Our Healthcare System Sucks
Well I can see from the comments to my last blog about the messed up healthcare plans of our presidential candidates (or their flaunting of the fact that they have no plans) that a lot of you are pissed off about the healthcare system. So am I. In fact, I think that it is criminal that someone like Mitt Romney can sit there and say that we have universal healthcare because if you break your arm they are going to take you to the ER even if you don't have insurance.
McCain says that Hillary's healthcare plan is "putting lipstick on a pig," but I think the real pig is the current healthcare system. And the people putting the lipstick on it are the Gang of Four (pharmaceutical industry, doctors groups, hospitals, and insurance companies). They've got us all so mesmerized with their propaganda that we all think it looks like a pretty sexy pig. Why don't we all just hold hands now and sing "We've got the best healthcare in the world" to the tune of "I'd like to teach the world to sing".
Yesterday an article in the journal Health Affairs reported that 37% of Americans didn't go to the doctor when they were sick or didn't buy needed meds or treatments because they couldn't afford it. Half of all bankruptcies were found to be due to medical illness. You're not happy with this situation, either, in spite of what the media (who can't get over their excitement about all the wonderful medical breakthroughs we're having) is telling you that you are feeling. In fact, the survey showed that one third of you thought the system was completely dysfunctional, and needed to be redone from scratch, making you one of the most unhappy group of health care consumers in the world.
And doctors aren't happy about it either. They found a safe place to bitch to each other about the healthcare system at a doctors-only web site called Sermo. When Pfizer bought a piece of it they had a virtual conniption fit, literally.
And what should we do about it? I'll have to think about it and get back to you later. Right now I have to go see some patients. You see, the healthcare system I work for has been running in the red for some time now, and they're considering a merger with...
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There is no way to reform the healthcare system. All of the solutions make the profits of the insurance companies more important than the health of its customers. They pull all of the tricks that lower their risks; increase co-pays, increase deductibles, restrict what's covered and get rid of unhealthy patients. The only answer is a system like Medicare for all, Universal Single Payer Healthcare that makes healthcare of the patients the most important thing.
Doug, you need to be a little more accurate. Pfizer didn't buy any of Sermo. And there are lots of other places for physicians to talk with each other online. And frankly that paragraph has nothing to do with the problems of the US health care system -- most of which were caused by a couple of generations of now mostly dead physicians.
Yep,it sucks. However, I do not universal health care. I want the damn government to start hitting these damn pill pushers over the head. I should be able to afford pills without insurance. Hell, I paid for the research.
I do not feel sorry for doctors getting sued because they drive the best cars and live in the biggest houses. What they charge Medicare supports that lifestyle.
I don not want it because it is a manditory payment for the insurance companies.
I want some damn cost control in this country. Bush you jerk.
It really pisses me off that these pills are made in other contries.
I worked as a medic on an ambulance. My job was to convince people that they were hurt/sick enough that they needed transportation to the ER.
EVERY DAY we would be faced with people who needed treatment but delayed it because they could not afford it, and they didn't have insurance.
These were not poor people. These were (generally) working people, often Middle Class, who knew that the debt they would incur would be crippling. NO ONE can afford extended medical care. NO ONE.
And every day I was faced with people who should have been treated when the problem began, but by the time we saw them it was too late.
There are people dying in America EVERY DAY because they can't afford medical care. And these folks don't show up on any statistics i have ever seen.
Now I have found out that our local hospital will sieze any and all of your assets if you can't pay. They will turn it over to a collection agency and at that point you are screwed. They will bankrupt you.
It is a disgrace.
And the fools supporting it have the nerve to call us a "Christian nation."
Well Yes!
Umm?
***How Free Enterprise Saved America***
It is rater simple. Risk, over Return.
Capitalism Saved America?????
Yes, BY EXAMPLE!
Capitol flows just like water.
It always seeks the path of least resistance and always gathers where it is sheltered and protected.
Well, lets look at the things restricting capital growth and wealth accumulation.
Workers need to be safe and healthy. Workers make factories run.
Without proper healthcare, time is lost, productivity goes down, people quit, businesses go bankrupt, and Capital MOVES ON!
If you hire a worker at $20 per hour, it costs American Business $40 per hour to keep them happy, healthy and with some hope of a retirement.
Healthcare and Insurances are breaking the back of American Business.
This administrations answer???
Deny all claims, and deny healthcare.
They call these *Entitlements*
The result, jobs are leaving America, our people are dieing, Capital is fleeing, investment is down and companies are going under. A child*s broken arm can cost $30,000 to fix. Breast Cancer upwards of a MILLION.
Even if Insurance covers 80%, you loose the house, the car, the family, and divorce soon follows.
Money troubles, cause most divorces.
Now you have 4 or 5 homeless people, an insane ex-wife, the kids with no college, father turned into a,,, Dead Beat Dad,,, because his child support is based on what he USED to earn, but now he*s a street drunk with bad credit and kids on drugs.
NOT GOOD!!
OH and the Company he USED to work for, is now in Singapore where a broken arm costs $300 to fix and basic healthcare is a given.
Remember, if you want Private Care,,,, you can still pay out the Millions and Millions for those procedures, so private hospitals will still be around.
As far as who is pushing cost reduction and research and development, the County Healthcare Systems and VA Hospitals, ARE.
They are the only ones with the clout to DO IT!
How did Free Enterprise save America????
BY MOVING AWAY, teaching us WE ARE WRONG.
JMO
All the best
Knute (Neo-LIB)
I have had breast cancer and I've had 11 surgeries on my left side. My insurance cancelled me due to the cost of covering me. Never mind how much I had paid in to them over the years and never mind how much they had raised my premiums.
I can't get insurance. I work for $9 an hour in a local prison. There aren't any jobs here except the prison. I'll be able to get insurance there, BUT, it isn't very good. And it is going to cost me the raise that I got by changing jobs.
I regularly skip going to a doctor or dentist due to not having enough money for insurance. I have 90 days now until I can get covered and it is not going to make very much difference to me.
Our healthcare sucks! John McCain sucks! George Bush makes me ill.....
If the US did not send so much money down the Pentagon black hole there would be plenty of money to provide Medicare for all, young or old, employed or not, in sickness and in health.
How will the electorate vote ?
For war or healthcare ?
So who deserves to die?
For profit healthcare is criminal. To believe in this you have to actually believe that money is more important than people. It is really that simple.
Mitt Romney is a political whore. He will say whatever he believes will give him the money to get elected. It is easy to see. High-priced, for profit, political business advocate.
Giuliani is worse.
The democrats are mostly lame too. Hillary is the best republican the democratic party has to offer.
Our country is in extreme trouble. People better get involved and informed.
Universal Healthcare will not happen under Republican rule.
The big pharmas and the insurance industry are in the pockets of most, if not all politicians. They own the AMA, APA and other sick care organizations and professionals. The mental health industry is one giganic drug store where they are drugging our kids as though we are having an epidemic of anxiety amongst our children.
Our sick care industry is as sick as our society. Seems that most of our population is suffering from some mental and physical illness. It is hard to observe that any of our social systems that are working, starting with the family. We still put more people in prison that any other country in the world, with the exception of China.
If we wish to have a health care program in this country then we must change these corporations and start massive primary prevention programs, including our public education. How likely do you think this will ever happen in the corporate environment that owns our government officials?
"The GOP is for the least healthcare at the cheapest price."
"US Healthcare is for profit, not health."
The Dems need to say this over and over and over and over and over.
Q. If a person happened upon your average physician, and he needed his help, would the doctor see him if the man could not pay?
My guess is NO! Not today. Maybe in times past.
Just remember the children we have deprived of health insurance today will be our caretakers tomorrow..
I can't understand why people are not taking to the streets. The system, not too long ago, the finest in the world and affordable, is completely wrecked. Medicare works as long as you don't need a doctor or a prescription. Puny payments and that ridiculous prescription thing has a donut you can drive a truck through. And, those scum insurance companies have insinuated themselves into that as well. Doctoring is substandard, and medical schools are teaching them that its okay to make mistakes. If you're looking for The Hippocratic Oath, it is now in America's garbage can, growing exponentially, and big enough to hold that, our system of checks and balances, our regulatory agencies concerned with public health and safety, congress, and crumpled together with our Constitution and The Bill of Rights.
Plan options presented by potential candidates, have so many unknowns, they are impossible to analyze properly, and always the spectre of insurance companies drooling to suck us dry looms large, like those puppet villains who made us scream when we were children. When the editor of Parade magazine, pointed out that a family can have a deductible as high as $11,000. with a current insurance plan, CNN interviewers actually talked over her, cutting her off from speaking on it.
You are right about the mergers, of course, once that happens there will be quite literally no way out. The so-called free market boys, the same ones who have propped up the ponzi stock market, would shit their pants before they would allow real competition.
With all the truly amazing new science, one would think we could dig up FDR and Eleanor. If only.
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