Originally posted by: Carmen813
Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
Originally posted by: fleshconsumed
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: nobodyknows
Oh please. You have NO IDEA what some people go through. You hit a bump in the road, but you managed. Did you even have to declare bankruptcy? I assume not or you would have said so.
It is you ignorance (and a little arrogance too) that is showing.
It's CAD. He has no idea what a catastrophic illness really is. A premature baby and a wife that can't work? Sure, that's trouble for anyone. I don't want to hear catastrophic though. As I've said in other threads, when I was diagnosed with cancer last year at the ripe old age of 28, I racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills in the span of 12 days. Not only that, but the chemotherapy regimen I had to undergo was 9 hours a day, 8 days out of every 21. When you add in the week or so of vomiting, anemia, and pain caused by the drugs and the medication necessary to repair your compromised immune system, you're talking 2 weeks out of every 3 out of commission. How are you going to work your way around that one? THAT'S a catastrophic illness.
As for Skoorb's mention and others, if you look at the US' per capita allocation of doctors and nurses it is lower than countries with UHC, but not that much lower. (about 15% for doctors, and about 2% for nurses) This is certainly an issue to be addressed, but it's hardly insurmountable. In addition, preventative care, like say with cancer for one, can massively reduce the cost of an illness to the system as a whole.
Our system has proved unsustainable, it's on its way out. Everyone here pretty much knows that at least a partially socialized system is in our future, it just depends on how long it will take this one to collapse. It's been proven over and over again with examples from all sorts of other OECD countries to provide better care at less cost.
Carmen813 and eskimospy stories are the real reason for UHC. Most insured people have insurance through their place of work. If they have an illness that requires several months of recovery time, they cannot work, if they cannot work, they are likely to get fired, if they are fired, they lose their health insurance and they are screwed. I had a burst appendix with complications as a student, very minor stuff compared to what Carmen813 and eskimospy had to go through. Yet I still had to have two surgeries and spent nearly 3 weeks in hospital. When I left hospital they left plastic tubes sticking out of my stomach to drain excess bodily fluids, I had to spend another month recovering. I was lucky because my parents insurance covered me, had I been working full time already, who knows how my employer would have reacted to my forced two month leave. Or what if someone gets cancer with one employer, beats it, but wants to switch jobs afterwards? They are screwed again because by switching employers they have to switch insurance carriers and cancer would be a "pre-existing" condition, so if their cancer comes back they're screwed. Hell, they don't even have to switch jobs to lose their benefits, smaller employers often switch insurance carriers, same result, the new insurance carrier will refuse to cover the employee's pre-existing condition.
Sadly, very few posters in this thread talk about this problem. They talk about obesity and illegals and all the ways the government could possibly screw up the UHC, however they completely ignore that even a hard working man who has done nothing wrong, been taking care of his body, has been working to better his life and has been diligently paying health insurance can be screwed up so badly. You are one burst appendix away from unemployment and possibly financial ruin.
Their stories don't mean we have to buy into socialist UHC. A simple change to allow people to keep/have insurance policies not tied to place of employment.
You see, the RATIONAL "fix" is to have "open" Insurance risk pools not tied to employement so people can share the risk with people that are like them instead of subsidizing those who are high risk/abuse the system. It really wouldn't be difficult to do but it seems the libs don't want that because it gives the power of choice to the individual and would prevent UHI from becoming a reality.
You do not understand the problem faced by those with pre-existing conditions, and frankly I sincerely hope you never do.
The fact that you are using the terms "high-risk" with people who "abuse the system" in the same sentence is absurd. Apples and oranges. Abuses of the system can be fixed with regulation. "High-risk" individuals cannot be, they will always exist, and most of those people did nothing wrong.
Do you even realize what your idea what lead to? It would lead to private plans filled only with healthy people, who would be removed from the plan when they become sick. Then you would have other plans filled with only sick people (and I used the word "filled" lightly, since it would be incredibly expensive and mos people couldn't afford it) that cost insane amounts of money. It would lead frankly to further discrimination against the ill.
You just don't get it.
I agree private insurance should be portable from company to company, but what you are suggesting regarding risk pools will only make a bad situation worse. People living longer, healthier lives = more people in the work force = more production hours = more goods and services provided = more money exchanged = higher standard of living = stronger economy.
I agree that when it comes to things like obesity there is a large degree of personal responsibility involved. Of course you won't get anywhere near 100% elimination, but there are steps we can take as a nation to confront the problem.
As for the argument that "liberals don't want to give individuals the power of choice," that is a bunch of bookaka. Go read Obama's plan before you starting spewing your talking points from the 1990s. If you don't have the time, energy, or willingness to educate yourself about it, here are the highlights:
Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.
- Give those with pre-existing conditions a choice!
Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage.
- Give individuals the choice between private or public plans
Reform the insurance market to increase competition by taking on anticompetitive activity that drives up prices without improving quality of care.
- Bust up monopolies in the industry so individuals have more choices
http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/health_care/
What Obama is proposing is incredibly far from socialized medicine (for starter's, go find me the word "mandated coverage" in his plans), yet so many individuals on this board refuse to go past the republican talking points and face reality. He is offering us a public plan that all can buy in. He isn't removing private insurance at all, he is trying to make it more competitive. If he succeeds, it will do a tremendous amount to remove the problems with the current system and to make private industry more competitive again.