http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1298960/Woman-25-dying-blood-poisoning-texted-photos-deadly-rash-mother-doctors-ignored-her.html#ixzz0vCP3fK1E
Woman chronicled her own death from meningitis in phone pictures as doctors told her spreading rash was only a 'minor infection'
"The inquest heard there were only two doctors on duty to cover the entire hospital the night she died last November."
There is already a shortage of primary care doctors, and it seems likely to get much worse in the next decade. It just doesn't pay, anymore, to be one.
How much worse will it get if we start to lose ER doctors, and entire hospitals for that matter, because of the mandates and restrictions imposed by this ill-conceived health care (sorry, insurance) law?
It needs to be repealed before it does permanent damage.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7920136/EU-rules-are-making-our-doctors-lazy-clock-watchers.html
Sorry, but this is incorrect. Australia's health system is a hybrid yes, but the majority of money spent on hospitals, doctors etc is funded by the australian government. indeed, virtually all serious medical procedures are carried out in public hospitals. buying private health insurance gets you a better room and helps you jump the queue for elective surgery. that's pretty much it. if you're in a private hospital and something goes wrong- bam you're out the door and into the public system more often than not.
That's not to say anything is near perfect here, because its not. we're struggling with the same issues everyone else is, but running deficits to pay for our healthcare is not one of them. the reason costs remin lower is because the backbone of our health system is run by the government, and not for profit.
Oh yeah, don't seek medical attention away from civilisation! that's to be expected though really.
moosetek, you misunderstand, which is probably my fault in explaining it. australia's health system is funded out of normal tax contributions, in addition to a 1.5% medicare levy.
here you go
How much does health care really cost?
In 1998-9 Australia spent $50.3 billion on health care (Health Expenditure Bulletin No 16, June 2000, AIHW). This amounts to 8.5% of GDP. This percentage has been stable since the early 1990s, after increasing in the late eighties from 7.6% of GDP in 1984-85. Over the last decade GDP in real terms increased by about 4.1% with the health cost component rising by 4.6%. This means that health care costs have only exceeded the general rate of economic growth by 0.5% over a ten year period - a reality in direct conflict with claims of “spiralling health costs”.
Who pays now?
Today, about 68% of the $50 billion overall health costs comes from taxes paid by Australians to Commonwealth, State and Local Governments. This proportion has been slowly declining since 1984-85. The remaining 32% of health spending from non-government sources is made up of direct charges to patients (about 15%); health insurance premiums (around 10.5%) and other non-tax sources such as health costs for workers compensation and third party insurance claims. Around 11% of government health care spending comes from the Medicare Levy.
With the introduction of the 30% rebate on private health insurance premiums the proportion of health costs funded by health insurance will fall and taxpayers’ contributions will rise, in this case towards private care. It is unlikely that there will be much direct impact on overall health expenditure as the funds will largely go to subsidising the costs of premiums for existing health fund members.
http://www.drs.org.au/new_doctor/75/fact_sheet_3.html
Private hospitals account for approximately 1/3 of all beds, but like i said earlier, the majority of serious surgeries etc are carried out in the public hospitals because they have more resources. Outside hospitals, most services are conducted by the private sector (GPs etc), however such services are also subsidised by the government (though can be a pain if you need to take your receipts to medicare, as many doctors no longer bulk bill, ie charge medicare for their service to you), as are medicines.
WHO is rationing it by the wallet? You? me? Obama? Pelosi? So WHO is deciding that you cannot get care, but I can?
You seem to think SOMEONE has to ration it. IN reality, no one is perfect, and to trust SOMEONE to do it is asking for not only favoritism and cronyism, but graft, corruption, scandal and fraud. There is another way that does not involve ANYONE making the decision but YOU on YOUR health care.
That sounds like a winner since YOU do not decide for me, and "I" do not decide for you.
That's true. I typed faster than I thought on that reply.
That would be great if everyone had high paying job and no bills. Unfortunately the cost of living is so close to what people make now that saving that type of money is not possible for a lot of people. Of course I don't see how anyone will be able to put away enough money for say... cancer treatment... cause you know everyone has the ability to have hundreds of thousands of dollars put away for that.
So my inability to make enough money to pay for any and every medical problem gives me the right to take someone else's money?
No i was saying that was the point of insurance... Not to mention before the new health care system you were already paying for everyone that didn't have health insurance that went into the emergency room anyway.
But that won't change for the better. The lower income people will still get government assistance. In fact, probably even more people will qualify now, which will simply increase the taxpayer burden all the more.
That's not even current, it's a paper from 2001 using statistics from the late 90's. Ten year old information. It would still be relevant if it weren't for the conditions you're in, private insurance was dropping like a rock in the 90's, ate through the budget surpluses you guys had and put you into the red till they started extra subsidies to get people back off the dole. You went past where we are now, and it hurt enough to turn it back around.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care#Australia
But I spose there’s been a drastic shift in expenditure in the last 6 years right? ROFL. The situation is more or less constant, with just the margins changing. The budget surplus was eaten through by stimulus spending for the GFC (and the corresponding fall in tax revenue), not through an explosion in healthcare costs or medicare. Australia BEGAN the 90s in the red (or really, the 70s), and the debt was paid off somewhere around the early 2000s. This turn around had little to do with private health insurance (though obviously every bit counts).
Australia provides free or nearly free healthcare to all citizens, and no amount of your hand-waving is going to change that. Virtually everyone in Australia wants healthcare to be provided by the government out of taxes which is why health funding (and which party can spend the most) is an issue at every election. Nobody wants to wholly privatise the system. Nobody.
high five!
Negative, budget surplus in 1990. You were ten billion plus in the hole each year following till the Howard administration started cutting spending and put it back in the positive. Australia did start the 90's in the black though.
You may be closer to right about funding than I think, but it's definitely not coming from federal. I can't even find 50 billion, and spending is at least 100 billion. Finding current numbers on health insurance is proving difficult. The WHO doesn't even have figures listed backing up what is referenced in wikipedia, not terribly surprising, it's a joke of an organization. I'd go with their 2005 numbers, but when it's the only recent year filled in and the entire table is a collection of very sparse entries it's pretty suspect. They also show government spending doubling from 2000 to 2005, that don't look right. If it is, the deficits aren't just stimulus. and Australia's in a worse position on trends than we are with Medicare over here having doubled in cost over the last decade.
Know anything about state debt levels?
Should I point out that Australia isn't an East Asian country or would that be too picky? I'm still waiting for you to find one and validate the bullshit claim of lots of East Asians providing affordable health care. Even if I end up entirely wrong, it's the wrong continent for you to feel validated.
Um, when did I say Australia was in East Asia? In case you didn't notice, I'm high fiving him for totally owning you in that argument I was kinda shocked that you would attempt to prove that you knew more about Australia than an Australian, but you kept at it.
Japan, Taiwan, Singapore all have national healthcare systems in one form or another. I lived for several years in Taiwan and enrolled in their universal healthcare program (which covers 99% of the people in Taiwan) and even underwent major surgery while there, a surgery that I had previously underwent in the U.S. for the same condition. The quality of the medical care I received was virtually identical to what I got in the U.S. I could go to the doctor whenever I wanted, for whatever reason, and waiting times were equivalent or less than in the U.S. I would pay just $5 to see the dentist. And I paid one-tenth of what I paid in the U.S. for an equivalent surgery under private insurance!
So I would definitely say that (1) Taiwan has affordable universal healthcare, (2) it runs smoothly, and (3) the Taiwanese government does not have a massive debt problem like the U.S. or Japan. Furthermore, their healthcare system has been in place for 15 years now, just 5 years short of basically rendering your "universal healthcare -> debt" argument invalid (and the system is still going strong).
You may be of the opinion that universal healthcare is a terrible thing, but what you fail to realize is that people who live in countries with functioning government-run healthcare programs are very content with the system and usually don't want it changed. Virtually no one in Taiwan would want to dismantle their healthcare program, and any politician who suggested such a thing would assuredly lose his/her job.
budget might have been in the black under keating, but the debt was still there. It’s a stick the Liberal Party bash the Labor Party with constantly, because they argue the lefties left us with $96B debt by 1996. All I know is I was reading something recently that said that the howard-costello policies were the first to pay off our debt in ~30 years.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/howard-damns-costello-with-faint-praise-20090615-catd.html
(Yeah, a newspaper article unfortunately, but its all I can find.) Tellingly however no ALP member has ever denied this when the Libs used to trumpet about it all the time.
Australian Government debt was progressively reduced after the Second World War and largely eliminated by the beginning of the 1970s. In the decade following the Second World War, relatively tight fiscal policy halted the growth in gross debt, while high inflation underpinned the sharp reduction in gross debt as a share of GDP. By 1974, gross debt had declined to around 8 per cent of GDP from a peak of around 120 per cent of GDP in 1946.
There were two further episodes of debt accumulation, and subsequent reduction, during the 1980s and early 1990s driven by periods of weak economic growth and associated budget deficits. From the mid-1990s, as the Australian Government’s fiscal position improved, gross debt declined steadily as a share of GDP
http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1496/PDF/01_Debt.pdf
Yeah, I too have had problems finding accurate figures too. Basically I’m just presenting what is common knowledge here, that the public system is the centrepiece of our healthcare.
Unfortunately, not really, other than my own state (in the red quite a bit I think!). That’s a fair point, because hospitals are run by the states, however most of that funding comes from the federal government (them being the taxers obviously). But, if we include state debt then perhaps your original argument was correct, however like I said I do not know the specifics of State debt, nor what it has been spent on. Not that this necessarily matters, you can’t necessarily attribute aspects of the debt to individual policies, because all spending contribute.
I am kind of shocked that Australians think they know more about America than Americans do.
I certainly wouldn't claim to know more about the US than someone like you or psychoak. But you have to remember that the world is saturated by information about the US (i for instance read a number of US newspapers and get jim lehrer televised weekly), there are innumerable courses one can take on american history etc. i "meet" plenty of US citizens online who i consider to have a poorer understanding of the country than i do (conspiracy theorists, ron paultards etc).some dude recently was trying to tell me the 16th amendment was never properly ratified, lol.
Australia by contrast, is hugely insignificant in world affairs, so knowledge about it (externally) can be fairly hard to come by.
I would not go that far. While not on the level of America, Australia is far from insignificant on the world stage.
However, your response indicates you are not getting real information about America, but you are tuned into the slant you want to hear. Some real information can be gleaned that way, but most of what you get is biased talking points, and not real facts. While I have not pontificated on the merits or problems with Australian Health care, a quick Bing or Google search can bring up anecdotal horror stories originating from Australia (you are the first country that I am aware of that has or had a lawsuit claiming wrongful life). But I do understand they are anecdotal so try not to use them as evidence of the overall state of the system.
Also like you, I do have some Aussies who I read regularly (their blogs). Some, like Champus Socialist, is far left, but honest about it. Others, like BingBing are far right and make no bones about it. Understanding where they are coming helps to understand the slant of their articles. but again does not provide me with enough information to make declarative statements about the nature of the beast down under.
The problem with most foreign commentators on the state of Affairs of America is they do not have that honesty or critical outlook, and so find a source they agree with and take it as gospel. Without ever having actually stepped foot on this continent.
Perhaps Psychoak is a bit zealous in his opinion of Australia. But his opinion is as valid as yours is on the subject of this blog. And I do not know if he is as informed as you or not. But I dare say you are hardly informed enough to be casting stones in your glass house.
Well, i was speaking in a relative sense. when australia gets up and speaks i rarely get the impression that anyone listens. yeah, that's right, fuck you fiji!
This isn't true at all. i read/watch/listen to anyone covering a topic i am interested in. PBS is the only US news station available on Oz TV FYI.
Even were they more than anecdotal, medical failures and malpractice etc exist everywhere, public health and private.
Yeah, you'll never get as much from observation from afar. Having said that though obviously residents of the US (and everywhere) suffer from the same instances of confirmation bias.
I'm kind've confused where you think i've been casting stones? that certainly hasn't been my intent. i think psychoak is sharp as a tack, but he has made a few rather large factual errors, not necessarily of his own making, but because information concerning australia is harder to find.
Yet you listed sources that are only going to affirm your pre-bias. If you read/listen to them all, why was Breitbart, Drudge, CNS, Newsmax not listed? I am not saying they are lily pure, but they do give contrast to the sources you listed. And for that they will give you the perspective to be able to then discern the truth.
Even the most purposefully uniformed American (those who decline to read and listen to news) still has an advantage - they have to live through the stuff and so will see at least some of it on a daily basis.
The "you" is not YOU "-RAISTLIN-" as such, but the people who think that Psychoak is stupid to comment on Australian affairs, while commenting on American affairs themselves. They are the stone throwers I was referring to.
The English language has more words than any other language on earth - yet it is niggardly when it comes to personal pronouns. My apologies for the mis-understanding.
Where has RAISTLIN commented on American affairs in this thread? I'm pretty sure he has only presented information on Australia in all of his posts. psychoak presented a challenge (find a country with universal healthcare but not much debt) and RAISTLIN answered his challenge by supplying evidence about Australia's healthcare system.
And if by chance you're referring to me, I'm an American.
Conceited, eh? I mentioned no names, just made a comment since the slam was on an American pontificating on Oz health care, yet Aussies were not being criticized similarly.
The Aussie wasn't being criticized similarly because the Aussie wasn't pontificating on American health care.
Insult wars are fun though!
40% of GDP in debt might be a little lower than ours is, but that's an unsustainable level. GDP only grows a few percent a year on average, when you're knocking two percent off it just to pay the interest on your debt, you're fucking yourself into a hole. Assuming Australia continues to stay in the -10-10% debt range, they have a good debt level. Taiwan just has a less horrific one than the US. Which makes sense since they've been paying for social engineering programs less than half as long as we have.
We're using net debt levels too. Neither is an accurate representation depending on the system it's coming from. Gross debt levels would be a terrible portrayal for two countries filled with idiots that are borrowing from each other, which is a rather large percentage of the world debt. Net is a terrible portrayal when one is counting a government entity, like the GSE's here, or Medibank in Australia. Gross debt is supposedly 62% both in the US and Australia this year. I'm having a really hard time believing that number though, that would mean Australia has racked up 30% of their GDP in debt in three years time. If so, you have my pity, welcome to the club?
Assuming you find a buyer for your debt absorbing quasi government entity, you're golden only if you sell it. When you're not selling it's just another portion of your GDP and already represented. This means there is massive under-representation of debt when using net figures in the more socialized countries, the US included. It can be gotten rid of by selling off those assets, but till you do the financing costs are still going to be doing damage in the mean time. Australia can get out from under it without any trouble, but it appears to be taking a hefty toll after all.
If you really want scary numbers, check out external debt. It's a real eye opener on just how fucked the world is.
Because I was including a TV program on free-to-air television, to illustrate the effect of US hegemony on other countries. can you name an aussie news program you get on free tv? i doubt it. i certainly enjoy drudge but i admit im not familiar with CNS or breitbart (as far as i know, may have read in passing). i don't take an issue with the sources, i'll look at just about anything like i said.
Of course.
no worries.
I like flame wars and I'm mourning the lack of it, not mistaking the expression.
people just cant agree on things...
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