[Info-vax] HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[Stafford Winters]

On 12/3/2011 3:13 PM, ChrisQ wrote:
> I know health care is a sensitive issue in the us, but I don't see how 
> any
> civilised society with regard for human rights and justice can live 
> with a
> system where equality of health care isn't free at the point of need. Or,
> in another way, where the quality of care depends on how much money 
> you have.
> We in the so called advanced western democracies claim to want to advance
> civilisation, but what is civilisation if it isn't built on regard and 
> respect
> for others and their needs ?. As for private enterprise, would you 
> trust any
> of them to do the right thing, rather than maximise profit ?. 
> Unelected, largely
> unaccountable and responsible only to their shareholders. Government
> can't do it all and must contract out a lot of stuff, because state 
> management
> is inevitably inefficient and feeds on itself, but all essential
> services should be regulated down to the wire to prevent abuses.
>
> Of course, state intervention can get out of hand. Apparently, Denmark 
> has the
> highest standard of health care in the world, free at point of need, 
> but it has
> to be paid for from high taxation. What they don't do, however is go 
> around the
> world spending billions on unnecessary wars and other foreign 
> adventures, so
> they have more $ to spend for the common good. You could argue that the
> only function of government is to work for the common good, but the 
> message seems
> to get more and more diluted...
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris

What the U.S. government is supposed to do and not do is regulated by 
the U.S. Constitution. Healthcare is not an item that should be in 
government hands. As a society, we largely don't believe that a person 
shouldn't receive necessary healthcare, but our government has already 
been mandating that every person presenting themselves at any hospital 
emergency room, be given the healthcare they demand, regardless of their 
citizenship or ability to pay, and if they don't pay, the hospital and 
all healthcare providers just have to live without compensation. As a 
result, they all increase the cost of providing healthcare to everyone 
who can pay.

Let me relate a story from the mouth of an emergency room nurse, from a 
number of years ago. In Oregon, we have a state healthcare plan to cover 
those who the state decide cannot afford healthcare insurance. Under 
this plan, the state pays a very small percentage to those who provide 
healthcare. The emergency room nurse tells about a mother who brought 
her 5 children to the emergency room to be treated for an upper 
respiratory virus (common cold) and the hospital could not send them 
somewhere else. The costs for seeing *each* patient in the emergency 
room was $525, but the Oregon Health Plan would only pay $25 for *each* 
patient. It was unknown what loss the doctor incurred in providing this 
care, since the doctor always bills separately for services provided.  
(Lest anyone think the doctor has no costs, they have loans to pay back 
for medical school and malpractice insurance premiums to pay.)