Another boring post about why i am against this health care reform effort

[babe]

So, you foregoing health insurance entirely (there is a small tax for that)? Or, are you saying that you would rather have your medicnes, the list of doctors you can speak to, and decision on medical evaluations and procedures controlled by an entity that answers to strangers seeking profit as opposed to elected officials seeking votes?

I know it's pretty hard for a public school teacher to comprehend, but I prefer the pre-cartel utopia concept, before organized interests gained control of government, medical care, "education", and began making laws that fatten the flesh-eating insurance scoundrels who do nothing but broker the transactions between corporate lawyers and government officials at the expense of the common folk, so that we pay for all the overhead plus their lush professional charges.

I've generally had insurance coverage like most of you due to having a job, but I've been fortunate in regard to seldom needing medical services, so far. The time when my family faced critical care needs, we had double coverage in effect and actually paid nothing.

So, obviously, you have a point. All I'm sayin' is that I can see a lot of pork being sheared in the present and proposed arrangements, and I think it's a bad deal.

 

[One Brow]

I know it's pretty hard for a public school teacher to comprehend, but I prefer the pre-cartel utopia concept, before organized interests gained control of government, medical care, "education", and began making laws that fatten the flesh-eating insurance scoundrels who do nothing but broker the transactions between corporate lawyers and government officials at the expense of the common folk, so that we pay for all the overhead plus their lush professional charges.

You mean, back when your local doctor's office had to supply all the diagnostics/labs themselves, hospitals were infrequent and couldn't afford modern medical supplies, etc.? We private-sector database administrators tend to understand the benefits that came from coporatization fairly well.

 

[cowhide]

This.

In a nation of folks who don't want the government involved in our bedrooms, we want the government to control everything else "for our own good".

I think what I do with my body, my food, my medicines, what doctors I speak to or permit to perform medical evaluations or procedures is nobody else's business.

Actually, right now the insurance companies tell you what to do. You should be use to it. Unfortunately, the insurance companies are in business to make a profit and give a rat's *** about getting you well or actually preventing sickness.

 

[cowhide]

You'd just laugh if I said "I can feel your pain". But you don't laugh when politicians tell you that. You respond with the hope of the battle-worn believing fresh troops are coming to your rescue.

I'm sayin' those troops aren't coming to rescue you, but to thin the herd. The lobbyists who crafted the healthcare scam are workin' for shareholders values not the patient's values.

You may be right that once AGAIN lobbyists are the problem but instead of the Right simply hammering the entire idea perhaps they could actually discuss the issues. The problem is the majority of the GOP do not want healthcare period and not only do they want no healthcare they want to eventually get rid of Medicare and Medicaid. More and more corporations are passing the cost of healthcare onto the employee to the point that it is almost too expensive to have private insurance. One year my company increase our out of pocket cost 27%. Corporations are all for voucher programs or healthcare individual accounts because it cuts their costs and puts it on the employee.

 

[LogGrad98]

I am for something that improves health care and makes it more affordable/accessible to all. Unfortunately those 2 goals are very difficult to reconcile. My dad has always had his own business, and when you walked into his shop he had a sign hanging there that read

FAST. GOOD. CHEAP. Pick any two. You can have it Fast and Good but it won't be Cheap. You can get it Good and Cheap but it won't be Fast. Or you can have it Cheap and Fast but it won't be Good.

This applies to the health care conundrum. We have access to the best health care in the world, but it isn't cheap. If we want it to be cheap, it will be difficult to keep it as good as it is.

I have made good use of health care. My treatment cost near a half million dollars. Luckily I had decent insurance, but we still ended up near bankruptcy due to medical bills. But our insurance allowed us to seek top-notch medical care (Hunstman Cancer Institute, Loma Linda University Medical Center Proton Therapy, experimental drugs, etc.) and is probably why I am still here today.

I am hopeful we can find a solution, but I am not holding my breath either.

 

[babe]

I am for something that improves health care and makes it more affordable/accessible to all. Unfortunately those 2 goals are very difficult to reconcile. My dad has always had his own business, and when you walked into his shop he had a sign hanging there that read



This applies to the health care conundrum. We have access to the best health care in the world, but it isn't cheap. If we want it to be cheap, it will be difficult to keep it as good as it is.

I have made good use of health care. My treatment cost near a half million dollars. Luckily I had decent insurance, but we still ended up near bankruptcy due to medical bills. But our insurance allowed us to seek top-notch medical care (Hunstman Cancer Institute, Loma Linda University Medical Center Proton Therapy, experimental drugs, etc.) and is probably why I am still here today.

I am hopeful we can find a solution, but I am not holding my breath either.

Just keep taking a breath every few seconds for a good long while, please.

The reason I don't know much about it is I've been fortunate overall. I almost lost my wife and the two kids all at once. She was about due with twins, I was out of town and got an impulse to just go home. I drove all night, and woke her up and told her to get ready to go to the hospital. She's a labor/delivery nurse knowitall and she laughed at me and said she's fine, but got up anyway and took a shower. Shortly afterward, with her bags packed and ready to go, she started to think it was time, and called the hospital to say she was coming in. Long story short, as soon as she got there and got hooked up to the monitors, she was rushed to the OR. Fortuitously, the doctors had just arrived too, and they were a team with long experience working together, and they worked with unbelievable speed. It was a case of abruption that could have easily cost her life and the lives of the twins
if she hadn't been there already.

When I was one of those early twenties immortals, I got sick. It was a years-long primary issue the doctors couldn't do anything about. I was expected to be totally blind and paralyzed for life. The doctors were incredulous when I actually started getting better. Then when I could read again, I had my wife take me to the Eccles Health Sciences library at the U of U, and spent my days there for about a year just reading everything that had ever been written about it. And began to just not push my limits and just eat good and take care of myself. A lot of people who learn to do that when they are young will live a long long time.

A few years ago I got sick in a different sort of way. I thought I was gonna die. We didn't have health coverage at the time. Finally I got a notion to call a relative who "owed" me something, who could write prescriptions, and told him what I needed. It was about fifty bucks, a strong dose at that, and it cleared everything up. I found out later that the well at the ranch had developed some problems and the water wasn't good, and I was the only one ever there to be affected. But it scared my wife into going back to her job and getting health and life insurance again. . . . though we haven't really needed it since. I did go in when the coverage became active and have a complete workup to see how I'm doing, and the doctors wanted to know what I was doing to keep in such good conditions. . . .

I worked in medical research for over ten years, and can sorta relate to the medical care culture. My wife can go on a tear listing burdensome mandates, government regulations and such, that are senseless except on the assumption that all medical care personnel are morons, which are driving up the costs. And the lawsuits that are lodged being another major force driving costs up. And the government mandates requiring hospitals to give urgent care to people who can't pay, such as illegals, which forces the hospitals to pass those expenses on to paying, as in insured, customers. . . .

I just look at the people in on the creation of our healthcare legislation. . . . . lobbyists for pharmaceuticals, the AMA, the care provider institutions, the lawyers, the doctors. . . . and guess who just doesn't have representation at the table?

you.

Your congressman and Senators pay more attention to the their institutional lobbyists than they do you, unless you're gonna go on a tear and make enough of a fuss they start remembering your name.

 

[babe]

You mean, back when your local doctor's office had to supply all the diagnostics/labs themselves, hospitals were infrequent and couldn't afford modern medical supplies, etc.? We private-sector database administrators tend to understand the benefits that came from coporatization fairly well.

I remember an old doctor my mom took me to as a kid. He was awesome. And his office nurse was even better. If I could find a team like that today I'd think we were doing fine. And back in those days they were mostly charitable organizations like a church operating the hospital, or a "community hospital" with some equipment provided by the government, and such. If you're a true socialist you should love those kinds of institutions, more than todays corporate, for-profit, healthcare retailers.

But from my various bits of insight into todays "shareholder interest"-driven organizations, I would first of all note that these private for-profit outfits have established a record for new technologies/tools/equipment and various incredible efficiencies the old socialist benevolents just never came up with. More of free market, more consumer decision power, and less government control would do us all a world of good.

 

[One Brow]

If you're a true socialist ...

Since I'm a liberal, and not a socialist, I believe there are benefits to having private competition.

More of free market, more consumer decision power, and less government control would do us all a world of good.

However, you can swing too far in that direction. A completely unregulated health-care market is a patient's nightmare.