Supreme Court rules "Obamacare" un...

[CrazyForDex]

Lmfao @ those twitter and facebook statuses. Canada can have them, bunch of pineappleing morons.

[Sarah]

And depending on where you live, it's apparently pomegranate. You can spend hours in the ER waiting to get attention because it's so busy, people die just waiting for ER people. This is what happens when you give everyone a free pass to be idiots with their own health.

Sorry, but this is American right-wing propaganda. Not true at all.

[Moonlapse]

Don't really care either way about this. I was planning to have health insurance anyways when I am out on my own (I take lots of pills ya'know).

[Untradeable]

Sorry, but this is American right-wing propaganda. Not true at all.

Huh? I asked my friend in Canada. How is this propaganda?

[WayOfTime]

It honestly depends on how serious the other people's injuries are, for waiting in the ER. I, myself, have experienced a long wait, but it was jut unfortunate that I was the one with the least-threatening injury. Was a while ago, though.

At the end of my Grade 10's year right as the Summer break began, I was at the pool and bashed my head on the side of the ... edge of the pool. Quite a bit of blood, and it split my head open a bit (just a gash, no big deal). So, loving parents that they are, they brought me to the hospital's ER. I went up, and then had to wait for a good 5 hours (they gave me some serious bandages, though). I looked at the others waiting, and after a few conversations, I saw why my wait was going to be long.

1. One person's cheek had a hole in it, clean through and everything, due to a dog (somehow) managing to bite it.
2. Another had recently walked and fell on broken glass, barefoot, and needed some serious work done.
3. One person's fingers appeared to have been almost severed, and was seen right away, delaying the rest of us a bit.
4. and 5. Two others seemed to have a broken arm / leg, but was in stable enough condition to wait a bit.

The real kicker was the person who came in at the 3 hour mark of my wait. This teenage girl, about 16 years old, was at an end of year party and has managed to drink herself unconsious. Apparently it was an unsuporvised event, and the owners of the house were in deep trouble, but she was admitted right away and was treated for a severe case of alcohol poisoning.

TL;DR : The wait in a Canadian ER really depends on two factors: a) how injured YOU are, and b) how injured everyone ELSE is. 6+ hours for something that you could die from? No, they are smarter than that.

[Sarah]

Huh? I asked my friend in Canada. How is this propaganda?

Then your friend doesn't know what they're talking about or had to go to hospital on one of those days (Halloween is especially bad). It's no worse (or better) than American healthcare. People don't die in the ER. The wait might be longer in some places (big cities, specifically) because the hospitals, especially under Harper's rule, have been under-funded, but the reality is we're more or less equal to American healthcare, except you don't get billed out the ass for laying in one of our beds.

@WayOfTime nailed the waiting thing, but I'm certain american waiting rooms are the same in most places. There's always going to be a waitlist based on the severity of the injury in any hospital.

[Christopher]

#NOBAMA12

they all look like generic bible thumpers too.

[CrazyForDex]

Sorry, but this is American right-wing propaganda. Not true at all.

Eh I heard this from friends that live in Canada too. I hear France has a much better system.

[JoeTang]

What are American wait times like then?

[ImagineAll]

What are American wait times like then?

It all depends, really. For emergency rooms it's not as big of an ordeal if it's something critical like high pain or an open wound. If you have something determined to be less severe it could take awhile. I recall waiting for 6 hours once when I was younger, I just couldn't express to them clearly how much pain I was actually in and therefore was left to sit in my pain.

I really just hope this doesn't botch my $20 copay :(

[FrozNlite]

Thats good I guess. I just know they're going to have a hard time funding that pomegranate. And then they'll end up taxing us more and blah blah later on everyone has healthcare but about 3% of the people pay for it.

Except that's what the system already is. The whole point of the bill is to distribute the financial stress evenly among the population by requiring coverage of all citizens as opposed to having some 31 million uninsured Americans using the healthcare system when they need (whether it's an ER trip for a car crash or a trip to the doctor's for bronchitis), which puts the added stress on the actually insured contingent to make up the differences.

I think the whole civilized world had universal healthcare, except for the USA... :+)

[quote]The U.S. stands almost entirely alone among developed nations that lack universal health care, shown here in green.[/url]

Article link

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Also, @ all of the arguments about ER waits and the actual quality of health care between countries: that's not a question of universal coverage or other financial methods of ensuring affordable, accessible health care for all. The entire healthcare system, like most comprehensive entities, is a collection of various industries that all interact and affect one another with regards to their efficiency and costs.

For example, the issue brought up in this thread about ER visit waits is a concern of available hospital infrastructure, technology, and staff, which are all problems solved by a wide scope of professionals. People like engineers and construction teams need to have the resources and manpower to design and construct the material necessities, and even educators and politicians are involved, in reforming our education system to provide affordable, accessible, world-class education to all American children, from Kindergarten through college, and in providing education and inspiration for these necessary future careers (ie. increasing the number of people going into these aforementioned fields).

Hell, I'd even argue the answer to this question requires societal reform in the part of inspiration. I mean, we as a contemporary society are so focused on our entertainment outlets that glorify the various associated industries who even wants to be a doctor or an engineer anymore? I know I am, to some, the pot calling the kettle black in pursuing a fashion career when I'm qualified for one in microbiology and the medical sciences, but that was an educated, conscious decision made after years of high-quality education, exposure to the wide variety of career fields available, and individual soul-searching. If you gave every kid in every country the same opportunities people like myself and the other privileged percent have, and focused societal efforts on reforming healthcare and education instead of attacking respective legislation or putting entertainment before careers, you'd see a lot more doctors and engineers.

Sorry for the essay, but it just annoys the hell out of me to see people argue that anecdotal horrible health care experiences conclude that universal health care is a widespread problem. That's not even a logical argument if you take a moment to consider the whole picture and put into perspective all of the intersecting industries associated with healthcare, because this is not specific groups of people's problem to solve, it's every one of ours as a global society.

[Flonne]

I didn't really care about the whole debate, everything either evens out eventually or sinks, can't do pomegranate about any of this; once someone with a little bit of influence gets something in their head, it will happen.

The real thing I found funny was fox and CNN reporting it as unconstitutional because they only read the first page. pineapple yeah america, you always provide a good laugh.

[KhainiWest]

I really just hope this doesn't botch my $20 copay :(

This is what I'm worried about the most with this bill. The idea is of course, well sane, the problem is we have 3rd party companies who suddenly got an infinitive demand for that product, which will raise the cost of healthcare as a whole. It be great if it inflates to the point where families can't afford it, then we can abolish the middleman all together.

[Duelman]

It honestly depends on how serious the other people's injuries are, for waiting in the ER. I, myself, have experienced a long wait, but it was jut unfortunate that I was the one with the least-threatening injury. Was a while ago, though.

At the end of my Grade 10's year right as the Summer break began, I was at the pool and bashed my head on the side of the ... edge of the pool. Quite a bit of blood, and it split my head open a bit (just a gash, no big deal). So, loving parents that they are, they brought me to the hospital's ER. I went up, and then had to wait for a good 5 hours (they gave me some serious bandages, though). I looked at the others waiting, and after a few conversations, I saw why my wait was going to be long.

1. One person's cheek had a hole in it, clean through and everything, due to a dog (somehow) managing to bite it.
2. Another had recently walked and fell on broken glass, barefoot, and needed some serious work done.
3. One person's fingers appeared to have been almost severed, and was seen right away, delaying the rest of us a bit.
4. and 5. Two others seemed to have a broken arm / leg, but was in stable enough condition to wait a bit.

The real kicker was the person who came in at the 3 hour mark of my wait. This teenage girl, about 16 years old, was at an end of year party and has managed to drink herself unconsious. Apparently it was an unsuporvised event, and the owners of the house were in deep trouble, but she was admitted right away and was treated for a severe case of alcohol poisoning.

TL;DR : The wait in a Canadian ER really depends on two factors: a) how injured YOU are, and b) how injured everyone ELSE is. 6+ hours for something that you could die from? No, they are smarter than that.

This basically describes every ER visit I've ever been on. In other words nothing is different in regards to wait/quality, the real difference is simply the bill.

[Fiel]

My biggest problem with health care in america is that I really don't know the cost of anything before I do it. You may recall me talking about my $330 blood test sometimes. Yeah, that sucks.

Health care is one of the few things in America where you can't see the price tag before you have the operation done. How much does a blood test cost? How much does a glucose tolerance test cost? According to the companies, "WELL, IT DEPENDS." No, that's some bullcrap. It should be roughly the same price for every person that enters. I should know how much something is going to cost before they give the test so I can plan accordingly. Instead, I have no way to know what things cost because the actual cost is determined between the insurer and the doctor (called UCR). And the price that I pay is hidden from the doctor. The doctor has no idea what I will pay because it varies wildly from insurance plan to insurance plan, and the only way I can get a quote for what it costs is by calling my insurer. So I'll end up refusing any and all tests, go home, call my insurer to make sure the f'ing thing is covered, then GO BACK TO THE DOCTOR. How is that not wasteful?! If they kept a more consistent and reliable way of knowing what costs what I would waste less of the doctor's time and receive better health care.

So if I don't know the cost of things, how the hell am I supposed to budget for basic things a doctor might do - like a physical, an eye exam, or getting basic dental work done?

That is what angers me the most about health care in America. I don't know the cost for things because it's being hidden from me until I get a piece of mail with a number on it. And then I'm forced to pay it without much ability to state the cost is unreasonable for anyone.

And that's bullcrap.

[ChaosCorpse]

And depending on where you live, it's apparently pomegranate. You can spend hours in the ER waiting to get attention because it's so busy, people die just waiting for ER people. This is what happens when you give everyone a free pass to be idiots with their own health.

What are American wait times like then?

Well, I think it depends on area and population density more than something as overarching as the entirety of a nation.

Where I live, I've been to both ER, and something called Urgent Care. ER usually took me about 3-5 hours to get in (granted I could see very well that I wasn't the worst in there, nor the best though); and Urgent Care varied from 15 minutes to 3 hours (problem with this being they don't take severity into account there). Now, I'm in SoCal.

When my Grandfather was with us; over in Missouri; it took them literally 10 minutes to get to him. Extreme difference there, but also quite obviously affected by the relative populations. Not sure what the solution is other than to over-staff a facility in higher population areas "just in case". I really don't think this has to do with national policy on insurance though.