General Discussion

sarcasm tag if needed.

If we want to compete with other countries we need an educated and healthy society ... we are failing on both fronts and it did not just happen under the current asshole.


From the transcript ...

Yeah. Every other country has managed to
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cover over 99% of their population and
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their life expectancy is longer than
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ours and they spend half as much as we
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do. We absolutely should do it.
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Dr. Figer, the nonpartisan Congressional
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Budget Office has estimated, and this is
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really the important point. You want to
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talk about affordability. The CBO has
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estimated that Medicare for all would
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save the American people $650
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billion a year. $650 billion. That's
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enormous amount of money. And provide
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comprehensive health care to every man,
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woman, and child. That's not me. That's
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the CBO.
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When we talk about an expensive system,
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current system, we're talking about
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enormous amount of waste and bureaucracy
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in administering
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hundreds of separate plans. She has a
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$10,000 deductible. I have a $5,000
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deductible. You have no health
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insurance.
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Dr. Fagan, based on your experience,
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what does that mean? the complexity of
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the plan and the cost of the plan and
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the impact on patients who walk into
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your office.
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Patients can't figure out how to access
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the care they're entitled to. And as a
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result, they often don't get the care
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they need. We could save billions, as
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you indicated, hundreds of billions of
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dollars. And we know that over 50,000
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people a year die as a result of not
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having health insurance.
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As you well know, everybody here knows
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the Trump's big beautiful bill is going
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to throw approximately 15 million more
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or less people off of Medicaid. These
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are lowincome and workingclass people.
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And that decision was made in order to
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give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to
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the top 1%, Mr. Mus, Mr. Bezos, and
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others.
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What happens when you throw 10, 15
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million lowincome and workingclass
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people off of the health care, off of
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Medicaid, healthcare they have now?
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When we take away health insurance,
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people die. It's just that simple.
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People do not get preventive services.
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They do not get the uh basic problems
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that we know how to treat. Their
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diabetes becomes uncontrolled. Their
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hypertension results increased strokes.
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We know that people have greater
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disabilities. We know that working-class
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people will make decisions that will
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mean skipping their health care until
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they are desperate and come into the
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emergency department and at the time
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that they present with their illnesses
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will be forced to take care of them. And
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it will cost us more. It cost us more to
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take care of the stroke. It take cost us
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more to put patients on diialysis. It
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cost us more when patients have diabetes
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and that's out of control and then we
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have to amputate limbs. We know that
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eventually they'll come into uh the
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emergency department and COBRA requires
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that we take care of them regardless of
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the cost. And so we're costing ourselves
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more at the back end and we're losing
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contributing members of society
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which raises the question of why we
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spend approximately half as much per
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capita on primary health care disease
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prevention as other countries. If I'm an
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insurance company, do I want to really
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invest in keeping people healthy? Is
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that where I make my money? The United
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States has about three primary care
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physicians per thousand uh patients in
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this and every other country has over at
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least like 08 or 7 uh primary care
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physicians per thousand. So we don't
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produce enough primary care physicians
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to take care of the population at this
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point
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and we underpay those physicians as
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well.
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We do.
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You say as a primary care physician.
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Right.
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As a primary care physician.
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Just so everybody you and I a couple of
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years ago were in Toronto as I recall.
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Right.
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That's correct.
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Okay. And the doctors there were telling
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us they do major surgery, good quality
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care. What's the bill when somebody
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comes out of a major procedure at a
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Canadian hospital? How much do they Oh,
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are they going medically bankrupt?
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Absolutely nothing.
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Nothing.
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And we matter of fact, we visited the uh
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bill.
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And how much do they spend per capita
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compared to us?
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They spend half as much.
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There you go. All right. Maybe four
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years longer.
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Maybe we should study that.