The Affordable Healthcare Act in the U.S. Supreme Court -…

On July 22 2012 00:44 imanoobcs wrote:


They only go to Canada for Rx drugs that the government has not approved for use in America. Not because they are cheaper. It is a federal offense to import drugs that are already approved in America because they are cheaper.

On August 03 2012 03:34 Epocalypse wrote:
A friend of mine has been sick for 7 weeks now and his "doctor" can not figure it out. In fact, he lost his job because he missed so many days of work due to his ailment. Spend a few minutes and you will see what kind of pain he is in, he can barely speak. Yet, despite the obvious malady, he has to wait 5 weeks to see a specialist. He actually requested to see a specialist after the first set of antibiotics (which failed) they gave him. In Canada one cannot simply go see a specialist without first getting permission from a doctor. You can't just walk in, despite having worked hard for your money.

So now after being ill for 7 weeks, losing his job, losing 15lbs because it's very painful to eat, me and a few of our close friends had gathered 370 dollars to bribe the doctor to up his appointment from 5 weeks from now to tomorrow. Fortunately the bribe worked. We just hope that the specialist will be able to figure out what is wrong with him in time.

A few weeks ago we offered to drive him to the US to see a specialist and make a fun road trip out of it. Unfortunately he discarded the suggestion because he did not think it would be this bad.

This is disgusting and saddening.

On August 03 2012 04:04 Defacer wrote:


It seems like all your friends or sick or injured.

I call bullshit.

On August 03 2012 03:34 Epocalypse wrote:
A friend of mine has been sick for 7 weeks now and his "doctor" can not figure it out. In fact, he lost his job because he missed so many days of work due to his ailment. Spend a few minutes and you will see what kind of pain he is in, he can barely speak. Yet, despite the obvious malady, he has to wait 5 weeks to see a specialist. He actually requested to see a specialist after the first set of antibiotics (which failed) they gave him. In Canada one cannot simply go see a specialist without first getting permission from a doctor. You can't just walk in, despite having worked hard for your money.

So now after being ill for 7 weeks, losing his job, losing 15lbs because it's very painful to eat, me and a few of our close friends had gathered 370 dollars to bribe the doctor to up his appointment from 5 weeks from now to tomorrow. Fortunately the bribe worked. We just hope that the specialist will be able to figure out what is wrong with him in time.

A few weeks ago we offered to drive him to the US to see a specialist and make a fun road trip out of it. Unfortunately he discarded the suggestion because he did not think it would be this bad.

This is disgusting and saddening.

On August 03 2012 03:34 Epocalypse wrote:
A friend of mine has been sick for 7 weeks now and his "doctor" can not figure it out. In fact, he lost his job because he missed so many days of work due to his ailment. Spend a few minutes and you will see what kind of pain he is in, he can barely speak. Yet, despite the obvious malady, he has to wait 5 weeks to see a specialist. He actually requested to see a specialist after the first set of antibiotics (which failed) they gave him. In Canada one cannot simply go see a specialist without first getting permission from a doctor. You can't just walk in, despite having worked hard for your money.

So now after being ill for 7 weeks, losing his job, losing 15lbs because it's very painful to eat, me and a few of our close friends had gathered 370 dollars to bribe the doctor to up his appointment from 5 weeks from now to tomorrow. Fortunately the bribe worked. We just hope that the specialist will be able to figure out what is wrong with him in time.

A few weeks ago we offered to drive him to the US to see a specialist and make a fun road trip out of it. Unfortunately he discarded the suggestion because he did not think it would be this bad.

This is disgusting and saddening.

Update:
After meeting with the specialist, with an oral examination a minor lump was found but the doc could not tell what it is; it could just be a lump that has always been there, but needs further examination. As a precaution he ordered a catscan. However my friend forgot to ask how long it will be before he can get a catscan appointment. The doc is supposed to call him tomorrow with the arranged appointment.

On August 03 2012 04:27 Zanno wrote:
7 weeks? took a family member of mine 7 months to get an appointment with a specialist to get rid of some skin condition and then had to threaten the specialist with a lawsuit when her primary care physician lost the name of the medicine she was prescribed and the specialist wouldn't give the name of it without waiting another 7 months to make an appointment

On August 05 2012 20:08 Epocalypse wrote:


Sounds terrible. I wish the government would just get out of the way of individuals and let them deal with one another like rational people. Unfortunately the US doesn't have total freedom in medicine but it's still much better than what we have in Canada. Evidence is that there are thousands of Canadian each year who travel to the US for care while Americans don't come to Canada for care. It's a shame that Romney and Obama both support socialized medicine. Soon Canadians may not have an alternative. At least in the US there is debate over it, organizations that promote freedom in medicine, while in Canada it's not even on the radar. There's a few journalists in Canada that have brought it up here and there over the years, but their reasoning was unprincipled, and therefore worthless. No politician's even mention it on their platform... the only thing they debate among each other is whether or not to give more funding to the healthcare system.

On August 05 2012 20:08 Epocalypse wrote:
Sounds terrible. I wish the government would just get out of the way of individuals and let them deal with one another like rational people. Unfortunately the US doesn't have total freedom in medicine but it's still much better than what we have in Canada. Evidence is that there are thousands of Canadian each year who travel to the US for care while Americans don't come to Canada for care. It's a shame that Romney and Obama both support socialized medicine. Soon Canadians may not have an alternative. At least in the US there is debate over it, organizations that promote freedom in medicine, while in Canada it's not even on the radar. There's a few journalists in Canada that have brought it up here and there over the years, but their reasoning was unprincipled, and therefore worthless. No politician's even mention it on their platform... the only thing they debate among each other is whether or not to give more funding to the healthcare system.

On August 05 2012 20:08 Epocalypse wrote:


Sounds terrible. I wish the government would just get out of the way of individuals and let them deal with one another like rational people. Unfortunately the US doesn't have total freedom in medicine but it's still much better than what we have in Canada. Evidence is that there are thousands of Canadian each year who travel to the US for care while Americans don't come to Canada for care. It's a shame that Romney and Obama both support socialized medicine. Soon Canadians may not have an alternative. At least in the US there is debate over it, organizations that promote freedom in medicine, while in Canada it's not even on the radar. There's a few journalists in Canada that have brought it up here and there over the years, but their reasoning was unprincipled, and therefore worthless. No politician's even mention it on their platform... the only thing they debate among each other is whether or not to give more funding to the healthcare system.

On August 06 2012 01:22 Kukaracha wrote:


*deal with one another like irrational people

Clinics aren't allowed in Canada?

On April 01 2012 07:03 liberal wrote:

The United State's rations care by cost, socialized medicine seems to ration care by waiting lists. Personally, I think it is better for an individual to have their life saved and yet be financially damaged than to have the care rationed to begin with. The time spent waiting is often worth more to a person than the price they would pay otherwise. Getting effective and timely treatment for a deadly condition is certainly worth the cost of declaring bankruptcy.

Mindful of concerns about health-care’s spiraling costs, the Health Blog was struck by some new research on what the investigators identified as wasteful practices by family doctors and general practitioners.

Not being doctors, we can’t vouch for the clinical appropriateness of the findings, but there’s no harm in triggering a discussion, right?

What did the researchers say was the No. 1 most over-used activity by primary care physicians? Prescribing a brand-name cholesterol-lowering drug without trying a less expensive generic first, according to the research posted online by the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Doctors’ prescribing a brand-name statin, without first checking to see if a lower-priced generic drug would cut a patient’s cholesterol sufficiently, results in $5.8 billion in excess health-care spending, according to the research letter published Oct. 1.

The authors found $6.76 billion in what they said was non-recommended health-care spending after analyzing surveys of patient visits to certain primary care doctors’ offices and hospital outpatient departments in 2009.

Other practices deemed inappropriate by the authors: bone density scans for women ages 40 to 64 years, costing $527.4 million; ordering CT Scans or MRI’s for lower back pain, amounting to $175.4 million; and prescribing antibiotics to children with sore throats caused by a virus, worth $116.3 million.

Although these sums aren’t chump change, the authors write that achieving affordable but high-quality health-care will really depend on finding ”‘high value’ targets” in specialty areas.

There is another simple reason health care in the United States costs more than it does anywhere else: The prices are higher.

That may sound obvious. But it is, in fact, key to understanding one of the most pressing problems facing our economy. In 2009, Americans spent $7,960 per person on health care. Our neighbors in Canada spent $4,808. The Germans spent $4,218. The French, $3,978. If we had the per-person costs of any of those countries, America’s deficits would vanish. Workers would have much more money in their pockets. Our economy would grow more quickly, as our exports would be more competitive.

There are many possible explanations for why Americans pay so much more. It could be that we’re sicker. Or that we go to the doctor more frequently. But health researchers have largely discarded these theories. As Gerard Anderson, Uwe Reinhardt, Peter Hussey and Varduhi Petrosyan put it in the title of their influential 2003 study on international health-care costs, “it’s the prices, stupid.”

Prices don’t explain all of the difference between America and other countries. But they do explain a big chunk of it. The question, of course, is why Americans pay such high prices — and why we haven’t done anything about it.

“Other countries negotiate very aggressively with the providers and set rates that are much lower than we do,” Anderson says. They do this in one of two ways. In countries such as Canada and Britain, prices are set by the government. In others, such as Germany and Japan, they’re set by providers and insurers sitting in a room and coming to an agreement, with the government stepping in to set prices if they fail.

In America, Medicare and Medicaid negotiate prices on behalf of their tens of millions of members and, not coincidentally, purchase care at a substantial markdown from the commercial average. But outside that, it’s a free-for-all. Providers largely charge what they can get away with, often offering different prices to different insurers, and an even higher price to the uninsured.

On September 06 2012 17:46 MadNeSs wrote:
As an european reading all this bullshit hurts my eyes. Thank god I dont live in the U.S. I really dont get what americans are so scared about, about getting free healthcare - Is it really that scary to have to pay alittle extra tax?