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good for harvard, but the point is that their study was flawed and misinterpreted.
[SIZE=3]It's worth noting, though, that the figure from the Harvard study includes those who lost their jobs or significant income due to illness – even if they didn't cite mounting health care bills as a direct cause of their bankruptcy. That makes Daschle's specific mention of "medical bills" not quite correct, though several newspaper headlines characterized the findings that way, too[/SIZE]
FactCheck.org: What is the percentage of total personal bankruptcies caused by health care bills? (http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/what_is_the_percentage_of_total_personal.html - broken link)
p.s. And I don't even like factcheck
ANd how is that flawed or misrepresented? People lose their jobs, they can't pay for health insurance nor healthcare and it leads to bills that pile up and cause them to declare bankruptcy DUH.
In an NHS type system of Universal Coverage.. such job losses wouldn't affect the persons ability to recieve healthcare nor cause them to have to go itno bankruptcy.
BTW.. what happens when you're sick with cancer , can't work and lose your job AND lose your insurance.. that you so obviously need to keep battling your cancer... DUH.. of course people who go bankrupt have lost their jobs...... Think about it.. access to healthcare is tied to employers right now... and it shouldn't be
The foreign UHC systems being considered all have lower administrative overhead than the current US private corporate based system. Our current system is a form of welfare for the drug, hospital and insurance company executives and a massive tax on our citizens. Past time to create a UHC that provides excellent care without corporate overhead.
health insurance is a personal responsibility and not the federal goverments responsibility. if you want UHC then go someplace they have it. other countries have privilages and not rights.
no citizen in the USA should have to pay for someone elses health care, and the federal goverment should not be in the business of regulating health care either.
again.. rhetoric without even thinking about what you are saying.
Do you HEAR yourself.. I guess you just ignoredthe post that already addressed this.
NEWSFLASH: YOU are already paying for someone else's healthcare costs and guess what .. YOU ARE OVERPAYING for it,.. at INFLATED RATES.
Health insurance is all about RISK POOLS.. you pay for other people USING the health insurance
You pay medicaid/medicare taxes.. and do not get to use that service.. instead people who don't work get to use it THAT is FREE healthcare (UHI or NHS is NOT free healthcare)
YOU are paying for those who have used the system and then couldn't pay their bill when the cost is passed on to you in higher prices.
And then.. with your insurance premiums you are paying for
30% Administrative costs (as opposed to 5% Administrative costs in Medicare/Medicaid)
CEO's bloatd salaries (see the post a few pages back that shows that if the 12 heads of CEO's cut their salaries by 10% something like 35,0000 people a year could be insured for that a mount for like 5 years!!!)
Profits paid out to Shareholders
My personal favorite.. the lobbyists hired by insurance companies to make sure bills get killed in the Senate/house that would help the CITIZEN .. this to protect their "profits" and their overbloated CEO salaries
AGain.. you may want to arm yourself with some FACTS rather than regurgitating the same old tired right wing nonsene. I may be spekaing "liberal" to you. .. but atleast I have some facts and figures to back it all up.. what have you got.. NOTHING...
so instead of insurance limiting, the gov't will pull out the ol' cost efficiency chart and decide if you are worth treating.
Kind of like the movie armeggedon where COL Sharp pulls out the Official US Air Force drilling chart.
Insurance companies already do this with "cost efficiency," but their single goal is to increase profits, and not to help people get medical care. UHC may still have to turn some people away, but there won't be the big profit drain on the resources like we have now. Insurance companies wouldn't bother if there was a net loss or if they broke even, or even if there were only modest profits in the health-gambling business. UHC isn't driven by greed like insurance companies are. Think about how much of your money will again be put toward health rather than filling private Swiss bank accounts.
Your response ignores paying by force of law for others' healthcare. I even put it in bold letters so that you would notice. But the imposition of force for daily activities that should be self-directed does not bother Democrats one little bit, does it?
Please do not give in to autocratic impulses, as our current government seems to be doing daily. It is imperative that we all resist those impulses, no matter how nice those benefits would be to us as individuals.
And you conveniently ignore that you are already paying for someone else's healtchare only at much more inflated rates that's the nature of "insurance"... that and you are paying overbloated CEO's salaries and all t he other nonsense.
BTW.. car insurance is MANDATORY... forced by law.. yet no one seems to care about that..
You can say that about just about ANYTHING we pay here in the U.S (taxes..etc.).. it's a stupid nonsensical argument...
Again.. especially since you are already paying for other peopels healthcare through medicaid/medicare but aren't getting anything for it... etc.. see above post
the UK model uses cost efficiency charts to decide if you get treatment, not Doctor's medical decisions. Basically after age 60 you are screwed if you need expensive treatments, because at that age, they just aren't "cost effective" anymore.
This just ridiculous. It's really no different than how insurance works and they only deny treatment if it is in the experimental stage (which most insurance does too) or has been proven to be ineffective (which most insurance does too).
Actually, my grandmother is British, is pretty wealthy and has her own private insurance. She has NEVER used it! She is in her mid to late 80s now. Wanna talk about waiting lists in the US? People dye all the time here in the US with and without insurance on waiting lists (and I'm not even talking about organ transplant lists). My neighbor made an appointment two months ago for her son to see a neurologist. They called because they had to reschedule another two months out. So that is four months she is having to wait for a CHILD with insurance. This is in a large metro area. There are shortages of doctors all over.
But really, noone is saying, not even Obama, that we have to do it just like the UK or just like Canada, or just like the French. Most reasonable people recognize there is a big problem.
I know this is just one person but here is a great article written by a card carrying Canadian who has used the US System extensively. Read it just to get a different perspective from someone who has actually experienced it: Mythbusting Canadian Health Care -- Part I | OurFuture.org
For the record, you can't use the British and Canadians complaining about their healthcare as examples because people will complain about anything. I hear of people with great insurance complaining about doctors and the insurance company all the time.
Many on this board seem to believe that someone that lost a job and the associated insurance for medical reasons has become a "welfare" case and should be allowed to die as rapidly as possible to relieve the society of the cost of maintaining a nonproductive cripple. The only value people seem to have is their economic productivity as illustrated by their having a job that makes a profit for their employer. This ‘everybody must work and continuously strive to make more and more” makes the most tyrannical communist regime seen absolutely benign by comparison.
The worth of a society is not measured by the “power” of its military, number of its billionaires, glitz of its gambling halls but by how well it takes care of the halt, lame and insane. We have failed at the latter.
The foreign UHC systems being considered all have lower administrative overhead than the current US private corporate based system. Our current system is a form of welfare for the drug, hospital and insurance company executives and a massive tax on our citizens. Past time to create a UHC that provides excellent care without corporate overhead.
Thanks GregW Awesome post.
These people don't get it . Instead of looking and reading about it themselves and actually THINKING about it they are going straight for the party lines!
The foreign UHC systems being considered all have lower administrative overhead than the current US private corporate based system. Our current system is a form of welfare for the drug, hospital and insurance company executives and a massive tax on our citizens. Past time to create a UHC that provides excellent care without corporate overhead.
Yeah governments do all that for free...
I can't believe you folks would rather have a politician get your medical information and decipher it for you then to just talk to the doctor himself/herself. We all know how politicians look out for the little man. No one makes better choices for yourself than you and you alone. You allow a politician to make those decisions and you officially converted the health carer system into the High School popularity contest. It should be very clear to everyone that you can hire government or corporations, both have the same results. I know it's crazy but people really do look out for themselves despite their swagger or their affiliations in government or industry. The only thing that used to keep those in check were consumer power. Take away the freedom of choice and watch your power as a consumer disappear into a black hole.
Many on this board seem to believe that someone that lost a job and the associated insurance for medical reasons has become a "welfare" case and should be allowed to die as rapidly as possible to relieve the society of the cost of maintaining a nonproductive cripple. The only value people seem to have is their economic productivity as illustrated by their having a job that makes a profit for their employer. This ‘everybody must work and continuously strive to make more and more” makes the most tyrannical communist regime seen absolutely benign by comparison.
The worth of a society is not measured by the “power” of its military, number of its billionaires, glitz of its gambling halls but by how well it takes care of the halt, lame and insane. We have failed at the latter.
That's one of the biggest party lines available. What do you consider COBRA (http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/health-plans/cobra.htm - broken link) and unemployment if not a form of welfare?
Why do you think COBRA (http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/health-plans/cobra.htm - broken link) cost so much to people?
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