Unsustainable is the only word to describe healthcare. Period. Earlier retirement, advancements that prolong life, declining EROEI, massive debt overhang, declining birth rates and the ratio of active workers to retirees. I could go on all day.
Anonymous
October 11, 2017 9:46 am
yer kidding me,
I can’t see my GP without waiting at least 2 weeks, or more, and when I do see him, (as opposed to going to the ER) he sends me to a specialist, where the wait is 2-3 months.
And I have Blue Cross/Blue shield.
don’t get sick.
the bills after seeing these clowns is enough incentive to work hard at staying healthy.
For you whipper snappers who are under 50, just wait.
for everyone else, you obviously know that we as a species, begin to show serious signs of wear and tear at about 53-55. something changes, and the food you used to love, is no longer tolerated. (that is if you are listening to your body)
sure, genetics have a lot to due with your overall health, but, the biggest hurdle in this life is the FACT that food is medicine, and good food will keep you out of the health scare industry, and bad food will put you in.
The same situation happens in the US. If you are sick today and need to see a doc today, you never actually see your GP, you see one of the younger docs in the same practice if you are lucky and more likely, the LPN. It’s at least a month out to see any doctor in my experience, unless you are willing to go to the ones just out of Residency or those who are crappy and no one would choose to see them willingly in any other situation.
The Emergent Care system is picking up the slack, but of course they are able to charge you (or the insurance company) much more than a standard GP visit.
Dave
October 11, 2017 10:46 am
The NIH is run by the government and all the doctors and hospital workers are employed by the government. Might as well be the DMV or the Postal service. I don’t know about other parts of the country, but here in the East valley of Phoenix, there are emergency clinics on every other street corner, and I can see a Nurse practitioner usually on the same day if I’m sick. I get blood/urine work done every six months and see the doctor every six months and all he does is tell me the results of my lab work and listens to my heart and lungs. An NP can do the same thing. If I need a specialist I just pick up the phone. Today I’m heading for the ortho man I called two weeks ago to discuss a hip replacement. I expect I can get it done in the next two weeks. Quitting smoking 35 years ago and riding a bicycle every day for the past 12 years makes a big difference later in life.
i forget
October 11, 2017 10:57 am
Cartels & bureaucrats apportioning any good or service makes for bads & disservice. This is already the situation in so-called “healthcare.” Yet large numbers of people want to go even further in this direction.
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” – Oscar Wilde
Well, “success” divorced from process immoderates the excess that abscesses. Malum in se camouflaged in color of law is maladroit & malprocess → malinvestments → malexistences.
Iska Waran
October 11, 2017 11:42 am
As I understand it, most hospitals and healthcare facilities in the U.K. are owned and operated by the government. Doctors in the U.K. are direct government employees. Single Payer is what Canada has. Francois Marion and Rob in Nova Scotia can tell us whether they’d like to switch from Canada’s system to the American one. I mentioned here once that I pay ~ $19,000 for family coverage (with high deductibles). A few people here were incredulous, but within the last week I read something on TBP that average cost for family coverage (including employer portion) is about $17k. The cost of coverage in the US is extreme, but most people only see the portion taken out of their paycheck, so they don’t realize how bad we’re getting fucked.
If congress would allow drug reimportation and get rid of the fake bills in the US, we might be able to repair what we have, but since they’re so evidently in the pocket of the insurance companies and hellbent on keeping the current conspiracies in place, Single Payer is looking more acceptable with each passing day – if for no other reason than to kill off the insurance companies, whose greed and corruption are largely why we’re in our current state.
I am paying about $6K in premiums and my company pays around another $19K for a $2500 individual and $5K family deductible.
Yeah some of that $19K could go into your pocket as wages if sick care cost would come down…
Rob
October 11, 2017 12:22 pm
I loose all hope. If you asshats can’t remember what stories run on this site from year to year then how is the average merkin supposed to understand the world around him? You just need to think back to the great curfuffle of a few years ago because “THE NHS IS BEING SOLD OFF TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER WHO IS NONE OTHER THAN THE CRIMINALS WHO RUN THE US HEALTH SCARE SYSTEM.” Think about it for a minute. There, don’t you remember that? Geezes guys. It is Kaiser and it’s ilk who are strip mining the NHS. And now they have the same wait times as we have because they have the same companies giving the same crappy health scare as we have…and you can’t be bothered to remember that they sold off the best health care in the world so that a few criminals could make some bank.
I am appalled.
Anonymous
October 11, 2017 2:27 pm
I’m not worried. Jimmy Kimmel and Julia Dreyfus want single payer and I’m sure they plan on using the same government services the rest us of will get.
Llpoh
October 11, 2017 5:15 pm
I covered this stuff recently. Single payer works – kind of. If you are happy to wait years for some services, no problem. However, it has no hope of working in the US where costs are so out of control. The cost of opening up free healthcare would crush the US in a heartbeat given its current cost structure.
Chubby Bubbles
October 11, 2017 6:51 pm
The article says, “the number of people waiting AT LEAST A WEEK” went up by 56%. Oh noes!!
I have never, ever, ever been able to see a GP (aka PCP) WITHIN A WEEK of trying to schedule an appointment, and I would be amazed of any significant number of my fellow 326 million Americans had a different experience. I am usually given appointments 3-4 months out. Oh, and I have something like a $4k deductible, so I pay jacked-up retail rates.
Compare to Italy where I could just walk in off the street and see the PCP the VERY SAME DAY, just by waiting my turn during the posted office hours (which were a few afternoons a week).
The difference between Europe and the US is that the doctors in Europe spend more time seeing patients and hardly any time on ins. co. bureaucracy. Demographics and thermodynamics will sink all of these systems, but the U.S. has the twin boat anchors of Big Insurance and Big Pharma which will sink us first.
A link to the story………….2 months old?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/06/one-million-patients-week-cannot-get-gp-appointment-statistics/
Unsustainable is really the only word needed when describing single payer healthcare.
Unsustainable is the only word to describe healthcare. Period. Earlier retirement, advancements that prolong life, declining EROEI, massive debt overhang, declining birth rates and the ratio of active workers to retirees. I could go on all day.
yer kidding me,
I can’t see my GP without waiting at least 2 weeks, or more, and when I do see him, (as opposed to going to the ER) he sends me to a specialist, where the wait is 2-3 months.
And I have Blue Cross/Blue shield.
don’t get sick.
the bills after seeing these clowns is enough incentive to work hard at staying healthy.
For you whipper snappers who are under 50, just wait.
for everyone else, you obviously know that we as a species, begin to show serious signs of wear and tear at about 53-55. something changes, and the food you used to love, is no longer tolerated. (that is if you are listening to your body)
sure, genetics have a lot to due with your overall health, but, the biggest hurdle in this life is the FACT that food is medicine, and good food will keep you out of the health scare industry, and bad food will put you in.
The same situation happens in the US. If you are sick today and need to see a doc today, you never actually see your GP, you see one of the younger docs in the same practice if you are lucky and more likely, the LPN. It’s at least a month out to see any doctor in my experience, unless you are willing to go to the ones just out of Residency or those who are crappy and no one would choose to see them willingly in any other situation.
The Emergent Care system is picking up the slack, but of course they are able to charge you (or the insurance company) much more than a standard GP visit.
The NIH is run by the government and all the doctors and hospital workers are employed by the government. Might as well be the DMV or the Postal service. I don’t know about other parts of the country, but here in the East valley of Phoenix, there are emergency clinics on every other street corner, and I can see a Nurse practitioner usually on the same day if I’m sick. I get blood/urine work done every six months and see the doctor every six months and all he does is tell me the results of my lab work and listens to my heart and lungs. An NP can do the same thing. If I need a specialist I just pick up the phone. Today I’m heading for the ortho man I called two weeks ago to discuss a hip replacement. I expect I can get it done in the next two weeks. Quitting smoking 35 years ago and riding a bicycle every day for the past 12 years makes a big difference later in life.
Cartels & bureaucrats apportioning any good or service makes for bads & disservice. This is already the situation in so-called “healthcare.” Yet large numbers of people want to go even further in this direction.
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” – Oscar Wilde
Well, “success” divorced from process immoderates the excess that abscesses. Malum in se camouflaged in color of law is maladroit & malprocess → malinvestments → malexistences.
As I understand it, most hospitals and healthcare facilities in the U.K. are owned and operated by the government. Doctors in the U.K. are direct government employees. Single Payer is what Canada has. Francois Marion and Rob in Nova Scotia can tell us whether they’d like to switch from Canada’s system to the American one. I mentioned here once that I pay ~ $19,000 for family coverage (with high deductibles). A few people here were incredulous, but within the last week I read something on TBP that average cost for family coverage (including employer portion) is about $17k. The cost of coverage in the US is extreme, but most people only see the portion taken out of their paycheck, so they don’t realize how bad we’re getting fucked.
If congress would allow drug reimportation and get rid of the fake bills in the US, we might be able to repair what we have, but since they’re so evidently in the pocket of the insurance companies and hellbent on keeping the current conspiracies in place, Single Payer is looking more acceptable with each passing day – if for no other reason than to kill off the insurance companies, whose greed and corruption are largely why we’re in our current state.
I am paying about $6K in premiums and my company pays around another $19K for a $2500 individual and $5K family deductible.
Yeah some of that $19K could go into your pocket as wages if sick care cost would come down…
I loose all hope. If you asshats can’t remember what stories run on this site from year to year then how is the average merkin supposed to understand the world around him? You just need to think back to the great curfuffle of a few years ago because “THE NHS IS BEING SOLD OFF TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER WHO IS NONE OTHER THAN THE CRIMINALS WHO RUN THE US HEALTH SCARE SYSTEM.” Think about it for a minute. There, don’t you remember that? Geezes guys. It is Kaiser and it’s ilk who are strip mining the NHS. And now they have the same wait times as we have because they have the same companies giving the same crappy health scare as we have…and you can’t be bothered to remember that they sold off the best health care in the world so that a few criminals could make some bank.
I am appalled.
I’m not worried. Jimmy Kimmel and Julia Dreyfus want single payer and I’m sure they plan on using the same government services the rest us of will get.
I covered this stuff recently. Single payer works – kind of. If you are happy to wait years for some services, no problem. However, it has no hope of working in the US where costs are so out of control. The cost of opening up free healthcare would crush the US in a heartbeat given its current cost structure.
The article says, “the number of people waiting AT LEAST A WEEK” went up by 56%. Oh noes!!
I have never, ever, ever been able to see a GP (aka PCP) WITHIN A WEEK of trying to schedule an appointment, and I would be amazed of any significant number of my fellow 326 million Americans had a different experience. I am usually given appointments 3-4 months out. Oh, and I have something like a $4k deductible, so I pay jacked-up retail rates.
Compare to Italy where I could just walk in off the street and see the PCP the VERY SAME DAY, just by waiting my turn during the posted office hours (which were a few afternoons a week).
The difference between Europe and the US is that the doctors in Europe spend more time seeing patients and hardly any time on ins. co. bureaucracy. Demographics and thermodynamics will sink all of these systems, but the U.S. has the twin boat anchors of Big Insurance and Big Pharma which will sink us first.