“Companies have become more aggressive in hiring people as temporary or contract workers with no fringe benefits.”
Yup. Microsoft does it, everyone does it. It's an infamnia, is what it is.
The funny thing is, most people in the US (according to polls) support the idea of giving everyone health insurance, and would even pay more taxes to do so. The differences arise when you ask them whether everyone should buy private insurance (subsidized) or whether the government could do a better job than private insurers. I think the present situation should allow at least for the admission that government probably couldn't do a WORSE job....
What infuriates me is that someone (I suspect insurance industry lobbyists) has successfully conflated the two completely separate notions of "single-payer universal health insurance" and "government-run health care" in the public mind. They then use the occasional scare reports of the horrible! awful! state of Canadian health care to say "See? See? Look how terrible things are when the government runs health care!"
(Rant ahead. Sorry.)
Hi, my name is ELL, and I'm a Canadian. Two of my doctors are self-employed -- one works out of a small clinic that offers many different services in a one-stop shop, and one is a solo practitioner. When I visit them, I hand over my health card, and later their offices bill the government for services rendered to me. A third works in a hospital and I assume she is a salaried employee, although I don't know that for a fact. When I visit her, I hand over my health card and my hospital card, and I don't get a bill. I work for another hospital, which is a not-for-profit company that receives funding through a block grant from the government and also through donations and research grants. When patients visit us, they hand over their health cards and their hospital cards, and they don't get a bill (exceptions are if they don't have coverage because they aren't Canadian residents, or presumably if they receive services that aren't covered). Six years ago, I was hospitalized twice, each time for about a four-day stay. Never saw a bill, never had to worry about how I was going to pay for all this. I like that about our system.
Like other individual and corporate health care providers in Canada, all of them are free (within certain parameters) to organize their services in the way that they think will best serve their patients. They are funded by my taxes, but they are not government employees, and frankly I'm more than a little sick of this notion that everything that's wrong with Canadian health care is due to our funding system.
Oh, I agree with your rant. In fact, pointing out that no-one in this system is a government employee is probably the best part of it.
Also, isn't it funny that no one ever talks about the advantages of getting rid of the massive middle-management class in health care?
And (Also also!) the thing that really gets my goat is, when people complain that "In Canada, you have to wait six weeks for an MRI!" Guess what, idiot, so many more people need the basic health care that they're not getting than people who need an MRI, that I'd gladly trade availability and non-scarcity of exotic health and diagnostic treatments and visits for more basic health care! It's a false choice, but if I have to make it ...
I've had this argument with Republican Americans more often than I can count. It suddenly occurs to me that maybe I should change tack - rather than point out the benefits to society that come from having universal health care, perhaps I should point out that having a large percentage of the population unable to obtain affordable health care has a detrimental effect on the economy - a sick employee is an unproductive employee. Since this particular group only seems to vote with their wallets (to them, tax cuts are the be-all and end-all, and any taxation is tantamount to "wealth redistribution to undeserving people"), perhaps that argument would carry more weight.
no kidding -- and it's not just the sick employees, it's the ones who are freaked out about getting sick. I mean, forty-six million people with a reasonable fraction of their brains stuck on "OMG what am I going to do about my health care?" have to be less productive than if they didn't have to worry.
Not only that, but single-payer health care: - simplifies billing enormously for health care providers - results in significantly less time lost on the part of the patient AND the biller, because there aren't these endless rounds of "I have coverage for that/no you don't/we're going to charge you more/less because you have some coverage/no coverage/a copay/etc. etc." - is cheaper overall
Of course, the insurance companies hate the very idea of it, because where would all their lovely premiums come from?
No one ever bothers to point out that one reason foreign car companies are stomping Ford and GM's asses into the dirt is because their foreign employees are covered under generous national health-care systems, which allows them to sock more cash away or into R&D, and also allows them to pay their American employees well?
Heh. Yeah, I've heard that one before. It's pretty true, too - the reason they're so swamped is precisely because our government didn't go as far as others did years ago.
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electricland) wrote2007-03-05 10:10 am
no subject
Yup. Microsoft does it, everyone does it. It's an infamnia, is what it is.
The funny thing is, most people in the US (according to polls) support the idea of giving everyone health insurance, and would even pay more taxes to do so. The differences arise when you ask them whether everyone should buy private insurance (subsidized) or whether the government could do a better job than private insurers. I think the present situation should allow at least for the admission that government probably couldn't do a WORSE job....
no subject
(Rant ahead. Sorry.)
Hi, my name is ELL, and I'm a Canadian. Two of my doctors are self-employed -- one works out of a small clinic that offers many different services in a one-stop shop, and one is a solo practitioner. When I visit them, I hand over my health card, and later their offices bill the government for services rendered to me. A third works in a hospital and I assume she is a salaried employee, although I don't know that for a fact. When I visit her, I hand over my health card and my hospital card, and I don't get a bill. I work for another hospital, which is a not-for-profit company that receives funding through a block grant from the government and also through donations and research grants. When patients visit us, they hand over their health cards and their hospital cards, and they don't get a bill (exceptions are if they don't have coverage because they aren't Canadian residents, or presumably if they receive services that aren't covered). Six years ago, I was hospitalized twice, each time for about a four-day stay. Never saw a bill, never had to worry about how I was going to pay for all this. I like that about our system.
Like other individual and corporate health care providers in Canada, all of them are free (within certain parameters) to organize their services in the way that they think will best serve their patients. They are funded by my taxes, but they are not government employees, and frankly I'm more than a little sick of this notion that everything that's wrong with Canadian health care is due to our funding system.
/rant
no subject
Also, isn't it funny that no one ever talks about the advantages of getting rid of the massive middle-management class in health care?
And (Also also!) the thing that really gets my goat is, when people complain that "In Canada, you have to wait six weeks for an MRI!" Guess what, idiot, so many more people need the basic health care that they're not getting than people who need an MRI, that I'd gladly trade availability and non-scarcity of exotic health and diagnostic treatments and visits for more basic health care! It's a false choice, but if I have to make it ...
no subject
no subject
Not only that, but single-payer health care:
- simplifies billing enormously for health care providers
- results in significantly less time lost on the part of the patient AND the biller, because there aren't these endless rounds of "I have coverage for that/no you don't/we're going to charge you more/less because you have some coverage/no coverage/a copay/etc. etc."
- is cheaper overall
Of course, the insurance companies hate the very idea of it, because where would all their lovely premiums come from?
/rant
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