Socialized Medicine.

[den]

I know I keep going on about this and I probably shouldn't. Today's visit cost me AU$130, and I got 50% of it back from Medicare.

The manboobectomy? Getting done in a public hospital. Cost to me: AU$0 (not counting the 1.5% tax I pay to Medicare.)

Comments

[tatterdemalion.livejournal.com]

Any word on when that will be???

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

no word yet.

[nateprentice.livejournal.com]

Hey, hang in there.

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

So, the biggest thing that the ZOMG TEH SOSHULIZUM people scream is that socialized medicine has absolutely zero quality.

I ask you, is that true?

[kreggan.livejournal.com]

Having experienced both Australian and US health care, they're pretty equivalent. Slightly less impressed with US care, so far.

[jeppa.livejournal.com]

It is not true. I'm from Canada and I've always received great health care for very little money. The most efficient and effective health care systems in the world are socialized, and they pay less $$ per person than the US does.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

...largely because we do have "socialized medicine" of a sort. They're legally required to treat you, but only when you're on the point of death. Won't pay for the ten cent solution, but let it fester five or ten years and then spend ten megabucks trying and failing to save you. Or maybe they do save you, as a vegetable, saddled with debts you could never pay, trapped in a hospital for the rest of your miserable life. Insanity!

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Note for below: Private Hospital = Patients are privately insured, funded by medical company. Public Hospital = Patients are insured by Medicare, funded by NSW State Government.

There is a private hospital (Dubbo Private Hospital) and a public hospital (Dubbo Base Hospital) in town, but the public hospital is the only one with multiple, full-sized theatres. The doctor operating on me does private and public patients in the same theatres. Same doctor, same teams, same theatres, different insurance. The private hospital wards are private and have extra features, whereas the public hospital wards are generally multiple occupancy. But the Base Hospital also has single occupancy wards for private patients who need them.

The biggest difference is the queue for operations. Privately insured patients can get their elective surgery done earlier, while medicare patients have to wait in line. The priority list is life threatening takes precedence over essential, non-life threatening, takes precedence over elective, privately insured, takes precedence over elective, publicly insured.

It may take me up to 6 months to get my operation done, but then they could have a bunch of cancellations and I'll be called in under 5 weeks. If I was privately insured, I'd be finished before the end of April.

Difference in Quality is marginal, here at least (I don't know about the US). The private hospital has softer beds and fluffier pillows and a TV in your own room, but the doctors and nurses are the same.

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

Socialized medicine - the worst health care system except for everything else we've tried.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

Well said. We still have a plutocratic medical system here. If you've got money (either directly or indirecty) you can get treatment. If you're poor or old, you're S.O.L.

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

Unless you're in a border state, in which case you come up to the place that pretty much invented it :P

[brucebergman.livejournal.com]

Socialized medicine certainly CAN be done just as well as a private insurance system, the question being WILL it be done as well...

The US survival rates for prostate cancer are IIRC 64,000% better in the US than England, and on almost every other index a private system has them beat all hollow.

All socialized systems ration care, depending on how much funding the government wants to (or can) put towards them. And if they decide to fund it well enough to match the private systems in place now, that will effectively break the economy.

Remember the Beatles "Taxman" lyric "That's one for you, nineteen for me"? 95% top tax rate, to fund all the Socialism. Which is why all the Beatles emigrated to the US, so they could keep some of their money.

Thanks to Obama, we're on the road to socialized medicine and a corresponding 95% top tax rate here, no matter how many lies about "Most people are getting a tax cut!" - the people who own the company you work at are the ones that will get hit with the taxes, and the more taxes means higher prices (galloping inflation) and less to pay employees with.

I don't want to hear a physician going "You have a terminal disease, and we could give you another 10 to 20 years - but the system won't pay for the drugs because you're going to die anyways. So go home and die already."

They could just as easily deny that Man-boobs can get Breast Cancer and let you slowly stew.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Sigh. It'd be nice to live in a country with actual health care for the non-rich.

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

You tryina make us jealous? *grins*

-=Kiyoshi

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Who, ME? Naaaaaah!

[ursuscal.livejournal.com]

Best of luck on your sugery, mate. I'm sure it will go fine. At least you get to keep your tits, eh? }:xD

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

But we pay more, so our medical care must be better. Right? After all, you get what you pay for.

"You get what you pay for." Got to be the stupidest of the common sayings. I pay for some insurance company exec's Baja vacation. Do I get to go along?

[brucebergman.livejournal.com]

You would get what you were paying for [i]if[/i] the government was doing their job - which is NOT to provide the service, but to simply write proper and effective regulations and laws, and enforce them to regulate the insurance companies (who are doing it better for less money) to make sure they follow the laws.

Wonderful thing called Recission. You can pay for individual insurance for years and never need it, the insurer makes bank, and everyone's happy. But if and when you get sick or hurt they can open up your files and do some 'research', and find out that you failed to tell them something 'important' when you applied...

"...and because of that vital omission we are canceling your policy effective the month before you got sick. Please remit the $150,000 hospital bill that we are rejecting to the cashier on your way out."

They can play games with group policies too, but doing a recision on an individual policy is fast, easy, and very profitable.

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

I know. I am so very happy that I live here, rather than somewhere where my insurance company can tell me that they only cover antibiotics if they're penicillin or penicillin-derived (as a fairly recent example off of my f-list). My private health insurance I have because it refunds me 100% of the prescribed medications I take. Doesn't matter what they are. Prescribed by a doctor, and I get the money back.

And I don't have to worry about making a decision between taking a medication which leaves me unable to keep food down for as long as I am taking it (I lost 9% of my body mass last time it was the only drug the bugs reacted to) or paying through the nose for something which my insurance won't cover.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Side point on the private versus public - I've tended to find the nurses on the private side more bent towards the commercial end of things, and less towards the medical. It could just be a couple of bad experiences but I would prefer public every time.

On a side note, you need to read The Doctrine of Steve the Fruit Bat. (http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/7089395.html).