Health care now free for elderly in Chile

Health care now free for elderly in Chile

The new entitlement mostly affects those older than 60 with small pensions.

Eduardo Gallardo | the Associated Press
Posted March 17, 2006

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Jose Soto got one more doctor than he counted on when he went to a hospital for an ear problem. Physician-turned-president Michelle Bachelet stopped by to make sure nobody was charging him for the service.

Bachelet visited the San Juan de Dios Hospital to monitor implementation of her first measure as president: free health care for all patients older than 60 through the national health-insurance system.

The surprised Soto, a 63-year-old retiree, assured her he had not been charged.

"As you see, we fulfill our word," Bachelet said Wednesday.
(snip/...)

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/health/orl-chile1706mar17,0,1798321.story?coll=orl-health-headlines

That's my concern about "free" healthcare. Who pays for it, how much is it going to cost, and who is going to manage it?

just a little crackdown on tax money mismanagement should provide plenty of funds.

Look no further than the Pentagon...

would be cheaper and we could keep 2/5ths of
the imperial legion budget.

$400 billion is a little over 25% of the $1.5 trillion we spend on health care in the United States.

Who's paying you say? we pay it. The amount of many depends on your income. We have a saying here wich translates too "The biggest shoulders should carry the biggest weight". Meaning, If you earn more you will pay more. I pay about 64 euros a month, Im a student. If I earn more I'll pay more, thats not a big problem for me since I believe in free healthcare!!!
It is mostly paid by higher taxes, but then again who cares. Its better then no healthcare.

Free health care simply cannot exist. Somebody has to pay for salaries, facilities, and the like.

Affordable and accessible health care, however, certainly can work and there are several European systems on which to model a successful national health care system.

treatable illness, in agony because they can't afford to go to a doctor.

I never fail to be absolutely floored by people coming forward to reiterate the pompous "every man for himself" position so popular with terminally, obsessively selfish people.

I heard that healthcare for a family of 4 cost about 7000$-9000$ a year in the US and that amount is rising by 7% a year. Compared to us, I can say ours is much cheaper.

If I'm not mistaken, they said around 10,000.00, basically the same thing.

They said that if we had universal care here, the amount PER FAMILY would drop by one half.

You are lucky to be using the better system now. Intelligent Americans have wanted this for years.

enough money to insure those in the usa who are living without insurance and probably all people

The federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year on things it has no legal right to spend the money on. So much of what the federal government does should be done, instead, at the state and local level. Imagine how much better off you'd be if you got to keep the taxes the feds take every year and spend on wars and budget pork and instead used that money to better your own community, schools, and hospitals. With the exception of a few years during the Civil War there was no federal income tax in the U.S. before 1913. From 1776 through 1913 there was NO federal income tax, except for the period of 1862-1872. One hundred twenty seven years without federal income tax.

they have instead given themselves and the rest of the corporations more money - many countries that have socialized governments - the majority is better - they don't lose a house because of health care lost -

sounds like the GOP might have brain washed you

...just realistic. The United States doesn't have a shortage of money, it has a shortage of leadership, and that's on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

He absolutely raves about their health care system.

He and his wife had twins and it only cost him $300 (everything) and the pediatricians made...

**gasp**

HOUSE CALLS

I lived and worked in Canada and I can say from personal experience their health care works quite well (despite what you hear from the GOP).

I'm just pointing out that there is no such thing as free healthcare. It's paid for by someone.

What is the US waiting for? It has over 40 million people living without health insurance, and that number is rising!

It costs roughly 0.2c in the dollar even in highly developed health care systems and its managed by health service managers.

NEXT.

Thanks to taxes even the government of not-so-wealthy Chile can afford to provide healthcare to those who need it but can't afford it, and fund all kinds of other social programs. It's really peculiar that the wealthy nations supposedly can not.

Like the police, fire department, etc... Our government will protect you from imaginary threats overseas, robbers, murderers, etc... but not diseases or illness.

As long as powerful people make money off our current system, we will never have universal health care in the US.

you are paying now for the congress critters to have a health club and salary for life and all those bombs in other countries and all the military spread all over the world - if this nation wasn't so aggressive - there would be plenty of money and goods not just for us but for the whole world -

The Christ and allah and others promoted taking care of the least among you - for a nation that like to tell everyone how christian it is - it sure is very unchristian in its behavior

Doomed to a failure just like every major industrialized country on earth besides the US!!!

who knows what he nose! We are cursed to drive
around in glass boxes watched closely by a prison-elite
who reserve the right to smash a box they don't like.

We are doomed, the automotive petrol culture,
sucking down oil, hoovering up the planet plant and animal alike.

Wonderful news!

Chile's Bachelet Says Pinochet-Era Pension System Is Flawed

March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said that a pension fund system dating from the nation's dictatorship has ``deficiencies,'' because it fails to cover many workers and charges high fees.

Bachelet, who took office on March 11, made the comments today in Santiago when presenting a committee that will study how to improve pension coverage, according to the government's Web site. The system was created in 1980 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet to replace government social security.

The system ``has a significant set of deficiencies,'' Bachelet, 54, said.

The private pension fund system, which has been used as a model in Argentina and Poland, has failed to provide coverage for ``an enormous number of workers,'' and there is ``little competition,'' among funds, she said.
(snip)

Under the system, 60 percent of workers will fail to save enough to live on when they retire, said Andras Uthoff, an economist at the Santiago-based United Nations' Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, who today was named a member of the government's pension committee.
(snip/...)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=ay452Ni3rLMU&refer=latin_america

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(I'd like to remind you DU had a determined pro-Pinochet poster here for a while who kept insisting Chile has a flawless economic system, admired around the world.)

May I remind the less than fortunate of you who do not know anything about the Spanish language; from a purely linguistic standpoint, in Spanish, the concept "free" meaning "liberated" and the concept "free" meaning "requiring no funds" are not represented by the same word as they are in our English language which demonstrates a lot of these economocentrisms. In spanish, "libre" , and "gratis" are represented by two separate words, and "gratis" originates from the Latin "Gratis" for "out of thankfullness or gratitude," obviously not implying that the "free" item materializes out of thin air as capitalism insists commodities do, but implying instead that items which are "gratis" came from someone's hard work for which we are grateful. I would suggest that language structures are also an indicator of cultural consciousness and that there is quite a problem with our conflation in the US of economy with liberty.