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let's get political
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let's get political - September 15, 2004 1:40:00 PM
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FLAOrthoPT
Posts: 1011
Joined: May 8, 2004
From: West Palm Beach
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Getting close to voting time, and being in an important swing state, and being a true swing voter, I need some questions answered...From my limited political understanding: Democrats like to spend more in national federal programs. So for health care, there will be more spendning in federal programs. However, Republicans are good for the small business owners. So, in general, not specifics, which party is better for health care, and why? Which party is better for health care providers financially and why? Just curious, please elaborate if you are knowledged in this aspect...
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Re: let's get political - September 16, 2004 4:01:00 AM
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PTupdate.com
Posts: 1474
Joined: October 8, 2001
From: Pittsburgh, PA USA
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You will hit some nerves with this post!!!
I try to look at things from a real "outside view", but also need to look at things and how they affect me personally. I also consider how they affect my friends, family and my patients. Here is how I currently view things:
The Clinton Balanced Budget program put caps on Medicare for outpatient PT. That hurt my business, and I really saw negative effects on patients who ran out of benefits, and did not have favorable options. I also saw a flood of PT's flow into the marketplace looking for jobs.
As a regular tax-payer with a child, I have enjoyed the tax breaks I recieved.....remembering that I work until May each year to pay all the taxes I owe, which is the most in US history.
As a small-business owner, I have also realized some gains. I am very frustrated with the overall tax system, which basically requires me to pay a CPA to figure things out and handle. The current administration is promising to re-vamp the tax laws and structure.
After 9/11, patients were stressed, irritable and worried. I personally believe we are safer and happy that there has not been an attack on the US since that date.
My PT business has been adversely affected by the high cost of litigation in Medicine. In fact, the state of PA is in serious trouble, and not one neurosurgeon or orthopaedic surgeon graduating is staying in the practice this year. Numerous others have left the state, including ones that sent me business. One party favors tort reform, the other does not.
Being a PT, I have no pension and/or retirement. I figure SS will not be there to help, and if it is, really won't give me anything to live on. I must therefore invest myself, and would rather handle my own financial planning instead of investing into the SS system.
John Duffy, PT OCS
[URL=http://www.PTUpdate.com]www.PTUpdate.com[/URL]
_____________________________
John M. Duffy, PT
Board Certified Orthopaedic Clinical Specialist
www.PTupdate.com
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Re: let's get political - September 16, 2004 5:23:00 AM
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hmgross
Posts: 292
Joined: February 28, 2003
From: Minnesota
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I agree, anytime you dicuss politics, you touch a nerve. Not only am I a (new) small business owner, I am also on our school board, so I am really torn at times. The "No Child Left Behind" is a mess, not doing our teachers or children any favors, except stressing everyone out and spending the majority of school hours prepping for tests that dont really represent "quality" education. But you tend to get more funds with a Democratic governor. Then of course, as a business owner, I would welcome some changes with our current tax system. Thank goodness I have a good friend who is a CPA who can guide me (I still will pay for services of CPA by year-end). I have invested in a TSA for the past 10 yrs, putting in as much as I can because I am not counting on SS at all (Im 40-ish). My father was a 30 yr. employee of a steel mine that shut down and he lost his pension and health insurance. I tend not to vote "party line" when I can help it , and try to keep up to speed with the issues. Does that make me an Independent? I don't know.
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Holly Gross PT
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Re: let's get political - September 16, 2004 5:31:00 AM
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Randy Dixon
Posts: 744
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I have my opinions but opinions are just that. I would say to use a paraphrase of the famous line: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? As a PT and a business owner?
I would guess most people would say yes. The other question is, should you vote for your pocketbook or are there other things to consider?
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Re: let's get political - September 16, 2004 2:59:00 PM
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OUPT
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Joined: March 23, 2004
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This is always a fun topic, especially when the Canadians get involved. To quickly touch on the education topic first.... we spend more $$$ than any other country in the world on education and we're not at the top of any list from K-undergraduates. A democratic president that will send more money to the education department isn't going to solve our problems in that area. Back to health care.... the democrats are pushing toward socialized medicine and the republicans are for the privitization of medicine. When is the last time a great, or even good, medical intervention or medication was developed in Canada or another soicalized country?
We were one of the groups that lost jobs under Clinton and gained them under Bush despite 9/11.... when you combine that with Bush's willingness to go after terrorists before they attack us here (even if you don't agree with Iraq), it would be tough to vote for the democrats (if we start getting attacked on our soil due to soft terrorism views, it's not really going to matter what economic plans are in place because we'll all be freaked out and have an economy in the dumps).
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Re: let's get political - September 16, 2004 6:04:00 PM
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InOrbit
Posts: 30
Joined: September 15, 2003
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Dont you think we should consider if we are choosing a better leader? Lets put aside how good they would be for PT and look at the big picture here.
Bush had his chance didnt he ? Do you still think he should get another term ?
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Re: let's get political - September 17, 2004 4:17:00 AM
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Sebastian Asselbergs
Posts: 1191
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From: Barrie, Canada
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Canada, eh? "When is the last time a great, or even good, medical intervention or medication was developed in Canada or another soicalized country?"
I'll just stick to Canada and not talk about, let's say, the Netherlands....(do a google on "Medical research in the Netherlands")
From the NRC (Canada):
"After almost two decades of research, Dr. Harry Jennings approached a small number of pharmaceutical firms to help commercialize a vaccine against infant Meningitis, which, as you know, attacks the most susceptible segment of the population with devastating and often fatal results."
"A small Canadian firm, now a major player, BioChem Pharma, expressed interest. That partnership ultimately lead to the creation of a company, now known as North American Vaccines Inc., 45% owned by Biochem. As a result of this collaborative effort, glycoconjugate vaccines against meningococcal and group B streptococcal meningitis are currently in clinical trials and will appear on sale in the UK later this year."
"And IBD has also developed an MRI instrument whose magnet can be moved over the patient during surgery to guide the surgeon in difficult cases, and to determine the success of surgery before closing (such as successful removal of all tumours).
The first such instrument is now installed in the Calgary Foothills Hospital and has been used in 75 neurosurgeries. It appears that use of this instrument will reduce repeat surgery from 20 per cent of cases to near zero, at a significant saving in trauma and cost. This has led to the spin-off of a company called IMRIS to market this technology."
"We are advancing treatment for stroke, Alzheimer's and head trauma patients through in-vitro modelling of blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability. The NRC model is the first to be developed from human cells and has immortalized cell lines which can be propagated. NRC has written over 100 medical transfer agreements of the cell lines since December for universities across the world, which will report back their findings to help us more quickly investigate the uses of the model.
This fundamental research will help us understand how the BBB functions. Pharmaceutical companies are interested in using the model to assess transport vectors or mechanisms by which their therapeutic compounds can be carried across the barrier to the brain. The Montreal Neurological Institute is one of our partners in this research."
These are just a few cut-and-pastes from a little google work. This is long after insulin, the pacemaker etc etc. came from Canada, but obviously we're still going strong. This comes from National Research Council - a non-profit (socialist?) institution - I have not even begun to review the research from the biomedical for-profit companies.....
Careful what arguments you use, they may backfire.
Good luck with the elections folks - I have great scepticism regarding the Canadian and US TV-driven, advertisement- and image heavy election systems. I feel that everything we see is packaged to the extreme to match what the market and polling research comes up with. I have not had any sense (here or elsewhere) that there is a choice between preferences, but more one of picking "least damaging". Sorry to be so cynical, but it applies to Canada as well as the States for me.
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Mundi vult decipi
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Re: let's get political - September 17, 2004 4:25:00 AM
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PTupdate.com
Posts: 1474
Joined: October 8, 2001
From: Pittsburgh, PA USA
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I personally will always vote for my pocketbook first, or at least what benefits me financially/ethically/morally most. This isn't necessarily a "me first" thing, as much of what I feel benefits me also may benefit the US population in general.
In some ways I am better off now than 4 years ago, and in other ways am not...have to decide who's fault that is by November!
Maybe we'll get lucky and Arnold will be allowed to run some day, or even Bill O'Reilly :)
Duffy
[URL=http://www.PTupdate.com]www.PTupdate.com[/URL]
_____________________________
John M. Duffy, PT
Board Certified Orthopaedic Clinical Specialist
www.PTupdate.com
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Re: let's get political - September 17, 2004 11:44:00 AM
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OUPT
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Joined: March 23, 2004
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Sebastian.... nice Google search, but I could spend the rest of the month cutting and pasting U.S. medical research findings on this site. Canada and other socialized (medicine) countries do not do near as much as the United States does, hands down.
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Re: let's get political - September 17, 2004 3:07:00 PM
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Bournephysio
Posts: 585
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From: Calgary
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OUPT: Do you actually mean that or are you just trolling. I'd like to know what you are basing your opinion on. I suspect you have absolutely no idea what the numbers are. The usa better have more research, they have ten times the population. Even if the usa had hands down more breakthroughs you'd have to make a causal (or even logical) link to the type of medical system.
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Re: let's get political - September 18, 2004 11:07:00 AM
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ptdan23
Posts: 224
Joined: November 6, 2003
From: Orlando, FL
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In one campaign commercial for John Kerry he is saying how much overhead their is in healthcare and that he will reduce the amount of overhead to make healthcare cheaper! That is all fine and dandy but how is he going to do it? Bush and Kerry are running these commercials stating their agenda, all these things that they are going to do for the American people. What they fail to mention is how they are going to do it. This is why I hate politics! You get a bunch of candidates running for a position stating all these things that they are going to do, but will they get done or how are they going to do it??? Promises to lead you in to vote for them and then who knows if they will ever do it or if they even can!
Not saying which way I am going - just an observation.
Dan, PT.
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Re: let's get political - September 18, 2004 11:36:00 AM
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OUPT
Posts: 32
Joined: March 23, 2004
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Bourne.... I was throwing a little jab at the Canadians. I realize they do medical research and some of it is very helpful. However, on a serious note.... the dems are pushing toward socialized medicine (I doubt anyone will deny that), which will lead to overutilization of services much as you see with medicine in (socialized) Canada. Socialized medicine looks great on paper, but do we (as PTs and citizens) really want the government to be in charge of the medical care of 300 million? And if you do want this, where is all of that money going to come from????
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Re: let's get political - September 18, 2004 4:31:00 PM
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Randy Dixon
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"Back to health care.... the democrats are pushing toward socialized medicine and the republicans are for the privitization of medicine. When is the last time a great, or even good, medical intervention or medication was developed in Canada or another soicalized country?"
Actually a lot of the best research is done in countries with socialized medicine, as to whether they come up with new equipment or drugs as readily as privatized medicine, I don't think it is really relevant to the practice of Physical Therapy. If we are going to compare the two systems we shouldn't compare what drugs, equipment or studies come out, we should look at the health of their populations and the amount spent on health care. I don't think the US comes out looking particularly good.
I am not for government health care though. The problem I see is that market mechanisms are disengaged in the medical field at many levels. For one, the medical field as a whole wants to be able to receive the rewards of a capitalistic system but without many of the risks and requirements, for example, the supply of healthcare providers is strictly regulated and the costs are not tied in to results.
American health care is medicare and insurance driven, the insurance companies would seem to have some desire to control costs, and they do. On the other hand they also have a desire to prevent healthcare from actually being affordable to the average person. If a person can absorb the cost of a minor illness and general health care on their own, without insurance, then most people would choose to do that, only buying insurance for catastrophic injury or illness. This is not very profitable for insurance companies. However, if the risk of going without insurance becomes too great because of the incredible costs involved in even general healthcare, then insurance becomes almost a necessity, at any price.
The only person with a personal financial motive to keep costs down are those without insurance, but they don't even get involved in the game unless they are already injured or sick, and then is there any real choice for them to choose their healthcare by price, or to influence the price in any way?
So how do we connect healthcare to the market? (And if you believe in the Free Enterprise system, improving both healthcare and costs). I have a few ideas but I don't have a system that is politically feasible. Until then Universal healthcare may be the best solution.
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Re: let's get political - September 20, 2004 8:05:00 PM
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mato_tom
Posts: 89
Joined: June 20, 2003
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the HSAs are actually the perfect tool for what you are describing. They are basically a tax deferred savings account for health care purchases wrapped in a high deductible catastrophic PPO plan....mine has a 2500/year deductible...after that its paid 100%........ i can make choice s on who i want to see and what i want to spend my money on....massage, yoga, PT, meds, etc....the large deductible requires /encourages that i check costs on doc visits or procedures ..........if i watch another UF game and they get completely screwed by the officials and i put my fist and head thru the TV and need a new arm and face....im covered...best of both world and the backbone of the pub plan......medicare is a mess because the old geezers have a monthly premium they hate to pay and then they have a 100 dollar OP deductible or a 800 inpatient deductible with 100% coverage of most anything inpatient and outpatient(if they have a good secondary ...or a crooked provider)......this leads to uber overutilization, which is the entire problem with medicare
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Re: let's get political - September 21, 2004 5:58:00 AM
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Dr.Wagner
Posts: 1242
Joined: January 24, 2003
From: Indianapolis
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While this does not DIRECTLY affect many of you...it potentially could in the future.
Medical Malpractice and Tort reform.
It should be noted that Sen John Edwards has won 54 cases of Medical Malpractice cases each awarding >$1 million.
Altogether John Edwards has won his lawfirm and clients $110.4 MILLION (primarily against OB's)
(source Lawyers Weekly and American Medical News)
If this is your vice presidential candidate, do you see tort reform or malpractice reform in the near future.
Personally, the choice of vice presidential candidates is like choosing between nightmares...both have $$$ in their eyes.
Don't kid yourself into thinking a Kerry/Edwards ticket will be remotely good for your healthcare environment.
And that is all I have to say.
_____________________________
Dr. Wagner DO
Moderator of Medical Complexity Forum
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Re: let's get political - September 21, 2004 5:58:00 AM
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Diane
Posts: 1506
Joined: March 9, 2001
From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
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Here's a site that allows the rest of the world to vote in the US election. You enter your country and your vote. Apparently Afghanistan favors Bush, last time I checked. Apparently, the U.S. along with most other countries, does not..
http://www.betavote.com
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Re: let's get political - September 21, 2004 8:49:00 AM
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mato_tom
Posts: 89
Joined: June 20, 2003
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how to say this without being contentious??
hmmm..impossible
who in america, other than the loony left fringe gives a rats ass what other countries think about our leadership......what is in the worlds self serving best interest, a weaker america, is not in our best interest....
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Re: let's get political - September 21, 2004 10:41:00 AM
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Diane
Posts: 1506
Joined: March 9, 2001
From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
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Who in America, other than the looney right fringe, doesn't shudder at how arrogant, self-serving, oil-hungry and psychopathic the US is behaving toward the rest of the planet's people, and how such narrow, blinkered, blatant contempt for relating well to non-Americans/everyone else in the world/everyone elses' (possibly different) worldviews, could boomerang onto the north half of the western hemisphere? ..Yet again?
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Re: let's get political - September 21, 2004 11:43:00 AM
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Randy Dixon
Posts: 744
Joined: August 6, 2004
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I won't get involved in the argument if America is arrogant, self-serving (which I think all countries generally should be)and psychopathic or it is all the result of other's countries desires for us to fall down. I do question the accuracy and science of the betavote website though, you can make a vote from any country, any amount of times you want, it is written in English and is on the Web, all these things make it's findings very suspect.
I think it is clear though that most of the other industrialized nations anyway, are unhappy with the Bush administration, though I have seldom noticed any great love for the policies and actions of the US abroad, ever.
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Re: let's get political - September 21, 2004 11:55:00 AM
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mato_tom
Posts: 89
Joined: June 20, 2003
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all countries are self-serving....even the euro weenies who envision a UN governed world....america is the dominant military political and economic country and its expected that others are jealous....but for being such a self serving country could you lease name another country that has GIVEN as much time, money, resources, etc to improving the world and helping to end suffering....this concept of america as evil and greedy and uncaring is dookey....when canada even starts to come close to matching our generosity in the world then you can talk.....as far as americas geopolitical strategy boomeranging on the northern hemisphere...you have nothing to worry about....we will protect canada whether they want it or not and we wont let anything happen to you because we are going to need a place to dump our nuclear waste soon..........canada.....jeez....
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