Healthcare poll #2

[JSE 1]

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I did not know this gentleman. I am curious. Why was an active jumper without health insurance? Why did he wait until his illness was life threatening to get treatment?

Very good post by Andy9o8.

I just want to add that its not just middle aged folks. I'm in my late 20's and have struggled with similar issues. I was employed by a large company through which I had health insurance. I was laid off in late 2009. I stayed on cobra for a while, but it was extremely expensive, something like 5-600 a month for a health, then 27 year old. Very hard to pay that when unemployed. When it became clear that there were no new jobs that I could jump into right away I decided to pull my self up by the bootstraps and start my own business. When I went to get my own healthcare plan, I was turned down by every single insurer except one. The reason - I had seen a chiropractor on 3 previous occasions more than a year before for neck pain. I even provided the insurance companies with a letter from the chiropractor stating that there was no long-term or chronic problem. Nevertheless I was deemed to have a preexisting condition and was uninsurable. The one company that agreed to insure me made me pay an extra 30% on my premium because of this preexisting condition. to be clear, there was nothing wrong. I was totally healthy.

About a year later I went to see my primary care doctor when I got sick. He spent 10 minutes with me and gave me a strep test. The bill was more than $400 dollars. My insurance reduced the cost a bit, but it was still expensive. If that one company had not agreed to cover me I would be in big trouble. It is ludicrous that a healthy young man like myself is denied coverage because he once took advantage of his prior coverage. Its is ludicrous that I have to pay extra to the one company that would sell me a policy. It is ludicrous that costs are so out of control that a strep test that costs $2 to purchase ended up costing me hundreds. The system is broken. Say what you want about the approach that congress took when it passed the new law. At least they did something. I was pretty close to having no insurance, and what I have is almost unaffordable and the coverage is terrible. From where I'm sitting it can't get much worse.

[wmw999 2,123]

More anecdotal evidence. A friend's mother is 58 or so; she lost her with-insurance job, and found a part-time job that paid better than unemployment. While she was waiting to qualify for the insurance waiting period, she developed multiple myeloma.

Now obviously she's uninsurable; she's also out of work after a few months, because she missed too much work. She's lucky, though -- Houston has a large medical center, and she's taking part in a clinical trial that she's responding well to.

But hoping for a relevant clinical trial is NOT a health care system.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[airdvr 197]

You're all getting a bit closer to the real problem with our health care system..cost. ACA misses the mark by a mile. Medical profession, insurers, and lawyers are what needs to change, and until you address the issue of cost you're fighting a losing battle.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[wlsc 0]

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You're all getting a bit closer to the real problem with our health care system..cost. ACA misses the mark by a mile. Medical profession, insurers, and lawyers are what needs to change, and until you address the issue of cost you're fighting a losing battle.

A National Health Service means no insurers, no lawyers and reduced costs. Check it out.

[popsjumper 2]

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You're all getting a bit closer to the real problem with our health care system..cost. ACA misses the mark by a mile. Medical profession, insurers, and lawyers are what needs to change, and until you address the issue of cost you're fighting a losing battle.

THIS^
You guys saying "go to the emergency room" maybe have no idea of costs involved.

Had a problem and went to an emergency care clinic:
$350 including treatment.

Same problem a week later and 2.5 hours in the emergency room of a hospital: over $4000. This is for the facility only not the treatment.


Yes, I'm stupid to have gone to the emergency room.

I'll never go to another emergency room...not even to die.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[Gravitymaster 0]

The solution is easy. The government needs to step in and tell the hospitals what they can charge for services. They also need to raise taxes on these wealthy doctors and hospitals.

[wmw999 2,123]

You're right; cost is teh real problem. I'm not sure ACA misses the mark by a mile, but the real issue to me is that the cost of "standard" medical care has outpaced the ability of many (including insurance companies) to pay for it. Especially with many Americans' crappy eating and health habits.

I heard an interview with an ER nurse; she said that if you eliminated effects of poor eating, smoking, and overdrinking, it'd eliminate a very significant amount of their business.

Companies are putting up the cost of insurance because the cost of healthcare keeps going up. It's not that doctors are making that much more, or doing that much less. It's how we deliver it. Every doctor's office wants to have that Xray, MRI, etc so that patients don't have to inconvenience themselves. That's overhead. All the advertising is a significant overhead on the cost of drugs. Yeah, the defensive testing is overhead. But also, just the increasingly technical nature of treatment drives cost up.

We used to go get a cast at the GP's office for a simple break. I've driven someone to the hospital with a broken leg from the DZ. Any more, anything more serious than a sprain requires an ambulance (all of which are ALS), or Life Flight.

Those guys who keep taking the ambulance to the ER should be given taxi cards that the city pays for. It'd be infinitely cheaper.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[airdvr 197]

Agreed. The insurers and providers have had a wink and nod agreement for too long. The medical providers know what % of their bill the insurer will cover, so what's owed gets artificially jacked up. The insurer pays a fraction of the bill and the provider gets to claim a loss on the rest, even if it's only a paper loss. I'll bet it's been a long time since most provider business paid income taxes.

This is an area I would welcome government involvement. I haven't seen anything like that in ACA.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[airdvr 197]

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The solution is easy. The government needs to step in and tell the hospitals what they can charge for services. They also need to raise taxes on these wealthy doctors and hospitals.

I agree with the first part. My stepdaughter is just completing a 5 year residency for orthopaedic surgery. She turned 30 this year. She's been in school her entire life. Anyone who can do a 4year undergraduate, 4 year med school, 5 year residency, and a 1 year fellowship deserves to be paid and paid well.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[RonD1120 58]

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I did not know this gentleman. I am curious. Why was an active jumper without health insurance? Why did he wait until his illness was life threatening to get treatment?

It doesn't always work that way. For example, take a middle-aged person who has a gap in his health insurance because he gets laid off, it's a small company so it doesn't have to offer COBRA (which is still plenty expensive) and he has so many urgent bills to try to stay on top of, and so little cash on hand, that he doesn't immediately buy himself a private health insurance policy (which is expensive if it's even halfway decent; the cheap ones are complete shit). During that gap, he has a health issue like, say, a mild heart attack, or prostate cancer or something like that.

At that point, the US health insurance industry deems him "uninsurable" - due to his now-pre-existing condition - for a period of about 7 years, during which no private health insurer will sell him a policy no matter how much he tries to get one. So if he doesn't get re-employed at a job that provides health insurance, he's simply shit-outta-luck, period. And you know how easy it is for a laid-off middle aged person to get another full time job with benefits these days.

This is the kind of crack that people can, and do, fall through in the US that does not exist for people in every other industrialized nation in the world. Instead, we pour good money after bad into Iraq, Afghanistan (Vietnam? Hello?) and a bloated military, which doesn't make us one whit safer in our homes than if it was half its current size, all in the laughingly euphemistic name of "defense".

There is absolutely no moral, much less practical, excuse for it. Forget what liberals might say about it; conscientious conservatives should be outraged that their heartfelt values are being corruptly invoked, and their pockets are being picked, to perpetuate this.

Excellent explanation and I have no problem with what you state.

My question concerned the specific example "phantom." It appeared from the post that he could afford to jump and chose not to purchase insurance.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[popsjumper 2]

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OK, some 70+ % of respondents here have healthcare and think freeloaders should pay up.

So what should be done about freeloaders.

Two options?
1. Those who have healthcare
2. Freeloaders?

Well, I guess you are free to write a poll however you see fit and that's fine.

I've changed my mind about socialized medicine. I'm ashamed to say that it took personal experience with the medical world to do it but there you have it.

Freeloaders wouldn't apply in a world of socialized medicine. That is of course, unless you want to rail against those who can not work and pay into it in some way.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[kallend 1,632]

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I've changed my mind about socialized medicine. I'm ashamed to say that it took personal experience with the medical world to do it but there you have it.

.

Care to elaborate?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Gravitymaster 0]

The problem is those of us who are responsible and have our own health insurance don't like to be told we have to participate in a government program. We know all too well that all the crap being spread about how wonderful everything will be is just plain old Bullshit. The government makes this same old tired out pathetic sales pitch every time it wants weak-minded people to buy into something. We also know that as soon as it gets off to a start the limp-wristed liberals are going to start claiming that poor people just can't afford the premiums and that the rest of us will have to subsidize them, once again, just like we always end up doing. Sorry, not buying the BS this time around.

[DanG 1]

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The problem is those of us who are responsible and have our own health insurance don't like to be told we have to participate in a government program.

Which part of the ACA requires you, the insured, to participate in a government program?

- Dan G

[rushmc 18]

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The problem is those of us who are responsible and have our own health insurance don't like to be told we have to participate in a government program.

Which part of the ACA requires you, the insured, to participate in a government program?

The part where, in a few years, the fine is so big, no one will be able to afford not to. Unless you are rich like Buffet

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[DanG 1]

There is no fine if you have insurance, which GravityMaster claims that all "responsible" people have. Where in the law are insured people required to participate in a government program?

- Dan G

[rushmc 18]

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There is no fine if you have insurance, which GravityMaster claims that all "responsible" people have. Where in the law are insured people required to participate in a government program?

The result of the law will make this happen by default

There will be very litle private insurance in a few years

ACA makes sure of that

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2012/03/29/paul-hsieh-obamacares-other-infringements/

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

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As Dr. Donald Berwick [11] (President Obama’s former head of Medicare) once noted:

The primary function of regulation in health care, especially as it affects the quality of medical care, is to constrain decentralized, individualized decision making.

In other words, restricting physicians’ freedom to practice is not some “unintended consequence” of ObamaCare, but rather an explicitly desired goal.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

It continues

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The decline has already started. Aetna has pulled out of the individual insurance market in Colorado and Indiana and out of the small-group market in Michigan. The Iowa-based Principal Financial Group stopped selling health insurance entirely, leaving 840,000 people without coverage. And Unicare has stopped selling policies in Virginia.

Once the private insurance market has been destroyed, Americans will be forced to buy their health insurance on government-run “exchanges” where the government decides which health services should or should not be covered.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

Anyone who can do a 4year undergraduate, 4 year med school, 5 year residency, and a 1 year fellowship deserves to be paid and paid well.

[DanG 1]

Creating multiple responses quoting the same article? Are you trying to make it look like you are using multiple sources, instead of just the "ruthfullyspeaking" piece?

And yes, I will address the content when I have a minute to read the whole article.

- Dan G

[rushmc 18]

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Creating multiple responses quoting the same article? Are you trying to make it look like you are using multiple sources, instead of just the "ruthfullyspeaking" piece?

And yes, I will address the content when I have a minute to read the whole article.

Dozens of news links doing a google search
This was just one that had some good examples and points

As for my pupose?

Well, I am wondering if you need to get some anger managment help .....

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kallend 1,632]

Well, Marc,

RIGHT NOW you are paying (by a very inefficient process) to support freeloaders like Mary Brown.

How would you go about dealing with that situation? Let her die?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[rushmc 18]

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Well, Marc,

RIGHT NOW you are paying (by a very inefficient process) to support freeloaders like Mary Brown.

How would you go about dealing with that situation? Let her die?

She would not be allowed to die today

So what we have is better than any of your choices

But under Obamacare the gov would decide

An orgasmic solution for you

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln