steveau

GeorgeBMac said:

Australian's can swipe their health cards?   Wow!   So, that makes the transition to the Apple Wallet fairly straight forward.

Here in the U.S. I have never had a medical card that could be swiped --- even Medicare who just spend millions to put out new cards a couple years ago put out mere pieces of non-swipable plastic.

And, even if Apple did load medical ID cards into Apple Wallet here, medical clerks would be befuddled because they all ask for the card and then run it through a copier.   Without a piece of plastic they would turn you away.

So, like with credit cards, other nations appear to be well ahead of the U.S. in technology.

The US is also way behind in health insurance generally. In Australia Medicare (the free*, universal health care service) covers everyone for:

• GP visits;
• some specialist visits;
• visits to a public or private hospital emergency department;
• out of hospital x-rays or other scans;
• out of hospital blood tests or other pathology tests; and more.

Most private health insurance, such as those mentioned in this article, provide:

• Additional hospital cover for things like accommodation and theatre fees;
• General treatment cover for services like dental and physio;
• The option to choose your own surgeon or other specialist;
• The option to have treatment in a private hospital or as a private patient in a public hospital; and more.

*"Free" means that people who pay income tax pay for it through a 2% Medicare levy, but the cost of private insurance is tax deductible. Rich people who don't have private insurance (for heaven's sake why?) pay an additional levy of 1.0%, 1.25% or 1.5% according to assessable income.

In a 2013 Bloomberg study on the Most Efficient Healthcare Systems in the World, Australia ranked 7th overall, with a per capita cost about half of that of the US system.

StrangeDays said:

spice-boy said:

Apple should pay for every American's healthcare. 

Er, no. We need to separate our healthcare from our employers. My healthcare should have nothing to do with who I work for, yet it does.

But something must change. In today's episode of This Shit Is Out of Control -- I have plantar fasciitis from my physical activity so I visited the doc. He prescribed PT. At PT, the guy looked at my foot and had me do some stretches. The bill from the single PT session alone? $560 for -- $410 for the PT's "evaluation", and $150 for the stretching. My insurance took $250 off, leaving me with $310. What...a fucking...crock. 

Our system is beyond broken. The prices from doctors and hospitals are fake, intended to be marked down via insurance provider negotiations. But even still the out-of-pocket is unreasonable for the non-wealthy and getting worse. I'm an enterprise software dev well into middle-class and this shit is too much. Our healthcare is completely broken, and we can thank the current system and the fat cat hospital & insurance executive class. Something has to change. 

Apple paying for universal health care in the Us is a totally ridiculous proposition, but so is much of the rest of the argument above (Roadracerkev excluded).

Health care in Australia is not free. Everyone who pays income tax pays a  Medicare levy of 1.5% of taxable income (with an additional surcharge of 1% for high-income earners without private health insurance). If you are not a high income earner and choose to have private health insurance (giving you shorter waiting times for elective surgery, more choice in terms of doctors and hospitals, a private room, etc.), then you get a partial rebate via an income tax deduction. All of this is independent of your employer and doesn't bankrupt you if you have a major uninsured accident or a life threatening illness. In return for such a wonderful system a tiny, tiny fraction of my 1.5% goes towards paying for the healthcare of the unemployed and the elderly, That tiny, tiny fraction is much less than the extra I would have to pay in deregulated system if Medicare did not exist (yes, I remember what it was like in Oz before 1975). Also, the current life expectancy in Australia is 82.5 years, whereas in the US it is 78.9, so I guess the system is doing something right.

It's not difficult to set-up a logical, efficient and effective system, but first you have to defeat the vested interests who deliberately confuse the general public by setting up think tank propaganda machines and paying for advertising, lobbyists, etc. who deliberately stifle change by promoting divisive arguments based on irrelevant 'ism's.

Imagine if two engineers at Apple argued over a motherboard design because one said that parallel processing was communist. That's what the US arguments over health care sound like to someone who lives elsewhere.

PS. I love visiting the US, seeing new places and hanging out with my many great friends, but I always get full travel insurance. 

entropys said:

ihatescreennames said:

i would have liked a new well featured SE so I could carry a second, smaller personal phone to get around the profile problem.

Agreed, I have an iPhone 8 as my main device and a Nokia dumbphone for my backup. When I'm in my work country the Nokia it has my home country SIM in it, when I'm travelling home or O/S I swap SIM's. I'd be much happier with one big and one small iPhone, but the SE just doesn't do it for me.

Now if I could have my initials embossed across one corner, in gold of course, then I would seriously consider a matching set of sleeves for my iPhone, IPad and MacBook Pro. They would look so good with the bespoke Savile Row suit that I plan on getting - some day!

bestkeptsecret said:

AppleInsider said:

"The Court declared the mere fact that an iPhone or iPad had been repaired by someone other than Apple did not, and could not, result in the consumer guarantees ceasing to apply, or the consumer's right to a remedy being extinguished."

That sounds like some silly shit to me. Get it broken fixed by some third party and expect Apple to clean the ensuing mess.

The point is that the devices were correctly fixed by a third party repairer and Apple then applied a software update that bricked the devices (error code 53) AND THEN said that they could not repair the devices because of the initial third party repair. The Federal Court has determined that this was essentially a lie, and lying to a consumer is illegal in Australia, as it should be in any civilised country!