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GOVERMENT RUN HEALTHCARE

Rick
1 Recommendation

I was diagnosed with VHL in 1980 and have had a total of 23 tumors either removed with conventional surgery or otherwise taken care of (radiosurgery).

I am wondering if anyone else out there is concerned about the attempt in the USA to drastically change the current healthcare system. There are so many rumors and unknowns out there still (publc option, read...government run single payer, rationed healthcare, how the government intends to add millions to the system and save money?), and more.

I beleive we currently have the best healthcare sytem on the planet, is it perfect? absolutely not, could it use some fixing? absolutely. I am worried about not being able to get the care that I may need when I need it.

The government has never run ANYTHING efficiently, I can only guess as to how health care would be run.
What experiences do folks from other countries with government healthcare have?
Rick

Explore topics in this discussion:

HIV and AIDS Surgery

19 replies

bnewbegin

I for one am grateful for government's involvement in healthcare. Government healthcare discovered the VHL gene. Govenment healthcare funded almost all of the research resulting in current treatment and detection of VHL.

VHL research isn't going to make anyone rich, and we should be grateful to the government for making so much progress in the fight against our disease.

Government HAS run things efficiently. I just returned from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. They removed an endolymphatic sac tumor from my head (free of charge by the way). If NIH hadn't discovered the existance of these little tumors recently, I would still be going deaf, which is exactly what happened 20 years ago on my other ear.

Let's not be too hastey in assuming "government" is a bad word. While it's true that capitalism has resulted in treatments for the some of the most lucrative-to-treat problems, for those of us with diseases that won't make anyone rich to treat, we say thank you to the government. For all of our sakes, I hope they get more involved.

Beverly2

My son with VHL is deemed "uninsurable."

He's still in college and covered under our family plan. We attempted to buy a plan for him when it looked like my husband's job would be terminated.

Thankfully my husband still has a job, as it was impossible to buy insurance for our son.

I would be grateful for any public option that would allow my son to have medical coverage at a reasonable price while he is in graduate school.

While I do believe that we have great medical care in this country, I think the system that allows "for profit" organizations to turn away (or require exhorbitant fees) those who need the health care coverage the most is unacceptable.

Rick

I hope to hear from folks from countries other than the USA that do have government run healthcare. We in the USA have no experiences to go on, we only have what is being told to us, and that is many different stories so far.
Rick

live

Well the NHS in the U.K. has been looking after my VHL needs very well. However, let me point out RIck that the best care and treatment for VHL patients is right in your backyard - the NIH - and guess what?- they are government run and funded. They do things in NIH that top university and private hospitals in the U.S. would not attempt or would not bother to attempt.

Also my brother who lives in Canada is looked after very well by their health system.

Just wondering if all the VHL related operations etc you had were covered by an insurance company? If so please do provide the name of the insurer as it seems there are people there in the U.S. who need them and cannot get them.

kleineflute

We in the USA do have experiences to go on. We have Medicare, which is government run health care.

Americans on Medicare as a whole are happy with this Single Payer coverage. People choose care by any private doctor or hospital they want. Everyone over 65 is covered, regardless of pre-existing condition.

We have a few bright spots in this country, like Medicare & NIH, but I do not believe we have the best health care system on the planet. We have the best health care technology on the planet, available to some.

How many of us with VHL have been denied insurance coverage, gone without care, been crushed by medical expense, and dealt with illness at the same time? Been afraid to have our children tested for VHL because they'll be uninsurable if they test positive? What portion of our income goes for health insurance premiums, for policies with huge deductibles, fees, co-pays? How often have we been denied coverage for scans, medication, or seeing doctors we need? How many hours have we spent on the phone trying to straighten out bills? Insurance companies practice medicine while doctors and patients stand in line waiting for permission to participate in the process.

I wish I felt we put peoples' right to adequate health care above the insurance industry's unquestioned entitlement to legislated limitless profit. Why it is more important to meet the demands of this corporatocracy than to take care of humans?

What does the insurance industry GIVE to health care in the US? I know they TAKE money in the form of premiums. They MAKE money by denying claims and limiting care. They ADD 30% to the cost of health care in the form of paperwork, claims processing, doctor/hospital employees needed to do nothing but try to get them to pay claims. By contrast, Medicare adds 3% to the cost of care in the form of billing paperwork.

I have VHL, and many of my family members have had VHL. I guess I know too much about trying to stay alive with this disease, both physically and financially. Everyone in our society will need health care at some point in their lives. We are the only country in the civilized world to deny the right of health care to our citizens. When our neighbor is dying, we do not send him a get-well card, we send him a bill.

ireland22

Hi would like to ask ur advice on the tumor in ur ear , well im from ireland and only just found out that i have a tumor in my ear two , but i was thinking of going to the us to have my surgery done cause the doctor's hear in ireland would not have came across this before, can i ask was it Dr lanser that did your surgery ? would be greatfull if you could tell me about the surgery its self , and how long it took to recover . thank you lisa

bnewbegin

Excellent discussion, and great points everyone. I hope we convince some people to turn off Fox News (the source of all the rumors and uncertainties) and encourage our leaders to provide everyone in our VHL family with medical insurance.

We have another government run healthcare plan. Last year my company went out of business, and I lost my insurance. I applied for an individual plan, and was obviously denied by everyone. Fortunately, under the HIPAA act of 1996 (thank you W.J. Clinton), if you work for a company that goes out of business (and is therefore unable to provide you with COBRA), you are entitled to a government run insurance plan. It's an individual policy. If you qualify under HIPAA, there are NO MEDICAL HISTORY questions on the application. I've now had my own individual plan under HIPAA for the last six months, and it is excellent (typical PPO, 1500 deductible, 2500 max out of pocket).

The government is running some things quite well, especially for those of us with VHL. I for one would be uninsured today if it had not been for the government run healthcare provided for a very narrowly-qualifying few. We need to expanded it to help more that slip through the cracks.

MaryP

I realize you are asking for responses from individuals outside the USA, but since the majority of responses have come from inside the country, I feel a responsibility to express my concerns. My husband and I are both RNs and have been in the medical industry for 25 years. Please place me in the TERRIFIED column when it comes to health care reform. Many of the best physicians we work with have moved from Canada. Their stories are frightening. Sadly, having a national health care system will not guarantee access to the care we need either.

Rick

Live, thank you for your response.
I agree with you that the NIH offers tremendous VHL care, I am glad you are able to take advantage of it.
I have a couple of questions:
Does the NIH in the U.K. treat every VHL patient in the country or a relative few? It's great for the patients treated there but what about the others? I find it hard to believe the NIH, (U.K. or U.S.) could handle the volume of patients required to help every VHL patient.

Does your brother have MRI scans every 6 months? If so, has he ever had an onset of symptoms in between regular scans causing him to need relatively rapid surgery? If so, what was the response time?

MaryP, I agree with you
Rick

live

Rick,

To your first question - The NHS in England (or U.K.) has to treat not only all VHL patients but every patient even with HIV and AIDS. You see after the 2nd world wa the NHS was established to treat and serve all citizens. So yes it treats all VHL patients in the country.
Infact out of the country as well, as many British citizens like me do not live in the country. When I had symptons that needed treatment the response was immediate as soon as I got back into the country.
As far as I know the same is true for my brother in Canada. He can have MRI's whenever he needs it.

As for NIH in your country true it may not be able to handle the volume and they have certain requirements to accept patients - but this i why your country needs more of these centres accesible to all. But do remmebr the budget of the NIH alone is that for the entire NHS in the U.K. and maybe more.

Therefore as only NIH cannot handle it, the US needs more of these centres not less - otherwise an insurance company should cover VHL patients - which brings me back to my question to you regarding who your insurer is so others can get it too?

mkj

Put me on the terrified list if health reform gets stonewalled and everything stays the same. At the very LEAST, we need to have guaranteed insurability and level premiums for everyone. For those of you, who are against health care reform, tell me what we are supposed to do for our son when we hit the 5 million dollar cap on our policy. Tell me what we can do when our insurance company drops him because he can no longer be a full time student because of his multiple surgeries. I am not railing here; I want to know what options we have when this happens. I live in fear every day that we will not be able to provide him the level of care he needs.

karenga01

Thank you to those who have been able to have a calm discussion on here. I hate this time of year when my husbands company has open enrollment for health insurance. Yes, we are fortunate that he can get insurance through his employer but we HAVE to get the most expenssive policy because of me. I feel like that in it's self is discrimination. Both my husband and son have never been sick but because I have so many specialists and tests my family has to get a policy that will cover everything that I will need or may need. (I have had years where I had 3 major surgeries)
Every year I have to decide do we try to get a larger dedutible to lower the cost or just make a higher payment to keep the dedutible lower. My husband is the only one working now that I'm on disability.
God forbid I was to have another major surgery......and how dare an insure company tell me and my doctor that they aren't going to pay for something that my doctor says I need. We as VHL patients do not fall into the usuall catagories that they have. We can easly go through a limited lifetime max as they have it now. I know I am getting close.

Rick

Live,
To answer your question, I am very lucky to have an employer that gets healthcare from BCBS. I realize how lucky I am and pray I can continue to work full time until I retire. I am asking legitimate questions because I truly want to learn how it is run in other countries.
Rick

AEckerman

Hi Rick,

You have posted an excellent quesiton!

I think we are all very concerned about both the current health care situation as well as what might happen in the future.

Like many, I believe the healthcare expenses of healthcare can best be addressed by the private sector. Insurance would become cheaper if it was put on the free market instead of having state ordered mandates which drive up the costs. We should be able to buy insurance across state lines. More competition will drive down the costs. We should be able to deduct insurance premiums like companies can do. Medicare and Medicaid are riddled with fraud and waste. Although I do not believe these programs should be abandoned, perhaps the government can prove they can deal with this first before adding more layers of bureaucracy. They say they are going to eliminate the waste and fraud, but they haven't done it for 40+ years - why should we believe they suddenly are going to be able to do it now?

Almost ALL recent advancements in healthcare began in the US. Government bureacracies in other countries stifle innnovation and patient care. People from all over the world come the the US for medical treatment. The waiting lists in Canada have become obscenely long - so long they are outsourcing to the US hospitals. To keep costs down they limit the number of drugs allowed for treatment. Despite the frustrations we have here, the alternative of trying to replicate the Canadian or European healthcare systems will only bring additional problems.

I would suggest anyone interested in serious comparison of US healthcare vs socialized healthcare read David Gratzer. He was a Canadian doctor who now lives and works in the US. His articles are thoughtful, scholarly, and alarming.

While we have plenty of need for improvement, going the way of socialized medicine is not the answer.

Do VHL patients get better care in other countries? Which countries do VHL patients get quicker and more comprehensive care? Why do people from all over come to MD Anderson, the NIH, Sloan-Kettering, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, UCLA, etc., if healthcare is the same or better in other countries? England HAS to import doctors from other countries. We get the best and the brightest from other countries because they WANT to come practice here. Canadian healthcare workers wouldn't move here if Canada was a healthcare paradise.

The bottom line is we need reform. Everyone agrees with that. We need protection. But we can't afford to lose the level of care that a serious illness requires.

bnewbegin

More great thoughts added to the discussion Alison.

I just wanted to clarify, the beaurocratic mess of Medicare and Medicade was not created by the government. These programs are 99.9% run by 3rd-party administrators, the very for-profit insurance companies we've been talking about.

As a CPA, my job is to audit 3rd-party administration of Medicare and Medicade. Only the net dollars are passed back and forth to the government. I want to be very clear. The government DOES NOT RUN MEDICARE. For-profit insurance companies administer it. All of it.

Finally, it's important to note that the medical institutions you listed, the ones where people are coming to America to be treated, are not part of the private sector you are heralding. They are government run or funded entities. You strengthen the argument for more government involvement. We all agree. There should be more of these beacons of hope.

Only the right-wing fear-mongers in the have ever said anything about "socialized medicine". Nobody has ever promoted following the Canada England systems. A government OPTION to purchase medical insurance as part of an collective entity with buying power would force the private-sector insurance companies to become more competitive by cutting costs and reducing waste (which those private-sector companies would then be able to roll out to their administration of Medicare, saving billions, even trillions). This in no way resembles the Canada or England schemes. None of the proposals in front of congress even remotely resemble the plans in those controls.

And that "level of care that a serious illness requires..."? Try getting that from a for-profit private-sector medical provider. You won't come even close to the care provided by the government-run institutions, many of which you've listed above. I definitely have not.

Please forgive my passion for getting this reform passed. As somone who has had 3 brain surgeries, 20 eye surgeries and 2 nephrectomies, and as someone who has lost his medical insurance twice within the past year, I have never felt such urgency. It just seems the only ones who want to keep things the same are those with adequate coverage. For the 95% of you who are "all set, I got mine"... great. This healthcare reform is mainly for the other 5% of us. Please just let us get our coverage and stop spreading fear and rumors.

On a separate note, I want to applaud the amazing service to her country by republican Senator Olympia Snowe from my home state of Maine (for whom I've voted in every election since 1987). She is a perfect example of the bipartisan, level-headed thinking we need to get this thing done.

live

Rick,

Thank you for your response. I hope mine helped as (I have had experience of VHL treatment al over te world. As for someones question why people come to the US for treatmenmt etc - well it's not the US - its te government funded and run NIH that is the draw foe VHL patients. In my case I still have all most of my VHL follow ups and teatment sin the UK - I only go to NIH because of their kidney programme (spcifically at the time their RFA). No one is denying the US doesnt have great hospitals and doctors - but these are there for people who can afford the insurance or people who are given insurance by the insurance companies. You know I have no qualms of how healthcare is run in the UK or currently in the US - just make the insurance companies insure everyone at reasonable rates. They make plenty of money from people who do not claim anything from them.

Further there are plenty of good doctors in places like India and the far East as well. Not all good doctors want to go to the US - you get plenty of bad doctors as well as you do everywhere else.

The reason why plenty of good people want to go to the US though is nothing to do with bad health care in UK or Canada et al - it is probably because they have better pay in the US. After all the US is the richest nation in the world with plenty of opportunity and money. This would go along way if they could use all this wealth to help people who cannot get insurance as well.

live

In short if you don't want to - vote not to change your health care - keep it as is, but make sure that people deemed uninsurable can get insurance. That would be a good start. Why should someone born with a genetic disorder be uninsurable (did they smoke and take drugs and bring it on themselves) - is this the way anyone should be treated that too by no fault of their own?

live

Just a note to bnewbnegins statement -
"And that "level of care that a serious illness requires..."? Try getting that from a for-profit private-sector medical provider. You won't come even close to the care provided by the government-run institutions, many of which you've listed above. I definitely have not."

Several patients in NIH who went to John Hopkins and the like were told the only option they had was to do a full nephrectomy - you see private hospitals could'nt be bothered and go for the easiest and least complicated solutions.

Of course these people had partial nephrectomy's done by surgeons at NIH with utmost care and dedication. They still have most of their kidneys.
So although I harp on about insuring everyone that is still not enough - we need more places like NIH as well.

marie3

Kleineflute, I soooooooooooo agree with everything you said. "Afraid to have children tested for fear they'll be denied coverage, insurance companies practice medicine while we wait for approval, gone without medical care"................... I'm feeling you!!!!!!!!!! I too have been there, and it sickens me. Here in the almighty United States, you will die if you don't have health insurance....or if you're not accepted into NIH. We police the world, yet we don't have money for health care. I don't know the answer, but I am afraid of a government run health system.

Marie

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