boiler
Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 26
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 3:30 pm Post subject: maybe
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I may or may not "come down with something" in my life and I guess my insurance will or will not stack up. I'll find out, but I will find out of my own accord and you won't be burdened with it. What could be more fair and more American? It's not about being warm and fuzzy that I have something others don't. I have my own bills that I pay. That's what I have that others don't if that's what you are referring to. You should feel warm and fuzzy that I don't ask YOU to pay for my medications, my doctor visits, and any tests and treatments I may need. Why would I want that from you or any other taxpayer? It's my responsibility just like my mortgage, my gas, and my food. I get fire and police protection because I pay (very high) taxes for them. Any national healthcare program would have to require a fair premium just like a tax. Too many can't or will not be able to pay this premium. In my book, that's an entitlement and we have too bleep many of those as it is. As far as getting ripped off....I don't see it that way. I feel I'm getting a good value for what I pay and that's all that matters. <
>I absolutely realize that I write this from the perspective of good health, good employment, and until this point, good luck. That could all change and I may, at some point, feel differently. We all stand where we sit.
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leadsag
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 263
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:58 pm Post subject: off topic
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Sorry this is off topic, but is glad to see someone posting anything on this board again!!!
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plugger
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
Posts: 226
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:27 am Post subject: open your eyes
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Leadsag, it has been rather quiet around here lately. Boiler I thought under that gruff exterior there might be a reasonable person, I see you do admit the possibility of changing your mind. I?m also glad to see you are a trooper who is so willing to shoulder so much responsibility. I wonder how many of those people who went bankrupt trying to pay for medical bills were also troopers. Maybe it is a crazy concept thinking dealing with an illness is enough responsibility without worrying about hanging on to a job for the insurance, without worrying about making COBRA payments if you are laid off, without worrying about the COBRA going away after 18 months (by the way I seem to recall few of the unemployed take advantage of COBRA anyway), without worrying about being stuck in a state high-risk insurance pool because you had a gap in insurance, and without worrying about going
oke so you can qualify for Medicaid. Yes, we should all being willing to assume these risks for some ?we must always stand on our own two feet? ideal, despite the fact you may have just been knocked off those two feet. I guess I?m just a foolish for thinking we all need a little help now and then.<
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>You worry about a deadbeat or two slipping through ? isn?t being ill already punishment enough? I worry about the corporate parasites sucking off the system and not contributing a thing. But we must stick to the ideal - always an easy thing when one is gainfully employed and in good health. Boiler you and I are a couple of the lucky ones. You have your fine employment, your fine health insurance, and your excellent health; I - despite being a high tech causality after thirty years of steady employment ? have enough savings to hold off a good long while, and enough
ains and money to finish a degree I?m working on. Yes, you and I are truly a couple of the lucky ones. The difference being is I realize the system I?m looking at is a bunch of bull. <
>
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jfwag
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
Posts: 140
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 9:38 am Post subject: Re: open your eyes
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Hi to all of you. <
>Yes it is good, great, incredible to see some one post on this board again. I thought it was dead. I have been following this intriguing debate and find it fascinating. It cuts both sides, philosophies, well. I have just been too busy to respond effectively and forgive me for saying give me some more time to think. <
>I have, in general alway been an Universal Health Care advocate yet both sides have compelling arguments. <
>Off the top of my head the problem with Universal is that our country is entrenched in for profit. This is good, this is bad. I like the fire department analogy etc....Healthcare ought to be a basic, (forgive me for saying "right") but I will and say "right." <
>We as humans have a certain idea that we are "it". I beleive that we should take care of "it". If we are so great there should be nothing that stps us from taking care of each other. Thus, Universal, social, whatever one might call it...should be. Medicare is is only a partial U.H.Care option. We pick up the "lackies" for lack of a better term. <
>How can this country change, change a financial situation we find ourselves in? I don't know. <
>Listen, I am just rambling in thought and don't have answers. If I did, if we did, it would be settled. <
>I'll be back on this one. But at least there is finally a good debat going on here on DEO<
>
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Marty
Joined: 28 Oct 2002
Posts: 160
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:18 am Post subject: Universal Health Care
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I too am one of the lucky ones, good health insurance so far. I never gave this subject much thought until my fathers situation and since have started to lean toward Universal Health Care. When one has a disease like ESRD it can wipe out a persons entire life savings. I question rather that is the right thing to have happen to anyone? I do recall a dialysis nurse at our clinic from Scotland stating that should he ever come down with ESRD he would be on the 1st plane back to Scotland. The reason being he could get treated under the universal health care system without loosing everything he had worked his entire life for. He also could get medications without hassle. If ALL humans had the choice of good jobs with good insurance then I would go along with boilers thinking. But that isn't the case. Many "Good People" are unemployed through jobs being moved, company cut backs etc. I don't think these people deserve to be penalized on health care because this has happened to them. I also don't think that Doctors should have to spend so much of their time fighting insurance companies to get treatments for patients. Giving Doctors time to be doctors would do a lot more for patients and get the healing processes in gear faster. I can remember asking our doctor for a script to get a machine for checking protime. His reply was I will spend hrs. writing reports to justify this. Then I said no you won't I am paying "cash" for the machine. At which time he signed the paper immediately. I don't know the reason for this but I have seen a big decline in health care at one of the leading hospitals in our area. The nurses don't have the pride they used too and most of the doctors are from Pakistan, India etc. The also utilize interns in health care a lot more than they used too. I think it's all about cutting costs. Even though you pay the big $$$ for insurance once your inside the web your getting the cheapest service available.
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plugger
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
Posts: 226
Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:14 am Post subject: no wonder
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Marty, wish I could say I'm surprised by the story of the hospital near you, but I'm not, not after reading somewhere 25 cents out of every dollar for healthcare is going for overhead - administration, paperwork.<
><
>Anyway, I did find a good read on how Universal Healthcare started in Canada; it was a real knock-down, drag-out sort of fight;
here are a few quotes and the link:<
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>www.findarticles.com/p/ar...22446/pg_3<
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>"My search for the dark side of the Canadian Medicare system (as it is called) quickly led me to one man. If the Canadian system has any shortcomings, Dr. Efstathios W. "Staff" Barootes would be more than happy to expose them. Back in the early 1960s, Barootes vigorously crusaded against the implementation of government-sponsored health insurance in Canada. Canada's single-payer health care system began in Saskatchewan. Barootes was vice president, and later president, of the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons, a group determined to prevent any program that involved tax-financed health care for the entire population. He was president of GMS, the doctor-sponsored private medical insurance plan in Saskatchewan."<
><
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>"As July 1, 1962 -- the day for implementing the plan -- approached, doctors put up large signs in their offices:<
>TO OUR PATIENTS:<
>This Office Will Be Closed After July 1st, 1962. We Do Not Intend To Carry On Practice Under The Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act."<
><
>"Operating out of a hotel in Regina, one group had a twenty-four-hour telephone bank calling area citizens. With a recording of a crying baby in the background, a voice on the phone pleaded, "Help me, help me. My baby is dying and there is no doctor to help it." "<
><
>"Going forward was certainly an act of courage. Six days after the strike began, the Keep Our Doctors committees held a rally. Father Murray, a seventy-year-old priest, gave the most sensational of the speeches. "There has been death, there will be violence, and there could be bloodshed," he cried. Tearing off his coat and clerical collar, Father Murray shouted, "You Communists may think we're naive and hollow-chested, but we gave a hundred thousand boys fighting for the freedom you're fighting against." Now in full stride, he stormed, "Tell those bloody Commies to go to he** when it comes to Canada. I loathe the welfare state and I love the free-swinging freedom." "<
><
>"Now the dust has settled. Despite the grueling battle led by Dr. Barootes, he has had to live with and practice under the Medical Care Insurance Act for thirty-three years. Did the nightmare predicted by Dr. Barootes, his fellow physicians, and the Keep Our Doctors committees ever materialize?<
>"Most of the things that we threatened would happen have not happened," admits Barootes. "They have never interfered with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Free choice of doctors remains. Do patients still have a concern about their doctor, do they still have respect for their doctors? Yes .... One of the concerns we had was that people's loyalty would transfer from the physician, who is providing care, to the government, which is paying for it. That has not happened," the champion of the opposition observes."<
><
>"Dr. Barootes observes, "Today a politician in Saskatchewan or in Canada is more likely to get away with canceling Christmas than he is with canceling Canada's health insurance program.""<
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