Sober thoughts on health care
 

"BAR" wrote in message
...
thunder wrote:
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:44:00 -0400, BAR wrote:


The problem most of us have is the falsehood that you push that
providing everyone with government funded health insurance will solve
the problem of access to health care. There is no access to health care
problem. The problem is that people are not paying for the health care
they are receiving and the costs are being passed onto those who are
paying via their health insurance.

It can be argued that those very same health insurance plans aren't
paying their fair share. You do know that health insurance plans get a
*very* discounted rate, don't you? There is also a new trick many are
using. If the hospital is in the network, they pay the pre-negotiated
discounted rate, but here's the trick. When the hospital is not in the
network, many insurance plans still will only pay the discounted rates.
That also leaves the health care professionals SOL.

Get everyone who uses the hospital to pay for the services they use.

Add to that, if you don't have insurance, you pay through the nose, far
above normal rates.

I thought they weren't allowed to deny you care if you couldn't or
wouldn't pay for it.

When you go to a restaurant and sit down and eat a meal and get up and
walk out without paying for it you are stealing. But, when you go to the
hospital emergency room and receive medical care and leave without
paying for it nobody says anything. Both are examples of stealing.


Easy cure would be make it the law, that if you pay cash, you get the best
insurance pay rate plus maybe 10%. When I see the negotiated charges, the
under insured or those without insurance and have assets, they are getting
ripped of.

Sober thoughts on health care
 

"thunder" wrote in message
t...
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:18:19 -0400, Captain Zombie of Woodstock wrote:


When my youngest boy was ineligible for our insurance, we looked around
for a strictly major medical policy for him - bare bones, just cover any
catastrophe.

It was cheap - I mean like $4-500/yr? Something like that.

Was that recently? I'm surprised it was that low. Major medical sounds
interesting, but there is something to be said for access before it gets
to a major medical situation. Personally, I don't know what the answer
is, but this system is clearly broken. We are spending, as %GDP, nearly
twice as much as any other industrialized nation, and getting less care.
I've heard it argued that we have the best emergency care on the planet,
but when it comes to life expectancy, infant mortality, etc. we do not
have the best care.

Life expectancy is higher than most European nations. If you exclude
Homicides and accidents. We drive a lot more than Europeans, and therefore
have more fatalities. Looking at the cancer survival rates, we are lots
higher.

Sober thoughts on health care
 

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:03:02 -0400, BAR wrote:


I thought they weren't allowed to deny you care if you couldn't or
wouldn't pay for it.

Yeah, but what is care? It may vary by state, but I believe they only
have to stabilize you.

Sober thoughts on health care
 

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:59:50 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:03:18 -0400, Gene
wrote:

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:38:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:21:54 -0400, Gene
wrote:

Medicare pays a billion dollars a year for test strips that 20% are
faulty. That's capitalist America at work.


Are the ones from UK or Canada better?

Probably not, in fact, they are most likely the same ones. Thus, the
big issue I have is that all of them were probably made 50 miles from
where I am typing and shipped to the UK and Canada... but they pay
about 50% as much for those items as I do. I always have to stand in
long lines *here* to get the high dollar prescription filled....

So if the bloated US medical system didn't subsidize these things they
might not exist at all?

Bloating sure must incur significant expenses, but why does the VA pay
a different rate than I do?

I assume it is a negotiated price, one way or the other.



Your prescription problem sounds local.

And is probably headed your way. Recently, pharmacies have begun to
keep short hours and close on Sundays. This includes ones in grocery
stores (and there aren't many), Revco, Walgreens, Phar-mor, CVS,
Rite-Aid, Kerr..... etc. Note that the STORE might be open, but the
pharmacy is closed.

I am generally at the store in the middle of the day so what?
Of it helps them contain costs, that is what you can expect more of
under government managed health care.
You might reach a point where you have to go to a government pharmacy
that is only open 9-5 M-F and there are not very many of them. Ever
been in a state where the government is the only one to sell alcohol?
There might only be one state store in a town or even a county.

Publix (grocery store) fills
my prescriptions faster than I can buy my groceries. They also give
you most antibiotics for free.

Here, you aren't getting ANYTHING for free. Last antibiotics I was
prescribed cost ME $25.00 per pill after my insurance paid a few token
dollars.

I know they aren't really "free" but what they are saying is the
generic of the 5 most commonly prescribed antibiotics are so cheap at
the wholesale level that they can give them away to get you in their
store. A shrewd businessman would make the "free" prescriptions take
longer to fill, in hopes you would shop longer.

BTW the other good thing about Publix is they don't try to perpetuate
the mystique of prescription drugs. Most pharmacies try to tell you
this is a complicated process that takes an hour or more. Once your
profile is in the Publix computer they just type in the prescription,
count out the pills and put the label the computer spits out on the
bottle. If you have conflicting drugs, the computer will spit out a
warning right away. I assume it also compares your other prescriptions
and detects "doctor shopping" too but I have never heard of anyone
getting busted but I don't really know any abusers.

You won't miss the government run alcohol stores in New Hampshire if
you're on I-95. Both exits have the Alcohol Store right on the Exit
signs. It's unreal.
--

John H

Sober thoughts on health care
 

thunder wrote:
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:03:02 -0400, BAR wrote:


I thought they weren't allowed to deny you care if you couldn't or
wouldn't pay for it.

Yeah, but what is care? It may vary by state, but I believe they only
have to stabilize you.


That is correct...if that.

Sober thoughts on health care
 

H the K wrote:
BAR wrote:
H the K wrote:
BAR wrote:



There is no access to health care
problem.


We've been hearing that b.s. from conservatives for decades. It
wasn't true then and it isn't true today.

Provide examples of the problem you allege people have accessing
health care in the USA?


Oh, please. Do some reading on other than reich-wing sites. Why do you
righties always try to insist that everyone else do your homework for you?

Talking out of your ass again Harry. You can't support your assertions
again.

Sober thoughts on health care
 

BAR wrote:
H the K wrote:
BAR wrote:
H the K wrote:
BAR wrote:



There is no access to health care
problem.


We've been hearing that b.s. from conservatives for decades. It
wasn't true then and it isn't true today.

Provide examples of the problem you allege people have accessing
health care in the USA?


Oh, please. Do some reading on other than reich-wing sites. Why do you
righties always try to insist that everyone else do your homework for
you?

Talking out of your ass again Harry. You can't support your assertions
again.



Wrong, Bertie. Like many non-intellectual and anti-intellectual
righties, you tend to believe what your right-wing sources and your
prejudices tell you to believe.

I see no purpose served in handing you and others like you information
you can find on your own, if you are interested.

You were colossally wrong just yesterday on Maryland gun laws, but that
didn't stop you from posting your b.s, and getting defensive about it,
and you were too lazy to find the facts for yourself, even though they
are readily available.

I don't do homework for other people.

Sober thoughts on health care
 

Gene wrote:
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:06:00 -0400, H the K
wrote:

thunder wrote:
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:03:02 -0400, BAR wrote:


I thought they weren't allowed to deny you care if you couldn't or
wouldn't pay for it.
Yeah, but what is care? It may vary by state, but I believe they only
have to stabilize you.

That is correct...if that.

Harry is correct.

I first came across this when Rush declared that all must be treated
for free and I thought that was the case. I then learned that one must
only be "stabilized" and that many hospitals actually didn't reach
even that standard of care. This led to a spate of lawsuits which
culminated in the pursuit of "anti-dumping" laws.

Contrary to some assertions here, if America falls as the Roman Empire
did, I really think that it is more about having to legislate morality
than anything else.... really.

"Stabilization" nonsense is especially true for poor people suffering
from serious mental health issues or drug addiction. A hospital with
facilities for treating either (and not all hospitals do), might take a
suicidal person in for a couple of days and then, if that person says he
is not feeling like killing himself at that moment, he is discharged. Of
course, the next day he might feel suicidal again, and kill himself.
Even if you have decent health insurance, the time you are allowed to
stay in a treatment facility usually is very, very limited. In many
communities, there are absolutely no openings at treatment facilities
for months at a time for addicts or alcoholics who want help *if* those
troubled folks have no money or insurance.

The "right" has been spreading this nonsense about availability of
treatment for decades.

Sober thoughts on health care
 

Sober thoughts on health care