Coveny’s plan for health care

[Coveny]

It's an interesting perspective. So are you saying that people who don't have the money and resources to afford to become a doctor aren't going to be "good" at it? It sounds like you are implying that having money makes you better than people who don't have money. Am I hearing you correctly?

Nice attempt to twist my words, but your strawman (and projection earlier) just don't work here.

I said, verbatim, that Doctors have to attend school for so long for a very good reason--because medicine isn't something you can understand in two years time.    Lowering the number of years required would only lead to more malpractice.  That much is obvious.  That says absolutely nothing about the social status of the people who choose to become doctors.

It's clear that you're so in love with your idea, that you aren't willing to take criticisms on it seriously.  So I wonder then why you posted it here.  In hopes of praise, perhaps?  Sorry, but you aren't going to get that here.

Oh I see you do it to me, no problem, I do it to you and your cry fowl. Got it.

As a for the record thing I was a field medic in the army it's much shorter than two years and I've stitched people up just fine. (to be fair it was 20 years ago though) Also could you tell me how long it takes to become a paramedic, and explain why you feel don't understand medicine please?

I prolly shouldn't have engaged you because you are obviously trolling me, but at this point I'm already in so what the heck.

[Tiberius]

Here's a better plan: single payer.

[Edwardo Piet]

You're basically saying that malpractice happens anyway, so why not lower the requirement for becoming a doctor.  (Which will only lead to more malpractice)

It's an interesting perspective. So are you saying that people who don't have the money and resources to afford to become a doctor aren't going to be "good" at it? It sounds like you are implying that having money makes you better than people who don't have money. Am I hearing you correctly?

I bought about 80 £5 computer mice over the last 12 million years and they broke in about one nanosecond shortly after calling me a "good for nothing dusty old pussyfart" but my pussy that I don't own doesn't pussyfart and it's THAT COMPUTER MOUSE that was dusty and old, not me.

Anyway to cut a long story spit-pukingly short: I bought a computer mouse that only cost a few zillion and it never broke once. Nor did it say my pussies farted or that I broke any old steam off on the old earlobes. Even once.

TL;DR: I'm better at making irrelevant, failed and nonsensical analogies than you are.

[Amarok]

Nice attempt to twist my words, but your strawman (and projection earlier) just don't work here.

I said, verbatim, that Doctors have to attend school for so long for a very good reason--because medicine isn't something you can understand in two years time.    Lowering the number of years required would only lead to more malpractice.  That much is obvious.  That says absolutely nothing about the social status of the people who choose to become doctors.

It's clear that you're so in love with your idea, that you aren't willing to take criticisms on it seriously.  So I wonder then why you posted it here.  In hopes of praise, perhaps?  Sorry, but you aren't going to get that here.

Oh I see you do it to me, no problem, I do it to you and your cry fowl. Got it.

As a for the record thing I was a field medic in the army it's much shorter than two years and I've stitched people up just fine. (to be fair it was 20 years ago though) Also could you tell me how long it takes to become a paramedic, and explain why you feel don't understand medicine please?

I prolly shouldn't have engaged you because you are obviously trolling me, but at this point I'm already in so what the heck.

Good when you do 12 surgeries a day . And make no mistakes come back to me . Field medicine  is not the same as frequent domestic surgeries .

[Cecelia]

Paramedics and EMTs are trained to deal with specific (and usually fairly limited) situations. They are the best qualified to get patients to the hospital in as good as shape as they were found--if not better. There's a big difference between the job of a paramedic and a doctor. Their skills are geared more toward pre-hospital care. And often they are under the direction of a doctor (who is more useful back at the hospital, with other patients)

It's easy to think that because you can become a paramedic in a short amount of time, that people could also become doctors in such a short amount of time--but doctors and paramedics aren't remotely the same thing. Just like Doctors and nurses aren't the same thing.

Doctors require years of education for a very good reason--the amount of knowledge they need is much higher. And getting it wrong, can be costly. Relegating the poor to doctors with limited training only opens the floodgates for more problems. And that's exactly what you are doing with your tier system. Because poor people wouldn't be able to see a tier 5 doctor with the money they have. They'd be relegated to a tier 1 or 2 doctor because it's what they can afford. You're essentially making them choose between money, and their health. And when faced with a choice of lower quality vs going into heavy debt, they have to choose lower quality because going into too much debt could destroy them. (And on some level I think you realize this given your argument that your friends can't afford healthcare--which means they'd be going to Tier 1 doctors--or doctors with extremely limited experience)

Even doctors with a LOT of experience can make mistakes. As we see today. I know my daughter was misdiagnosed once by our family doctor. Had my mother (who's also a doctor--an internist to be specific) not recommended me to take her to another doctor, I might not have. The other doctor diagnosed her right, and she was able to get better. Doctors with 2 years of experience are going to be more likely to make mistakes than doctors with more experience. That much should be obvious to anyone. So you'd essentially be sending your friends, who can't afford healthcare, to doctors more likely to make mistakes simply because they can't afford it.

What we need is Single Payer Healthcare. Which isn't without it's flaws, but those are flaws that can be addressed. Grants for those who enter the field of medicine, among other ideas. Single Payer also eliminates the profit-motive, which means that you save the millions of dollars in profit these companies are making. It also cuts out the middle man in negotiating with doctors, meaning everyone would be able to see every doctor. Single Payer is a system that needs worked on, and it's the best way to supply healthcare to everyone in a way that is both equitable, and fair.

[The Grand Nudger]

If I'd gone to a t1 hospital or doctor, I;d be four kids and one wife short.  No thanks, the t5 doctor struggled as it was.

[Coveny]

Oh I see you do it to me, no problem, I do it to you and your cry fowl. Got it.

As a for the record thing I was a field medic in the army it's much shorter than two years and I've stitched people up just fine. (to be fair it was 20 years ago though) Also could you tell me how long it takes to become a paramedic, and explain why you feel don't understand medicine please?

I prolly shouldn't have engaged you because you are obviously trolling me, but at this point I'm already in so what the heck.

Good when you do 12 surgeries a day . And make no mistakes come back to me . Field medicine  is not the same as frequent domestic surgeries .

Oh look more "facts" that you can't support. 12 surgeries a day? I have no interest in going to that surgeon. From the surgeries I've had, and the people I know have had even simple surgeries take hours to do. Can't see how it would be possible to perform 12 a day so I spent 5 seconds on google and found this: "The average numbers of procedures per surgeon per year was 398" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420902/ it's a bit old, but I doubt it's change that much.

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Paramedics and EMTs are trained to deal with specific (and usually fairly limited) situations.  They are the best qualified to get patients to the hospital in as good as shape as they were found--if not better.  There's a big difference between the job of a paramedic and a doctor.  Their skills are geared more toward pre-hospital care. And often they are under the direction of a doctor (who is more useful back at the hospital, with other patients)

It's easy to think that because you can become a paramedic in a short amount of time, that people could also become doctors in such a short amount of time--but doctors and paramedics aren't remotely the same thing.  Just like Doctors and nurses aren't the same thing.  

Doctors require years of education for a very good reason--the amount of knowledge they need is much higher.  And getting it wrong, can be costly.  Relegating the poor to doctors with limited training only opens the floodgates for more problems.  And that's exactly what you are doing with your tier system.  Because poor people wouldn't be able to see a tier 5 doctor with the money they have.  They'd be relegated to a tier 1 or 2 doctor because it's what they can afford.  You're essentially making them choose between money, and their health.  And when faced with a choice of lower quality vs going into heavy debt, they have to choose lower quality because going into too much debt could destroy them.  (And on some level I think you realize this given your argument that your friends can't afford healthcare--which means they'd be going to Tier 1 doctors--or doctors with extremely limited experience)

Even doctors with a LOT of experience can make mistakes.  As we see today.  I know my daughter was misdiagnosed once by our family doctor.  Had my mother (who's also a doctor--an internist to be specific) not recommended me to take her to another doctor, I might not have.  The other doctor diagnosed her right, and she was able to get better.  Doctors with 2 years of experience are going to be more likely to make mistakes than doctors with more experience.  That much should be obvious to anyone.  So you'd essentially be sending your friends, who can't afford healthcare, to doctors more likely to make mistakes simply because they can't afford it.

What we need is Single Payer Healthcare.  Which isn't without it's flaws, but those are flaws that can be addressed.  Grants for those who enter the field of medicine, among other ideas.  Single Payer also eliminates the profit-motive, which means that you save the millions of dollars in profit these companies are making.  It also cuts out the middle man in negotiating with doctors, meaning everyone would be able to see every doctor.  Single Payer is a system that needs worked on, and it's the best way to supply healthcare to everyone in a way that is both equitable, and fair.

You had me at "Paramedics and EMTs are trained to deal with specific (and usually fairly limited) situations." I agree if tier 1 doctors were trained to deal with specific situations they would work out well. Thanks for the support.

If you can address those flaws I'm all ears. Thus far I haven't heard anything from you, and others who are against my system that universal healthcare is the magic bullet. Sure it lowers health care costs, but the basic problem with regulating doctors pay so that "good" doctors make more than "bad" doctors, and the need to double if not triple the number of doctors who've gone through 12 - 15 years of medical training are huge flaws that no one is addressing, or responding to. They are just saying "it's not a problem", or that pretend like it's going to magically fix itself, or human beings are going to change. We have plenty of research that shows that's not the case. So give me a real solutions and I'm all ears. Give me real criticism and I'm all ears. But when your plan is one that's slightly better than what we currently have, and you ignore the problems with it and tout it as the end all be all, let's just say I'm going to be resistant.

[The Grand Nudger]

Universal healthcare isn't about regulating doctors pay, and doesn't prevent a red carpet private practice from charging a higher price to patients who have the money to spend for a red carpet service.  People in Canada and the UK still get private insurance to cover things not covered by their systems...and still yet opt for out of pocket expenses for things not covered by their system -and- their private insurance combined.  

If you think that we don't have enough doctors..the answer probably has more to do with reducing the cost of education than with lowering standards of care or accreditation.  I'm guessing that there are more people who would have been doctors, if they could have afforded the required education in the first place.  Beyond that, there needs to be a greater incentive for medical practitioners who either come from or wish to practice in rural areas to overcome density problems in countries that do have a relatively high amount of physicians per capita.  

The solutions to these problems are direct and explicit.  The solutions you offered only serve to perpetuate and incentivize the very root of the problems we have with healthcare in this country.  We already -have- access to lesser qualified and cheaper medical personnel and services.  It's called your cousin with a tube of superglue and a bunch of horse pills working out of his trailer.   Even at the professional level we already have it.  My kids immunizations aren't performed by an MD at a hospital..hell they get their flu shots at school, during recess...., and there's no surgeon aboard the ambulance.  

Universal healthcare operates on the same idea as insurance..it uses the same personnel, it pays for the same services, it just pays for them in a different way.  If you have decent health insurance, you don't have our healthcare problem.  The trouble is that a significant portion of us can't afford that insurance or those services, not that there isn't enough medicine or doctors to go around, or that we couldn't produce more of both if we found the need and the funds to pay for them

No, it's not a magic bullet, but it does solve our most pressing issue, that poor people have spotty access to shitty services....because they're poor..and this isn;t just an issue that effects the poor....theprice a richer person pays is directly related to defaults on payments...and the effectiveness of antibiotics decreases as people stockpile and administer them in an unregulated and undereducated fashion...just for starters. Pain management "clinics" are a de facto "lower tier" service aimed almost entirely at the rural poor..and look at where that got us? The cost of bad medical advice, in and of itself, is incalculable.....and I doubt that anyone would ask their cousins medical opinion if they could..you know, just go see a real doctor.

All of those problems listed above, however, have the benefit of being incredibly profitable. The point of our government, of our laws...as stated in the preamble to the constitution, is to promote the general welfare..not to promote the wealth of specific citizens and corporate entities by creating tiers and underclasses. What is the justification for incentivizing second, third, fourth..and fifth rate clinics, beyond profit..when we plainly -could- provide access to first rate care?

[Amarok]

You addressed nothing i said  Coveny

[Coveny]

Universal healthcare isn't about regulating doctors pay, and doesn't prevent a red carpet private practice from charging a higher price to patients who have the money to spend for a red carpet service.  People in Canada and the UK still get private insurance to cover things not covered by their systems...and still yet opt for out of pocket expenses for things not covered by their system -and- their private insurance combined.  

If you think that we don't have enough doctors..the answer probably has more to do with reducing the cost of education than with lowering standards of care or accreditation.  I'm guessing that there are more people who would have been doctors, if they could have afforded the required education in the first place.  Beyond that, there needs to be a greater incentive for medical practitioners who either come from or wish to practice in rural areas to overcome density problems in countries that do have a relatively high amount of physicians per capita.  

The solutions to these problems are direct and explicit.  The solutions you offered only serve to perpetuate and incentivize the very root of the problems we have with healthcare in this country.  We already -have- access to lesser qualified and cheaper medical personnel and services.  It's called your cousin with a tube of superglue and a bunch of horse pills working out of his trailer.   Even at the professional level we already have it.  My kids immunizations aren't performed by an MD at a hospital..hell they get their flu shots at school, during recess...., and there's no surgeon aboard the ambulance.  

Universal healthcare operates on the same idea as insurance..it uses the same personnel, it pays for the same services, it just pays for them in a different way.  If you have decent health insurance, you don't have our healthcare problem.  The trouble is that a significant portion of us can't afford that insurance or those services, not that there isn't enough medicine or doctors to go around, or that we couldn't produce more of both if we found the need and the funds to pay for them

No, it's not a magic bullet, but it does solve our most pressing issue, that poor people have spotty access to shitty services....because they're poor..and this isn;t just an issue that effects the poor....theprice a richer person pays is directly related to defaults on payments...and the effectiveness of antibiotics decreases as people stockpile and administer them in an unregulated and undereducated fashion...just for starters.  Pain management "clinics" are a de facto "lower tier" service aimed almost entirely at the rural poor..and look at where that got us?  The cost of bad medical advice, in and of itself, is incalculable.....and I doubt that anyone would ask their cousins medical opinion if they could..you know, just go see a real doctor.

All of those problems listed above, however, have the benefit of being incredibly profitable.  The point of our government, of our laws...as stated in the preamble to the constitution, is to promote the general welfare..not to promote the wealth of specific citizens and corporate entities by creating tiers and underclasses.

You go from "People in Canada and the UK still get private insurance to cover things not covered by their systems...and still yet opt for out of pocket expenses for things not covered by their system" to "Universal healthcare operates on the same idea as insurance..it uses the same personnel, it pays for the same services, it just pays for them in a different way." Now if you understand that people opt for private healthcare because of "things not covered" then you should understand that it's a contradiction to say "it pays for the same services". This is one of the issues with universal healthcare, it doesn't cover everything, and people are still left in need a treatment they can't afford.

You admit and understand that medical professions with limited knowledge are effective in our current system.  (immunizations, and ambulances were your examples) But the idea of expanding this to lower costs equates to getting your cousin with a tube of superglue. You can't view the people giving shots to your children this way, and I doubt you feel that way about EMTs and Paramedics. So again you contradict yourself. On top of that you do see the costs as a roadblock for some. Yet you can't accept the idea of making the costs lower for someone with less knowledge to allow them to break into the field.

I agree with you that the less competition you have in a market the more of a monopoly it creates, and that the medical industry is full of huge companies that are incredibly profitable and have used those profits to corrupt our laws/government/media in their favor. However you don't understand the contradiction of wanting more laws/regulations, and expecting that to lower costs and create more companies, and more medical professionals. 

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You addressed nothing i said  Coveny

I've addressed your arguments with arguments. I've addressed your smack talk with smack talk. I'm paying attention to you, don't you worry.