What's happening to LA?

[Robin R Probyn]

Whats a Canadian.. a North American with healthcare and without a gun..

[Samuel Berger]

Whats a Canadian.. a North American with healthcare and without a gun..

Dave Foley, there you are.

Edited December 5, 2017 by Samuel Berger

[Gregory Irwin]

The Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plan is one of the finest health plans Ive ever seen. The quality is unsurpassed. Government funded health plans could never offer anything close to what most private plans offer. Our industry health plan even has dedicated hospitals for our employees in the Los Angeles area. x

[Guest]

The Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plan is one of the finest health plans Ive ever seen. The quality is unsurpassed. Government funded health plans could never offer anything close to what most private plans offer. Our industry health plan even has dedicated hospitals for our employees in the Los Angeles area. x

 

Wow how awesome for you! I will just continue to have to go to the crappy Canadian hospitals where they use witch doctors, leeches, and we're lucky if they have power 10 hours a day.

 

R,

[Mark Dunn]

Government funded health plans could never offer anything close to what most private plans offer.

Your government maybe. Ours does quite well, at about a quarter of the cost, out of general taxation, free at the point of delivery.

[Gregory Irwin]

 

Wow how awesome for you! I will just continue to have to go to the crappy Canadian hospitals where they use witch doctors, leeches, and we're lucky if they have power 10 hours a day.

 

R,

Sorry Richard. I dont mean any disrespect. Im simply citing my own observations having had personal experience with both types of medical systems due to extended stays in several different countries including my own and yours.

G

[Guest]

Sorry Richard. I dont mean any disrespect. Im simply citing my own observations having had personal experience with both types of medical systems due to extended stays in several different countries including my own and yours.

G

 

Oh not to worry, my post was a joke of course :)

 

I also lived in the USA for 5 years. The quality of care is good, but OMG.....dealing with the insurance companies, making co-pays, etc etc, what a nightmare.

 

R,

[Robin R Probyn]

Just one more bang of the drum .. in the US I often get told how lucky we are in the UK.. Europe with our "free" health care..

Which of course its not .. as Mark points out..the whole population pays from their general tax..for the "greater good" .. and its this concept that is harder for the US to get around.. I guess due to the different history of the country .. fence and gun and I,ll look after my own..why must I pay for others.. but of course it would all be cheaper for everyone if you had a national health system.. and basically its the only way to make it work anyway.. the current UK mobsters in control are trying their hardest to bring in the US system though.. but even the rich see they will end up paying a lot more.. its not a business concept.. its a right in any "advanced" society .. end of rant

[Guest]

Actually....the UK uses a "two tier" system, Canada only uses a true single tier model. If you have money in the UK you can, "go private" as they say and get much quicker access to care, if you have the money.

 

R,

[Robin R Probyn]

Yes true.. but only because the NHS has been crucified by various governments along the way..

[Mark Dunn]

Actually....the UK uses a "two tier" system, Canada only uses a true single tier model. If you have money in the UK you can, "go private" as they say and get much quicker access to care, if you have the money.

 

R,

Well wikipedia says that 27% of Canadian health spending is private sector and 75% of the population have private health insurance- s presumably private healthcare isn't illegal.

IME one is not aware of the two tiers day-to-day the NHS does what is required. When my doctor decided I needed a £1500 non-urgent MRI I got it within a couple of weeks.

[Guest]

Many people have the supplemental care from an employer to cover drugs and dental. But your primary care is single tier. Meaning if you need a hip replacement, you must wait like everyone else, there is no way to use money and jump the cue. We don't have any government coverage for drugs or dental.

 

R,

[Gregory Irwin]

Many people have the supplemental care from an employer to cover drugs and dental. But your primary care is single tier. Meaning if you need a hip replacement, you must wait like everyone else, there is no way to use money and jump the cue. We don't have any government coverage for drugs or dental.

 

R,

And there lies the challenges of government healthcare. High taxation yet underfunded, undercovered and overstressed with long wait times. Thats why the majority of Americans do not want a national healthcare system. We would freak out if we were told that there is a nine month wait time for a hip replacement and that not everything including prescriptions was not covered!

 

G

[Phil Rhodes]

My dad had a hip replacement six weeks ago on a three week wait, which was about the minimum for the required pre-operative protocol. I was concerned that it'd be longer, but on investigation, it seems that's fairly normal. The people involved told me that stories of really long waits tend to be outliers which make the news specifically because they're unusual, and tend to overlook clinical complications underlying the delay.

 

I have no political view on the best way to fund healthcare, I just care that it's reasonably available. The argument seems to revolve around the definition of "reasonable."

[Samuel Berger]

This has definitely become a political thread, hoho.

[Gregory Irwin]

This has definitely become a political thread, hoho.

Nah! Just a heathy dialogue.

[Guest]

And there lies the challenges of government healthcare. High taxation yet underfunded, undercovered and overstressed with long wait times. Thats why the majority of Americans do not want a national healthcare system. We would freak out if we were told that there is a nine month wait time for a hip replacement and that not everything including prescriptions was not covered!

 

G

 

So millions of Americans just have no coverage at all, and file for bankruptcy under the weight of medical bills. Even my US friends with what they call "great" insurance get hit with co-pays. Upwards of $5000.00 to have a baby, higher if there are complications.

 

R,

[Gregory Irwin]

 

So millions of Americans just have no coverage at all, and file for bankruptcy under the weight of medical bills. Even my US friends with what they call "great" insurance get hit with co-pays. Upwards of $5000.00 to have a baby, higher if there are complications.

 

R,

I hear you Richard. My girlfriend is a veteran clinical nurse specialist for the health department, a federal agency. She specializes in medically challenged pediatrics where all of her patients are low income, Spanish speaking families with medically challenged babies. These are seriously tough and complicated cases. They receive everything from diagnosis to treatments to medications for free- provided by the Federal Government and taxpayer money. In other words, there are numerous programs in the USA for all walks of life and income brackets to get appropriate help.

[Samuel Berger]

So I guess nobody cares about Los Angeles burning down.

[Stuart Brereton]

So I guess nobody cares about Los Angeles burning down.

It's not the first time. It's not even the first time this year. A warming climate is likely to make the fires even more common.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

I never qualify for the union insurance because it's geared towards long form. I contribute the same, or more money than a feature or TV drama DP per year, but because I don't work 400hrs each qualifying 6 month period, I don't qualify. To me, that's wrong. But hey, it is what it is. In 8 years in the union, I've qualified one time.

[Gregory Irwin]

I never qualify for the union insurance because it's geared towards long form. I contribute the same, or more money than a feature or TV drama DP per year, but because I don't work 400hrs each qualifying 6 month period, I don't qualify. To me, that's wrong. But hey, it is what it is. In 8 years in the union, I've qualified one time.

.

 

That doesnt make sense Adam. If you calculate 400 hours based on 12 hr. days/60 hr. weeks then you only need to work a month and a half out of 6 months to qualify. If you are working less then you are not contributing nearly the same as a feature or TV DP. They are easily working over 2000 hours per year and having no issue qualifying.

 

G

[Stuart Brereton]

In 8 years in the union, I've qualified one time.

This is not the first time I've heard a story like this, and it's going to become a huge problem for the union. The harder it is to qualify, the less incentive there is to join in the first place. To hand over $14k and then receive no benefits is an increasingly hard pill to swallow.

[Landon D. Parks]

$14,000? Sounds to me like the union is the one making the money, not the people it represents. Even as a Democrat, I never liked labor unions. Back when I was, oh maybe 16, I got a job at a Kroger store that was unionized. I paid the union like $10 from every paycheck, and got nothing but minimum wage out of it. Shortly thereafter, I went to Walmart (non-union) that paid me $3 more an hour to start, and access to benefits. Don't know how this compared to professional film unions, but if its anything like the nightmare I have been going through with SAG-AFTRA trying to get a new media agreement approved, then I can't say my experience on either end has been great.

 

I'm all for fair wages and work conditions, I just think that should be something the state sets out as a law, rather than allowing the mob (aka labor unions) bamboozle millions of dollars out of their members.

Edited December 7, 2017 by Landon D. Parks

[Miguel Angel]

This is not the first time I've heard a story like this, and it's going to become a huge problem for the union. The harder it is to qualify, the less incentive there is to join in the first place. To hand over $14k and then receive no benefits is an increasingly hard pill to swallow.

 

Do you have to hand more than 14K to receive benefits from the union? O_O

 

Come to Spain and work over here, best medical care in the universe, free and for everybody!

And if you want to get private insurance because you don't want to wait, it costs €600 / €1000 / year :D

 

However, the best doctors are in the public health service.

 

Regarding salaries in USA and EU.. I don't think that they are the same.

 

In Spain, one of the best focus pullers can get around €800 / day + kit / etc on a service, and around €1600 to €2000 / week + kit on an American movie.

Almost similar in Ireland.

 

A standard dop in Spain (like me for example) gets €1300 / €1500 / day on a normal commercial, same in Ireland.

 

It seems to me that the salaries in USA are way higher if you have to hand 14K to the union!

 

Have a lovely day.