| Author |
Message |
    
Diana Brantner
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, November 06, 2004 - 3:30 pm: | 
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I
have metastatic breast cancer, most of the bones in my body. I filed
for ss disability, was approved within 6 weeks. But I can't believe
they are waiting 5 months before I can get a check. (waiting period)
And I'll be eligible for Medicaid in 2 years! One doctor gave my 6
months! I'll be lucky to be alive in 2 years! How can they treat the
terminal patient this way? |
Paul McChesney (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 889
Registered: 5-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2004 - 6:12 pm: |
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That sounds accurate. I don't defend the law.
I was so upset about health care coverage for my clients -- and me -- that I held my nose and voted for Bill Clinton the first time; I thought he would give us universal health care coverage. Then I voted for Obama and I certainly don't regret that, but I am distressed that the pending legislation is structured to provide benefits for a few more people at very high cost that will bankrupt the country; Canada's people are healthier, everybody is covered, no one risks losing everything, and they spend a little more than half of what we do. There is a lot of bull flooding the media from people that are making billions of dollars delivering you uneven and crushingly expensive health care. A great dispassionate comparison of the US and Canadian systems can be found at the wikipedia comparison page. One thing it misses is that in measuring health care delivered, economists count an unneeded back operation as positive services delivered. It should actually be counted as money stolen and assault and battery. Is there a lot of it? Yes, it is easy to prove, and much more of it in the US system because here the doctor who gets paid decides who needs surgery. If that were counted the Canadian system's outcome would look even better. See the Harvard website below for details.
Any Canadian or citizen of a Western European country should NEVER give up her citizenship to become a US citizen. I hate to say that I have to pass out such advice.
Anyone who imagines that their house and bank accounts and college savings accounts are safe from one or two or four $250,000 hospital bills because she has private insurance is mistaken. If you get laid off or fired or get too sick to work in just the wrong order and the 18 months or so of COBRA run out or if you can't scrape up one of the COBRA premiums, zip, its all gone and you are living in a carboard box. Unless you are a Canadian, or Frenchman, or Englisman, or Dane, or Spaniard, or Austrailian, or German in which case you have none of that to worry about. Each of whom pays much less per capita for health insurance and medications than we do.
Any U.S. citizen who is reading this who is not a veteran with a service connected impairment who thinks he is safe from this happening to him because of some set of insurance he has from work or has purchased, I hereby bet $200 that I can come up with a sequence of happenstances that will put you in the cardboard box. Email me a description of your insurance. You might as well have your checkbook ready.
I invite anyone who is reading this to pick up his or her pen and write their Congressman and Senators a letter explaining that you will not vote for them until we have such a system here.
So, what is wrong with our system? Two things, one complaint from the honorable conservatives and one from the honorable liberals.
From the conservatives: Well, a market system works because both the seller and buyer are worried about saving money. But at the point of sale for health care under our system, the buyer doesn't care what it costs, because it is already paid for. So he will accept hugely expensive treatment that does nothing good for him, or that even harms him, say, a Xanax prescription. That is why procedures that cost a few thousand dollars in Indian hospitals with excellent outcomes cost a hundred thousand dollars here. And there is a strong financial incentive against practicing what is clearly the most effective as well inexpensive form of medicine, which is healthy lifestyle approaches.
From the liberals: The happenstance that I develop type one diabetes should not put me in a cardboard box.
These two things are linked, because you need the savings from the clever conservative approach to pay for the universal coverage that the liberals want. For details see the excellent Harvard Business School analysis of the problem. There are enough clever ideas there to get better care cheaper than the Canadians.
But the people actually writing the bill, like the people running the present system, are neither honorable conservatives nor liberals, but kelptocrats. That's Greek for "thieves."
To say a word at last for the kleptocrats, it is we who elected them, and we who demand health without inconvenience, at other people's expense, while sitting on the sofa popping addictive pills instead of getting off our tails and going outside.
Now, I have offended everyone. I feel much better.
(Message edited by admin on January 27, 2010) |
Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 12:55 am: |
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What is WRONG with the AMERICAN people that they don't seem to care about healthcare issues?
The best healthcare system in the world? BULLCRAP - they must not have HMO's or no insurance.
Its crazy. |
Paul McChesney (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 1202
Registered: 5-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 29, 2005 - 4:15 pm: |
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Amen.
Did you vote for anybody that takes money from the people that profit
from the present system? Bet you did. Don't do it again, please.
(Message edited by admin on May 29, 2005) |
Paul McChesney (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 1430
Registered: 5-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 24, 2005 - 5:41 am: |
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The Social Security Administration needs to perform more disability reviews.
http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat4/151030.pdf
Not
exactly hot off the presses, but interesting. At the time of the
report, in 1994, the SSA was getting back $6 for every $1 invested in
reviewing people who are presently drawing benefits, but was still
underfunding them, and, I think, still is, and not really looking at
each recipient.
All things considered, I am in favor of a
vigorous but fair review process. As Ms. Ross points out, a perception
of the legitimacy of the system is something deserving claimants need.
Won't a system without such reviews inevitably accumulate an increasing
number of people who are getting benefits and who are not disabled? Who
benefits from the lack of such a system, if fairly administered? A
friend of mine has always argued that the world is run by conspirators;
I hold that it is run by incompetents. This supports my position, I
think. |
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