4/15 Frontline

jbhtexas · 04-15-2008, 09:58 PM

Very interesting Frontline tonight. Profiles on how England, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and Switzerland do health care. Not all are completely socialized as we are sometimes led to believe, and all those countries have significantly cheaper healthcare costs than the US. But each system does have some problems.

The episode should be available for viewing shortly at

FRONTLINE: home | PBS

Quite balanced coverage, IMO.

4VR4CY · 04-15-2008, 10:02 PM

I caught the end of it on IPTV. It was worth watching IMO.

Cyclonepride · 04-15-2008, 10:04 PM

What, no Cuba?

jbhtexas · 04-15-2008, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by Cyclonepride

What, no Cuba?

The intent was to visit countries with a standard of living similar to the US...

twojman · 04-15-2008, 10:22 PM

I watched a bit of this. I did not hear any mention of the tax rates to pay for all of this.

I did hear admin costs mentioned a lot. The health care system from drs to pharmacy's to insurance companies are not efficient in the US at all. Many dr's offices are still using paper and folders, time to get out of the 50's and use that technology. Some of you may not want to hear this but I bet that about half the admin jobs in dr's offices could be eliminated.

TykeClone · 04-15-2008, 10:26 PM

Originally Posted by twojman

I watched a bit of this. I did not hear any mention of the tax rates to pay for all of this.

I did hear admin costs mentioned a lot. The health care system from drs to pharmacy's to insurance companies are not efficient in the US at all. Many dr's offices are still using paper and folders, time to get out of the 50's and use that technology. Some of you may not want to hear this but I bet that about half the admin jobs in dr's offices could be eliminated.

Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The VA has a public domain electronic health record system that is apparently fairly robust.

alaskaguy · 04-15-2008, 10:31 PM

Thanks for the information. The program doesn't start here for another half hour, 8:00 pm AST so I'll try to catch it.

Speaking of Frontline, approximately one month ago they ran a two night special on "Bushes War." It was the most informative program I have seen to date on the Iraqi War.

EggMcClone · 04-15-2008, 10:41 PM

I thought they did a great job with this. They looked at positives and negatives of each system and didn't pretend there's a single silver bullet out there.

To me it did show that it's possible to have a much better health care system than we currently have in this country without socializing the entire system as so many fear. We pay way more in medical costs than most of those countries do.

Also, I don't know if it was on other PBS stations but after after Frontline my station had an hour and a half film following 2 guys that went to Greene, Iowa and grew an acre of corn in an effort to learn more about it and where it eventually goes. Pretty interesting and they filmed part of it at the greenhouses at ISU and interviewed 2 ISU professors.

jbhtexas · 04-15-2008, 10:44 PM

Originally Posted by EggMcClone

Also, I don't know if it was on other PBS stations but after after Frontline my station had an hour and a half film following 2 guys that went to Greene, Iowa and grew an acre of corn in an effort to learn more about it and where it eventually goes. Pretty interesting and they filmed part of it at the greenhouses at ISU and interviewed 2 ISU professors.

Independent Lens...that episode is running right now here...

uro cy · 04-15-2008, 11:07 PM

Originally Posted by TykeClone

Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The VA has a public domain electronic health record system that is apparently fairly robust.

Nice idea...until you actually try to use it

TykeClone · 04-15-2008, 11:37 PM

Originally Posted by uro cy

Nice idea...until you actually try to use it

Or, apparently, work on its coding. It's apparently written in hieroglyphics or something like that.

But like I said, it's public domain - it should serve as a base for decent projects to be rolled out on.

The big issue with electronic health records is, as I understand, compatibility so that the data can be easily moved from system to system.

You'd think that the health care profession would get together and agree on some sort of an exchange format for these records - but that is probably easier said than done. I'd think that Medicare would be the natural lead for this - but I've seen the coding it takes to fill out one of _their_ forms and I can't imagine that they would design anything workable either.

Phaedrus · 04-16-2008, 12:35 AM

My current gripe with the medical care system in America is how they rip off their cash customers. For those with MSAs/HSAs or who choose to pay for their services directly, charges are sometimes as much as THREE TIMES that charged to insurance companies.

I guess it must cost bundles for the medical people to take actual MONEY. Doing tons of paperwork must be much cheaper for the medical folks [sarcasm]

Cyclonepride · 04-16-2008, 06:33 AM

Originally Posted by Phaedrus

My current gripe with the medical care system in America is how they rip off their cash customers. For those with MSAs/HSAs or who choose to pay for their services directly, charges are sometimes as much as THREE TIMES that charged to insurance companies.

I guess it must cost bundles for the medical people to take actual MONEY. Doing tons of paperwork must be much cheaper for the medical folks [sarcasm]

I hear you there. Just starting to get some of the bills for my son's surgery, and while I am working my way through the out of pocket, my principal savings are from "agreements" that the hospital has with my insurance company. Amounting to about 1/3 of the bill.