Sotomayor OK'd for Supreme Court in historic vote

[fjp999]

The saddest part of all this nonsense is that there are a sizable percentage of Americans who believe all this rubbish.

[COLOR="Purple"]I just had a double appointment time slot with my therapist. Catching up on a busy last month...

Our sessions are always interesting and we float all over the place.

I think a lot of docs are republicans but usually sensible She brought up something about insurance and her concern that in the new plan some things would not be covered. She continued to discuss how the insurance companies were sending out new questionnaires... and how problematic the new plan was.

I suggested it was the insurance companies that were spreading the rumors and she finally got it... saying the insurance companies had ruined health care in the first place and it made sense that they would want to ruin it in the future [/COLOR]

[CurtCB]

I just had a double appointment time slot with my therapist. Catching up on a busy last month...

Our sessions are always interesting and we float all over the place.

I think a lot of docs are republicans but usually sensible She brought up something about insurance and her concern that in the new plan some things would not be covered. She continued to discuss how the insurance companies were sending out new questionnaires... and how problematic the new plan was.

I suggested it was the insurance companies that were spreading the rumors and she finally got it... saying the insurance companies had ruined health care in the first place and it made sense that they would want to ruin it in the future

I wonder if the money she makes takes away her sense of country.
I still hear talk of Death panels. We have always had death panels in our country. They are called Insurance companies. They spend billions on denying claims.
I wonder how many Americans died this year because they simply stopped fighting their insurance company?
I have a 3000 dollar annual deductible on a 700 dollar cost to me a month policy. I don't get sick enough to require 3000 dollars worth of health care per year.. but what if? It's like trying to understand Sanskrit to read my policy. I have no other choice. The same people screaming about death panels, I pay for their medicare. I just don't get it.
It seem like the older generation in the US didn't have to pay near what I did for education and got every government benefit dating back to the 1930s. things that myself being born under Reagan I never got.
now they scream about socialism?
I say turn them all into soylent green and be done with it.

[marshlander]

Just as a matter of interest to a Brit who has little concept of what this all means in real terms, what would $700 a month buy you in terms of health care?

As Fred pointed out, the propaganda against the UK NHS is just that - propaganda. Of course, over here we all love to complain about our National Health Service, but waiting lists for treatment have certainly been reduced in recent years. There are ways in which the NHS operates that I do find confusing ... for example for a service that claims to be free at the point of delivery I still pay for prescription medicine (the more ill and less able to work I am the more it costs me because we pay a fixed rate per item ... assuming that said item has been approved for prescription); each visit to the dentist costs me about £15, £45 or £200 depending on the treatment I receive that day; eye tests cost me about £15 while my glasses cost about £300 a pair (no, I don't buy designer frames); I also have a condition that requires me to wear a rigid gas permeable contact lens in my left eye. Each time that lens needs replacing I have to pay £45. I realise these figures are pretty insignificant compared with what you pay in the USA, but the conditions under which the UK NHS is "free" are limited to consultations with my family doctor or hospital treatment arising therefrom. I heard once that, in some areas, victims of road traffic accidents are actually required to reimburse a health authority for treatment if they are the party who caused the accident. Does anyone know if this is true?

Of course, when I mention the UK NHS I don't include Scotland. They always have different rules Perceptions in England are that all healthcare in Scotland is truly free. Is this a fact?

[sox-and-the-city]

Of course, when I mention the UK NHS I don't include Scotland. They always have different rules Perceptions in England are that all healthcare in Scotland is truly free. Is this a fact?

Not really: we pay the fixed rate for prescriptions; NHS dentists are still similarly pricey (and just as hard to come by); optical care is 'free' insofar as you don't pay for eye tests, but the rest of it, like getting glasses and so on, however, you DO pay for.

Oh, and OAPs get more stuff for free, cos they're old and stuff...

I take it the free flu jabs for at risk groups is a UK wide thing??

Personally i resent having to pay like a fiver for each item on my repeat prescription list, as it is VERY long. Plus i get ill so often; in the past two years i've had 5 throat infections, 6 chest infections, cellulitis, dermatits (twice), impetigo, swine flu to name but a few.

Tis a costly business, having a shoddy immune system...

[CurtCB]

Not really: we pay the fixed rate for prescriptions; NHS dentists are still similarly pricey (and just as hard to come by); optical care is 'free' insofar as you don't pay for eye tests, but the rest of it, like getting glasses and so on, however, you DO pay for.

Oh, and OAPs get more stuff for free, cos they're old and stuff...

I take it the free flu jabs for at risk groups is a UK wide thing??

Personally i resent having to pay like a fiver for each item on my repeat prescription list, as it is VERY long. Plus i get ill so often; in the past two years i've had 5 throat infections, 6 chest infections, cellulitis, dermatits (twice), impetigo, swine flu to name but a few.

Tis a costly business, having a shoddy immune system...

In Louisiana we have private insurance but we also have a Charity Hospital system, However the charity system has been cut and is falling into disarray under conservative Governors since as long as I can remember.
My dad was in a boating accident and got sent to the one in Baton Rouge due to lack of insurance. He came home with an infection and damn near lost his leg.

Our current Governor was the the DHS sec under another republican governor. His solution to cutting the state health care budget was to simply throw old and infirmed people off of state funding and into the streets without even notifying their families.
He has been named a potential Republican presidential candidate. Go figure!

[fredv3b]

It's interesting that appears that Britain and America are both incapable of rational debate about public healthcare. If anyone in Britain suggests anything other than the NHS, as it presently is, they are accused of wanting the American system and all its problems. If anyone in America suggests any form of public provision of healthcare then they are accused of wanting the NHS.

I still hear talk of Death panels. We have always had death panels in our country. They are called Insurance companies. They spend billions on denying claims.
I wonder how many Americans died this year because they simply stopped fighting their insurance company?
I have a 3000 dollar annual deductible on a 700 dollar cost to me a month policy. I don't get sick enough to require 3000 dollars worth of health care per year.. but what if? It's like trying to understand Sanskrit to read my policy. I have no other choice. The same people screaming about death panels, I pay for their medicare. I just don't get it.

Even America cannot afford all the healthcare that it wants, not even nearly. It already has a system for 'rationing' healthcare, first by cost, many millions of Americans are uninsured or under-insured, second by those inpenetrable insurance policies. Tens of thousands of people are employed by doctors and hospitals ensuring that insurers are billed in the correct manner with the necessary justifications to comply with the policies and a similar number are employed by the insurers to check and challenge the bills. Many lawyers make a good living testing and defending these policies in the courts. By any standard the current system for 'rationing' healthcare is very inefficient, it costs billions yet many people miss out on relativity low cost yet effective treatments.

America spends c. 16% of its GDP on healthcare, whereas Britain spends only c. 8% of its smaller GDP on healthcare. A huge tranche of that extra money does fund the insurance bureaucracy but much does go into funding actual healthcare, the majority of Americans do have very good access to very good healthcare. However there is very little evidence that all this extra spending means that Americans are actually any healthier than us Brits.

It seem like the older generation in the US didn't have to pay near what I did for education and got every government benefit dating back to the 1930s. things that myself being born under Reagan I never got.
now they scream about socialism?
I say turn them all into soylent green and be done with it.

As an aside, 'generational accounting' is an interesting activity. The ever increasing number of people beyond their working years puts an ever increasing burden on those in work. I strongly believe that my generation are paying for various benefits for the old that we will not see in our retirement.

Regarding charges for prescriptions, dental treatment and the like. It does indeed make a mockery of the claim for the NHS being 'free at the point of use', it always has. Its introduction caused deep division in the Cabinet. Nye Bevan's NHS was from a financial point of view an utter disaster. He had come to the charming view that as the years went on the people of Britain would become healthier thanks to the NHS and that their use of it would decrease. The acutal operating budget for the NHS in its fourth year of existence was twice what was projected at the outset. Perscription charges were brought in to both raise, a little revenue for the NHS, and restrict its use to those who really needed it.

I take it the free flu jabs for at risk groups is a UK wide thing??

Yes. Essentially for such national communicable disease issues the Department of Heath in Whitehall calls the shots, if they say that flu jabs will be provided for free then that is what the health departments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will do. When vaccination is opened up to the wider population that should be free too.

I heard once that, in some areas, victims of road traffic accidents are actually required to reimburse a health authority for treatment if they are the party who caused the accident. Does anyone know if this is true?

Theoretically yes. There has long been a provision in law for the NHS to recoup its costs from treating the victims of road accidents from the party that is legally liable for the incident, which may be one of the victims. The NHS rarely manages to do this, partly because it has almost no idea how much its treatment costs, and therefore no idea how much it should bill for. I have never heard of the NHS pursuing a claim for costs against someone who wasn't insured (or whose insurance didn't cover their own injuries) partly because, in practice, its almost impossible to actually recover any significant amount of money from such parties.

[fjp999]

[COLOR="Purple"]I wont get into all the details on how I got disabled but it is pretty funny teaching my docs what iatrogenesis means.

After a number of years waiting for a judge to hear my case for disability I met the mad man of the court system here... I probably had a pretty great case of discrimination since everything he said was on HIS tape!

I was denied. I protested but was told that less than 10% of cases are ever re-heard and for one judge to over turn anothers the % was extremely low.

I waited another year and my case was re-heard and in the time the first judge retired! When I walked in the room the judge could not be more friendly and actually said (on tape) "Good riddance to that old Judge"!!!

My side asked me some questions, the work expert didnt have any questions, the judge didnt ask any questions simply closed my folder (so large at that time had to be wheeled in) and said congratulations.

I got full disability with full back pay which allowed me to purchase this little house I am in now.

I will be on meds probably forever trying to balance my system to somewhat normal. I am on Mediciad and it is the most excellent care I can imagine.

The only problem is that not all doctors accept it. Other than that, nearly everything is free or nearly free. If I pay for a doc appt it is $6. The odd thing is that specialist are usually free. If I pay for my meds they are $3 or $1 but many are free.

I pay the same for dental work and eye exam but I dont get glasses under the program so I use the script to fill anywhere and you can find amazing deals at the big boxes or dept stores. The last deal I got was $100 for two pairs of glasses, one regular and one sunglasses.

I regularly have Xrays, MRIs, and other very expensive scans... and if the hospital charges me anything it is usually $6 but I can always get that covered under their charity program.

My monthly check is pretty small compared to what would be necessary to live in a big city but for this small town I feel pretty comfortable. I get way too much money for food. I cant spend it all and it is piling up. I think I am going to have to start liking caviar :eek: [/COLOR]