Health Care Reform - the morning after

[divideandconquer]

^^ There is something wrong here. Since when does ABC and the like give sooo much air time/platform to griping civilians? That is, unless it further some kind of agenda.

I think it's the whole problem-reaction-solution...

They need us to want/need/demand/crave the ACA, cherish the ACA, because that's the only way it's really going to work to their advantage. Right now, that's not the case. So, now that Trump's in office, they're threatening to dismantle it, eliminate it and replace it with something so horrific that "we, the pests" will eventually get down on our knees and beg for it back. Of course, when they finally give it back, the ACA will be even more invasive, more controlling, more whatever...

Problem: substitution of horrific healthcare "reform" ---> Reaction: Anger, panic, fear ----> Solution: The ACA, bigger and better than ever

[Iamwhomiam]

You really have to hand it to the insurance industry and their lobbyists for convincing everyone they need health insurance. No one needs health insurance, they need healthcare, which should be free to all.

Physicians should submit an invoice to the treasury monthly for adequate compensation for the particular skills their training provides the patients under their care.

That's how you shrink government bureaucracy while guaranteeing a mostly pleased, mostly working-class populace.

Healthcare insurance should not exist. (Study the history of the Protective [Assurance] Insurance industry.) But in that it does, it should be restrained from Free-Market practices like setting prices as high as the market will bear - as they always do.

[Elvis]

You really have to hand it to the insurance industry and their lobbyists for convincing everyone they need health insurance.

It's the elephant in the room.

[DrEvil]

A friend of the family had a visitor from the US a few years ago. The visitor fell and broke her ankle, and then insisted for several days that she'd only twisted it and that she was fine and didn't need to see a doctor. It soon became pretty obvious that she wasn't fine and her friend eventually forced her to see a doctor.

Turned out she'd been pretty sure it was broken all along, but she was terrified of the medical bill (she didn't have travel insurance) and decided to just "tough it out" and walk around on a broken ankle until she got back to the US. She started crying when her friend finally managed to convince her that it wouldn't cost her a dime to get it fixed here.

When people are more afraid of the financial cost than the medical condition itself something is seriously fucked up. The health insurance industry needs to die in a fire.

[norton ash]

Hey, I ALWAYS get out-of-country coverage when I go to the States. Too many tales of Canucks getting bankrupted because of a bad accident in the USA.

[Elvis]

A friend of the family had a visitor from the US a few years ago. The visitor fell and broke her ankle, and then insisted for several days that she'd only twisted it and that she was fine and didn't need to see a doctor. It soon became pretty obvious that she wasn't fine and her friend eventually forced her to see a doctor.

Turned out she'd been pretty sure it was broken all along, but she was terrified of the medical bill (she didn't have travel insurance) and decided to just "tough it out" and walk around on a broken ankle until she got back to the US. She started crying when her friend finally managed to convince her that it wouldn't cost her a dime to get it fixed here.

When people are more afraid of the financial cost than the medical condition itself something is seriously fucked up. The health insurance industry needs to die in a fire.

Hey, I ALWAYS get out-of-country coverage when I go to the States. Too many tales of Canucks getting bankrupted because of a bad accident in the USA.

These posts nicely illustrate the barbarity of the U.S. health care system.

I was blind with cataracts and it took me about 18 months of serious trying to finally get my eyesight back. In an examination room, one private-practice opthalmologist actually laughed as he told me that if I "won the lottery or something" I should get the $16,000 surgery done. He accepted Medicare patients at the roughly 50% reimbusement rate—$8k instead of $16K—but never offered me any discount. His accountant offered me Chase Bank financing. The offhand laugh btw cost him $70, the balance on his $180 fee to look through his fundus camera and laugh at me.

Finally I was directed by an alert and conscientious state worker to an obscure program for cases like mine, and I had the cataract surgery done at no cost. However, I had to rush the process because the Republican legislature had already de-funded most of the program and scheduled it for shutdown.

(Another interesting thing about that doctor visit was his amazement that I wasn't on any prescription medicines for anything. He asked three times, "and no medications?" with a look of surprise and wonder.)


More recently, my state's administration of the ACA (the 'gold standard' they say) made it possible for me to get new teeth that I couldn't otherwise afford as a Murkin living in Murka. That turned me around to a degree regarding 'Obamacare'—I see it now more as the 'baby step' to properly socialized health care. A good friend was despairing over his teeth, and I told him to hurry and do what I did, because the barbarians will soon be pulling the rug out.

[DrEvil]

Hey, I ALWAYS get out-of-country coverage when I go to the States. Too many tales of Canucks getting bankrupted because of a bad accident in the USA.

Same here. Passport and visa, sure, why not. Travel insurance - hell yes.

Thankfully I never had to see a doctor in the States, but I went to a dentist once. Spent over an hour filling out forms detailing my medical history and that of my family, then five minutes in the chair.

That's another thing that's fucked up: since everything is run by private companies everyone is trigger happy with the lawsuits, so everyone ends up spending idiotic amounts of time on covering all their bases instead of just getting on with it.

I'm not sure how it works in other countries with socialized medicine, but here (Norway) there are standardized payouts if the hospital fucks up. You can't sue a public hospital/the government for one bazillion dollars, you get a standard sum based on various factors like the severity of the screw-up etc. That way no one is terrified of being sued, but you still get a reasonable payout if they mess up (and the public hospitals don't go bankrupt they just get shut down anyway by the conservative fuckers currently running the show because some fucking pencil-pusher in Oslo decided they weren't cost-effective enough and rural people who don't vote conservative anyway will be just fine having to go on a two hour ambulance ride to the next closest hospital because that always works out just fine except when it doesn't but that same fucking pencil-pusher has a spreadsheet that shows that the negative outcomes are acceptable compared to the savings they will make which will of course be invested wisely in consultants who will tell them that they can save even more money by outsourcing all the critical software functions to some company that doesn't give a fuck because they're on the other side of the planet and just want to milk that sweet sweet government teat for all it's worth while laughing all the way to the bank while local government employed developers who are intimately familiar with the systems in question and who speak the language the systems are using and who can sign non-disclosures for patient information that is actually enforceable are downsized because it's heresy that the government does something competently that the public sector can fuck up for half the price and twice the kickbacks). *deep breath*

Did I mention I hate my current government? Despite their best efforts things still work well, but I can't wait for them to be gone before they do permanent damage. Many of them seriously believe that a US-style system would be better.