Comparing Italy

"sf" ha scritto nel messaggio Doug Freyburger


It's all circular, because you begin with a system so screwed up it's hard
to know where to start. Doctors claim they have to charge so much because
their insurance is so high because of litigiousness in the population. But
they still seem to do very well indeed. Hospitals claim they have to charge
$10 for an aspirin because of the health professional who delivers it.
Everybody has an excuse for why things are so expensive. Insurance
companies are raking it in plus paying thousands of folks who run them.
There are personnel where they don't strictly have to be. It doesn't even
pay to talk about it.

It is the US government which has a hustory of paying $700 for a toilet
seat. Other government run health systems bargain with drug companies to
pay less. A doctor's office has a doctor in it and maybe a nurse if there
are going to be procedures in it... usually there aren't. The doctor enters
what he is doing into a state-owned computer which tracks expenses and
whether you paid your insurance. He doesn't have a staff because he doesn't
have to bill. He receives patients 25 hours a week and the rest of the week
pays hospital calls if necessary and makes house calls for those who
legitimately can't come in.
Everybody pays 7.5% of income and for certain advanced tests a small co-pay
until retirement age. It works. If you want something off the list, pay
for it. No restrictions on what care you can buy, no huge bills if you get
a horrible illness. My friend was struck with peritonitis when he was
visiting and spent 10 days in hospital. He put the bill on his
Mastercharge. All of it, docs, nursing, tests, stay came to $2400.
 
sf wrote:

actually, from what I've read a great many are young adults who just
don't feel any pressing need or worry to insure themselves even though
they have access to health plans at their work/school.
 
On Apr 18, 11:42?am, "Giusi" wrote:

Americans stand up in their cubicle, survey the dozens of worker bees
they share their floor of the building with, and conclude they're
rugged individualists -- Daniel Boones with laptops and smart phones,
driving their SUVs in case all the bridges wash out on the way home.
 
Jim Elbrecht wrote:

Doesn't Sweden have an income tax rate near 50% that covers medical as
well as all other government spending? Aren't they also moving rapidly
towards insolvent because of their retirement system? The US is already
insolvent when social security obligations are counted.

In this case I'm also talking about a specific person who makes near
minimum wage who currently pays tax other than social security
only because of being the second income earner in the family. How hard
is it for someone who earns minimum wage as the second family income
to say "Take half and pay my medical with it"? I should probably look
carefully at my recent pay stub and do the arithmatic - I suppect the
amount person X volunteered is smaller than what I pay right now.

Given that context it reenforces my stance that most of the discussion I
hear is about free health care as if the cost didn't matter. The only
person I can recall offhand who mentioned paying for it likely thinks
the cost will be lower than what I am already paying. Don't get me
wrong - If it were possible to pay less than I already pay I would not
complain about that. But what person X really suggested is that my
payments be far higher. Nice of person X to volunteer my money like
that. ;^)


The "alternative minimum tax" in the US is supposed to cover this. It's
a parallel tax table that is supposed to ensure that high deductions are
limited. I don't know why very high income folks end up paying less
than the AMT amount, probably because I don't make enough money to
justify an accounting staff of my own.
 
In article ,
Janet wrote:


Yes. I am a homemaker and (at the time) my husband was a flight
instructor. Our son had a sacrococcygeal teratoma that ended up being
the size of his torso, but looked like it was the size of his head in
u/s. My husband's work was one of the few FBOs that offered any health
insurance at all to flight instructors, they covered his premium
entirely, but family premium was his to pay. He was one of two married
men there, and the only one with children at the time. We paid about
$500 a month on premium for me and the children (at that time, two older
boys and our son who needed help).

Of the $10K for my c-section, the $3K for my maternal care, the $5K
for Elijah's surgery, the $72K for Elijah's NICU stay, plus all my
visits to a perinatalogist, pediatric surgeons, genetic counselors and
a couple nights of us returning to the hospital just before Elijah was
released (they gave us a kind of "hotel" room in the hospital that was
reserved for this kind of situation), we paid about $2500 out of pocket.
We were living on very low income at the time and we paid most of it off
from our tax refund and the rest on a monthly payment.

Regards,
Ranee @ Arabian Knits

"She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands." Prov 31:13

http://arabianknits.blogspot.com/
 
Michel Boucher wrote:

Aid may be tied to specific items, but the aid in those areas frees non
aid funds for use in other areas. If we're paying for their roads and
military, they have money free to pay for their unsupportable socialized
health care and other "entitlement" programs.

In case you haven't been paying attention to the news lately, most of
historically "western" Europe is currently grappling with huge debt due
to their unsupportable social spending and is having great difficulty
reigning that spending in to sustainable levels. The bottom line is they
"entitled" themselves into a deep hole and now they are broke.


Canadians routinely come to the US to get health care they can't get
under the Canadian socialized health care system. There are at least as
many reports of people in Canada dying waiting for their rationed health
care as there are reports of people in the US who die because they were
uninsured and didn't adequately seek out assistance.


All small countries with high population densities which simply won't
translate to the US.

The bottom line is that the US health care system works just fine for at
least 86% of the population. Of the 14% who are uninsured, around 7-8%
are uninsured not by their own choice. If you want to improve the
current US health care system to better serve that 7-8% of the
population, and it costs me 1% more in taxes, that's fine. If you want
to gut the current systems that works just fine and increase my health
care costs 1000% while reducing my health care choices and quality,
that's not going to happen.
 
On 18/04/2011 9:19 AM, Goomba wrote:


A lot of people don't bother to invest in a pension either. My younger
brother and I both had jobs with pension plans and we both retired at
53. My wife was able to retire at 55. An older brother frequently made
comments about our pensions, as if it were somehow unfair. He had a
pretty good job and made good money, and he and his wife went out for
dinner once or twice a week. I was paying 8% of every pay cheque
directly into that pension plan.

He is now 64 and retired last year. He had socked away some money into
retirement savings plans, and he collects Canada Pension Plan. Between
beer and cigarettes, there can't be much left at the end of the month.
If he had been putting as much into his pension plan as we had been, he
would be financially sound now.
 
"Janet Wilder" ha scritto nel messaggio


Sicily is the worst example of our system there is other than maybe Naples.

I know people with insulin pumps, so I think there must have been a reason
he wasn't to wear it in hospital. And yes, relatives and/or friends do help
patients with eating, bathing, etc. They do have hospital gowns here, maybe
the mafia stole the Palermo ones!

Not only do family help hospitalized patients, but friends as well. I have
cooked and delivered food to someone who ate only macrobiotic and translated
daily for a woman whose Italian wasn't up to the task and didn't understand
the official translator's English. I've helped friends wash and
straightened their beds. I have walked test requests to the lab because the
staff were busy. I didn't mind doing any of that.

You were upset because of a cultural difference. You expected services that
we know are not provided-- if your dh had been much sicker, they would have
done everything-- and you were willing to sit by and watch whereas an
Italian believes he or she can do it better and wants to do it.

If you ask ANY European if they would be willing to give up their system for
the US system the answer is a resounding no. The Italian system is
considered 2nd in the world after France.
 
On Apr 18, 11:57?am, Doug Freyburger wrote:

Swedes spend only 9% of GDP on health care while the US spends 16%.


Irrelevant.


The Social Security Trust Fund surplus was used to partially fund
Reagan's tax cuts for the rich. Then W. ran through the rest of it
attacking Iraq to cover up his failure to retaliate against al-Qaeda.

The only way to get it back is to repeal the Bush-Reagan tax cuts.
 
On Sat, 16 Apr 2011 07:15:24 +0200, "Giusi"
wrote:


Medicare does not seem to pay the extreme bills that doctors and
hospitals submit. Just a bit from my latest Medicare statement. These
are all visits to doctors for various things and paid under part B.
The remainder is paid by my supplemental carrier. BTW, Medicare part
B costs $96.50 a month per person.

Dr. charged Medicare approved Medicare Paid
$291 $135.29 $108.96
$343 $193.03 $154.42
$418 $197.20 $157.76
$114 $63.59 $50.87

Insurance companies have set fees that they will pay for any
procedure.

--
Susan N.

"Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral,
48 percent indignation, and 50 percent envy."
Vittorio De Sica, Italian movie director (1901-1974)
 
"Giusi" wrote in
news:[email protected]:


Especially as Universal Healthcare was never mentioned in the
Manifesto of the Communist Party and furthermore the concept
predates the establishment of the Soviet Union (1917), a state
which people of a certain ilk usually associate (erroneously)
with communism.

First of all there was Bismarck, who no person with an ounce of
wit would accuse of being a communist or even a socialist. He
enacted social legislation in Germany which included the Health
Insurance Bill of 1883, the Accident Insurance Bill of 1884, and
the Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill of 1889.

Britain followed suit in 1911 with the National Insurance Act
which established the basis for the NHS.

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Rerum Novarum,
promulgated the use of socially beneficial measures by catholic
employers (including holidays and sufficient wages) and anyone
whio knows anything about Leo XIII would not accuse him of
socialism or communism. These prescriptions were intended to
prevent the spread of socialism by giving in to some of the
legitimate demands of the people as a preemptive measure.

So, anyone who assumes that healthcare has its origins and
impetus in communism is a. ill-informed, b. repeating the
mistakes of history as they are unaware of it, and, if they
persist in their error, c. stupid.

--

The Bible! Because all the works of science cannot equal the
wisdom of cattle-sacrificing primitives who thought every
animal species in the world lived within walking distance of
Noah's house.
 
"Giusi" wrote


We don't make anything? Italy makes a lot?

Industrial goods as a percentage of GDP, the three countries are
US 21.9%
IT 25%
China 46%

From the US, the Top 10 exports to Italy

America's exports to Italy amounted to $15.5 billion or 1.2% of overall US
exports.

1. Pharmaceutical preparations . $1.3 billion
2. Precious metals not gold . $1.2 billion
3. Civilian aircraft . $954 million
4. Medicinal equipment . $657.4 million
5. Industrial engines . $540.3 million
6. Other petroleum products . $514.6 million
7. Pulpwood . $469.8 million
8. Other industrial machines . $417 million
9. Telecommunications . $392.5 million
10. Fuel oil . $371.4 million



As for energy use per capita:
kilograms of oil equivalent
US 7794
IT 3127
China 1138

What do the numbers really mean? Are Americans and Italians much more
wasteful and less efficient as the Chinese? That may be partly true, but
the Chinese population is huge and many have no access to (or need for)
energy resources. That will change as they become more industrialized and
have more money to spend.

Not really. He set the T'stat where he keeps his own in the 500 year old
stone building. I turned it up the next day. He did not care as I was
paying for the oil used. No one I know in Europe (England, Scotland,
Austria, Italy) keeps the heat as high as is typical in the US. The law
would not have applied anyways since this was the first week in April.



I think you have a big misconception of what manufacturing has moved out of
the US. Toasters and TVs? Sure, they are gone, but we still have jet
engines, aircraft, we still have copper mines, coal mines, and a huge forest
and logging industry. Steel mills are still going, though not as strong as
20 years ago. They are big energy users and when those materials are sent
to another country for finishing, the energy use is less for a higher value.


Italians own more cars per head

Wow, that is nowhere near the numbers I have. US is the leader at 842 per
thousand. Italy is 571. Even Iceland beats you out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
It probably does not count Vespas though.

Yes Italians (many in Europe) probably vacation more and travel to other
countries more. Since the US is as large as all of Europe, we don't travel
as much to foreign countries. Americans are typically not as lingual
either.



Some Americans, Australians,, Slovaks, probably have a better lifestyle too,
but many have less. We all have different wants and needs so a head to head
comparison is difficult.
 
In article ,
[email protected] says...

Look it up, Sicily is NOT representative of Italian health care, whose
quality is ranked one of the highest in the world.
..

Yet it seems to work fine in Australia. (and, in remote areas of
Scotland, which often have BETTER NHS health care services than parts of
urban England.)

Janet
 
Giusi wrote:

That simply isn't borne out in the statistics. Most of the US population
(86%) is insured and most have entirely adequate coverage. Some friends
of mine had a health care "disaster" and ended up having to pay around
$20k of a bill that exceeded $1M.


It's socialism, and the only difference between socialism and communism
is that communists hold the population hostage. This is of course why
the US sees such huge immigration from those wonderful model socialist
countries. Those people immigrating to the US know full well just how
wonderful their former home countries were and why they chose to move to
a better one.
 
In article , [email protected] says...
Thankyou. Very interesting to see how the costs break down as in our
system (National Health Service in UK) patients never have a clue what
their treatment cost. I had to look up your son's condition; the very
first link about it, was about another child (not yours) also called
Elijah .. some coincidence :-)

Janet.
 
On Apr 18, 4:45?am, "Pete C." wrote:

Pete C. helpfully explains why single payer health care could never
work in a low population density country like Canada. *rolls eyes*

Health care in the US consumes 50% more of GDP than does universal
health care anywhere else in the developed world. The American health
care system is a luxury we can no longer afford.

I'd like to point out that the US currently gives $2.5 billion in aid
every year to a country with universal health care -- Israel. If
universal health care is good enough for Israelis, it should be good
enough for their American donors.
 
In article
,
spamtrap1888 wrote:


You are changing the measurement. How much in _tax_ does the
individual pay for health care. Percentage of GDP skews that a bit.

Regards,
Ranee @ Arabian Knits

"She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands." Prov 31:13

http://arabianknits.blogspot.com/
 
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