Socialized Health Care.

[airlonnie]

What is socialized health care? When I read about it in the paper, I see both good and bad things about it. I've read that Canadians have socilized health care, as do the British. Whats is this program, and is it bad or good?

Im just have a negative, biased viewpoint of it because Hillary Clinton is in favor of it. Someone tell me something.

[kaysa]

It is usually a system where the government helps cover you for health care. For instance, the dean of my college gets health care benefits from the university he works for. These benefits include pretty much everything, and will pay for all his medical bills. All of them. So if he has to have surgery, an eye appointment, or a dentist check up, then it is all covered by his health care coverage.

His secretary also gets benefits, but her coverage only pays for a part of the service. She is also covered for everything, but if she has a cavity and has to see the dentist, the University only pays for 40% of the bill and she pays for the other part.

There are a lot of people in America that do not have health coverage at all, and hence have to pay the entire bill. This is extremely hard for some people, which is basically why people want social healthcare. In this program, our tax dollars are used to pay for everyone's health care. Thus, we are all covered for our medical expenses by our increased taxes or fees or whatever the government decides to use.

The coverage also varies. All medical bills may be free, or the social health care may only cover 10% of your bills for example. It depends what is legislated.

My two cents :

In some cases I would like to see some sort of social healthcare, but in other cases NO. There really are times when people could use the help, but there are just as many, if not more, times where people will just plain abuse the system.

[Lexx]

Members of congress, the president, most federal employees, etc, have socialized healthcare in that the gov (taxpayers) pay for their healthcare. If it's good enough for those bastards it's good enough for the people who pay the taxes that cover them.

[Jaina Fox]

I'm British and yes we have the NHS. The National Health Service is a very good thing to have...because it's free, I've always had free dentist and opticions which has come in handy because despite having good teeth I wear glasses. Also if anything goes wrong ad you go into the hospital you get treated with no cost only problem...waiting lists. They can be so long you're waiting what seems like forever and further more NHS hospitals have been struck by the super bug though you can move on and say that it's poor hygiene. Apart from that few dentists are NHS dentists making it hard to find one and so many go private. As for me...my dentist is hot so I'm happy I'm on NHS

[Switchblade]

actually, seeing as both my parents are doctors working on the NHS perhaps I can give a useful viewpoint on this.

Socialized Healthcare, such as the NHS, is a system whereby the government supplies funding to the clinics and hospitals, wholly covering the costs of running the service from top to bottom. Private health care is available, although it is considered a supplement to a doctor's NHS work. Although dental and optical care are available on the NHS, my family take private care instead, because we can easily afford it, (plus, it means I get to wear Calvin Klein designer glasses.) Having said that, a doctor's payment from private work generally makes up the greater part of his or her income, being far more profitable than the NHS salary.

This has advantages and drawbacks. On the one hand, it means that everybody, regardless of their financial situation, can expect to receive treatment, which is handy if they're destitute or uninsured. It also equalizes the system to the point that cases are handled on a "whoever needs it most" basis, rather than treating the guys with the thickest wallets first.

Downsides, on the other hand:

As Jaina said, you get waiting lists, but that isn't a direct function of socialized healthcare, rather, it pertains to a lack of funding. During the time when Baroness Thatcher was PM, some fairly extensive cuts were made to funding within the NHS. at the time, they seemed reasonable, in the short term, but we're now a fair distance down the line, and the fact is that the NHS is now drastically under-funded, and the doctors aren't earning what they should, because there simply isn't enough money to go around. Furthermore, a combination of the "compensation culture", a hike in the expected standards, and an increase in the difficulty and stress of the job along with a simultaneous decrease in the reward factor mean that less and less people are signing up to become doctors, and a smaller percentage of them are actually passing the course.

Result? Less doctors. That means more patients per doctor, less time per patient, longer waiting lists. My father (A consultant orthopaedic surgeon) currently has a waiting list running to some fifteen months, although that's only after a couple of years of some pretty serious hard work. It used to run to the better part of thirty months. Throughout my life (that would be roughly the last twenty years or so) it has been a rare thing for him to arrive home from work before seven in the afternoon. He starts work at about half past eight in the morning.

Then he comes home and works his ass off on weekends writing medical reports for solicitors representing people who are making court cases of injury claims. For this, he earns roughly twice as much as he does working on the NHS.

So, to recap: socialized healthcare is, in theory, a good thing. In practice, however, it requires a fairly hefty budget to operate at all, and an even bigger one to run smoothly and efficiently. In the UK, the NHS isn't even really getting enough to operate properly, let alone smoothly and well.

[Lexx]

It's a disgrace for america that her eonly the government has socialized medicine while in most other civillized countries the people do as well.

[Mavei]

I love my Healthcare. OHIP. Ontario Health Insurance Provision. We pay taxes. And when I need help, I get it. It mean's you're not going to bleed to death from a gunshot wound while filling out insurance forms. Just show your lil card, and PooF! You get helped.

But, the doctors don't get paid enough. Neither do the nurses. And that is just sad. Every year it seems, the politicians are cutting funding, even while we're paying more taxes. And, almost every Canadian will tell you, I pay taxes because I want healthcare to be free.

Personally, they should stop frigging cutting funding, smarten the hell up, and pay Doctors and nurses what they DESERVE. I think, in any society, the highest paid people should be the Police, who protect us, the Doctors and Nurses, who keep us healthy, and Teachers, who educate our children.

[Sethis]

NHS sounds good. I do not have health insurance atm. Being a student and only working part-time I basically get nothing. Whats worse is, I cannot be considered dependent until I am 23 (6 more months), which means they factor in my parents salaries when calculating financial aid. So, financial aid gives me a whopping $0 in help and I have to pay my own tuition. There is something inherently wrong with the establishment when someone who is bettering themselves and thusly bettering society by going to school can't even get a few dollars towards tuition or healthcare...BUT (A little off-topic..yes, sorry) convicts get both, for free.

So, if the funding was large enough and remained that way I would most certainly be all for it.

Originally Posted by Mavei

Personally, they should stop frigging cutting funding, smarten the hell up, and pay Doctors and nurses what they DESERVE. I think, in any society, the highest paid people should be the Police, who protect us, the Doctors and Nurses, who keep us healthy, and Teachers, who educate our children.

Well said.