Obama & Healthcare

[Tobit]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><i>Originally posted by: <b>LReyome28</b></i> I noticed that those of you that are replying to this post that do not live in the US are trying to tell us to not complain about our healthcare system. We have just as much right to complain as you guys have to gloat about how great your healthcare systems are. Sure I would like to live in the UK where they have their own specialized health centers for CF but I can't. Sure our current healthcare system is screwed because of insurance companies and doctors, but every country that has a healthcare system that is flawed in some way or another. Do not flame Americans for complaining about theirs, we do not flame you for complaining about yours.</end quote>
Did you post this in the right place? I didn't see anyone here from other nations telling Americans to stop complaining about our system. Quite the opposite, in fact, they have all been expressing sympathy for our constant worry over whether we will have coverage in the future or not.

 

[LReyome28]

We <em>could </em>have sociallized healthcare, but one of the reasons I do not see it happening is too many of the health insurance providers here in the US are so afraid that it would make them lose money, same with the doctors.

 

[Brad]

I Wonder when everyone realizes that Pres Obama's Healthcare Plan is working
Will those who Knock it Still call it ObamaCare... I Think not..

Obama's Health Care may not be perfect, BUT!! It is a start, We Now Have a Plan. It's a Good Start !

Every Pres back to Nixon Agreed that We need to Fix it.To date the Only 2 Pres who
Acted on that Thought have been Clinton and Obama.. See a Pattern.

 

[musclemania70]

socialized medicine is not for the us. they cannot run social security and medicare correctly. they need to FIX the system that is ALREADY set up. NOT CREATE A NEW ONE.

 

[Printer]

Brad:

While it is really HOUSECARE, I like calling it OBAMACARE because when the uninformed find out how good it is, they will give him some credit.

Musclemania70:

Social Security and Medicare both work. Because people are living longer and working longer. A few adjustments are all that will be required.

Bill

 

[mgl]

I grew up in Canada, lived in the US for 11 years as an adult, and have lived in Canada again for the past 10 years so I can contrast the two systems. I believe the US has the best healthcare in the world, unless you don't have insurance, in which case it has the worst healthcare system in the world. Overall, I believe Canada's healthcare system is far better than the American system. The system is far from perfect but nobody lacks for care.

I worked for a US company with good insurance. One of my co-workers was diagnosed with cancer and went out on disability. Her husband was already on disability for cancer, too. My company laid her off (ugh!) but she was able to afford COBRA payments to keep up her insurance. Then my company went bankrupt. Guess what happens then? No more COBRA. With a pre-existing condition and a sick spouse, she would never again get insurance. Healthcare is a human right and that is unconscionable.

My partner has CF. He got great care in Chicago but he gets better care in Toronto. He'll probably post more about this himself, but the hospitals don't compete with each other here so Toronto has one adult CF program instead of multiple programs in Chicago. As a result, the Toronto program is the largest in North America while US doctors and nurses see far fewer patients. My partner's Chicago doctors hadn't seen a case quite like his before but his Toronto doctors have others with similar symptoms and are able to treat him more effectively.

You might be surprised, but we have private insurance in Canada, too. It's one of the things that needs fixing in our system. It used to be just for minor things -- if you had it, you'd get a private room with a TV but if you didn't have it you'd share a room without a TV or phone. Such is "socialized" medicine. But with the spiralling of drug costs, our provincial government has not been eager to add expensive new drugs to the covered list. Older CF drugs are fully covered but newer ones are not. That's where our private insurance comes in. If we were poor, we'd quality for a provincial program that would cover all of the drug costs. But because we're not, we're sort of in the same boat as Americans. If we were to lose our private insurance, we wouldn't have free coverage for some of the newer and more expensive drugs unless I wasn't working.

The Canadian system is not perfect, but it is better and my partner is receiving better care than he was getting in Chicago.

 

[MichaelL]

This topic has lots of good discussion that's important to all of us touched by CF. As I was reading the early posts, I had a number of points I wanted to make but found many of them have now been made.

I lived under US health care - always covered by an employer plan - for the first 35 years of my life. I've now been under the Canadian (Ontario) plan for the last 10 years.

During the health care debate in the US, many commercials were shown in the US (and financed by insurance companies) that showed people in Canada and the UK talking about their horrible experiences with public health care. While I assume these people's cases were true, you can find people who have had bad experiences with any health care system. Several posts above contain people's bad experiences with the US system. I've certainly had my problems with US health care -- particularly with HMOs. 

The post immediately before mine is from my partner. As he describes, I think competing CF clinics in a city do not lead to better care. I think pooling experience and resources work better and ultimately lead to more efficient medical care. 

My experience has been that my CF team (doctors, nurses, dietician, etc.) show the same compassion and concern for me in both the US and Canada. Maybe this is obvious, but I think some of the propaganda has suggested that universal health care takes the compassion out of health care and that's just not true. 

I don't fully agree with the Affordable Care Act, although I do think it's an improvement over the status quo. I think a public option would have been better than a mandate. However, I think what they passed is the best possible option given the health care lobby and the current political climate in the US. I don't think people should live without health care coverage.

Although the Ontario health plan could be improved, I feel I'm in good hands and I would not want to return to US health care and the uncertainties around coverage. 

 

[jbrandyn]

One thing I keep noticing is the "if everyone has healthcare then I will have to wait more" argument against healthcare reform. It makes me mad that even people who have lived with CF make this argument. All people need access to healthcare, it should be a basic human right. the ACA does not go far enough we need a public option or single payor system not a mandate that we submit to profiteering plutocrats. We need to regulate pharmaceutical companies and bring health research back into the public sector, for the common good than profit. We need to be compassionate and treat our neighbors with love if for no reason other than that they are human. We need to put humanity and social well being far above individual success and profit. we should be given equal opportunity to screw up our own lives and not be born into socioeconomic statuses that are next to immobile. And giving people access to healthcare is a big step in the right direction.

 

[AUG19DW]

As long as he has continious coverage when he switches to his own insurance he will never have a problem. We have switched ins. companies quite a few times and as long as I show proof or prior coverage with no lapse my kids are fine. But if one of them ever did have a lapse they might be screwed one day later on down the line.

 

[sahein79]

I work full time for a top 100 companies to work for, and I have had several issues with my insurance, as well. They stopped covering my enzymes forcing me to switch to a brand that does not work for me. They sent me a letter stating that Pulmozyme is a specialty drug and they will only pay for 1 fill per year. Then they sent me a letter saying I must get every refill of Cayston pre-approved through them, or they will deny payment of it. My Dr. has sent numerous appeals letters and I have never seen 1 response. Meanwhile, deductables and maximum OOP has gone up.
I use to work for myself, but my insurance payments were extreme, and when I needed it, I had to pay the full cost, and my insurance company would re-imburse me 60%.
I have friends in Europe who are blown away at the thought of a hospital stay in the US. I have had several, and my monthly payments to keep everyone happy are around $400. My medical debt keeps growing, but I guess that is just life with CF. It is extremely frustrating....

Samantha 32 w/CF

 

[all4Eden]

I live in AZ USA. I deal with individuals coming from Europe and Canada that have Socialist Healthcare. I've read the Obama Healthcare. Basically is a way to quench the middle class in the US. If you have family members with a chronic disease, you are going to suffer a lot, especially after 2015. All am doing in my house is getting them in top physical shape, change our eating habits and eating healthy. Our country has not realized what is going to hit them and is less than 3 years away. We have over 66% of obese citizen. Diabetes is running amock, especially among the youth. If those morons are not going to do anything about it, we are screwed. Even the medical industry is against it. Go figure.

 

[LReyome28]

This is "supposedly" the month where the Supreme Court votes on ObamaCare

 

[saveferris2009]

I'm curious if ppl in the US correlate American access to medications such as Kalydeco (how many threads do we have on this board about no access to Kaly in Australia, Canada), certain enzymes such as Zenpep, HFCC (aka the Vest) and many other life-altering/extending devices/medications. We are so many biotech companies in the US? Why does so much drug development occur here? Why are clinical trials conducted here? Has anyone wondered the reasons to all of these questions? Why doesn't Europe have a vibrant biotech community with the likes of Gilead, Vertex, Genentech inventing our medications such as Cayston, Kalydeco, Pulmozyme. Because price suppression wipes out innovation. If you have a single payor system (which is Obama's goal...... don't be fooled), the single payor dictates the price that will be paid for the medication. Why would you spend billions of dollars developing a new drug (where 1 in 100 make it to the market) only to have NICE or some other government system say they will only pay you a certain price. Follow the money. Where there is no money, there is no innovation. You get what you pay for.
People want everything for free or for cheaper. Guess what - you will pay for it with lack of drug development in the end.

 

[rlcarroll]

Not sure where we are heading as a whole but thanks to obamas health care laws I am now able to get insurance.. I have been deined so many times but now I can get coverage that i need. Anyone who needs coverage should check out pcip.gov
To be eligible for the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan,
<ul style="margin-left: 40px;">
<li>You must be a citizen or national of the United States or reside in the U.S. legally.</li>
<li>You must have been without health coverage for at least the last six months. Please note that if you currently have insurance coverage that doesn’t cover your medical condition or are enrolled in a state high risk pool, you are not eligible for the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.</li>
<li>You must have a pre-existing condition or have been denied coverage because of your health condition.</li>
</ul>

 

[mgl]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><i>Originally posted by: <b>saveferris2009</b></i> I'm curious if ppl in the US correlate American access to medications such as Kalydeco (how many threads do we have on this board about no access to Kaly in Australia, Canada), certain enzymes such as Zenpep, HFCC (aka the Vest) and many other life-altering/extending devices/medications. We are so many biotech companies in the US? Why does so much drug development occur here? Why are clinical trials conducted here? Has anyone wondered the reasons to all of these questions? Why doesn't Europe have a vibrant biotech community with the likes of Gilead, Vertex, Genentech inventing our medications such as Cayston, Kalydeco, Pulmozyme. Because price suppression wipes out innovation... </end quote>
According to Wikipedia, 15 of the top 49 pharma and biotech companies are based in Europe. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companies" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companies</a>. 21 are based in the US.
The profits in US pharma drive a lot of drug development but at what cost to society? There is little incentive for US pharma companies to control non-R&D costs. Marketing expenses are a huge factor, and I don't mean the TV ads. When a drug costs thousands per dose, there's lots of funding for multi-million dollar software systems to help market it.

 

[saveferris2009]

I said biotech - not pharma. If you don't know the difference, please google it. Biotechs on the list you showed - #15 Amgen (largest biotech in the world) is US. #15 Genetench is US (recently purchased by Roche, but 100% US for 26+ years), #32 Genzyme (recently purchased by Sanofi, but 28 years it was 100% US), #34 Gilead (US), #37 Biogen (US) Again, I ask - why are there no biotech firms outside of the US? You agree that US profits subsidize R&D for the rest of the world, but at what cost? DO you have CF? Are you over age 5? Because for all of human history (thousands of years), except for the past 50, your fate was death before 5 years most likely. Do you consider your life a cost to society? Do you know how much scientists' salaries cost to conduct this research? How about conducting a clinical trial - ask the CFF how much it costs to conduct a clinical trial on a medication in order ot get FDA approval. Can you quote how much it costs for a company to submit a new drug application to the FDA? Or how much it costs to fly experts, scientists and other members of the medical community to FDA HQ to discuss the merits of a drug prior to approval? The vast majority of drugs aren't even marketed. Drug development estimates don't take in to account post-approval marketing. The 1 billion plus it takes to discover a drug and bring it to market has nothing to do with marketing - the expense is the R&D, clinical trials, regulatory discussions, etc. 1 in 100 drugs that is discovered makes it to the market. YOu have to provide some sort of incentive to a person or a company to take this huge risk to develop a drug. If there's no monetary reward, companies won't take the risk of investing billions in R&D and POOF! you won't have new drugs, antibiotics, CF potentiators, etc etc to improve your health.

 

[patrish22]

No everyone has the lux of controlling what job they get and what ins pkgs go with it. Wake up to reality and consider yourself blessed.

 

[mgl]

We'll have to agree to disagree.

I worked on a project for one of the big US pharma companies but I left consulting in part because I didn't want to work on pharma projects that I thought were unnecessary and that contributed to the extreme costs for a life-saving drug.

 

[musclemania70]

There are not many options available right now for people who are adults, trying to cover costs, living expenses, necessary food requirements, and all other cf expenses. Those people have to try and live on minimal earnings (if they quality for ssi and work), and still may not get the drugs they need, let alone a drug off-label. That is just dreaming for some. There are VERY few who can get this drug off label IF they can find a doctor to prescribe it, then go through all the 100 hoops that their insurance requires them to do (if they even have private insurance). Sometimes I think if we were all granted access to the SAME level of care, it would be fairer.. But then there would not be the incentive for companies to do the scientific research for new drugs. Hard call to make.
I do believe that the only reason that Vertex went forth with a relationship with the CFF is because THEY WERE BEING PAID TO DO THE RESEARCH by the CFF. We forget that AMERICA is the most GENEROUS country in the world and the CFF would not have the POWER or the MONEY that they do without the DONATIONS of so many millions of people who give to this cause VOLUNTARILY---

 

[dasjsmum]

I have a question: Since I live in Australia we have Medicare, what you call a 'socialised health system'.

I've been curious since Kalydeco came out, can people with cf in the US who dont have health insurance access Kalydeco? If not, does that mean that there are a large number of people with cf who cannot afford insurance because they're unemployed, single parent etc., who cannot access Kalydeco because they dont have insurance?

Under our system everyone will be able to access Kalydeco regardless of income once we get it through the Government regulatory system and onto the pharmaceutical benefit scheme.