White House appears ready to drop 'public option'

[sumi]

MC -- its the latter. chronic etc.



i need a nap.

[MossadConspiracy]

i doubt it but ok, maybe they got lucky or they just support their country's healthcare system as a form of nationalism the way British ppl have been getting riled up over Republicans peeing on their NHS in the past few weeks even though they do it in their internal convo all the time

[Tanasi]

What really needs to be reformed are the Health Insurance companies.

If you sign up and then discover you are pregnant and were actually pregnant before your eligiblity date then your prenatal and delivery services can be denied for a "pre-existing" condition.

If you have a catastrophic illness or injury, your insuror can deny payment for services and many will try to get you disqualified under any "pre-existing condition" they think they can get away with, like you were overweight so of course you had a pre-existing condition for that heart attack.

You are limited to how many times a year you and your family can see the doctor, dentist, and eye doctor. You are limited to how many times in a week your household can have an ER visit. Your son wrecks on his skateboard and needs stitches Wednesday evening- covered. You are in an accident on Saturday- not covered.

My husband's HMO limits how many times a year I can see my OB-GYN. I'm 49 and because my mother took a drug during pregnancy to prevent miscarriage (she'd had 2 before getting pregnant with me) I am at higher risk for cervical cancer and should see my doc twice a year. We have to pay for the second one out of pocket.

If your child is born with a congenital condition, like autism or Sickle-Cell Anemia, the HMO can deny coverage for this child based upon "pre-existing condition".

Physicians are told by the HMO's what treatments and medications they can prescribe, how many times a year they can see their patients, and to whom they can give expensive treatments or surgeries. Not too long ago a 17-yr-old girl died while waiting for a liver transplant because the HMO deemed her "not eligible for coverage". The HMO had also cut off payment for the treatments needed to keep her healthy enough for the transplant. The family is suing,but many HMO's have an arbitration clause in the contract which prohibits you from suing.Instead you have to go thru their arbitor to "resolve" your dispute with them. Guess how that usually turns out?

[Timbit]

ya Allah, i hope i never have to live in the states.

[Revert]

MossadConspiracy said

if you follow the politics in Europe, the issue of healthcare is a component of every national political campaign in every European country and they usually bring up all kinds of failures and problems. So obviously there are problems there now.

In addition every country in Europe faces rising healthcare costs the same way we do. Utilization is going up, their populations are getting older, etc, and there is only so much they can wring out of their system by breaking doctors backs or making their hospitals as bare bones as possible. And taxes can only go so high, even in socialist countries, particularly since their populations of young productive workers (tax payers) are going down in most of these countries. Their healthcare systems are not sustainable. America's would be even less so if it converted to their way of doing things. These welfare states that they made are not going to be permanent, and most of them depended on US subsidization in various ways anyway

Thats why i dont support single payer. Also, the most important thing from the perspective of patient care is to cut costs and provide superior care.

As for your friends who lived in socialist countries, the question is really what kind of ppl are they? If they are healthy young adults then obviously going to a primary care doctor for free when you want is an easy and convenient system. But if they are patients with complicated chronic diseases or people who have ever needed complex or advanced medical care and experienced it on both sides of the atlantic then they would have a different story.

I also know people who have been effected by nationalized healthcare

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/we...gewanted=print

this article is very sympathetic to NHS but it also mentions many of the problems with it

I know many people who have suffered Chronic problems and gotten great care from the NHS. The flip side is I also know people who have received really poor care. There are also people that have suffered from really rare diseases and had to come to the US to get treatment. The System in the US works well for Doctors, researchers etc, there enough money and support for the teaching hospitals to tackle tricky disorders.

Its the opposite of the UK system, where everyone is covered but really rare diseases are harder to difficult. The Us system doesn't cover everyone but they can cover rare diseases, if you can pay. My sister in Law is a Nurse and has worked in different departments and has been giving me a rundown on the pros and cons of her job.

Timbit said

ya Allah, i hope i never have to live in the states.

Its not that bad but its really difficult if you have a bad job.

[TrentReznor858]

at the morons FROMMEL and Kona, stupid ethnics who think their republican masters respect them

Universal healthcare is the best option, even if the quality drops. Id rather have free C+ healthcare than B- healthcare that makes me go bankrupt. I mean whats the point of living if you dont have any money to live on?

[Kona_Silat]

Timbit said

ya Allah, i hope i never have to live in the states.

http://www.islamicaweb.com/forums/go...imploding.html

[mekrob]

Id rather have free C+ healthcare than B- healthcare that makes me go bankrupt.

Where do people get this notion that it will be free? The money has to come from somewhere and that's nearly always taxes.

[Kona_Silat]

mekrob said

where do people get this notion that it will be free? The money has to come from somewhere and that's nearly always taxes.

truth!

Revert said

...
If they die someone has to foot the bill of disposing of the body, usually the city. Typical Right Wing rhetoric.

Jaysh said

Typical heartless Republican jabber.

Excellent replies by MC. I agree with almost all of what he said.

Revert, won't the public option help you? (I haven't read the entire thread so I don't know if you already addressed this.)

You see, nationalized health care will kill medicine. It will have short term benefit but long term detriment, since America will cease to be the leader in medicine, and the world will go leaderless in medicine.

First of all, illegals don't pay taxes and here illegally. Why should our tax dollars pay for people who are mooching off the system?

[mekrob]

First of all, illegals don't pay taxes

Yes they do. While they may be involved in the underground labor economy, they often participate in the consumer economy in which they'll pay state and federal taxes such as excise and sales taxes. Secondly, they dodge very little in terms of income taxes as they make so little that they wouldn't have to pay much, if any, income tax on their earnings if they weren't illegal (try living on what they typically make). I'm not sure if they pay property taxes in large amounts...

[Kona_Silat]

mekrob said

Yes they do. While they may be involved in the underground labor economy, they often participate in the consumer economy in which they'll pay state and federal taxes such as excise and sales taxes. Secondly, they dodge very little in terms of income taxes as they make so little that they wouldn't have to pay much, if any, income tax on their earnings if they weren't illegal (try living on what they typically make). I'm not sure if they pay property taxes in large amounts...

compared to legals, legals pay more, yet illegals would reap more benefits from a socialized system.

[sumi]

Obama aide says president still favors public health plan - CNN.com

[ChotooMotoo]

Kona_Silat said

compared to legals, legals pay more, yet illegals would reap more benefits from a socialized system.

prove it

[Revert]

mekrob said

Where do people get this notion that it will be free? The money has to come from somewhere and that's nearly always taxes.

IN the UK its free in the sense you don't pay at the time, yet you pay for it in NI contributions each month/week..

Kona_Silat said

compared to legals, legals pay more, yet illegals would reap more benefits from a socialized system.

IN what way? Nationalized medicine isn't free to illegal residents. Even in the UK non residents have to pay for healthcare.

[Jaysh]

Kona_Silat said

First of all, illegals don't pay taxes and here illegally. Why should our tax dollars pay for people who are mooching off the system?

You're such a moron. The public option does not operate on tax payer money, so even if an illegal immigrant made use of the public option, he wouldn't be "mooching" since he would have to pay deductibles and co-pays just like everyone else.

Man, people are so freakin moronic. Look, the public option would run just like a private insurance company: it would run off of deductibles and co-pays.

Fi Aman Allah