reputable homebirth info/stats needed

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Thank goodness not all hospitals and caregivers are that way,
but my RL friends' experiences would suggest that it's
not rare. While I obviously didn't have to deal with
hospital attitudes toward circ., we did scratch a number of
potential pediatricians off the list for being less than
receptive to the idea of not circ'ing.

That is to bad :-( I live in an area where the majority of people still
c*rc and both of our ped's were very hands off about the decision. They
made a point of telling us there was no medical reason. The pressure in my
area comes from the people, not the medical community. We aren't Jewish,
and there is not a large Jewish population. We seem to be well informed on
many things and I've never had, nor heard of, problems with nursing, NIP,
extended nursing etc. but we are definitely in the stone ages with c*rc.

It *was* brought up by the medical personal in the hospital and/or the ped.
--
Nikki

I pay about US$40 a month for a plan which covers DH, me and any kids
for 70% of private costs for a lot of things (dentistry, osteopathy,
physiotherapy, chiropody, optometry) that have long waiting lists or
are unavailable on the NHS, as well as NHS charges for things like
prescriptions. Its not inexhaustable, but it'll cover a fair bit of
dentistry, more prescription charges than would justify pre-payment, a
new pair of bifocals in designer frames and a good dozen trips to the
osteopath a year. It'll give me a £500 maternity grant when I have
the baby as well, which will pay a good chunk of my midwife's fees
(which, unfortunately, they don't cover).

who's that with? we pay a little less, but seem to get a lot less, so it
would be good to know for when I renew, we're with the HSA,

Jenrose wrote:

they would expect us to deplete all retirement
plans and assets, even the non-liquid ones, first.

I think that is pretty common from state to state, and I don't disagree with
that either.

I suspect we'd
even have to sell our home, as we have just a little bit too much
equity in it.

This I have never run into. Generally one house and one car are allowed
without being considered assets, even if you own them outright.

--
Nikki

Donna Metler wrote:

The other thing sad about it is that it can easily force a woman to
work due to insurance issues, when she'd rather be at home.

I know a fair number of people that work for basically nothing more then
insurance and daycare.

The other catch with a system with such low limits is that people either
quit or take lesser jobs so that they do qualify for the medical. It
becomes even more complicated for people receiving disability. That system
is so complicated that people do not work to their potential because they
lose their disability benefits. It isn't the monthly check that they need
but the medical so we have a system where people are receiving both the
monthly disability check and the medical when all they really need is the
medical.

--
Nikki

Mum of Two wrote:

Yeah, and here, if you said, "I want my baby circumcised", they'd say
"You want him WHAT? Oh, you want his head circumference? Here it is."
Or something to that effect.

Would a doctor do it for no medical reason?

--
Nikki

"Cheryl" wrote in message
FWIW the cardiac surgeon looking after Thud has worked at Boston
Womens and Children's Hospital and much prefers to work inside the
Australian hospital system. According to a conversation he had with
me a couple of years ago the main problem with the US system of
surgery is that they refuse to believe results of trials coming in
from overseas, they have to do everything themselves before they will
believe it works.

Well I guess I might be the same way. Although, it would be costly and time
consuming to do the studies over again. They could just look over the
studies for
flaws and do part of the studying and testing over, but not the whole thing.

It might interest you to know that they are about
to start trialling a new anti-rejection therapy that doesn't involve
traditional anti-rejection medications in Melbourne, Australia.

Very interesting. That would be wonderful for future transplant recipients.
Here in the US, there have been studies going on for patients over 10 years
out from the transplant on going off meds all together because they think
the body has accepted the organ. Allison is 11 years out with no rejection
(knock on wood) and she was a baby when her transplant occurred. I would
love it if they could wean her off slowly from the meds. But, the doctor
isn't willing to do that yet. Heck, I can't even convince him to take her
off the Prednisone so she can grow a little. He is a new doctor to us and I
have been less than thrilled with his inability to treat the whole patient.
He seems to concentrate on her medical problems instead of taking in
consideration that she has a life. He seems to be put off that I actually
know what I am talking about with Allison.
I liked her other doctor so much better. He really listened to us and
Allison about her care and always took that in consideration when treating
her.

Want to move here and stick Allison on the list?

She's had the transplant already, but I forsee someday in her future of
having a kidney transplant because of all the drugs. To be honest, I had
thought of you and Thud when I talked about not trusting the NHS system.
Your family has whethered the system with a chronic illness, so it can't be
*that* bad. )
--
Sue (mom to three girls)

Nan wrote:
I feel the same way. I've heard a few of the Canadian posters have
some complaints, but am I correct in thinking that may be regional?
Oz and NZ sound like a dream to me, compared to the US.

It's a case of the grass always being greener... ;-)

I read about some poll that was done, once, to see how citizens of
various countries rated their health care systems. *No one* completely
liked what system they had (there was always some problem). I forget
which countries were involved, but the list was fairly long. But anyway...

The trouble we seem to be running into in Ontario, at least, is a
shortage of doctors. The reasons for the shortage: controls on the
number of med students (the result of a political move to reduce costs,
since the province pays a certain portion of each student's tuition),
incredibly high out of pocket tuition costs (tuition is still sky high
despite what the province pays), no incentives to keep family doctors
out in the boonies for longer than just a few years, and an
unwillingness to work with doctors who have degrees from outside the
province. (there are probably other reasons that I'm unaware of) Also,
massive paperwork and backlogs that, together with the shortages, end up
making long waiting lists for some procedures (treatment can be
lightening fast in other situations, though - basically, just don't get
a disease that everyone else has). There has also been some funny stuff
done with the funding that normally goes to hospitals (increases one
year, decreases the next, and so on - makes it hard for them to plan for
the long term).

I think we're suffering from too much bureaucracy. With too much
bureacracy comes too much waste, of course, as is always the case. We
also have a problem with fraud. Just as there's a problem with fraud
driving up insurance costs in the US, there's a problem with fraud
wasting tax money here. What I mean by fraud is people getting
treatment that they don't need, shady doctors doing things they
shouldn't do, and so on. Our system would be much better off if we
could do away with these problems, but I don't see how we'll ever be
able to do that without sacrificing freedom.

One thing I think our health care system does really *well* is to use
price controls. It's funny, because I keep hearing about how bad that
idea is (it comes up a lot now that some states want to import drugs
from Canada), but really I think it's a great idea. I would be whole
heartedly against price controls in other contexts where a free market
should be encouraged, but when it comes to basic needs (health, food,
etc. - you know, the things where, in a totally free market, prices get
driven insanely high) I'm all for protecting people. ...and obviously,
price controls must not be all that bad, because we *do* have drugs
here, and our drug companies aren't going bust. ;-) (now if only we
could do something about the cost of food)

Disclaimer: all of the above is entirely my take on things, of course. :-)

There are many programs for people with no insurance and pregnant.
Medicaid
would be one such program. Here in Michigan, they offer insurance to
all
kids that do not have insurance.

But in many states, you have to qualify with a low income. If you
don't qualify, you're SOL. IN also has a Kid's Insurance, but there
is still an income qualification factor.

Nan

Yep, that happened to us... Even as *grad students* we made too much money
to qualify for AIM (health insurance for low income infants/mothers), so I
had a gap between graduating and DH's new job's insurance kicking in.
Luckily for us, the gap was in the middle of the pregnancy rather than at
the end and nothing bad happened -- but we were trying to figure out if we
should just split up our savings among our family members so we wouldn't
lose everything if the baby came early or I broke a leg or something! The
other alternative would have been postponing my graduation and continuing
on with my student health insurance -- needless to say, my advisor had
some very unsupportive things to say about that option! :P

Em
baby boy, due Nov. 18

"Basically, what it boils down to is that HSAs are only useful to
people who can *already* afford healthcare. They don't do much of
anything to help people who can't... And HSAs just don't come close to
solving that problem, although they *are* helpful to a limited segment of
the population."

Oh yes, I totally agree with you -- I don't support the HSAs at all; I
just think it's ironic that Bush's, in effect, mimics some of the aspects
of "socialized medicine" that he spends so much time bashing.

Em
baby boy, due Nov. 18

Vicky Bilaniuk wrote:

The trouble we seem to be running into in Ontario, at least, is a
shortage of doctors.

Also a problem in parts of the US.

The reasons for the shortage: controls on the
number of med students (the result of a political move to reduce costs,
since the province pays a certain portion of each student's tuition),

The state doesn't pay tuition, but the professional
association pretty much does control the number of doctors in
various specialties.

incredibly high out of pocket tuition costs (tuition is still sky high
despite what the province pays),

Here too.

no incentives to keep family doctors
out in the boonies for longer than just a few years,

Big problem here.

and an
unwillingness to work with doctors who have degrees from outside the
province. (there are probably other reasons that I'm unaware of)

Never hear of that being an issue here.

Also,
massive paperwork and backlogs that, together with the shortages, end up
making long waiting lists for some procedures (treatment can be
lightening fast in other situations, though - basically, just don't get
a disease that everyone else has). There has also been some funny stuff
done with the funding that normally goes to hospitals (increases one
year, decreases the next, and so on - makes it hard for them to plan for
the long term).

We have a major issue with paperwork. The byzantine maze
of insurance paperwork is causing dramatic increases in costs for
doctors. They spend a lot of time handling referrals and figuring
out rules and so forth. Most offices now have at least one person
on staff who does *nothing* but handle insurance issues (more if
it's a larger practice). That's a lot of money. Hospitals have
entire teams.

I think we're suffering from too much bureaucracy. With too much
bureacracy comes too much waste, of course, as is always the case. We
also have a problem with fraud. Just as there's a problem with fraud
driving up insurance costs in the US, there's a problem with fraud
wasting tax money here. What I mean by fraud is people getting
treatment that they don't need, shady doctors doing things they
shouldn't do, and so on. Our system would be much better off if we
could do away with these problems, but I don't see how we'll ever be
able to do that without sacrificing freedom.

That is always the issue. We have some uneven
treatment--insurance paying for things that are unnecessary
and refusing to pay for proven treatments. And, of course,
there's the bigger inequality of some people not having
access to health care at all, which creates all sorts of
havoc because they then end up costing far more money in
other ways (by using emergency medical services, by ending
up on public assistance, etc.)

Best wishes,
Ericka