Government Health Care? Not a Health Scare

I want my universal health care. I want our country to have a simple system like the Europeans enjoy. Like Katharine Zaleski, I've gotten sick abroad and have been blown away by how easy and cheap it was to be treated by a doctor in Europe. The unchecked greed of America's capitalism has been backed into a corner, we have it on the ropes. It's left our health care system in shambles, so let's finish it off. Profits have no place where people's lives are concerned, where the heartbreak and stress of raising a sick child is concerned.

Lou Carlozo has a healthy, beautiful son, but he lives with the special challenge of Sensory Integration Dysfunction (SID). Lou's insurance, during his 16 years as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, fought him every step of the way in seeking covered treatment for his son. For Walletpop.com, Lou shares this struggle and breaks down the corrupt tactics of the industry:

A lot of people with vested interests in the Way Things Are will likely say some very scary things about health care reform to the American people...As a Chicago Tribune reporter, I heard many people at insurance companies acknowledge off the record that the system is designed to make people give up and pay up. What should be routine claims get denied on a technicality, often on purpose. And so you fight and fight until you either just decide to pay the bill, or maybe reach a compromise you shouldn't have had to reach in the first place.

Lou also shares some interesting history on the battle for universal health care:

The last president to take a stab at universal health care before Bill Clinton? That would be Richard Nixon -- the very, very Republican Richard Nixon. We haven't heard the likes of, say, former Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee open his mouth on the issue, but you can trust him as far as you can throw him: His family made a fortune in the health care biz under the Way Things Are, and at one point his Hospital Corporation of America (founded with his dad and brother) paid more than $800 million in criminal penalties for Medicare fraud.

To read more of Lou's touching and empowering article, check it out here.

Follow Andrea Chalupa on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LifeB4Tw1tter

Comments

[SeenItBefore]

I paid cash, UP FRONT, and still had to wait 10 working days for my CT and Nuclear scans prior to my surgery to determine the extent of cancer spread.

By American health care mis-information, I should have been ushered in with blaring trumpets the instant my credit card cleared?

My prostate cancer was confirmed in early September and surgery happened in late November. When the prostate was removed, it had ruptured and cancer cells were left in my abdomen.

My friend in England was diagnosed with prostate cancer the first week of May and had his surgery the last week in May.

We both benefitted from robotics, had short hospital stays and quick recovery times. His surgery was PAID FOR and mine has cost $228,000.0­0 to date.

So, once again, would someone explain why I am so lucky to be raped by the American "Show Us The Money!" system?

[madeoutofmud]

Hey BobLablah

Its safe to assume you don't know anyone who's unisured who couldn't get their insulin or blood pressure meds and eventually had a stroke and got to have their MRI done immediately the "American" way. On your dime. Have you even been in Europe or Canada. This myth about "rationing" is so blatantly a scare tactic. I would wager that no other country in the developed world rations as much as we do - we just do it the money way - 50 million or 1/6 of the country doesn't have insurance and can't get needed services until their health gets so bad that they can get it emergently - often after it's too late.

[BobLablah]

median wait time for MRI in Canada: 10-12 weeks.

[Billl]

There is only one way to lower health care costs enough to prevent bankrupting the United States Treasury.

Nobody can collect the money to pay for health care as cheaply as the government can through a national sales tax, individuals and businesses would no longer need to purchase questionable insurance to pay for expensive services in a system that has failed so many, and nobody can deliver high quality care and medications as cost effectively as the VA has for years.

A civilian model of the VA is the best fix in a new dual public/private system.

If private systems work for you keep doing what you’re doing except no government funding should be spent through private systems in order to control costs and outcomes.

A new public health service could provide:

Free care and medications to everyone choosing to use public care, rich, poor, old, young, everybody that asks for it could have it no insurance or co pays would be required the service would be free period.

Businesses that would choose the public health care service for their employees would no longer be required to pay for or be involved in health care in any way.

Government cost for this new public health care system even after bringing in 50 million people currently outside of any system would still be hundreds of billions of dollars cheaper than the $2.5trilli­on spent last year for health care.

[BobLablah]

I assume it's safe to say you've never needed an MRI or other test that is subjected to rationing in Europe.