Free Health Care!

[Rickster71]

Here's a short clip.(5 min)
It shows the disaster the U.S. health care system will become, if Clinton and Obama get their way. http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php
The illegal aliens will riot in the streets, if they have to wait months for treatment. They are used to getting free, and immediate care in the U.S.A.

 

[stratman]

Nobody believes this stuff, unless they have to live it. My brother in law practiced in Europe in the 80's, I'm trying to get him to post a couple of stories so some of the "un-convinced" might get a reality check.

 

[Halon451]

Here's a short clip.(5 min)
It shows the disaster the U.S. health care system will become, if Clinton and Obama get their way. http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php
The illegal aliens will riot in the streets, if they have to wait months for treatment. They are used to getting free, and immediate care in the U.S.A.

People here live in a perpetual state of profound denial. I fear that the only thing that will usher in a reality check is for these things to indeed become a reality. No amount of evidence, prior histories and/or experiences is enough to convince the masses it seems.

 

[Audioholics]

All I know is this: This isn't something we can try and then "go back" on. Once it's in place it will be here to stay. If you don't believe that, just look at the failed Social Security system and the fact that we can't change the tax system despite the fact that 90% of the public hates the IRS and would love a system that would abolish it (provided they took 5 minutes to actually understand the differences).

 

[rnatalli]

If I need free care, I'll get out my Italian passport and head to Italy who has the 2nd-best healthcare system in the world. The US has the best healthcare if you have $250,000 or more to spend, otherwise, you're out-of-luck.

I'm not convinced that universal heathcare is the way to go, but here's a question for the OP. How many people in the US drop dead of something because they don't have the means?

There's a part of me that wants everyone to have access to healthcare even if it includes illegal immigrants simply because we all have to breath the same air.

 

[stratman]

If I need free care, I'll get out my Italian passport and head to Italy who has the 2nd-best healthcare system in the world. The US has the best healthcare if you have $250,000 or more to spend, otherwise, you're out-of-luck.

I'm not convinced that universal heathcare is the way to go, but here's a question for the OP. How many people in the US drop dead of something because they don't have the means?

There's a part of me that wants everyone to have access to healthcare even if it includes illegal immigrants simply because we all have to breath the same air.

You don't need to go to Italy, case point Miami, if you don't have the means to pay for health insurance, you go to Jackson Memorial, one of the top rated hospitals in the US affiliated with University of Miami, you won't be denied care, what you will be denied is private rooms and "concierge" service, but the same competent medical staff that attends to the paying clientèle will provide for you. Who pays for that? We do with our tax dollars. Why give the government more control, after all this is what they're looking for, not to alleviate the situation, but to control it, when is everybody going to realize that government is BIG BUSINESS like all other corporations, in it to make a buck.

 

[rnatalli]

I hear what you're saying, but I also pause thinking that way. The Government botches a lot of things, but they also do some things right. If I needed a student loan, I'd go for a Federal loan first. But then you see messes like Social Security. That's why I'm mixed about the whole thing.

 

[stratman]

I hear what you're saying, but I also pause thinking that way. The Government botches a lot of things, but they also do some things right. If I needed a student loan, I'd go for a Federal loan first. But then you messes like Social Security. That's why I'm mixed about the whole thing.

I don't trust the government to do the right thing, ever. Our system has been compromised on too many levels, government has evolved into big business, with strings attached. At least dealing with a regular business entity you know where you stand, with Uncle Sam it depends on the bureaucrat you're dealing with, his level on the chain and his salary (that makes hime receptive to the kind of customer service you get.)

 

[10010011]

Now I have insurance through my job, here is the part I do not understand.

Why are accountants allowed to second guess a medical doctor?

I have an internal condition that can be corrected by surgery. My doctor has recommended I get the surgery, because my condition only gets worse the longer I wait. Now I can "live" without the surgery, but I am on a very restrictive diet, and in pain most of the time. If my condition gets infected it could be life threatening, and lead to emergency surgery, a colostomy, and more surgery, costing the insurance company even more than getting it fixed now when I am healthy.

My insurance company says since I can indeed live without this surgery I will have to pay for it myself or live without it.

So I am looking at paying for the surgery plus four to six weeks out of work recovering. Pretty much guarantees financial ruin for my family.

Now I don't claim to have a solution but something has to change. Maybe the profit needs to be taken out of health care and maybe insurance companies need to be reformed.

Everybody deserves health care and nobody should end up in financial ruin just because they get sick or are injured. So some type of free or low cost basic health care plan is needed, but not a "mandatory gov'ment program" either, people who can afford insurance should be allowed to have their own. Maybe this would create a two tiered health care system, private and public hospitals, I could live with that.

 

[stratman]

What insurance do you have? Can't your doctor send a letter to your insurance stating that your condition will worsen and it will cost more to do the procedure later??

 

[aberkowitz]

I don't trust the government to do the right thing, ever. Our system has been compromised on too many levels, government has evolved into big business, with strings attached. At least dealing with a regular business entity you know where you stand, with Uncle Sam it depends on the bureaucrat you're dealing with, his level on the chain and his salary (that makes hime receptive to the kind of customer service you get.)

I agree to some extent Strat, but I think it's important to mention that the US is not alone with this problem. Government is just as screwed up in most of the democracies of Europe and Asia. What gets me is when people bash the US government as if it exists in a vacuum and is the only government that acts the way it does.

Democracy is a totally inefficient way of doing business- which is why no business would ever organize themselves as such. The most successful businesses in the world are run in the dictatorship/autocratic fashion. Does anybody really think GE would have been as successful if Jack Welch had been subject to an employee or shareholder vote every few years?

 

[10010011]

What insurance do you have? Can't your doctor send a letter to your insurance stating that your condition will worsen and it will cost more to do the procedure later??

Yes, we tried that.

Here is the game they are playing. Insurance companies figure that on average a person changes jobs about every 5-7 years.

So if they can force you to delay expensive procedures chances are you will be on some other insurance when you really need it.

 

[Pyrrho]

Yes, we tried that.

Here is the game they are playing. Insurance companies figure that on average a person changes jobs about every 5-7 years.

So if they can force you to delay expensive procedures chances are you will be on some other insurance when you really need it.

You just answered your own question from your earlier post:

...
Why are accountants allowed to second guess a medical doctor?
...

Insurance companies are in it for the money, and they don't care if you live or die, or about your quality of life. So they let accountants second guess doctors for your care. They don't want a single payer health care system, because they would lose out on the deal. That is why they spend plenty of cash on propaganda to sucker common people into believing it would be bad for them if there were single payer health care. Yeah, right, it would be bad for you if you did not have to pay, and did not have to deal with insurance companies that would rather you die than them pay a cent.

My advice to you is to talk to the local press (e.g., TV, newspapers, radio), and see if your local press is interested in exposing the vermin for what they are. There have been several times when insurance companies change their minds about such procedures when they start getting bad press for their evil ways. You could also consider talking with a lawyer to sue them, but I don't know how well that would work; a good lawyer, however, could tell you what your prospects might be.

 

[gene]

Universal Health Care wouldn't be so bad if people were offered tax incentives NOT to use it and you would have to be a US citizen to qualify. The same should happen with public schools. I'd love a tax break on that since I send my kids to private schooling.

We are doomed either way whether it's a Democrat with Universal Health Care or a Republican with continued $12 billion/mo spending in Iraq, allowing war profiteering, record oil company profits, outsourcing of our jobs, etc, while this collectively continues to erode the US dollar and eventual acceptance in the global economy.

 

[AdrianMills]

Now I have insurance through my job, here is the part I do not understand.

Why are accountants allowed to second guess a medical doctor?

I have an internal condition that can be corrected by surgery. My doctor has recommended I get the surgery, because my condition only gets worse the longer I wait. Now I can "live" without the surgery, but I am on a very restrictive diet, and in pain most of the time. If my condition gets infected it could be life threatening, and lead to emergency surgery, a colostomy, and more surgery, costing the insurance company even more than getting it fixed now when I am healthy.

My insurance company says since I can indeed live without this surgery I will have to pay for it myself or live without it.

So I am looking at paying for the surgery plus four to six weeks out of work recovering. Pretty much guarantees financial ruin for my family.

Now I don't claim to have a solution but something has to change. Maybe the profit needs to be taken out of health care and maybe insurance companies need to be reformed.

Everybody deserves health care and nobody should end up in financial ruin just because they get sick or are injured. So some type of free or low cost basic health care plan is needed, but not a "mandatory gov'ment program" either, people who can afford insurance should be allowed to have their own. Maybe this would create a two tiered health care system, private and public hospitals, I could live with that.

I'll take a stab at Crohn's or Ulcerated Colitis.

Take a holiday to Europe - France has pretty good health care these days and your wife would like Paris I guess. "Fall very ill" and tell the guys in the hospital of your preexisting condition (extreme pain is easy to fake dude) and with luck you'll go home a week later with problem solved.

I feel for you, really. I know what it's like to have Crohn's and if I had been in a position like yours I’d be pissed off no end. If I were in the US now my guess is that I wouldn't even be able to get insurance seeing as Crohn's is a chronic condition and the drugs can be expensive if it flares up.

FWIW after diagnosis I was operated on in a month by 3 surgeons, had my own private room (yeah, with a TV) for a week and then numerous follow ups over the following 2 and a half years with a top specialist – I have his number if I ever need to see him on short notice too. And oh yeah, it all cost me 0 US$. And yes, I pay out about 33% of my salary in taxes and other deductions to pay for things like this so it's not truly "free".

Public health systems can work.

One thing is for sure, your system in the US seems to be in need of a shake up; maybe the UK, French, Scandinavian type systems wouldn't work for you but something has to change.

 

[cbraver]

It irritates me when people say things like "well, France has it and it's top notch" ... we'll, that's France, not America. Just because something is European doesn't mean it works for America.

Doctors still need to get paid well to do what they do. They work on incentive just like everyone else, and that's why people fly to America when they are in big health trouble (where I work, I've heard about this happening very often, people from France, ITALY, Arab Emirates). Sure, when you have the flu universal heath care isn't bad... but when it starts to be bad is when we talk about cancer and other life threatening diseases. America has produced some excellent treatments, very rapidly, because we are a country when it makes sense to do it in... because you can profit from it. There is NOTHING wrong with doctors making money, I want them all driving Porsche's because that means they'll be interested in finding new treatments to earn that Porsche.

Stratman brought up Jackson Memorial down here in Miami. Jackson is an awesome hospital, treating everything from gunshot wounds of gang members to cancer victims that live on the beach. It's a pretty amazing place, especially in a country that people say "doesn't take care of the poor."

America needs to improve our Health Care system, but what we have isn't horrible from the big picture. We need to work on it.

Universal Health Care wouldn't be so bad if people were offered tax incentives NOT to use it and you would have to be a US citizen to qualify. The same should happen with public schools. I'd love a tax break on that since I send my kids to private schooling.

Not to mention that the school systems suck so bad you almost have to put your kid into private schooling, at least for their younger years.

 

[rnatalli]

Take a holiday to Europe - France has pretty good health care these days and your wife would like Paris I guess.

France was rated #1 in healthcare followed closely by Italy. The US ranks up there with Cuba, Costa Rica, and Slovenia. Funny thing is, Cuba's system is free whereas the US system is the most expensive in the world.

 

[Tomorrow]

Here are a couple of quotes for ya....

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
P.J. O'Rourke

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

And ... A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
Thomas Jefferson

 

[Rickster71]

When our government can run the post office properly, maybe then, I'll trust them to run health care.

One other thing that bothers me about Universal healthcare, is how unfair it is.
Tax payers that do their best to live a healthy lifestyle, because they pay for health expenses of people who smoke, drink, do drugs, and eat unhealthily, thus making others responsible for paying for their poor decisions. What ever happened to personal responsibility?
Maybe some of us are sick of paying the consequences, for the poor judgment of others?

A look at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Service: Vital Statistics of the United States. Vol II, Mortality.
A simple calculation from American mortality statistics: Shows the majority of death in the U.S. were due to diseases known to be caused or exacerbated by alcohol, tobacco smoking or overeating, or were due to accidents. Each of those factors is either largely or wholly correctable by individual action.

 

[Halon451]

Doctors still need to get paid well to do what they do. They work on incentive just like everyone else, and that's why people fly to America when they are in big health trouble (where I work, I've heard about this happening very often, people from France, ITALY, Arab Emirates). Sure, when you have the flu universal heath care isn't bad... but when it starts to be bad is when we talk about cancer and other life threatening diseases. America has produced some excellent treatments, very rapidly, because we are a country when it makes sense to do it in... because you can profit from it. There is NOTHING wrong with doctors making money, I want them all driving Porsche's because that means they'll be interested in finding new treatments to earn that Porsche.

Bingo. That is the fundamental aspect to this whole debate - incentives and forward progress by way of capitalist venture. I think a lot of people don't truly understand or think about the implications of a free governmental health care system, and just how closely aligned with socialism it is. Much like industry, you take away the incentive for profit and gain, and there is no motive for development and research into newer, better practices. And it's easy for people to view the situation through rose colored glasses and label profit making in health care as an "Evil Enterprise" when in fact it is what is helping to sustain the very nature of its supremacy on a global scale. Is our system perfect? Hell no... but the way I see it, much of the weaknesses revolve around the insurance companies and not the medical profession itself. This is a very valid debate and should be brought to the forefront.

Furthermore, the second "invisible" drawback is the complacency of Americans becoming more and more reliant on the government to take care of their every need, and as Tomorrow so eloquently quoted from Jefferson - "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." Our formula for success is the ability of our own people to manage their own affairs with as little intrusion from the government as possible. Going beyond that, and we are truly creeping into socialist territory, and that scares the bejeesus out of me, quite frankly.