such bill.



The view from the outside is very odd of the US.

Most of the difference in health care expenditures comes from the litigation environment, not the doctors.

Similarly, if you had read my post more carefully, you would see that I mentioned the biggest problem in the US system is the infighting between doctors and the HMOs and malpractice insurance (I spent 2 years working in medical billing in a large private practice, my understanding of the way the system works in the US is pretty solid).

Most US Doctors, save for the elite specialists, make similar wages to their counterparts in the UK. Doctors themselves are not the ones fighting socialized healthcare, it is the insurance industry that is the backer of most of the lobbying resistance. HMO bs and un-needed but necessitated (simply because of the legal environment) malpractice insurance consists of between 25 and 60% of the expenditures on healthcare in the US depending on the state (the last study I saw when I was working suggested a nearly 50% average nation wide on the costs). Take away these two problems and health care would have similar costs.

Doctors don't lose with socialized health care, it is the bloated insurance companies that would lose, they are the ones with the money and the ones with the most to lose.

[Loobylou]

If you're on the bottom rung of society and can not afford any medical insurance and the doctors required to perform the surgery have already been siphoned off to the "private" system, then you still don't win.
Doctors will gravitate to where they can get the best pay; naturally if people are prepared to pay more then that's where they go.

In principle what you're advocating is choice - which is usually a good thing. By default, it hacks the bottom out of the system and I don't think in principle that's a good thing. Choice is all good and proper, but if everyone had acess to the best healthcare, then surely a social conscience has to be raised.

One of the functions of Government should be about protecting those people who most need the help. Incidentally that's why the original point was so scandalous - denying children the right to decent health care but benefitting the military shows no conscience and no heart from the US government at all.

I think it's right to complain about the NHS as well. As far a a big system goes, it's envied the world over but can always be improved.

I see your point (first paras), but, in my defence, I didn't address the supply issue. ;) It obviously would need looking at, but I'm a bit right wing on a lot of social 'aspects' & would probably get lynched so I'll leave to those more diplomatic than me. :laugh:

[Eki]

I think regular mental health check-ups for world leaders would be a good idea. I agree with Kucinich that Bush's paranoia has gone way beyond healthy skepticism:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306417,00.html

Kucinich Questions Bush's Mental Health Over World War III Comment

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

PHILADELPHIA — Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich questioned President Bush's mental health in light of comments he made about a nuclear Iran precipitating World War III.

"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health," Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board on Tuesday. "There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact."

Kucinich, known for his liberal views, trails far behind the leading candidates in most Democratic polls. He was in Philadelphia for a debate at Drexel University.

Bush made the remarks at a news conference earlier this month.

He said: "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Kucinich said he doesn't believe his comments about the president's mental health are irresponsible, according to a story posted on the newspaper's Web site.

"You cannot be a president of the United States who's wanton in his expression of violence," Kucinich said. "There's a lot of people who need care. He might be one of them. If there isn't something wrong with him, then there's something wrong with us. This, to me, is a very serious question."

[Canada Cornrow]

I think regular mental health check-ups for world leaders would be a good idea. I agree with Kucinich that Bush's paranoia has gone way beyond healthy skepticism:



Kucinich, known for his liberal views, trails far behind the leading candidates in most Democratic polls.



There are a few posters here who could use a good check-up too. Dennis Kucinich is a political bottom feeder much like Ron Paul.

[Malbec]

Most of the difference in health care expenditures comes from the litigation environment, not the doctors.

If you mean that the fear of litigation drives expensive overinvestigation then I totally agree, that was my point too. I had thought you meant that the cost of litigation itself is included in the healthcare spending quoted.


Most US Doctors, save for the elite specialists, make similar wages to their counterparts in the UK.

I'm not so sure about that. Figures for mean earnings in the US tend to be well towards the upper end for related specialities in the UK and that is with the recent dollar crash. Its true that US medics work longer hours but not enough to account for the difference.



Doctors themselves are not the ones fighting socialized healthcare, it is the insurance industry that is the backer of most of the lobbying resistance. HMO bs and un-needed but necessitated (simply because of the legal environment) malpractice insurance consists of between 25 and 60% of the expenditures on healthcare in the US depending on the state (the last study I saw when I was working suggested a nearly 50% average nation wide on the costs). Take away these two problems and health care would have similar costs.

Doctors don't lose with socialized health care, it is the bloated insurance companies that would lose, they are the ones with the money and the ones with the most to lose.

I find those figures astonishing and I find it odd that there is no federal attempt to cap malpractice payments etc to keep them reasonable and reduce the healthcare burden or overhaul the system entirely.

One thing that will be interesting is that if medical technology continues to advance at its current rate with ever more expensive methods of treating rarer conditions with diminishing returns, regardless of whether the healthcare system is entirely nationalised, privatised or in between costs will rise to an unsustainable level. There will be some hard choices that will need to be made then.

[L5->R5/CR]

If you mean that the fear of litigation drives expensive overinvestigation then I totally agree, that was my point too. I had thought you meant that the cost of litigation itself is included in the healthcare spending quoted.




I'm not so sure about that. Figures for mean earnings in the US tend to be well towards the upper end for related specialities in the UK and that is with the recent dollar crash. Its true that US medics work longer hours but not enough to account for the difference.

I was speaking to the internists and general practitioners, the specialist field is highly skewed to the higher rates here in the US. Of course it has been a couple years since I had any interest so my figures may be outdated.



I find those figures astonishing and I find it odd that there is no federal attempt to cap malpractice payments etc to keep them reasonable and reduce the healthcare burden or overhaul the system entirely.

Malpractice insurance costs have forced many doctors out of practice or into larger conglomerate HMO practices (such as Kaiser Permamente). The problem was so bad that either 4 or 5 years ago there were a series of symbolic strikes by doctors in some states where malpractice insurance was costing over half of total revenue for practices.

One big reason why nothing has been done in the US is because so many of the freaking politicians made their fortune as malpractice lawyers in the first place. Combine that with substantial financial resources and lobbying power (both lawyer associations and the malpractice insurance companies themselves) and nothing significant has been done.

In the practice I worked for we had 4 doctors, one physcians assitant, 5 nurses and a lab liason for blood draws (plus 13 support role staff). The malpractice insurance expenditure was 38% of total revenue and our billing to denial ratio with medical insurance providers was 62:38 approval/denial (this was considered high) largely due to the fact that we had trainers come in and go over notation and billing practices with our billers and doctors (we on average over billed ~30% because of the denial ratio).

Being a large practice our staff doctors made on average $72,000.00 (the two doctors that "bought" into the practice made substantially more than that, the majority owner at about $130,000 and the associate owner $103,000). Because of the size and structure of the practice all of the office wage statistics were higher than average, between 5 and 20%...