no health care...real story of suckage in america

[Dogger]

Further, if this WERE as you claim, why is no one EVER cites that passage to justify their new powers? The clause they cite is almost always the Commerce clause. I mean come on, how much easier would it be to just claim " General" welfare?
MORONS.

"I tried to get out but they kept pulling me back in."

First read this post, which I just cited.

The ability to spend on General Welfare does not mean the government can force you to participate. It can offer inducements. It can offer food stamps, roads, national parks, or Social Security, but you don't have to use or take them.

The commerce clause, on the other hand, gives Congress broader powers to force individuals to comply. Congress can compel you to test food and drugs, pay minimum wages or punish discrimination.

Learn the difference between carrots and sticks.

 

[TheGoodShepherd]

I'll bite. I, like most Americans, oppose a government-led universal health care insurance system.

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_...alth_insurance_overseen_by_federal_government

29% favor such a system, 39% oppose it (31% unsure).
46% believe such a system would result in a decrease in the quality of care, and 16% believe quality would increase.
42% would expect prices to rise, 25% would expect prices to decrease.

Not to suggest that the consensus view is necessarily the right view, but it will mean that we'd be implementing a system most Americans do not want.

Personally, I'm of the belief that the problem with American health care isn't the 40 million Americans who don't have health insurance - it's the 250 million that do have it. Huge insulation between the buyer and seller usually discourages the buyer from shopping around. Why should one shop around for health care? There's no real incentive in a system where someone else is paying the bill. So given that consumers are going to accept whatever price is offered, what incentive do providers have to worry about productivity or cost control?

During WWII, the government imposed wage controls, effectively prohibiting employers from extending cash raises to employees. How did those employers continue to attract workers? By offering non-cash benefits, like health insurance. Competition among these companies pushed each of them to offer increasingly attractive policies - first-dollar coverage for routine ailments like ear infections and colds, and coverage for things that are not even illnesses, like pregnancy. People came to expect insurance to cover everything. Furthermore, tax breaks allow employers to purchase health insurance at favorable rates - so even if employees preferred less coverage, it made sense to buy increased coverage at a lower price.

Let me pose a theoretical question: what if automobile insurance covered all expenses associated with keeping your vehicle running? If it paid for your gas usage, you wouldn't care about how much you use, or how much it costs per gallon. If your insurance covered oil changes, mechanics could charge $100 and you wouldn't care, as long as the insurance covered it. Prices would skyrocket.

And unfortunately, that is why health insurance costs are as steep as they are right now. People have no incentive to get a good price for care, only to ensure that insurance will cover that price.

How will government reduce those costs? I don't have much confidence in the government as a prudent buyer ($800 hammers, anyone?). While I suspect there will be some savings in reduced paperwork costs, the real savings will come from the government deciding which procedures it will and won't cover. Once in charge of health care choices, the government can simply start denying procedures and care ("rationing"). This is in fact how costs are managed in most socialist medical systems. Worse yet, as the government will now be paying for your health care, they have incentives to tax or outlaw "unhealthy" behavior.

I personally believe the solution lies in eliminating incentive to purchase group coverage and allowing folks to buy levels of coverage in accordance with their needs. For me, that would be a high-deductable plan where I would pay out-of-pocket for most doctor visits. For others with greater needs, a lower deductable plan might make more sense. What doesn't make sense is forcing all Americans to purchase uniform coverage as selected by a few know-it-alls.

This is all fine and dandy. Most Americans do believe the federal government should guarantee all Americans have health insurance.

Which is a far different "government-led" question to the poll you posted above.

 

[AllieBaba]

Standing in the misty rain yesterday evening, Mike Cook surveyed his backyard, dotted with empty flower beds he’s not sure he’ll be able to plant.

"Every time I bend over, my nose starts bleeding," Cook said, adding that he had been counting on his backyard gardens to lift him out of the winter doldrums and add color back into his life. "They took that from me. This has stopped my life in its tracks."

Early yesterday, Cook and three co-workers were robbed at gunpoint while assembling copies of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for their morning distribution routes. One of the gunmen kicked Cook in the face, and he suffered nerve and retina damage in addition to a broken nose, cheekbone and eye socket.

This morning, Cook, 43, met with a surgeon to decide whether it would be better to heal without intervention and run the risk of permanent double vision in his left eye or to surgically implant a metal plate in his cheek to hold his eye in place.

The few scrapes and minor bruising on Cook’s face belie his severe internal damage, just as the robbery resulted in Cook’s loss of only $1 and coins but has shaken him to the core.

Police have no suspects.

Interviewed in his living room, Cook said his immediate future rests on what surgeons tell him today.

He lacks health insurance, which only adds to his angst. "The ER doctor said, ‘You can be a burden to society if you go on disability and don’t get these things taken care of because you will have visual problems if you do not heal properly. Or, we can take care of this and worry about how we’ll pay for it down the road.’ "

Cook said he hopes the Missouri Crime Victims’ Compensation Program will help offset his costs.

source:

http://www.showmenews.com/2008/May/20080508News006.asp

That doesn't so much illuminate the issues of not having good healthcare available, as the fact that doctors are assholes.

The healthcare is there. It's not the fault of the system that the doctor he went to is a POS.

 

[TheGoodShepherd]

Regardless health costs are through the roof.

Ironically, the layers of bureaucracy associated with the current hybrid private/public system is the reason the health system is buckling under enormous overhead and administrative costs.

This tells me one thing. The US health system doesn't know what it is. Is it private or is it public? What is it exactly trying to be?

It has to either become totally private or totally public. It has to centralize it's power into the sphere of either the public or private sphere of influence. I don't think we can have both.

I think, if anything, the choice is clear for the voters in the upcoming election.

It's all a question of what the voter would rather have for his or her country.

 

[AllieBaba]

Regardless health costs are through the roof.

Ironically, the layers of bureaucracy associated with the current hybrid private/public system is the reason the health system is buckling under enormous overhead and administrative costs.

This tells me one thing. The US health system doesn't know what it is. Is it private or is it public? What is it exactly trying to be?

It has to either become totally private or totally public. It has to centralize it's power into the sphere of either the public or private sphere of influence. I don't think we can have both.

I think, if anything, the choice is clear for the voters in the upcoming election.

It's all a question of what the voter would rather have for his or her country.

I like it that it's a little of both. That's why it's still competitive, still top notch...and yet at the same time available to those who don't have money.

Make it 100percent public, the quality and availability will take hideous nosedives.

 

[TheGoodShepherd]

I like it that it's a little of both. That's why it's still competitive, still top notch...and yet at the same time available to those who don't have money.

Make it 100 percent public, the quality and availability will take hideous nosedives.

I'd rather see it public.

I don't like the stench of extortion that comes with a market solution.

It's pay or die. Period.

But I do think that we should at the very least give all kids under 18 mandatory health and drug prescription coverage. That is non-negotiable for me.

 

[AllieBaba]

It's NOT pay or die. Are you so far removed from the real world that you don't understand how our health system works? Hospitals cannot and will not turn people away, regardless of their ability to pay. There are thousands upon thousands of "free clinics". There are charitable funds to pay for expensive treatments and procedures for those who do not have the ability to pay. There is disability for those who have worked during their lives, and there is SSI for those who haven't, and medicare for both. For mothers (including non-citizens) and pregnant women there is health coverage. For children under 19 there is health coverage (through state and federal programs). For the elderly and disabled there is health coverage, and for those waiting for disability to be declared, there is "presumptive" health coverage which covers them based upon the PRESUMPTION that two years after they are declared disabled (and based upon the PRESUMPTION that they will be declared disabled).

People do NOT die in America, except by choice, because they cannot pay for treatment. The only people who die in America for lack of treatment are those who choose not to seek it, or those who desire to use experimental treatments which haven't been ok'd by the insurance companies for funding yet.

So tell me, who are these people who must "pay or die"?

 

[TheGoodShepherd]

It's NOT pay or die. Are you so far removed from the real world that you don't understand how our health system works? Hospitals cannot and will not turn people away, regardless of their ability to pay.

I'm not talking about emergency room visits.

I'm talking about being denied an important surgery by your HMO, or failing to be able to afford treatment like cancer etc.

Thats terrible and it goes on everyday in the USA.

It is pay or die.

Health care should not be about whoever has the most money jumps to the front of the line.

I think it should be that whoever is sickest goes first. No if ands or butts about it.

 

[Shogun]

yea.. but who pays for it? What lifestyles qualify? Should promiscuous hookers who practice unsafe sex on her clintelle have the same consideration as those who abstain from risky behaviour? smokers, drinkers and others who partake?


I say we let the people who want UHC fund a Universal system that starts with a core suite of preventative testing and improves coverage according to donated funding. In other words, put your money where your mouth is.

 

[Dogger]

. . .
People do NOT die in America, except by choice, because they cannot pay for treatment. The only people who die in America for lack of treatment are those who choose not to seek it, or those who desire to use experimental treatments which haven't been ok'd by the insurance companies for funding yet.

So tell me, who are these people who must "pay or die"?

For example, 17-year old Nataline Sarkisyan died at Christmas after her insurance company jerked her around and denied payment for a liver transplant. They only reversed the decision after it was too late. She had insurance, and the procedure was covered, but Cigna had a practice of deny and delay. They killed her to save money.

Nataline's case made the papers. Many more do not.

 

[AllieBaba]

That's the insurance companies, and if you think state-run insurance on a national scale is going to be BETTER and not worse, you are sadly naive.

Transplants are iffy things anyway and a whole slew of criteria must be met to qualify for one. BUT there are ways to access $$$ to pay for them, if $$$ is the only issue.
http://www.liverfoundation.org/patients/transplantfund/
http://www.transplantfund.org/Restricted/patient-detail.cfm?pat_id=966&CFID=1167984&CFTOKEN=10337607
http://www.transplantfund.org/
Also, that case is a matter that is being considered for criminal charges because it shouldn't have happened. It isn't a case where somebody was denied medical assistance because they didn't have coverage. It is a case where they had coverage and the insurance company screwed up and in the meantime the girl died.

 

[Dogger]

That's the insurance companies, and if you think state-run insurance on a national scale is going to be BETTER and not worse, you are sadly naive.

That first clause is correct, but not complete. When coverage was denied, it was as if she had no insurance and fell into the system the way 40% of Americans experience it - completely uncovered. Even though her parents had decent jobs, and both had insurance, they could not get the down payment in time to save her life.

As to "state-run insurance", profit driven insurance companies make these decision to save money. Government insurance such as Medicare does not.

In 2000, the World Health Organization surveyed health care performance and patient satisfaction in industrialized countries. The field work was done in a period of prosperity, yet the United States ranked 14th in satisfaction and was ranked bythe WHO at 17th in actual performance.

The article on satisfaction actually broke down the data and found public insurance customers (Medicare and Medicaid) were happier with their coverage than the rest of us.

 

[AllieBaba]

Medicare is simply the name of the system that PAYS different providers to manage the insurance end of it. And those providers certainly DO determine who and what they will pay. And they are NOT just throwing money around, with an "anything goes" attitude.

So you'd better believe that people on medicare and medicaid get denied certain treatments,medications, and other things every single day.

And don't forget...when a person is declared disabled (which can take years) it takes 2 years before medicare kicks in. Sometimes they qualify for presumptive, sometimes they don't. But that means there are years where people are not covered and cannot obtain things like medication and treatment.

That's what national health coverage looks like. Long delays, and all the other bs. that goes with any other insurance program....less money, more people, and poorer quality service.

Medicare and medicaid customers are more satisfied because they have just gone through hell and back getting everything set up, and spent years without any coverage at all. The reaction is always, "Oh thank GOD, now I can have my insulin paid for...."

but the fact of the matter is, many of them die before any benefits kick in at all. I have contact with people every day who are desperate and who are in the system and just can't get what they need out of it. It will NOT get better if you make the system bigger, more wieldy, and increase the rolls.

 

[TheGoodShepherd]

That's the insurance companies, and if you think state-run insurance on a national scale is going to be BETTER and not worse, you are sadly naive.

Transplants are iffy things anyway and a whole slew of criteria must be met to qualify for one. BUT there are ways to access $$$ to pay for them, if $$$ is the only issue.
http://www.liverfoundation.org/patients/transplantfund/
http://www.transplantfund.org/Restricted/patient-detail.cfm?pat_id=966&CFID=1167984&CFTOKEN=10337607
http://www.transplantfund.org/
Also, that case is a matter that is being considered for criminal charges because it shouldn't have happened. It isn't a case where somebody was denied medical assistance because they didn't have coverage. It is a case where they had coverage and the insurance company screwed up and in the meantime the girl died.

Insurance companies don't "screw up."

They deny people coverage to save money to increase their profit.

Pay or die.

 

[rayboyusmc]

There is quite a bit of Socialist provided health care in the United States (ie Medicare).

No, you pay for it while you are working and you get the care when you reach 65. That is not SOCIALISM.

Medicare has a lower administrative cost than private healthcare, so don't give us the same crap it will cost more for a single payer universal system.

The big spin that has been put out about "Socialized" medicine has just confused people with information that is not always factual.

Like I stated before we as a country rate 37th in overal care quality. We pay more per sperson than any other industrialized country.

You have been snookered and don't even know it.

I realize that working in healthcare for 14 years really doesn't give me any right to make these statements.

 

[cbi0090]

I personally don't see any difference between health care, national defense, the environment, ect. A person making minimum wage, who cannot afford health insurance, is benefitting me in the work that he does and could continue to do if he had health care. I also benefit from him not sending his kids off to school, with my kids, sick, because he can't afford to take them to a doctor. I benefit that his family is innoculated. So, where am I or anyone else losing if we're all chipping in to make sure we all have health care? If you work and pay taxes you should get health care.
Now, the problem is going to be how far does it go. Of course, someone is going to feel that it should cover their face lift to maintain their mental health and well being and create an argument, but I'd rather be arguing over menial crap like that than see 40 million people running around just one illness away from disaster or spreading disease to me or mine.