Health care tirade

[Slash1972]

@k9bfriender

I don’t know about a study exactly, but I’ve talked to my dad ( very conservative) about such things, and think I shared that experience here, that may be what you’re thinking of. Or, there could be a study out here as well.

I asked him if he would take $20, under the condition that someone else would get $20.

His first question was, who gets the $20? I responded that it wouldn’t go to any sort of terrorist or criminal, or anything like that.

That wasn’t good enough, he wanted to know who would get it, because he wanted to know if that person deserved it.

Without knowing who would get it, even being assured that it wouldn’t be used for anything nefarious (a reasonable precaution), he would refuse.

Yeah, that’s probably it. Thanks! And thanks for reposting it. Still amazed that someone would do that (no offense to your dad)

[up_the_junction]

It’s a dumb argument though.

A better version might be to offer your father and an anonymous person $20, but as an act of common compassion and only at a time during their life when they really badly need it.

[psychobunny]

I just want to add my rant. I’ve been on the exchange for three years. Each year my plan is discontinued and the suggested replacement is either the same but much more expensive or a similar cost but much worse coverage. I started with a Gold plan with a $500 deductible and excellent out of network coverage for $500 a month. Because of the cost increases I have gradually downgraded to a silver plan with the same excellent out of network coverage but a $2500 deductible and much higher copays for $700. Yesterday I got this years’ information. Once again my plan has been discontinued. The suggested equivalent now has a $3500 deductible and is an HMO without out of network coverage. The copays are similar. So, moderately worse coverage. The price: $1200 a month! Yes, as a healthy single person I now need to shell out approximately $18,000 a year in premiums and deductibles before the insurance pays anything. Now I will be able to afford it (will just keep driving the 2000 Camry with 250K miles a few more years and hope it holds out) but this is unsustainable. What do we have to do to get universal healthcare in this country? I expected it to be this bad if they repealed the ACA. Now I am wondering how bad it can get. To make things worse, I am trying to hire a new employee and no way can I afford to offer health insurance. We are talking $45K yearly for three employees and a decent plan. At least I can offer them some free care in the office but I can’t wrap my head around the fact that a doctor cannot afford health care for myself or my staff. In addition, I expect that more of my patients will no longer be able to afford insurance which means I am less likely to get paid. I see a death spiral in progress.

[Bone]

@k9bfriender

That wasn’t good enough, he wanted to know who would get it, because he wanted to know if that person deserved it.

Without knowing who would get it, even being assured that it wouldn’t be used for anything nefarious (a reasonable precaution), he would refuse.

That actually doesn’t seem unreasonable on its face. If a person doesn’t need the money, why would they be incented by the additional $20? The proposition isn’t scalable either. I don’t think anyone should get free money, myself included so I would also reject a proposition of that nature. If there was some means test or something else, then I could entertain it. This is more of an ideological point than one specific to healthcare though.

[Grumbacher_Red]

@Wesley_Clark

But these people have less education, less marketable skills, no jobs, they don’t pay taxes and they’ve done everything they can to destroy UHC and they have better health care than me. Medicaid has no deductibles (AFAIK, or very low copays). No worries about balance billing or going bankrupt for having a heart attack like people like me have to worry about.

I didn’t see the Sarah Silverman show, I avoided it once I saw the description because Holy Hell I don’t need to cut on the TV to see Dumb Crackers flapping their gums and looking like they don’t have the sense God gave a goose. I see them often enough in their natural habitat right here at home and have all my life.

I only wanted to offer a theory I have for their current unenlightened & uneducated opinions. The people I know, some in my own family, who have these opinions about welfare and “takers” are just parroting what they heard parents and grandparents say 20-30-40 years ago when maybe some of this was true…

Now hold on a minute before you throw that can of green beans at me…there was a time when working class people who had those manufacturing and factory jobs that are all gone now felt just like Wesley Clark does now. That they follow the rules and do everything responsible citizens are supposed to do, but they can’t get ahead. They felt like, “Hey, I get up everyday, I go to work, I take care of my family and bust ass to provide for me and mine, and we can’t afford to go to the doctor, etc…” They would go to the dentist for a tooth ache and have to settle for minimum care when some Medicaid recipient would come in with what they called “the Gold Card” and get primo treatment, and it was maddening so yeah, they bitched about it in front of the chillun, BUT

Now in present day, those chillun are grown folk who are less educated, less informed, less of a work ethic, have made much more poor choices than their parents, and there they sit in their busted trailers on Mama and Daddy’s land…still sitting around bitching about problems their parents had that they think are their own, but they are NOT!

I get so exasperated trying to convince them their ideas about public assistance are outdated and they need to quit looking at got-damn Facebook and work harder to be informed about present-day politics. Shit. It ain’t 1972 anymore you lazy fuckers!