I want to live in a first world country, not the third world hell hole you want.
Should I link to your posts where you want teens to starve, the poor to die in the streets, you wished death on me due to economic status, and slur whole economic classes with bigoted stereotypes?
The society you desire is just as evil as Kim Jung Il’s. Sociopathic, black hearted, and evil to the core.
You really think that’s an effective counter argument? Can you make an argument that isn’t extremist? Is it really all or nothing to you?
Smallpox was also eradicated completely.
This isn’t just a problem for poor people any more. There are middle class people with employee provided health care who cannot afford to go to the doctor. Premiums pushing $1,000/ month and $6,000 family deductibles are becoming the norm for non-union employees.
People with jobs and insurance are going bankrupt. A broken leg and an emergency appendectomy can push a middle class family over the edge. Costs are so high that premiums can’t cover the health care everyone needs.
It’s not as simple anymore as get a job and get health care or purchase your own insurance. The whole insurance system cannot sustain itself without major change because of the enormous costs of even the simplest medical procedure.
Should people who work die if they can’t afford health care? Should a parent not have their blood pressure treated so the kids can have dental care and glasses? Should they only deserve treatment if they did nothing to cause their high blood pressure? Where do you draw the line? Ooops, you made a bad traffic decision and got in an accident! Can’t afford to have your broken arm set? Too bad, it’s your own fault.
Third world hell hole? Maybe for able bodied people who refuse to work.
So me wanting to keep my own money rather than pay for every able bodied parasite in the world is the same as enslaving them and killing them? Maybe they should try to make themselves productive?
“Make me fend for myself? What are you Hitler?!?”
So the society we have now is like North Korea? I even proposed giving poor people nutritious food and you said that was the same as wishing death upon people. People actually STARVE in North Korea…they’d love the chance at free nutritious food. It’s an unusually ungrateful parasite that rejects free nutritious food because it isn’t “tasty” enough for them.
Talk about warped.
You can go to walk in clinics and get your blood pressure treated for $50. I used one when I didn’t have health insurance years ago when I got sick.
Health insurance is so expensive because of the incredible, spare no expense that people are eligible for if they DO get sick. Tests and treatments which didn’t exist 20 years ago are now standard…and doctors are paid more for every test they order, seemingly, plus there is the defensive medicine which makes doctors order every possible test to cover themselves.
It would be one thing if they had insurance which covered standard things without covering tests, million dollar cancer treatments (drugs like Avastin are 50K per month)…but they are not allowed by law to be that limited.
Bri, since you seem strongly opposed to people you consider “parasites” getting healthcare. How about I reword the statement and see if you’d agree to this as a compromise:
“All people (excluding able bodied adults who are capable of working but deliberately choose not to) shouldn’t die because they can’t afford health care.” Would you agree to that statement?
What about the proposal (once promoted by that liberal commie Richard Nixon) that all employers be mandated to insure their employees? For or against?
OT fessie, but why do you eqaute wheelchair using with being in poor health? Some wheelchair users ARE the stereotypical " ten million medical problems" type but ever see Murderball? Those of us who are disabled, are FAR from being medically fragile invailds
My own story:
My SO works basically a minimum wage job, just for the health insurance for both of us. My job doesn’t offer insurance. They started cutting back hours for everyone at his job (at a large department store chain) and he went from 5-6 days of work a week to three day a week! They swore things would pick up.
Things didn’t.
We went to the doctor and suddenly found out our insurance was canceled! His hours had gone from full-time to part-time, and he was now ineligible for health insurance! Not a word of warning until it was too late. Plus, we are not able to get the new COBRA assistance, as he was not “fired”, just underemployed! So COBRA wanted $385 for EACH of us, per month, to keep insured.
We simply cannot afford that! Hell, that is the price of buying a fuckin’ Mercedes!!
My SO has had serious health issues over the years, he needs regular check ups, he needs expensive medication and he needs twice yearly treatments that are costly. That doesn’t even include blood tests and other lab work.
So, we both work.
We didn’t lose our health insurance because of laziness or stupidity - it was a cut back due to the economy that dropped his hours to part-time. He still works there, hoping to get the insurance back but the “window of opportunity to sign up for health insurance” doesn’t open again until April, 2010! Hopefully his hours will have picked up to put him back at full-time status by then.
What the fuck are we supposed to do?
Sorry, but to all of you who think a national health insurance plan is infringing on your rights, I say screw you. Wait until you are in our position. Wait until you have to take someone you love to the hospital who needs expensive treatment that cannot be done in the emergency room and be told, “sorry” and sent home.
You are absolutely right, of course.
I’m definitely referring to a subgroup of people using wheelchairs, and not all users.
Precisely! I agree completely, THAT is the problem. Health insurance for profit.
I think that’s a slightly different sell than “No one’s life should ever go in the toilet” because that can’t be prevented.
Interesting points about smallpox and slavery. At first I thought of exceptions - well, racism still exists. Disease still exists. But no, I think I’m better off acknowledging that there ARE exceptions to Dr. Kopp’s rule. It’s part of his Escatological Laundry List (and not a prescription for inactivity).
Gee whiz, that one trick never loses its magic, does it, Mr. Pony?
So you want us to buy you the equivalent of a Mercedes.
This is the reason that demand for health care is essentially infinite. People want the best health care imaginable, and to hell with the cost, because it will be paid by someone else.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan, I don’t understand why you won’t acknowledge that DMark’s $385/mo is largely going into someone else’s pocket as profit. It’s not buying anybody anything - well, it’s buying some guy in a suit a nice trip around the world.
It sure as hell isn’t all paying for health care costs.
Because it isn’t. Cite.
It would be nice to pretend that we can simply reduce health care costs by ensuring that nobody makes a profit from it, but that is naive.
The reason health care costs so much is that consumers are shielded from seeing the real cost. It is perceived that my health care is paid for by someone else. That is pretty much what DMark is saying - ‘I want it, I can’t pay for it, someone else should have to pay for it, and if they don’t want to pay for it, screw them’.
We have essentially no chance of stopping the spiral of health care inflation until we can say No.
No, you can’t have the same care you have now.
No, you can’t see a specialist.
No, you can’t have an MRI.
No, you can’t sue your doctor because he didn’t order every expensive test in existence.
No, you have to wait three months for an appointment.
No, we aren’t going to treat your prostate cancer.
No, we aren’t going to pay for your mammogram.
No, you have to go home 24 hours after giving birth.
No, that treatment is not approved, and we aren’t going to pay for it.
No, you don’t get to pick your doctor.
Changes to our health care delivery system are not going to be free, and they are going to hurt.
By which I mean they are going to hurt you. You, personally. Not the faceless “rich”, not the insurance companies, not the doctors, not the other guy, not Terry Schiavo. YOU. YOU are going to pay more, and get less, so that other people can pay less and get more.
That is how it is going to be. We need to quit pretending otherwise.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not asking which industry has a smaller profit margin - I’m talking about the $126 billion profit that the health insurance industry made from 2000-2007.
Straight out of *Fortune *magazine
The top 3:
1 UnitedHealth Group made $4,159,000,000 in profit in 2005
2 Wellpoint made $3,095,000,000 in profit in 2005
3 Aetna made $1,702,000,000 in profit in 2005
And that’s not even taking into account the MILLIONS of dollars their executives earned.
Your list of No’s cracks me up, Shodan, because some of those have already happened to me. Several have happened to people who’ve written about it - I remember one gal paying for her own mammogram b/c she was a doctor and recognized the symptoms (but had had a mammogram within the past however-many months and her insurance company said No).
Having to wait 3 months, not being able to see a specialist, not picking my doctor, being sent home right after a procedure, having the quality of care and number of options change. Yep.
I’m guessing you’ve had the same job for many years? Those of us who’ve changed jobs can tell you, it’s a crapshoot. Some places have good insurances, plenty don’t, and sometimes you just take the best (or only) job available.
It would be nice if your link had any sort of context to go along with it. All we see is the profit margins for various industries, with healthcare conveniently placed at the very bottom of the list. Those poor, poor health insurers- apparently, nobody makes less than they do. Why, just a few slots above them are confectioners! Their profit margin is a whole .2 above healthcare!
Of course, healthcare is a much bigger industry than, say, the confectioner consortium. As **fessie **pointed out, health insurers are enjoying record profits.
Oh, and as I understand it, healthcare isn’t exactly the same thing as health insurance. Nice try, though, trying to conflate the two. But I guess that’s the way you like to work- throw up some cite and claim that it supports your position, and hope like hell nobody takes too close a look at it.
Actually, the reason we’re shielded from seeing the real cost is because we can’t get that info. Ever tried to find out how much a procedure is going to cost? You can’t get anyone to give you a straight answer- because nobody knows until after the fact. The insurance industry shields us from that so that they stay in a position of power- healthcare negotiates with THEM, not with US. Individuals have no bargaining power in the current situation. Getting a government option would at least allow us to have a say.
And you know something? I have no idea why we’re even arguing with *you *over this. Your team had plenty of opportunity to do something about the healthcare situation, and they completely ignored the problem. But now, when Democrats get into the office and start trying to to do something about it, you’re all of a sudden oh-so-concerned about how much it’s going to cost, and about how it’s going to affect the quality of care… while simultaneously ignoring the fact that, for many people, healthcare has been nothing more than a hopeful trip to the emergency room when things get really bad.
You really ought to read this, Shodan. It breaks it down to how much profit per month is paid to health insurance companies by workers in various states.
We’re paying health insurance companies between $3 - $45/month that they get to keep as their profit. Above and beyond the millions of dollars they pay in executive compensation. Above and beyond the millions of dollars they (the health insurance industry) pay in advertising to convince Americans that Obama is the devil. Above and beyond the lobbyists the health insurance companies hire to pressure our elected officials to look out for their (not our) interests.
We’re paying these people to screw us.
Enough’s enough.
:shrugs:
You made an assertion - that the COBRA payment was “largely” profit for the insurance company. Turns out this was demonstrably untrue.
If you want to pretend that there is a cheap, easy, magical fix for all this, I can do no more than provide facts and hope for the best. You can lead a horse to water, and so forth.
Regards,
Shodan
But, doctors and patients had a relationship before insurance companies came into existence.
To make your analogy work, you’d need to install a turnstyle in front of the grocery store and have someone there collecting dues. Membership dues. And they’d be the same every month, whether you were hungry or not. And your membership would determine which foods you were allowed to buy.
Health insurance companies are not at all dissimilar from the Mafia. Really, they are. “Pay us every month, whether you need care or not, and we’ll hang onto it. And then when you DO need care, we’ll tell you what you can have. Trust us. We’ll keep you safe from harm. Because OMG you can’t live without us.”
When that one trick may well have broken the US’s back, it really doesn’t. You don’t get to pretend like it never happened.
