tj...I wish for once you'd post factual, non debatable information. Your references seem to emanate from the same ones Sky Kean and others of his ilk, namely alex (that kamikaze of the skywaves) and a few other personalities fall with abandon on hapless communites like asteroids falling at random onto a disarmed township.
If ya posted something other than cut and paste from Fucks News then someone might listen. Tried to take the opposite side occasionally? Guess not.....
Just as Charles is starting to read The Wall Street Journal.
TJ
I am? Your a funny man TJ.
A personal story. I was having some problems with my sinuses. My wife ( Nurse ) suggested that I ask my Doctor ( family doctor for 20 plus years ) for a referral to see a specialist which I did. His reply was " you don't need to see a specialist because we need to keep cost down, so we will continue to treat you as before ". That meant more meds. I asked him about his comment stating to him that " I thought it was the patient that was important". He replied that " sometimes a doctor has to decide whats best for the patient based on his coverage ". Before I left that day I requested all my medical records and fired him as my doctor. That was about 18 years ago.
On the health care problem in America it is obvious that the current way of doing things has only benefit the insurance companies and not most Americans. Most Americans want a single payer Government supported health care program. Many Americans don't mind paying extra taxes to support it.
The for profit insurance companies have had everything their way as well as the pharmaceutical companies, bilking the American public with outrageous prices for drugs. Ask anyone who has had major health problems arise how much trouble they had getting it covered.
If you have been watching C-Span for the recent hearings on health insurance you would have heard the nightmare stories of people who paid well for their coverage being denied for specious reasons, the company going back, for example, and picking up a patient treated for acne as reason to deny her coverage for her cancer treatment. Reason: "pre existing condition."
Anyone who tries to get health insurance will find themselves either declined or such a long list of "pre existing conditions" they won't cover, that in effect they pay thousands each year and have no coverage at all. Anyone with diabetes will find not only the cost of his or her monthly supplies denied, but also heart condition, resulting blindness if that be the case, dialysis when kidneys fail, cardiac conditions and possible surgery, arterterialsclorosis, all conditions caused by diabetes. That is just one example. On staff insurance companies keep an employee, usually a doctor whose sole job is to review claims and reject as many as possible, their pay and bonus based on the number of claims they can reject. One such ex insurance company doctor testified before Congress, saying most of them were meritorious and she felt very bad about the claims she denied that should have been covered for people went without needed care.
People who are self employed do not have "employer paid" coverage, nor access to group. The four million who have been laid off their jobs the past year: They and their families do not have employer paid coverage and the cost of Cobra is very, very high. Small businessmen, small farmers, have a hard time coming up with the money for the high premiums.
Compulsory insurance will never be an option unless the health insurance companies are regulated, as auto insurers are. And they be required to take any and all applicants and pay all claims, no "pre existing condition" exceptions.
Our for profit system for which we pay more than any country in the world, still finds us in 37th place for quality of health care for our citizens.
For those who cannot afford the high insurance premiums, the young people just starting out, 20-25, those making less than $50K a year, they are going without necessary routine medical care. Their only option is the emergency room once their illness is acute enough. People are dying in this country, needlessly, for ailments not detected because they could not afford an office visit and the tests a doctor would have run.
The system is broken. For those who love their health insurance company, they are blessed with an exceptional company -- or have never had a serious health problem and tried to get the company to pay a claim. Pharmaceutical costs are bloated by the companies spending millions upon millions in advertising, pumping their pills to everyone on national TV as well as magazines, every medium imaginable, trying to build demand instead of the physician being the one to recommend a pill when he or she thinks it needed. If the pharmaceuticals quit hawking their pills like hamburgers, costs could be cut considerably.
Perhaps it is time to get a single payer health plan and government run instead of by the for profit insurance companies. It is time for reform.
So, tj, let us discuss your false data. That makes more sense than your silly comment.
Sme time in the in the past the european countries decided to offer healthcare where as in America it fell under employment benefits. I always figured this was a good union idea to gain support. as competition increased perssure was placed on where to cut costs. benefits made sense ir was easy to do at least on paper plus it kept people working. Problem bcame when companies started to charge too much to get on the policy or they decided to drop it enyirely. This has hurt both the employer and employee.
One of the things that hurts is the private insurance corporations having no competition. Also, curtailing the influence of the lobbyists for both the pharmaceutical and insurance companies would have a huge impact on our health care costs. As an example examine the old GMAC which still exists as an insurer but has simply renamed itself. An insurance company is an insurance company is an insurance company. All insurance companies are in the business of taking as much of our money as possible and providing as little coverage for Americans as possible.
TJ, has the benefit of government sponsored healthcare being a resident of Thailand. Not to mention the cost is so much cheaper.
this is going to take a long time because there is such a lush growth of relative replies. Joyboy55, if you were following the discussion between me and Trippin and Charles1950, I was even giving publications and pages of reference for the Wall Street Journal and The Economist.
I live this stuff mostly, so I don't need to give a link. it is an accumulation of knowledge not a viewpoint to try to make a point.
This is the other sides problem; they don't know what they are talking about just what they can reference at the moment.
Trippin, It really amases me, after I give you all the facts you just want to negate them all. Never mind Wall Street Journal, but the Economist? You even read it yourself. It just gave you ammunition to imagime something else in your head. You and Charles are fucked up puppies.
You and Charles are fucked up puppies.
posted by tjbr52
And that Ladies and Gentlemen ( to coin Rush Limbaugh ) is an example of how Right Wing Neo-Cons Make their point. Took awhile, but true colors to come out eventually.
