DBWI: 25th Anniversary of U.S. National Health Insurance Act

Tomorrow, March 12, will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the National Health Insurance Act of 1985 (or for you specificists, the 'Enhanced and Expanded Medicare for All Act of 1985 :rolleyes:) being signed into law by the late President Edward Kennedy.

Do you have any personal stories of how the NHI Act has impacted your life? I know that I've got a ton, personally. Back before the law was passed, my parents didn't have any form of health insurance, and were really iffy about the idea of having any children. And then, viola, the Kennedy administration managed to get the NHI Act passed shortly after his re-election a year earlier (which makes things stickier in my household because Dad was a Connally supporter :p). Having access to health insurance changed my parents' plans, and as a result, I was born not too long after that.

I can scarcely imagine a United States of America without our Medicare system. In fact, it almost makes me want to ask if it's even possible after some point in 1980 for the U.S. not to have gotten a form of UHC. Maybe if Ford had lost in '76 and we'd gotten Carter or Reagan instead of Teddy Kennedy?
 
I may be a pendant, but Medicare saved my life. I was in a car accident when I was, what, 7 or 8? And my lungs got punctured. My parents said that if not for the Medicare Act then paying for the surgery would have almost wreaked them financially.

Edit: Mom, who was driving, was fine in the car crash, the other car hit us on my side.

(OOC: As a note, this is a counterfactual event. As it played out in OTL nobody was hurt in the crash.)
 
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I must say it has had something of a detrimental effect. My grandparents used to take an active interest in my education and helped out when my mother had very little money and time, but when it turned out the Americans in the family could go home and have full coverage after all, even if they gave up their government jobs (they were with the military in Germany), most of themdid. They'äde prmosed to take me to Norway, Britain and Israel, but instead, I got to visit Buffalo once. I'm only now realising what I missed. You know, seeing museums and cities can be a formative experience for a young boy. I can see it in my kids now. I wish I'd had the chance back then.

Of course it was good for my uncle and his wife. I can't imagine having a career and family changing jobs as regularly as he did when you can't be sure your dependents are covered.

I won't touch the budget issues. I've no dog in that fight, I pay mytaxes and insurance in Germany.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
What seems funny to me is that nations with private health care see some of the wealthiest Americans who don't like to wait around in lines come to their clinics.

OOC: ;)
 

mowque

Banned
What seems funny to me is that nations with private health care see some of the wealthiest Americans who don't like to wait around in lines come to their clinics.

OOC: ;)

Doesn't South Africa have a booming business in medical tourism?
 
Doesn't South Africa have a booming business in medical tourism?
Well, yes, but largely because they've got rather... loose medical ethics standards down there. Surgeries an American doctor, private or national, would never approve are routine down there. You walk into a clinic, slap down the cash, and leave with whatever you want done, done. It's on the expensive side, and you really don't get the same level of quality of medicine in general you get up here. The horror stories of improperly-sterilized surgical instruments and massive infections are quite persistent.
 
I'd say it like that: Without the introduction of universal healthcare in the 1980s, more people around the world would have learned about this specific malice of the US. Medicine series took off in the 1990s and were exported like any other American TV series. And every child would now know that the US were the only industrialized country without universal healthcare. And had one more reason to talk badly about the US.
 
Well, yes, but largely because they've got rather... loose medical ethics standards down there. Surgeries an American doctor, private or national, would never approve are routine down there. You walk into a clinic, slap down the cash, and leave with whatever you want done, done. It's on the expensive side, and you really don't get the same level of quality of medicine in general you get up here. The horror stories of improperly-sterilized surgical instruments and massive infections are quite persistent.

That's mostly just horror stories. I mean, it's not like it doesn't happen, but the media blow it out of all proportion, and you do get MRSA in US hospitals, too.

Thatsaid, I was wowed by US hospitals. My mother's a doctor, and I know a bit of what goes on in a mandatory insurance system like Germany. A properly funded government coverage system certainly produces farsuperior results. For one thing, even if US hospitals are private, they don't operate under the same cost constraints. Or if they do, it sure doesn't show.
 
OOC: What political conditions allowed Ted to Canadianize American healthcare? Just curious.

IC: I see our system has proven popular in your country.
 
OOC: What political conditions allowed Ted to Canadianize American healthcare? Just curious.

IC: I see our system has proven popular in your country.

IC: Okay, I'm assuming that your a Canuck, so you really should know better. By "Our" what provincial system are you talking about? There are only ten, and none of them are identical, with some being bloated, inefficient monsters that devout tax dollars while providing crappy service, while others better at providing the care that the system covers, but they have limits as to what they'll cover. Or are you talking about the federal system, which only covers some federal employees, Status Indians (on reserves), the RCMP and the DND?

OOC: There really are ten different provincial health care systems in Canada, plus three territorial systems and two federal systems (One that covers some federal employees, the first nations reserves (usually in conjunction with the provinces and territories) and the RCMP. The other is that run by the CF for the CF.)
 
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I'm talking about the over-bureaucracized monstrosity known as the Quebec system. Fortunately, I moved to Calgary three years ago, where the care is top-notch.
 
I'm talking about the over-bureaucracized monstrosity known as the Quebec system. Fortunately, I moved to Calgary three years ago, where the care is top-notch.

Ah. Alberta, the place that somehow implemented the best health care system in the industrialized world by trying to kill the one that was forced on them by Ottawa... Forty years later Edmonton and Ottawa are still having that fight (Parliament, particularly the left wing parties that are currently sidelined, is still trying to get Alberta to comply with the Canada Health Act. Without any real success, for reasons that even our international friends should get without explanation), even though it is clear that Edmonton has long since won. Look at what happened to Chretien in 1997 when he tried to enforce the unenforceable. I can hear everyone on the left cringing now...
 
That's mostly just horror stories. I mean, it's not like it doesn't happen, but the media blow it out of all proportion, and you do get MRSA in US hospitals, too.
Right, but when we get MRSA (at least the really, anti-biotic-resistant kind that killed all those people in Atlanta in '99), the CDC and NIH practically fast-rope from BlackHawks with bleach-filled chemical throwers.

The South African Ministry of Health is somewhat... lacking in that regard.

Thatsaid, I was wowed by US hospitals. My mother's a doctor, and I know a bit of what goes on in a mandatory insurance system like Germany. A properly funded government coverage system certainly produces farsuperior results. For one thing, even if US hospitals are private, they don't operate under the same cost constraints. Or if they do, it sure doesn't show.
The system's undergone a lot of tweaks to get it that way. Early on, there was a lot of fraudulent claims going on, money vanishing all over the place. Kennedy certainly gave us the program, but it was McCain (with no small help from Senator Clinton, it must be admitted) who kept it from spending itself to death with the anti-fraud enforcement and the oversight panels.
 

Beer

Banned
Coming from Europe, I really got a headscratching itch when i read about the health care battles in the US. Some of the claims by from the "No!-crowd" are laughable. "Socialist" France or Germany:D:D:rolleyes: or other horror stories with zero truth content.
Germany´s universal health care system is close to it´s 130tieth birthday. Yes, like any system it has flaws, but it has worked rather well for over a century. And unlike the claims of the detractors in the US, who paint universal health care as the beginning of the end for any nation, Germany and several other european countries live on.(gasp):D:p
 
I'd talk about this, but I'm still too shaken up about how the death panel ruled in my Grandfather's case.
 
I know that it has caused a major rise in the life expectancy of the United States, and I know as somebody who was dealt a good hand as a result of that act passing, I will wholeheartedly support it. I was hit by a drunk driver which just about killed me, and yet I didn't have to worry about a thing except getting better and walking again after getting my legs fixed. I think we all owe Mr. Kennedy a big thank you for that. Hell, we owe him a big thank you for a lot of things. I don't think any of us have forgotten the General Strike of 1981 and the changes to our society that Presidents Reagan and Kennedy presided over. America would be a much different place today, I think, without those two incredible men and the others who had the confidence to work with them......
 
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