Crap, this is so sad I don’t really have the heart to address it. We’re all standing around waiting for you to put one in the net but you can’t. You just keep missing. The goalie has moved out of the way, the net is wide open. You’re just standing there panting, screaming that you’re the best, but the puck goes no where.
Again, the person you describe is exactly opposite of what you thought. So now what are you left with? All of your opinions were based on faulty assumptions. I’ve spent 17 pages trying to tell you your assumptions are wrong. You are free to your opinions, but if you someone shows you that your assumptions are wrong, why bother holding on to the opinion?
It is my opinion that my deck is 14ft high, because I assume the posts are 14ft long, I heard once that posts are 14ft long. If someone shows me repeatedly that the post are NOT 14ft long, should I maintain my 14ft high deck opinion?
Someone up thread mentioned this, but Imma say it again. I am the government that you keep railing against, telling me how I can’t do a good job providing service and that I am incapable of making reasonable decisions. I posted a question to you a few pages ago…I know I am invisible to most people, but could you scroll back, find it, and respond. If not, I will know that you don’t understand the differences between public and private organizations.
PS. Starving, you had promised in the past to caveat your posts as opinions without any factual support. I remember this, so I take everything you post as bullshit unless cites are provided. Also, your dumbassery has made it to my local paper in the form of an uninformed letter to the editor and now I am very sad.
PPS: I am 40+, am I too young and liberal to know anything?
You mean the way the guy who can’t afford insurance and makes too much for Medicaid who dies because he never gets a heart bypass consoles himself with the fact that at least we don’t have that evil, evil UHC? Yeah, if my father had had his heart attack and quad bypass during the period we didn’t have insurance, that sure as shit would have made our whole family feel a whole lot better. And just for the record, he wouldn’t have laid in a hospital bed waiting for that bypass he wasn’t gonna get–we couldn’t have afforded it. They would have sent him home to die.
The same way that the woman in your OP would have been sent home to die if she had initially had the same income she has now. There wouldn’t be any fuss about her Medicaid being canceled…because she would have never been eligible for the program in the first place. She would have been too poor to get health insurance on her own, but not poor enough to get help from the government, and her projected bills would be too high to get help from a church or other charity, even if she were poor enough to qualify for help from them. She would have died, and nobody but her loved ones would ever have noticed or given a shit, just like the other millions of people who die for lack of health care in this country every year. This story is not notable because a young parent with a devastating disease was going without the health care necessary to save her life, it happens every damn day in this country. It’s only notable because she lost the coverage that was providing her health care.
That’s the big disconnect here–you cannot simultaneously argue that the government should do whatever is necessary to re-enroll this woman in Medicaid because letting her die is unconscionable and say “Fuck you, I got mine” to the millions of other people who are dying for lack of health care in this nation. If letting her die is wrong, letting all the rest of them die is equally as wrong. That is why people support UHC. Not because of age or income or political leanings, but because we believe letting people die for lack of health care is a deplorable state of affairs. Better for me to wait a few months for joint replacement or gallbladder removal than for someone, anyone to not get cardiac bypass.
There are three options for any government program
Some regulations on who is elligible and for what reason
No regulations on who is elligible and for what reason
No program whatsoever
That’s it. You have those three choices. And 100% of all government programs in existence fall into category 1. Those that don’t exist? They’re in category 3.
So what happened in the case? A woman was on a government program with regulations and she moved past the area in which she is elligible for that program. Now, you COULD argue that we should solve this by moving the entire thing into category #3. Get rid of the program altogether. That would fall into line more with your thinking. It would also leave this “beautiful, young mom” to die, one way or other other.
But you didn’t argue that.
Here’s what you argued:
As many many many many many people have said before me, what you’re arguing for is UHC. Your own answers show that what you’re looking for is a health care program with no elligibility requirements and no way to get kicked off for a beaurocratic SNAFU. That’s UHC! That’s what every other First World country has! Universal means everyone. You don’t get kicked off for being too rich. You don’t get kicked off for being too poor. You don’t get kicked off for being too beautiful. You just have health care.
Oh and your argument about rationing care? Why does everyone always go for the heart transplant argument? Seriously, why? That’s such a ridiculous argument.
Do you know the ONLY country in the world who has an organ supply to meet demands?
I’ll give you a clue. It’s not the UK, or Canada, or France and it’s sure as shit not the USA where thousands of people die every single year because we MUST ration care (seriously, you think we have enough organs out there to meet demand? What the hell are you smoking?)
No. Here’s the answer
It’s Iran. I-fucking-ran-so-far-away. And why? Because they pay the organ donees for their organs to increase supply and demand is met. Every single other country out there rations care for organ transplants.
As if corporate bureaucracy were any better. You’re astoundingly naive if you think so. If anything, the behemoths of the private health care industry are worse on that point!
I’ve received my fair share of compliments while on these Boards. Compliments, kudos, plaudits, restraining orders…but nothing, nothing! like this pearl of laudatory prose. Obama may have his trifle of Norwegian honors, Tiger Woods his divorce filings, but what are they? Nothing, I say, nothing next to such a recognition from the most reckless, feckless, and utterly gormless Doper evah!
Alas! It is not so, and I know it. How can I lead, if none follow? Who would need my help to outsmart a bowl of jello? I find, to my surprise, that a scrap of shriveled modesty yet remains, despite my best attempts to exterminate. I cannot accept this thunderous compliment, however much I may crave the jealousy and envy it is sure to arouse.
But it would be wrong to fail acknowledgment! So, here, a hearty and cheerful “Fuck you!” to yourself, sir, and the horse upon in which you rode!
There is central planning when it comes to rules, regulations and red tape. This is why what happened to Diana Smith happened to her and why she was powerless to do anything about it, even though the solution under normal circumstances would be exceedingly simple. That is what I mean by central planning, it is by necessity a one-size-fits-all approach and leaves no room for adjustment or problem-solving on a case-by-case basis. And whenever someone’s personal situation or problems fall outside those pre-set and inflexible government standards, it’s just too damn bad for that particular someone. This is along the line of what’s meant by “death panels”. Government functionaries look at a person’s situation, compare it with what the manual says, and if their condition or circumstances fall outside the functionary’s interpretation of what the manual says, or what it may actually say, the supplicant is told in effect to go pound sand.
“But, but, but”…I hear you sputter, “insurance companies have regulations and functionaries. What about them?”.
The answer is that: a.) insurance companies still have to keep their policy-holders relatively happy lest they lose their customoer base. The government has no such concerns; b.) other insurance companies exist, so other insurance options exist; c.) insurance companies are answerable to insurance commissions and courts of law; and d.) private care can still be obtained by raising the necessary funds oneself. Again, this option doesn’t hold sway with regard to government care, and the more government care there is, the less private care becomes available due to shrinkage of the customer base and the need to compete with an entity that doesn’t have to show a profit.
a.) We have virtually no say in how things are “set up”. Congress’ 16% approval rate and the fact that so many of our politicians are quaking in their boots about the coming elections due to the health care bill and so-called stimulus package are proof enough of that; and b.) he who pays the bills calls the shots. If you think your government has no say in who gets what care, and when, you are sadly mistaken.
Yes, it is. Nothing remains static, and what it gravitates to consists of a slippery slope. We may disagree on the eventual outcome of that slippery slope, but there always is one.
BWAHAHAHA! We certainly haven’t! And the more government has gotten involved in it over the last four or five decades, the worse it has become.
More nonsense from inside the Starkers bubble. 70% of people with insurance get it through their employer, and have no choice of who their provider is.
That is a meaningless statistic because everybody hates the other guy’s Congressman/Senator, but are pretty satisfied with their own. That’s why incumbents have an advantage. If they didn’t, you would never see them get reelected. Ergo, you are wrong again.
I love that because **SA **can devise an insanely retarded government system, that means that any UHC we have would obviously be run just like that, so *of course *UHC is a terrible idea.
Hey, SA! Guess what! When you post on the internet, someone might hack your computer and fill it with child porn. And then report you to the FBI. And cover their tracks so perfectly that you’ll never be able to exonerate yourself. So you’ll spend the rest of your life in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. So GOD DAMN MAN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING SHUT THAT COMPUTER DOWN RIGHT NOW. In fact, unplug it. And don’t just unplug it–throw it out the window.
They can quit their jobs and find another employer with better coverage, then, if they weren’t such lazy hippie-raised Canadian-warped fuckbags, too fat and soft to quit their jobs when it matters most…damn liberals…
What? They’re forced at gunpoint to purchase their employer’s plan? And their employer is forced at gunpoint to keep the company it is currently with? And what? People are forced at gunpoint not to seek care when they need it and pay for it themselves.
The fact of the matter is that insurance companies have to compete for business like everyone else not a government agency. And the lion’s share of the money they take in goes back out again to pay for people’s care.
Certainly there are cases of insurance company malfeasance, but they are relatively rare compared with the number of claims filed and could be dealt with legislatively.
No, it isn’t. Your entire premise is wrong. The fact that people like their own guy who brings home the pork in no way correlates to how good a job they think Congress is doing in running the country. Apples and oranges, I’m afraid.
And now that the time has come when I have to accept that real life work must take precedence over arguing with people who are wrong on the internet, I must bid you all adieu for now…even Shot From Guns, who for reasons known only to her is back posting inanities to this message board instead of out throwing up on people she disagrees with.
Awesome! There are no monetary eligibility rules in a UHC system. Each person is entitled to the same care, no matter how much money they earn.
Yes, indeed someone would have had to break some rules in order to get this woman care. She made too much money to be eligible under the rules. You’re not allowed to “give earned money back” in order to slip under the limit to qualify - that is fraud. If someone lets her keep her eligibility even though she made too much money … that is breaking the rules. If all proper rules were followed, this woman would NEVER have gotten care. Rules were broken to get her the care she needed.
The question is… Why do you think SHE deserved special consideration, when tons of other people who make just a little too much over the limit get no special treatment, and get no healthcare?
Then why were you so hepped up about making sure that she got into a program of government care to save her life?
I’d like to introduce you to what we like to call “the real world”. In this world, in government or in a private business like insurance, there have to be policies in place. In neither situation (public or private) can we have a system where policies are just made up on the spot, depending on how sympathetic (or beautiful) the customer is.
The obvious problem in the situation in you OP is NOT that people followed stupid rules. The problem was that THE RULES THEMSELVES ARE STUPID.
Having an income cutoff for healthcare, and saying that if you are $1 above this limit you get no care IS STUPID.
Woah, there. It’s not so easy. This way our health care system works quite drastically favors group over individual health insurance: the requirements are more restrictive; it’s far more expensive ceteris paribus; individual premia are not tax deductible. For all practical purposes you really are stuck with what your employer offers, no matter how much you, personally, dislike the plan(s).
