# Sarah Palin proven right! Government tricks beautiful young mom; imposes 1st Death Panel Verdict **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 12, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888 "2010-04-12T22:18:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 53
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888/1041 "2010-05-04T14:35:00Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > I have pretty good health insurance. I can see any doctor I want and they pay the bills without push-back. Sometimes they’re slow in getting me a reimbursement check, but whatever. Sometimes I’m slow paying the electric bill. > > So yeah, I’m happy with my insurance. Do I still think healthcare needs to be reformed? You betcha. > > How do you account for me, **Starving Artist**? Sorry, but you don’t count because you’re too young, liberal, and you’ve been brainwashed. Speaking of health insurance, I just got to spend what I call a freedom-hour on the phone dealing with my health care provider. They automatically bill my insurance, but if they don’t hear back within 30min, they automatically generate and send me a bill. Oddly enough, they don’t bother to auto-generate a followup note when my insurance actually pays them. So after every appointment I get a bill, and after every bill I get to call and ask if insurance paid it. Joy. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888/1042 "2010-05-04T14:48:45Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > I have pretty good health insurance. I can see any doctor I want and they pay the bills without push-back. Sometimes they’re slow in getting me a reimbursement check, but whatever. Sometimes I’m slow paying the electric bill. > > So yeah, I’m happy with my insurance. Do I still think healthcare needs to be reformed? You betcha. > > How do you account for me, **Starving Artist**? I’m pretty much with you Agent. It has worked for me. Though it has at times been a huge pain in the ass. If you ever need even minor surgery in the USA, prepare for a mountain of paperwork. Mostly because every doctor, insurance company, hospital and physical thearapist has a completly different billing practice. I think we could save billions, just by getting some normilization in the billing practice. It’s crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888/1043 "2010-07-09T15:47:58Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > I want you to link me to a single poster with over 100 posts to his or her name who we can verify lives in a country with UHC and whose stated opinion is that he or she would prefer the US’s version of healthcare. > > Now, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to throw out that old chestnut that people living in a particular country tend to prefer their own version of health care because that’s all they know. That’s fine. I’m not asking you to show me an overwhelming majority or a significant minority. I’m asking for one. Again. One person. > > Here. I’m even going to help you out in your research by linking to a thread I created yesterday. > > [A worldwide health care poll - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=560174) > > As of right now there are 32 respondents who live in countries with UHC and not a single one would prefer any version of the US’s health care system. But I’m sure if we waited long enough, someone will pop up. > > Let’s wait together, shall we? I don’t have 100 posts to my name, so I suppose my opinion doesn’t count, but I have so far experienced three countries’ health care systems – first 28 years in the US, then 11 years in Canada, now 5 months in the UK – and I can say without a smidgen of doubt that I much prefer UHC to no UHC. Though my experience thus far in the UK is limited by my brief time here, I can say that so far it seems that there is more coverage than in Canada – NHS covers part of my dental bill and also the lion’s share of my prescriptions, and I can also get an eye exam without paying out of pocket, apparently. In Canada, these things are not covered by the province in which I lived, though one can get provincial pharmaceutical drug coverage with a deductible based on last year’s income. Here there’s just a flat “you pay £3 for your prescription no matter what it is or how many pills are in it” rate. Suits me. Here’s an anecdote. My mother was a university professor with work-related insurance coverage – Blue Cross if I recall correctly. For ten years she was unable to get a proper diagnosis or treatment for persistent, disabling back and neck pain that led to loss of function in her right arm. Eventually she was no longer working and on disability, at which point Medicaid (or Medicare, I can’t remember which one she’s on) enabled her to get the crushed disc in her neck diagnosed and operated on, and she was finally relieved of the constant pain and could start recovering the use of her arm. Ten years. Ten years WITH INSURANCE that she was paying premiums for, paying for a service which systematically denied her diagnosis and treatment and physical therapy and such things that would have prevented her from becoming disabled in the first place if she had received them in a timely manner. Ten years of periodically ending up in the emergency room in the middle of the night to get a shot of cortisone to relieve the unremitting pain of something which required surgery but which her insurance wouldn’t even let her find out what it was, much less take care of it. Not until she was in the hands of the government-supplied health care coverage was she able to do so and start being a relatively productive member of society again. That is fucked up. Now she’s firmly within the stupid “doughnut hole” that Bush put into the system so that people who need more care can’t get it until they go completely bankrupt. I wish I could move her here. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888/1044 "2010-07-09T16:00:24Z")
Jeneva, the reason I had that 100 post requirement was because I felt it to be too easy for someone to create an account for the sole purpose of disagreeing with me, whether that person be a sock of another poster or a troll or whatever. Thanks for sharing your story. Looking at my other thread, it appears as if 95% of the SDMB who responded prefer UHC care, regardless of where they currently live. Only a single person lives with UHC and prefers the US’s care but since that person hasn’t come forward to explain why, I’m not going to concede defeat quite yet. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888/1045 "2010-07-11T04:24:11Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > I have private medical insurance. My husband was hit by a car in Feb 2009 and had three fractured bones as a result. The other result? About two hundred hours between the two of us trying to get our medical insurance people not to be assholes and do their jobs. > > And I have good medical insurance. > > Each and every single time I have to use it I dread it because it involves at least two hours of my time dealing with the paperwork and working with private insurance minions who have one thing on their minds and one thing only: to get my husband and myself to assume responsibility for bills we are not responsible for. > > But hey I hear that UHC would be nothing but paperwork because **Starving Artist** said so and he knows all about UHC! > > :rolleyes: 84 percent are happy now ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888/1046 "2010-07-11T04:25:49Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > I have pretty good health insurance. I can see any doctor I want and they pay the bills without push-back. Sometimes they’re slow in getting me a reimbursement check, but whatever. Sometimes I’m slow paying the electric bill. > > So yeah, I’m happy with my insurance. Do I still think healthcare needs to be reformed? You betcha. > > How do you account for me, **Starving Artist**? Make that 83 ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888/1047 "2010-07-11T04:28:16Z")
> [@Jeneva](#): > > I don’t have 100 posts to my name, so I suppose my opinion doesn’t count, but I have so far experienced three countries’ health care systems – first 28 years in the US, then 11 years in Canada, now 5 months in the UK – and I can say without a smidgen of doubt that I much prefer UHC to no UHC. Though my experience thus far in the UK is limited by my brief time here, I can say that so far it seems that there is more coverage than in Canada – NHS covers part of my dental bill and also the lion’s share of my prescriptions, and I can also get an eye exam without paying out of pocket, apparently. In Canada, these things are not covered by the province in which I lived, though one can get provincial pharmaceutical drug coverage with a deductible based on last year’s income. Here there’s just a flat “you pay £3 for your prescription no matter what it is or how many pills are in it” rate. Suits me. > > Here’s an anecdote. My mother was a university professor with work-related insurance coverage – Blue Cross if I recall correctly. For ten years she was unable to get a proper diagnosis or treatment for persistent, disabling back and neck pain that led to loss of function in her right arm. Eventually she was no longer working and on disability, at which point Medicaid (or Medicare, I can’t remember which one she’s on) enabled her to get the crushed disc in her neck diagnosed and operated on, and she was finally relieved of the constant pain and could start recovering the use of her arm. > > Ten years. Ten years WITH INSURANCE that she was paying premiums for, paying for a service which systematically denied her diagnosis and treatment and physical therapy and such things that would have prevented her from becoming disabled in the first place if she had received them in a timely manner. Ten years of periodically ending up in the emergency room in the middle of the night to get a shot of cortisone to relieve the unremitting pain of something which required surgery but which her insurance wouldn’t even let her find out what it was, much less take care of it. Not until she was in the hands of the government-supplied health care coverage was she able to do so and start being a relatively productive member of society again. > > That is fucked up. Now she’s firmly within the stupid “doughnut hole” that Bush put into the system so that people who need more care can’t get it until they go completely bankrupt. > > I wish I could move her here. 82 now These cases are representative by the way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-proven-right-government-tricks-beautiful-young-mom-imposes-1st-death-panel-verdict/535888.md?page=52)