Health care wanting
I have never before been a supporter of “socialized medicine,” but we certainly need a major improvement in our health-care system. First of all, get the pharmaceutical companies and health-care providers out of the profit market — that’s totally insane to put profits above the health of American citizens. Additionally, stop providing free care to illegals.
Health care is one of the greatest concerns of most Americans today. I heard a story recently on Good Morning America about Blue Cross of California denying benefits for a young college student going blind.
Our whole country seems to be motivated only by profits at the expense of the average hard-working American. I would like to see the day when the opinions of voting Americans are actually listened to and acted upon.
Barbara Green, Denver
Barbara
I am one of those with substandard health care. Why do you want to slow or stop the search for new drugs and treatments? Profit is the fuel that runs that machine.
What is wrong with health care in this country is the total separation between the paitent, the payer and the provider.
It's like going to a restaurant where there are no prices on the menu. Some people can afford to do that especially if they are using a company credit card. Most of us can't afford that but we go along paying insurance co-pays that may or may not be higher than an actual doctor's visit paid for in cash. Some have discovered this through the new clinics at Wal-Mart which, combined with their 4 dollar prescriptions have brought health care within the reach of almost everyone. Notable feature here is that the cost is posted for all to see, not hidden in an insurance statement. And I can use my insurance co-pay there when my insurance doctor is too busy.
If we need to reform health care lets do it right. Create Medical Savings Accounts and give tax breaks, without a minmum floor, for medical expenses. Let the poor have the accounts along with the catastrophic health care insurance. This will provide insurance for all citizens and make it a great deal more difficult for illegals to use the health care system and reamain undetected as everyone who is legal will have an account.
Savings abound in health care but too often people have no incentive to find them.
I can buy my prescription medications for about fifteen dollars less on the internet than at my HMO's pharmacy but they have a fit when I ask for a prescription and the co-pay is higher if I do it that way. I can find alternatives to hospital based tests but my insurance won't pay the lower prices. Those that have no insurance have clinics available in every city with sliding pay scales starting at free.
Don't wreck health care just to display an anti-capitalism agenda. Fix it by adding capitalism, self-reliance and personal responsibility to the system.
momma y
Fix it by adding capitalism, self-reliance and personal responsibility to the system.
this statement doesnt fit with the lefts agenda as it is their responsibility to take care of everyone.
Glad you found a way to meet your needs and I wish everyone else would also.
All this talk about self reliance and medical savings accounts. What you two don't address are what to do with people who have chronic diseases through no fault of their own. My 12 year old has juvenile Type 1 diabetes (never to be confused with Type 2). My husband's first cancer scare came at age 21 - he died almost 30 years later from the same cancer. Insurance companies do not like insuring people like my husband and daughter. My premium through work is almost $500 per month..copays are about $150 -200 per month. This is WITH health insurance and I have to continue to argue with the company to cover certain expenses. My daughter did not choose to have diabetes. There is no cure for Type 1 diabetes. She is uninsurable on the free capitalistic market for a reasonable amount that won't bankrupt me. What does she do when she is an adult? Die?
Posted by cheryl on June 28, 2007 07:13 AMmomma y
How does one assume personal responsibility when they're experiencing a Heart Attack? How do I shop around for the cheapest hospital?
You complain about the current system but refuse to see the solution is to remove the profit motive from the industry.
It is the Insurance Companies that were guarenteed a market by Richard Nixon 30 years ago that have demonstrated the last 3 decades why for-profit medicine doesn't work.
Your allegiance to conservative ideology is blinding you to the real reasons for the suffering you are experiencing in our current for-profit medical industry.
Posted by Todd on June 28, 2007 07:46 AMIt is also interesting that India has foreigners from other countries come to their state of the art medical facilities, get joint replacement and other surgeries where patients have their own private nurse 24-7 with doctors trained in the US, have less "down time", visit the country and come home for a cost that is labout a third of the same surgery for US facilities and doctors. These people use their savings to pay cash instead of using US medical facilities when insurance won't cover their expenses. My father in law is a retired chief of staff of a local major Denver metro hospital. He believes that the insurance industry has us running toward a universal health care system.
Posted by cheryl on June 28, 2007 07:55 AMIf you compare health care among all the industrialized countries, we pay by far the most but the results we get are near the bottom in virtually every category. Isn't something wrong with this picture?
Posted by Docjay on June 28, 2007 08:19 AMDocjay, there is alot wrong with this picture.We Americans who are fortunate to have health insurance get shoddy care and what we get is outrageous bills.
In a free market country you can shop for the best deals.Shop for the best quality for goods and services.
However in the medical field it's hard to shop around and you don't know if the Dr. that does surgery on you is any good. If he messes up you still get the bill. You can't get a refund for shoddy workmanship.
Even going to a PCP can be a rip off.
I went to a Dr.'s office one time with a swollen foot. I had no idea how I got it. It was painful to walk and had pain in the middle of my foot shooting pain up my leg.
So the Dr' comes in sits 3 ft. from me asks me some questions. Never looks or touches,or comes near my foot and says,gee I don't know what it is. There is nothing I can do.
I was really ticked at his demeanor. I told him I wanted my co-pay back and don't even try billing my insurance company.So I got my co-pay back and walked out.
We have the quanity and all the medical advancements,we do not have the quality in this country. That is the problem.
If you have insurance or not .There are no guarantees of of good Dr.'s or service.
Posted by Can I get an AMEN! on June 28, 2007 09:42 AMInsurance companies are the problem, not the solution.
Posted by Tbone on June 28, 2007 10:01 AMCheryl, Todd and others,
I have had 4 heart attacks and have diabetes with stage 4 kidney disease. I DO know about many of the failings of our present system. I also prefer to be in charge of myself. Makes a hospital nuts when a diabetic demands a regular diet but they discovered I could control my blood sugar much better with regular diet foods so they shut up.
A Medical Savings Account is just that. A savings account set aside for the purpose of paying medical expenses. Your employer and/or you contribute to it and buy high deductable insurance for the expensive stuff (like a month in cardiac ICU last year)
You pay for doctor visits, prescriptions and other expenses like insulin, test strips and such from the account. Usually the account is 5000 to 7000 dollars with half contributed by you and half by your employer. This means you can pull out a special credit card for the account (restricted to medical expenses) or write a check and then collect it from the account. It is amazing how much of a discount you can get. One doctor charged me 25 dollars per visit for post surgical treatment that included medication and bandaging supplies that were more specialized than gauze. My co-pay to see the surgeon who amputated half of my left foot is 50 dollars and then he bills my insurance company. He also wanted me to see him in two weeks and when I asked him what the medical benefit was he said it was to see if I had any problems. I asked what problems and he could only list things I can analyze far better from my side than he could. He didn't like it but the next appointment is in 4 weeks.
You can't just be complacent and wait until you need medical care to start looking. That would be like waiting until your car broke down to find a good mechanic.
I made a half dozen calls to find a physical therapist for my rehab on my foot. Paying her a flat monthly rate will be cheaper than half of the co-pays.
Medicine is not expensive because of insurance companies alone. Those companies have to deal with government regulations, statutes and hundreds of different mandates in each state. In Minnesota all diabetic supplies except insulin are covered by any insuror with no co-pays.
In some states co-pays for children are pre-set at a max of 20 dollars. Those mandates are compassionate and have the good of people at their heart and they cost everyone insured by the company in all the states where the company is licensed where there is no benefit because there is no mandate in that state.
You can shop for medical care just like you shop for everything else. I was dropped in my tracks by my first heart attack and the hospital bill was enormous. I went to the hospital and got a detailed bill and my chart and was able to completely eliminate my co-pay because I found many items billed by "accident." They charged 2 dollars for each test strip and tried to claim that I was tested six times a day. The charts showed it was only two days at that frequency then it dropped to 3 and then 2. That is only one of the things I found. It DID take five hours of me working to find the errors.
We are being held hostage to a system that is broken but the solutions offered are worse than the broken system because they would not remove layers of paperwork, they would add them.
Do you think the people necessary to track a government system will work for nothing?
Return the system to the people and the prices will go down. Lasik surgery is one example of a non-insured (mostly) medical treatment and the prices are competitive.
There is only ONE thing the government can do to make health care efficient and that is to give the tax benefits to the people. The first 2% of your income is the floor you have to beat (mabe it's a ceiling) to claim any medical benefits on your taxes. MSA are tax deductable before income is measured the money comes out so you save there. You control the way the money is spent and the co-pays for your insurance can be covered by the account but usually YOU, the insured, find a way to reduce costs by using health care sensibly.
I don't think people are as ignorant as those who push socialized medicine claim. We can find ways to improve anything if the market is allowed to work.
Sorry about the long post but I have had experience with six different insurance companies and have been uninsured for four years out of the past fifteen. We never left huge bills unpaid but we had a lot of tight budgets for most of those years. It was my health care and we paid for it.
I understand Barbara's position but she needs to take a class in Economics.In fact all need the same class.
Posted by Ron on June 28, 2007 11:41 AMThe free market approach only works with people who are: 1. healthy and have no medical conditions 2. Have LOTS of money. Otherwise this results in Self rationing as people don't get the care they need because they can't afford it. How do you expect someone to pay for cancer treatment or a heart attack?
The often hawked socialistic approach is EQUALLY bad. Systematic rationing means such things as 20% of those needing a heart bypass dying before they can get one.
Both proposals result in rationing. The first is selfish, the latter is inefficient
There must be a better way than either of these proposals.
I meant to write "all liberals" above.
Posted by Ron on June 28, 2007 11:44 AMmomma y,
"We can find ways to improve anything if the market is allowed to work"
Last time I checked the nature of the free market was to make money. In health care that means either: 1. screening unhealthy people out 2. charging them more.
How do you propose helping people who have been screwed over by the "pre-existing condition" garbage?
If the market is allowed to go unrestrained (as you claim should happen) those people can be denied coverage because insurance companies think that category of people will cost them too much money.
Posted by [Louis] on June 28, 2007 11:52 AMmomma y
If you lived in a country with socialized medicine, all of that horror you experienced would have been taken care of automatically without you spending your precious time shopping around and haggling for the best deal. Eliminate the profit and you eliminate the middle man who is there to make a buck on the transaction. It'll be you and the doctor and NO ONE ELSE.
Tax breaks and medical savings accounts aren't going to solve your problem.
Posted by Todd on June 28, 2007 12:06 PMCheryl’s 7:13 am says it all regarding the problem of implementing any type of health care program.
Yes, Cheryl, your daughter will die…..we all will at some point! That is what we are designed to eventually do.
BJS has the best comment but most people don't have the courage to say it. Free market capitalism means if health care providers don't make enough money off you, they are going to do all they can not to serve you and yes if you are unhealthy enough, you will die.
I prefer not to give conservatives the satisfaction of turning me down for health care. At 67, I have strict "do not resuscitate, do not treat" orders. My company pays $500.00 a month for my health insurance but I don't use it. I am one person and there are probably others who have health insurance that do not go to the doctor for every little hang nail.
I think Michael Moore is right. We are a "me, my" not "we, our" society.. Societies do change and for some reason a vocal half of this one wants to go back to the 1850's in a sort of dog eat dog scenario. If you are old or sick, die before it happens. End of problem.
Posted by Dona Dunsmore on June 28, 2007 01:27 PMBJS...why not just withhold my daughter's insulin now. You don't get it. I have known people that die in their young adult stages from this disease. Diabetes uses 1/3 of the medicaid budget (But of course, don't use money to go out to find a cure for it).
Yes, we all die at some point in time. But don't we all fight for our health and try to keep ourselves healthy so we can live a long life? That is why we test blood sugars 10-12 times a day, inject insulin, see doctors, etc. How do we do this if we cannot afford it. Oh yea, the Cheney's and Bushies get to live the long lives while the middle and poor class get to die early...Darwin's theory....BS
Posted by Cheryl on June 28, 2007 01:39 PMCheryl,
I do get it and as callous as I sound, I do both sympathize with you and count my blessings. And maybe your daughter is not a good example, I don’t know. My point is there is only so much money….who decides where it should be spent? We cannot all live for ever all costs to society be damned.
It used to really make me mad when my dad would say, “Life is not fair.” However, he is right.
Those who disagree with want goverment to provide all their needs from cradle to grave. Not from the cradle but close they can have try prison. There they can have all of their needs managed for them, which it appears they want. OR they could serve this country and enlist. I did not write their country as they do not like our country. They write in glowing terms of France, Canda etc
Posted by JW on June 28, 2007 02:28 PMThose who disagree with want goverment to provide all their needs from cradle to grave. Not from the cradle but close, they can try prison. There they can have all of their needs managed for them, which it appears they want. OR they could serve this country and enlist. I did not write their country as they do not like our country. They write in glowing terms of France, Canda etc
Posted by JW on June 28, 2007 02:30 PMThose who disagree with free choice want goverment to provide all their needs from cradle to grave. Not from the cradle but close, they can try prison. There they can have all of their needs managed for them, which it appears they want. OR they could serve this country and enlist. I did not write their country as they do not like our country. They write in glowing terms of France, Canda etc
Posted by JW on June 28, 2007 02:31 PMDonna:
I am so glad that your company pays 500 for your health insurance. I pay the 500, my company pays about 200. I pay about 200-300 in copays per month. As a widowed mother of three children, one who is chronically ill, I work my ass off...I do not rely on others to support me. I want only fair treatment. I am not on government assistance but keep the system going like it is, you will be soon supporting me in housing, food and medical. There has got to be a better way. Insurance executives, together with corporate execs, make so much money, it makes me ill. As Warren Buffet, a Democrat, and one of the wealthiest people in the US says..."there are special places in hell" for those types of people. Let's close Children's Hospital. That should work for y'all.
Posted by cheryl on June 28, 2007 02:44 PMDonna:
I am so glad that your company pays 500 for your health insurance. I pay the 500, my company pays about 200. I pay about 200-300 in copays per month. As a widowed mother of three children, one who is chronically ill, I work my a** off...I do not rely on others to support me. I want only fair treatment. I am not on government assistance but keep the system going like it is, you will be soon supporting me in housing, food and medical. There has got to be a better way. Insurance executives, together with corporate execs, make so much money, it makes me ill. As Warren Buffet, a Democrat, and one of the wealthiest people in the US says..."there are special places in hell" for those types of people. Let's close Children's Hospital. That should work for y'all.
Posted by cheryl on June 28, 2007 02:46 PMTodd Louis,
Please don't try to save me from myself. I don't thnk, I know that pre-existing conditions are hard to cover but with an MSA there is no rejection just a means of paying. Why should health care be absolved from the other parts of life? Cheryl works her tail off taking care of her daughter and pays a lot. My pre-existing conditions are so severe that we had just maxed out our co-pay with my heart attack last November when his company changed to Kaiser and left me in the middle again.
We aren't rich, famous or elite. What we are is hard working normal people who don't complain about the work necessary to live our lives any more than we complain about the work necessary to cook our food or tend our gardens. Which reminds me mine looks like a weedfest but I pay the neighbor boys in fresh cinnamon rolls and strawberry shortcake and they pick the strawberries themselves so it works out. That's how real life is managed. That is how life is for people who appreciate individual achievemennts and efforts.
All of the horror I have had would have been gone with a MSA and more competition in medical care. It also would have been better if I'd picked parents who didn't have six generations of diabetics in the last 8. I had a doctor order me to come in for a test after release from the hospital because he wanted to check something. When questioned he realized that the test could be performed before my release and cost nothing since it was part of hospital care. That doctor now thinks of such things and his patients benefit.
Do you think we should all be spared the trouble of driving our own cars, cleaning our houses or taking care of our children? All of those are difficult time consuming tasks. Treat medicine the same way. Self rationing is no more or less than common sense.
Posted by momma y on June 28, 2007 03:07 PM"What we are is hard working normal people who don't complain about the work necessary to live our lives any more than we complain about the work necessary to cook our food or tend our gardens."
You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.
Posted by Charles B on June 29, 2007 08:42 PMCharles B
Now you get it.
Posted by momma y on June 29, 2007 11:29 PMmomma y:
Once the general public catches on that Universal Health Care works better than Private Insurance for them, they will negotiate for it at the ballot box. People like you who lobby against your own family's interests will not be able to stop it despite your best efforts at self-sabotage.
Even you deserve a better system.
Posted by Charles B on June 30, 2007 08:17 AMThis hard working person earns 36K per year and spends about 800 per month on health care...I work 7 days a week (up at 5 to bed at 11p....what more would you have me do in raising 3 children? (Their dad is dead).
Accepting donation for diabetes researchm however.
Posted by cheryl on June 30, 2007 11:43 AM I think I deserve the right to make my own decisions and protect myself from excessive government control. Once the people realize the actual costs are less about bad guys and more about nonsense paperwork and unnecessary medical care . I have prepared a long manuscript with the last chapter to be written by what I know will happen after I die.
Yes, I know I'm going to die soon. The last report on my heart was that i will be moved to the top of the transplant list as soon as they finish this round of tests. I am proud that I can still walk and only need oxygen at night. I can't stand for very long nor can I do much housework. I, please forgive the "me" centered words, can talk to my grand daughter and perhaps clear themortgage. I have joined the Avandia lawsuit because they didn't give the doctors any notice of the effects on diabetics with heart disease even though their own tests told them it was dangerous. They changed the warning but didn't announce it just chaged the paper inserts. The doctor who treated me for the second and third heart attacks said it was probable the Avandia made things much worse and could have killed me if I hadn't discovered the warnings on the internet. I won't be here to collect if it is proven but my grand daughter will most likely be able to affford college. I picked a good lawyer I know who will work with the coalition but will pull out if he thinks it is not a real case of deliberate neglect.
Being a conservative isn't just words for me. I take care of myself and my family stands up and deals with life as it is. I want to live long enough to see the little one through school. I would like to spend time with my husband when he isn't working 16 hour days and is so tired he can barely get out of his chair on the weekends.
We don't like being poor. I grew up in an upper middle class family and for a while I was very much a successful cab driver. In the winter it was not unusual for me to make two thousand dollars a week. I was badly hurt when the trunk lid fell on my head and the company didn't have Workman's Comp. It took almost a year for me to learn to walk and talk again. I worked in an office for three years as a phone room supervisor then spent 10 years on the semi with my husband eventually learning to drive it myself. When we retired from the road my husband wanted me to stay at home and let him be the breadwinner. I did but when our step daughter in law left our grand daughter at our house for a week (then we didn't even hear from her for six months). A quick call to social services established custody as "mommy" had a history of neglect. The little girl was 4 1/2 and had the development of a 1 year old. She is not up to her age yet but is making great strides. This blew our expenses so I got a job as a clerk/collections manager at a company that sold mailing lists to businesses. A heart attack in june 2005 nearly killed me because of Avandia but also because my husband had been fired and our insurance ended on May 31. I'd been in the ER on May 28 where a blood test confirmed a heart attack but a clerk had punched the "uninsured" button so they sent me home. On May 31 I had my husband take me to the ER and the insured button was hit so they ran some tests and told me I had a heart attack. The nurse brought me the chart which included the earlier ER visit and theblood test results which confirmed the enzyme identifying a heart attack was present. They sent me home because they thought I didn't have insurance. The second heart attack, or the continuation of the first one, resulted in treatment but I continued to get worse. My husband called the doctor wh had treated me earlier at the hospital for something else. That doctor called a cardiologist. I was barely conscious and losing ground. The cardiologist ordered me transferred to St. Anthony's central by Flight for Life. I don't remember this but do remember waking up with two nurses in the room watching me. I asked them why they'd had to transfer me and the nurse, a nun I've known for twenty years, told me that the other hospital didn't have any heart surgery capability and the doctors there were part of the old insurance company network so they waited to transfer me until the insurance company wouldn't be charged. I filed a formal complaint with the medical board and in Febryary of this year the doctor was fired and fined. The hospital was fined also, reportedly 100K. Had I filed a lawsuit the case would still be pending and the doctor would still be protecting the insurance company. The insurance commission is also investigating the insurance company for this. We paid the Cobra insurance of 1200 dollars which was very hard to raise, and were all right until the end of August when I fell asleep at work from the heart meds. The boss fired me. He then closed the office in Denver, moved it to New York and kept it open for six months before closing entirely.
We try to stretch things. I work with the budget and get payment plans for medical bills. WE put my Yellow Cab settlement payment on our smaller medical bills and negotiated lower payments of about half of them.
I have applied for disability on the orders of the cardiologist. A lawyer who knows me offered to take care of my claim for a payment of five dollars. He only required three batches of my sticky buns. I still owe him one batch.
So, this is the list of my troubles but I can't see any reason to ask the government to send me my neighbors' money. Perhaps my attitude has deprived us of things but I have been able to teach my nephews, raised on welfare by my sister, that self-reliance and working for a living gave more benefits than money could buy. The youngest one is 16 and he is working two jobs this summer to pay his grandmother for a computer she bought for him. She told him he didn't have to pay her back and he told her if he took it without paying for it he couldn't respect himself. he takes care of two little boys during the day and stocks three nights a week at a thrift store. The older boys are working but most of their work is part time and they aren't perpared to support themselves.
This all is what conservative values are about. It might be easy to state but living it isn't. The rewards are so much greater than money.
The continuing comparison between private and public services that I keep has convinced me that I would be better off with an MSA with a two thousand to five thousand dollar deductable insurance policy for catastrophic injuries or illnesses. I don't want to force anyone into the MSA but I would make it available for anyone including the poor. The people need to separate the insurance from the employment picture too. Individuals should be able to take the employer's contribution and choose their own coverage. Let the tax deductions, which now go to the companies, go to the people. All of this is my opinion and my fear is that those who don't study the the real impact of single payer will be beguiled into choosing it. Once the government takes over something it isimpossible to get it out.
Oops. Power failure. My UPS will only give me enough time to post this.
Thanks for all you kind thoughts and words. I just am too attached to the work ethic and self-reliance. Perhaps we can find a reasonable compromise as most of the posters here seem to be well informed and courteous.