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Let me explain why that makes no sense. B/c where does it end? If we are talking about making everyone's life the healthiest and longest possible, do we stop at primary care? Emergency care? Specialist care? Everyone gets a trainer? Everyone gets a chef/nutritionist? Where does personal responsibility start and govt-paid programs end?
I agree with you - it is literally impossible to equalize the standards of care for everyone in this country. While a laudable goal stated by some, it cannot happen.
It just sickens me and ticks me off when ignorance, propoganda and FEAR block something that could be so good for this country and it's people!! You're all standing in your own way for no good reason
The problem today is that people cannot get insurance at any price due to pre-existing conditions, even if those conditions have no impact on your health or life expectancy. A routine colonoscopy found a benign poplup which was removed. Done, no further needs, health issues, etc, yet many insurance companies have turned me down flat.
Others were talking $2,000.00 to $2,500.00 a month in premiums. The wife had successful back surgery 7 years ago, and no insurance company will touch her, at any price. She went back to work simply for the health care coverage it provides as we didn't have any other choices. Fortunately she got a sweet job she likes and had held years ago, and got a very nice boost in income due to her experience, which has softened the blow.
We don't need her income, but we must have the health care coverage it provides. If we could buy it on the open market at a fair price, as younger person supporting a family could have her job.
I expect to have to pay for coverage, at a fair price, and that I can get coverage without conditions. That is all that is needed in this in this country, and it won't happen until some major changes are made. The insurance companies have had it 'their way' for far to long and 43+ million Americans are in jeopardy of loosing their life over curable diseases and conditions.
I'll sum up the person raging against health care for everyone as a younger person employed by a company that provides their health care insurance free or at a reasonable cost. They don't want to change the status quo, as it might cost them a few dollars, and they don't give a damn about the millions and millions that are locked out of the system for various reasons. These are either ignorant azzes, or just greedy bastards.
We have children dieing in this country for the lack of basic health care, and that should **** everyone off.
You're ignorant because you think a National Healthcare Plan will work. You're ignorant because you believe the Government--an entity that doesn't know its a*s from a hole in the ground--can oversee such a plan.
Change is not ignorant. Change with blinders on is.
Big Pharma and Insurance Lobbyists are what need to "Change".
Think about it.
Think about it..LOL
They will NEVER change.. because they will ALWAYS BE ABOUT PROFITS...
You're ignorant cause you're blinded by fear.. you're also under the asssumption that Gov't will be making health care decisions under a UHI..LOL.
Just ask Geero.. he's from the UK and has been a part of BOTH systems.. there is nothing about the GOVERNMENT making health decisions involved in their system..LOL
YOU however are buying the propoganda the insurance companies have been selling .. well since Reagan was a famous actor.. hook line and sinker!!
That girl who had those heart attacks.. aren't you ashamed and upset that in this country a person that is self employed is having such a hard time getting affordable coverage?? It's sickening!!!
So..since we're talking levels.. then is someone unfortunate enough not to be able to make equivelant to a mortgage payment for healthcare.. do they then deserve to "die".. because basically in some things those are the "levels" you refer too..
EVERYONE deserves the SAME HEALTHCARE regardless of the size of their wallet. No one persons life is worth more than someone else no matter if they are a billionaire or a busboy!!
Sure I do. But ~ again ~ WHO would pay for it??? Personally, I don’t think insurance for the self-employed is discounted enough.
Here’s a good guess to the results of health insurance if the uninsured received the equivalent of care as the insured:. Employers would find no reason to supply that benefit anymore. No one would personally buy it anymore. Thus the health insurance industry would die.
Perhaps this is what it would take to force a reform???
I don’t think health insurance was ever really “cheap”. In the early-70’s when I was getting prepared for the outside world, I found it odd when my mother heavily stressed the need to budget for health insurance. And I didn’t. However, back then there was a fair amount of free health clinics, which were financed by private companies; that method of ‘affordable health-care’ had died out by the end of the decade.
Not everyone ever had health insurance, either. I think I could safety guess that, even in the best of times, most businesses ~ big or small ~ didn’t provide it. I did start to notice a huge concern with rising costs in the later-80’s, and the screams have steadily risen since.
These are my theories for the failure:
1st of all ~ illegal aliens. You can’t have an estimated 12,000,000 illegals here and expect the healthcare system to not burst at the seams.
Overly-high wages for too many in the field.
Frivolous law suits, and too high awards.
Continual technology and break-throughs in the medical field, be it equipment, medicines, etc. As far as I’m concerned, Americans want to live too damn long.
Incompetent structure within the health insurance industry.
In NY I was paying $856/month for insurance for myself and my son. Husband wasn't covered because we couldn't afford him. It would be over $1,000!!
When I moved I contacted an agent who told me I should sign up with Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield. Me on a guaranteed issue for $333/month and my hubby and son medically underwritten for around $220. Total cost montly around $550. EXCELLENT.
Sent me the application. I cancelled my insurance inNY and had the application so that when I get settled in I could sign up for myself under GUARANTEE issue. Did just that. I GOT REJECTED because I'm "out of their service area!!".. WTF!!! I am SO mad at the agent. I told him my address of where i was moving too and he directed me to them. Asi t was guaranteed issue it was a no brainer.. accept he had me in the WRONG COUNTY.. WRONG PLAN.
I'm dangerously approaching 90 days (on the 15th it will be 90 days) which means I loose coverage for a whole year for my condition!! ONLY insurance that offers a guaranteed issue in my county is BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIED OF NE PA .. but they want to charge me $500/month.. AND I can't enroll as a new member until Jan 1 which means that I will loose my coverage for my pre-existing condition. I can do a "transfer" frommy previous Blue Cross plan to the new one .. oh.. but hten I'd have to pay for Oct, Nov & Dec a check for $1500!! I then have a $1,000 major medical deductable and a $250 Shield deductable.
Why don't i just BEND OVER and lube up!!!
FREE MARKETS my ASS!! I only have 1 CHOICE!!! and extremely expensive RIDICULOUS CHOICE.. BUT if I lived inthe next county over I'd be paying $550/month for a great plan offere by Blue Cross / Blue Shield.. WHY?
I HATE health insurance companies.
I wish they would ALL FAIL and go to hell!!
Bring on a UHI.. .. my health insurance shouldnt' cost me the same or MORE than my rent..
And it shoulnd't equal a mortgage payment either..
GREEDY SOB'!s
I hope Obama's plan comes and comes quickly!!
I know, health coverage here is outrageous. I was listening to NPR today & they were talking w/a woman about this, she's a farmer. She pays $1000. a month for health insurance. Her husband was stung by bees once & he had to go & get a shot. Now, even WITH her coverage, they still had to pay I believe it was $1200 or so OUT OF POCKET!!!!! For an office visit & an injection!!! Give me a break! This needs to change & it needs to change NOW!
Location: The Chatterdome in La La Land, CaliFUNia
39,031 posts, read 23,020,628 times
Reputation: 36027
Quote:
Originally Posted by TristansMommy
LOL.. healthcare costst will be driven down becvasue the U.S would be one big pool of people c ontributing to offset each other. Health Care costs would be driven down when you REMOVE the profit angle from insurance.. not to mention the adminsitrative costs of insurance (of course not all) AND lets not forget all that lobbying money they put into a) buying politicians so that you'll never see a UHI and b) buying propoganda to make the rest of you FEAR something that would be good for you . BAD for them and their profits.
BTW. YOU ARE PAYING for others healthcare in passed on cost for bills that never get paid by people who a) couldn't afford insurance and b) couldn't afford the bills when they got sick (and that includes some that actualyl DID have insurance. You're also paying for "free" healthcare for those that are on medicaid!!!
Thereis nothing FREE about a UHI.. DUH.. you pay for it through your taxes.. and in the end it would be much cheaper than paying your monthly premium..
Keep believing in the fear they want you to buy into ..they pay a lot of money to make the citizens of this country fear a UHI so that they can keep raping the rest of us for their profits
Just like the government keeps the cost of public education low. The government does not specialize in efficiency nor cost-effectiveness.
Welcome to America. You think health insurance exists so that people can neutralize the catastrophic ieffects of illness. Wrong.
Health insureance exists as a money-making scheme for huge corporation to take a substantial amount off the top of all costs of medical procedures. Their only reasin for their existence is to take your money away from you, keep some for themselves, and pay out as little as they can get away with legally on your behalf.
The nerve of those nasty insurance companies! Thank you for pointing out their diabolical scheme to make money! How un-socialist of them.
I highly encourage everyone to not put all their faith in agents and their advice. Check it out yourself. Call the insurance company yourself or the providers yourself when in doubt. That way you can make a decision on whether what's being fed to you is truth indeed or not.
TM you've made this mistake with your mortgage broker once, and it got you in hot water. You've done it again with this insurance agent. Next time, just do it yourself, or at least verify BEFORE you sign.
Hey, TM, I do know people and have had my foot in both universal and our health care (know docs/nurses/PAs/med students from many different countries around the world). THEY FREAKIN' ENVY OUR HEALTH CARE.
Maybe the local citizenry doesn't, b/c they can't see past their wallets and they don't know better. But the people who work in it do.
Hey, TM, I do know people and have had my foot in both universal and our health care (know docs/nurses/PAs/med students from many different countries around the world). THEY FREAKIN' ENVY OUR HEALTH CARE.
Maybe the local citizenry doesn't, b/c they can't see past their wallets and they don't know better. But the people who work in it do.
So please don't tell me what I do and don't know.
They envy it until they have to pay the absurd premiums ..
Everyone here loves it and thinks there is nothing wrong iwth it until they have to pay their own premiums, which are ridiculous, or they get turned down for needed treatment for something because it's not in some insurance companies bottom line's best interest
Everyone is all fine and dandy adn thinks all is well until htey come face to face with it.
What the ignoramus against UHI THINK they know, they don't..it's all BS put out there to scare you and you all for for it hook line and sinker!!
Maybe a UHI isn't perfect.. nothing is. BUT atleast no one is without treatment andfears death because they don't have a deep purse to pay for the said treatements..
AND those that would worry..in a lot of systems there is CHEAP supplemental insurance available to pick up where a UHI leaves off..I'll take that any day over the BS we have here!
I have but 1 choice for health insurance.. so much for "FREE MARKETS!!".. because I have a disease I had no part in contributing to getting beyond being bornf I will have to worry for the rest of my life wether i"m insurable or not.. or I'll have to be going broke all the time just to stay alive!!
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