Fuck I want "socialized medicine" and I want it now!

The BBQ Pit
#1

'Cause apparently the alternative is insanity!

I just got the bill today from the hospital emergency room. $600. For 30 seconds of doing jack shit.

A few weeks ago I was watching TV and absentmindedly put a Qtip in my ear. Bad move. Suddenly there was no tip on the Qtip and I freaked. I called my insurance people who said that if it was in too deep and if there was pain I should go to the emergency room. I also looked online for possible complications, debating whether or not to wait until the next day and see my regular doc. Well, there was pain, and I didn’t want to fuck around with my hearing, so off to the emergency room.

While traveling there I kept on shaking my head. The thing must have come loose while I did this (I never noticed it), because after waiting for 2 hours at 2 in the morning (and filling out paper work) the doctor took a look in the ear for 10 seconds, told me there was nothing there, that it probably fell out, and I could go home. Total service transaction time: 30 seconds. What I did not know is that I’d end up paying the bastards what amounts to a $72,000 hourly rate!

$72,000 hourly mother fucking rate. I doubt their top surgeon sees that kind of money! It’s highway robbery, plain and simple. have they no fucking shame to actually serve me with this bill for what amounts to an exchange of pleasantries with their staff?

And to top things off it seems my insurance is refusing to pay for it, even though they were the ones who told me I should go to the ER if I developed pain. So I’ll have to waste time tomorrow no doubt chasing after them to pay for the “treatment”.

Fuck!

This message brought to you by the letters F for fuck, T for thieving hospital douches, and d for don’t fuck around with a Qtip in your ear. Ever.

#2

See, here’s the thing:

The bill is so high because you’re subsidizing the people that can’t pay their bill because they have no insurance. If we go to Universal Healthcare you will be paying a portion of your bill and someone else will be covering the rest, only in that case it will be coercive, in the form of tax dollars.

I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but because it’s you that lost this time you’re upset about it. Imagine how others are going to feel when their perfectly healthy selves get the tax bill for other peoples’ illnesses and they have no recourse but to shut up and pay.

UHC is going to be the great experiment, whether or not we can get people to buy into the “greater good” theory of government. I don’t know that we’re going to be able to do it. We’ll see.

#3

With socialized medecine you’d get to wait for two weeks to see a doctor, and by then pus would be oozing out of your ear. I may be exaggerating, but only a little.

#4

You’re exaggerating a lot. A similar ear problem I had some years ago in Canada was looked at by a doctor in the ER within an hour or so, and I never saw a bill.

#5

It’s funny- that old canard gets trotted out every time there’s a Socialized Medicine thread on the internet, and every time it gets shot down by people who actually live in countries that have Socialized Medicine.

When will you admit you’re wrong?

#6

If he admits he’s wrong, don’t take it to heart. He’s only exaggerating.

#7

Yes, but RandRover’s imagination of experience has more truthiness than your actual experience.

#8

Yeah, you’re exaggerating, but not by a little. I have lived in two countries with socialized medicine and I have never had to wait as long to see a doctor as I have right here in the USA, thanks to the rules of HMOs. When my ex-wife had a head injury and went to the ER she was seen immediately; people with the same injury who go to a county hospital in the US might have to wait for hours.

Perhaps you’d like to tell us what your experiences are of living in a country with socialized medicine. Because I sincerely doubt you’ve actually had any.

#9

A scratched cornea left me with two options, according to my doctor. Get there in ten minutes because there was an immediate opening, or take the one two hours hence. And this is in a city struggling to meet its residents’ medical needs, in a province run by a party that seems openly hostile to the idea of providing adequate medical care. And it was me, not my insurer, who chose that doctor.

$600 for trivial medical attention is disgraceful.

#10

To say nothing of paying the salaries of all the employees that the hospital has to hire in order to deal with all the claims to all the different insurance companies.

#11

Ok, here’s a cite. It’s from a blog, which is gold on the SDMB:

http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/the-waiting-game/#more-121

Also, it’s not like waiting is the only problem with socialized medicine. It’s first and biggest problem is that it’s socialized.

#12

No, you’re not exaggerating, you are completely, unequivocally, totally, completely full of shit. You have no idea whatsoever do you? Crap just automatically falls out of your mouth.

Like Duke, I have actual experience with emergency treatment in a country with “socialized” medicine. No, I did not get whisked in and waited on hand and foot, because I was not going to die. I was seen promptly though, and my scratched cornea was treated. My mother, on the other hand, with a suspected heart attack, was seen in about oh… 30 seconds. (she’s fine, thanks)

You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about Rand Rover… Shut your mouth.

#13

Wow, I never would have guessed that someone who called themselves after a boring old libertarian author would have hated socialized medicine because it’s socialized. Maybe we could call it “Galt Medical Theory” and you’d eat it off a plate.

#14

Except that its antithetical to anything Galt would go for . . .

#15

You know, it seems to me that you haven’t been around nearly long enough to know what the “gold standard” is around here. In fact, most of your presumptions about this place are laughable at best. How about you get your head out of your ass and actually participate in intelligent dialogue instead of pretending like you “know how things work”.

#16

You don’t say!

#17

Can I get one goddamned cite from a right-wing dipshit (not to be confused with right-wingers who aren’t dipshits, of which there are many) that doesn’t come from a fucking Scaife organization? Just one?

Hell, link to fucking rickroll for all I care, but at least make it look like you can find a cite in some manner other than going through the chain of freeper->heritage->aim->ncpa->etc.

Oh, and blogs aren’t gold. Blogs are, without supporting evidence, as worthless as a pitcher of warm spit.

#18

Well, what do I know? I’ve experienced it, but he’s … he’s only conjecturing!

Ooh, he cited a blog! Somebody’s opinion. Me and my fixed ear better slink away now! Our experience just cannot stand up to the might of an American’s “Socialized Medicine is Evil” Blog!

Go play in traffic, little man. You can come back when you’ve got a real cite.

#19

I have an honest question…The government has been running VA care for quite a few years and it doesn’t seem to be very effective. How will universal health care be better?

#20

OP - you’re so right you need socialised medicine. I’ve never needed to wear glasses but I was glad the other kids who needed them got them - National Health Pink for the girls - what were the other colours? I’m lucky to be healthy and others are not - what happens to poor American kids - do they sit in class squinting, getting headaches and not learning?

I had some small red dots on my face & body - I went to a dermitologist in the states who said they were precancerous and he would laser them off for USD$100.00 each. Since I was soon going to England I waited and visited a private dermitologist there.

She told me the name of the condition - spider something or the other and said she’d take them all off for ten quid but they didn’t need to come off. I kept them - they’ve faded.

From the John Goodman blog:
"In Britain and Canada, it is easier to see a physician and there are more visits than in the United States.

However, once at the doctor’s office, Americans with real problems get more services and get more attention (almost one in three spend more than 20 minutes with the physician in the United States compared with one in five in Canada and one in 20 in Britain). "

What kind of Americans does he mean here - Americans with health insurance? As opposed to any Canadian or any Englishperson? Won’t more visits to the doctor make “real problems” less likely?