I am searching for someone who has been helped by the stimulas packages. Looking for that person who was able to benefit from all that money. Please let me know that you received some benefit.
All the people I know didn't get a new house, new car, new job, stopped fore closure, etc. All I want to know is if some real person in Wisconsin actually was helped.
Our group is so great!!!! This is a very touchy subject that would have caused certain people to go off and start spewing and pointing fingers......but not here....Everyone brings up their views without slamming the opposition. Great job everyone!!! I'm very proud to be a part of this group. Keep up the fellowship!!!
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country has gone down the drain. People now think that they deserve the free breakfast, the free lunch and anything else they can get their hands on. They not only create it, they seek it. It seems like every "cause" out there feels they have the right for government help. Then add all of the fraud! It's a mess!
Something needs to be done about health insurance, fast. And I don't mean a free ride, not at all. I just want to be able to get something for our money. The thing is, there are a lot of hard working self-employed Americans who just can not simply afford it anymore. And I'm sure there are many more scenarios out there too besides the self employed. My hubby has been priced out of the market and so have many more. His health care plan is horrible. I think I posted the details one other time. With pre-existing conditions, you either can't get insurance or they put a rider on it. When it comes to something like chronic high blood pressure, they will tell you just about everything is not covered. Except a broken arm or leg. Even if it is controlled by medication. Heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, etc. will all lead back to high blood pressure. Even if it doesn't, they will find a way. It makes me sick. I have fought more insurance companies over my own health problems over the years. They like to take in the premium, but they don't want to pay anything back out. Companies that were once respectable 20 years ago are horrible now.
Cap, I'm not afraid to say it. God help us all! (I know what you were saying though.)
I want affordable health insurance, and I want our healthcare system to be one of the best in the world -- that costs money. We need to find a balance between affordability and allowing the industry to thrive. Eliminating fraud would help a lot but a public option will just foster fraud. Private companies will root out fraud better than the government because it hits them in the bottom line and the government can just raise our taxes to cover the loss.
Insurance companies are killing us right now. The gov't needs to regulate them but not compete with them.
Someone said on the news last night that we need healthcare reform and we need it immediately because people are dying -- what lies has she been listening to?
Mike, if you can come up with a Fraud Detector you could make a million!
The worse thing a worry-wart like me can do in these economic times is listen to NPR. The straight truth hurts. It scares the hell out of a person and makes you wonder if anyone is at the controls or if we are just a screaming NW airliner with the captain and crew (president & congress) working on personal computers instead of flying the plane.
NPR did a story last week on ways stimulus packages were being abused. Seems that military stimulus contracts were awarded to six companies that are PRESENTLY under investigation for criminal fraud on previous government contracts.
OK, let me ask you a personal question: If the local plumber did a repair at your house and you discovered he generated fraud (on purpose) on your bill, what would you do? I'm willing to bet the $2.00 the admiral gave me for an allowance this week that 1) You would refuse to pay at least the fraudulant part of the bill if you paid it at all, 2) You would spread the word throughout the neighborhood about this guy, and 3) You would NEVER hire this guy for a job again.
But, our good old US Government sees nothing wrong with this and continues to hire companies that get caught all the time. Let me see, Billion $$$$ contract; caught padding the bill; pay multi-thousand $$$$$$ fine. HMMMMMMMMM seems like you still make out like a (excuse the pun), a bandit.
When was the last time you asked your clinic or hospital for a copy of the itemized bill they sent to your insurance company? When was the last time you went over that bill line by line and challenged/questioned the health care provider on the bill? I HAD a chiropractor that kept me coming back twice a week for an adjustment plus ultrasound treatments and micro-electo muscle stimulation simply because they were automatic approvals on my insurance.
I had a very good friend who was an ER physician. He informed me that his department was under the direction of the hospital administrator to X-ray anything that came into ER. Even a splinter was to be X-rayed telling the patient that they wanted to be sure the splinter in the finger had not penetrated the bone. He had a whole list of procedures and care supplies that were automatic approvals by insurance companies and that hospital wanted all the $$$$ could get. If not approved, they still had additional charges that made up for the loss of any one item. And we wonder where health care has gotten out of control?
Don't depend on the govenment to fix anything. They will only compound the situation. I will say it again - when you point a finger at anyone, there are three of your own fingers pointing back at you. Don't be afraid to challenge your doctor, clinic, hospital. Don,t be afraid to challenge your own insurance company. Yes I know from experience how long they can put you on hold, but I am payiing almost $300./month for a policy that has a $5000.00 deduct and doesn't cover anything other than surgery required after I have been attacked by a rabid kangaroo in my living room on the 7th of June.
How about a stimulus package for our congress? How's this - clean up your act before the next election or join the out-of-work ranks. Elimate their palacial benefit and health care package. let hem have a $5000. deduct and require two opinions plus a written request for the procedure from their insurance company. Let them see how we live. Hold them accountable. FAX them, write them, phone them, irrate them, force them to do an HONEST day's work like the rest of us. We have to stop letting them get away with it.
My wife would take her meds to the hospital with her, the doctor would tell them to administer them to her, they refused and would get the identical meds from their pharmacy and administer those.
My friend always challenges hospital bills even though they're 100% covered by insurance. The hospitals said to him, why do you care, the insurance pays for it.
My wife's doctor asked her one time about our insurance so he could decide what treatment to recommend --> he was trying to save us some money, yea right!
The insurance company pays for wheelchair rental, not purchase, and will pay the rental for 10 months and then let you keep the chair -- the amount paid in ten months is three times the value of the wheelchair.
The insanity continues.
Medicare bills get scrutinized by the patient and reported to the government that certain procedures, etc. that are on the bill were not performed -- the patient is told, don't worry about it, it won't cost you anything, we'll just pay it because we don't have the manpower to investigate that type of fraud.
The gov't pays such a small amount to doctors for some procedures under medicaid that the doctors bill the same procedure several times, undetected. No checks and balances in that system to catch multiple billings for the same thing.
Medicare fraud is a problem, but it is not committed by the government or government employees but by the private sector.
All of the industrialized democracies in the world guarantee health car for everyone young or old, poor or rich, immigrant or native except for one. Care to guess which one that is? They benefit from reduced redundancy, lower costs, more efficient businesses, and greater levels of citizen satisfaction.
There is much mixing here of the stimulus money with the health care issue and I will stick to the health care issue in this post.
Under current legislative proposals no system will be destroyed although people will be presented with at least some choice instead of only facing private insurance or no access to healthcare at all. The "system" of going without health care until you end up in emergency and they having other citizens pay through increased costs in taxes and premiums is part of problem and will not go away by opposing reforms.
Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid are much liked by Americans and the biggest problems have been caving into special interests that have parasitized them, e.g. the prescription drug bill. Most are too young to remember or otherwise not aware of what life was like prior to these improvements. Few if any people turn down these benefits even those who denounce them.
Continuing with a boken disaster bound system is far more dangerous that trying to improve the system.
The September 21 Newsweek had a series of very good articles on the health care discussion, but this one caught my eye and I read it because a few weeks back I participated in what Sarah Palin would call a "Death Panel" or as normal people call them, Advanced Medical Directives (my oldest sister died). These are not designed to save money but in the end they do and they allow people the dignity of making their own choices when their death comes instead of being denied that right as Palin would prefer.
To say that no system will be destroyed but in the same breath say that there will be a gov't option, is contradictory, in my opinion. No private company can compete with the gov't. And, when the gov't requires insurance coverage and forces insurance companies to ignore pre-existing conditions, then there's no reason (other than being taxed/fined) for someone to get insurance until they need it -- the private companies cannot compete with that shoved down their throats.
I believe that our gov't needs to split the healthcare initiative into two separate issues so we can all see what their plan is --- Insurance (i.e. gov't option, private company regualtion, etc.) and Costs (i.e. tort reform, hospital and doctor costs, etc.). No reasonable person can believe that insurance regulation or a gov't run option will reduce costs unless they believe that the reduced costs will be a result of the gov't regulating what the gov't or the private coverage will be, i.e. regulate provider costs. Costs, on the other hand, needs to be addressed in a very different way than a "everyone is covered" insurance plan. Costs need to be addressed from the standpoint of competition, capitalism, free-market, etc., not socialized or government run healthcare. Now, if the costs go down because the providers can't get paid what they want to charge because of regulation, then I believe the fraud level will go up and the quality of healthcare will go down.
A third issue is the idea of death panels, or whatever sugar-coated label they want to put on them (I personally don't like the phrase "death panels" because I do not believe it fully describes their role in the healthcare system). If people believe that we can reduce healthcare by reducing the number of people (elderly, and terminally ill) that will receive benefits, then they should take a look at what happens now with insurance companies and providers -- lots of insurance companies will pay for hospice care, but might not approve the expense of late life major surgery or chemo therapy or the like. So, in a sense, we already have death panels, we just don't realize it.
To cloud the issue of healthcare with a discussion about death panels is folly, foolish, and misdirected, and I might be just as to blame here as anyone, for that I apologize.
So, we need to regulate the insurance industry without a gov't option OR we need to just come out and say that we don't want private insurance companies and everyone will be covered under a gov't run plan. Second, we need to regulate the healthcare industry -- I would suggest panels of healthcare professionals to convene to set regulations or caps on healthcare charges. Washington Bureaucrats should not be allowed on the panels. But, the Attorney General could be empowered to enforce the regulations with criminal prosecutions, or something like that.
A plan such as the one I outlined would preserve the quality of our current healthcare system, and provide coverage (insurance) for every man, woman, and child in the country -- I would suggest we restrict it to citizens, but that's another issue. The rate panels would be responsible to make sure the hospitals don't charge $100 for a bed pan, for example. The attorney general can be responsible to prosecute those who charge for services not rendered, for example.
Now my one cent on fraud -- of course fraud is committed by the private sector, but it's the government who allows it to happen. Medicare fraud is rampant because people don't look at their bills and report the abuse and because the government refuses to look into the complaints. Medicaid fraud is rampant because THEY DON'T PAY THE PROVIDERS A REASONABLE FEE TO PROVIDE THE SERVICE SO THE PROVIDERS HAVE FOUND THAT IT IS EASY TO DOUBLE OR TRIPLE BILL FOR THE SAME SERVICE OR PHANTOM SERVICES OR FOR PHANTOM PATIENTS SO THEY CAN PAY THEIR BILLS AND KEEP THEIR CLINICS OPEN -- THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS THIS AND ALLOWS IT TO CONTINUE.
Sorry for yelling, but it burns my ass to hear people say that a gov't run medical system can be paid for by the savings that we will get for stopping the fraud -- they won't stop the fraud, it will just get worse and the taxpayers will continue to foot the bill. I'm tired of paying for it, let's not make the problem worse by taking on so much more.
I think we should vote out all of them and start over with this thing. The biggest crooks are the ones writing the laws. Would you want Nancy Pilosi for a relative? How about Harry Ried? How about any of them?
Government is not the solution, but part of the problem.
And you folks under 59, for goodness sake lie about your age. Anyone over 59 is going to end up on a floating piece of ice.
Hubby pays $500 a month for a $10,000 deductible. His EOB's have come back with a "double" deductible of $20,000. They have few providers and the last we checked, there wasn't a doctor in our area who took it that was accepting patients. Heaven help us if there is a tragic illness. He rarely goes to the doctor for anything except his blood pressure checks which he needs to do to get his medication refilled. Otherwise he toughs most everything out. In the early 90's we paid $107 dollars a month with a $1000 deductible for a family of 6. How times have changed.
Hubby wouldn't mind paying $500 a month for health coverage if there was just that, some coverage. What hubby has now leaves little room to actually go see a doctor and have any tests. He has shopped around and they all want to put a rider on his blood pressure and the premium isn't much less. In a nutshell, for a little better price or deductible, if he has a heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, etc., they won't pay a dime of it, never, ever. That's a big deal.
For anyone who thinks they should pay less because they are healthy, I was one and know many, who have became ill when, I and they, were at the prime and healthiest of our lives. Eating well, exercise and no hereditary disease means nothing. It really doesn't. We are all in the same boat folks. You can get struck with a disease as well as you can get struck by a car. We are all capable of having an anvil drop on our heads in the high rise of our life. Anytime. I'm living proof and I am not alone. (I'm not trying to be cocky here, believe me, I am very humble about this.) Just walk into any pediatric ward or oncology center for an example. A friend of mine was just diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer a couple weeks ago. She is 40 and "extremely" fit. No breast cancer in her family. In fact, in only a very small percentage of breast cancer diagnosed is there a hereditary gene. I would have to check, but I believe it was under 10%. I have another friend who drinks orange juice by the gallons, eats mostly vegetables, rarely ever eats red meat, exercises daily and he ended up with lymphoma. We are all targets at any time. You know the famous last words, "I never thought it would happen to me."
I do check my bills and have actually disputed some and won. Only it wasn't the hospital bill, it was the insurance company not wanting to pay legitimate bills. One bill was for me after a heart type surgery. It was a rare surgery and the heart is not always involved with it, but mine was. The hospital had me wired up so that if I took a walk, they could keep track of me using antennas in the ceilings of the hospital corridors. If they saw my heart stop on the monitor, they could track me down faster whether I was in the room or somewhere else. But it only worked on the cardio floor. Anyways, the insurance company said that I was not on that monitor. I knew I was because I was taken to a different floor for tests and a staff member didn't follow protocol when she wheeled me out of the area. They evidently were looking for me because I must have flat lined or something on their computer and I was no where to be found. Luckily, even in my drugged induced state I remembered that. It saved me a couple thousand dollars. I think of how easily that could have been overlooked, but that incident was all I had to know the difference. lol I fought the insurance company for a few months and they finally covered it. I sent them numerous copies of the notes, highlighted them and everything else I could think of to get their attention that the monitor was used on me. Finally, I was able to get someone on the phone with one of the copies I sent them, and a copy the hospital sent them. I had to actually talk them through to the highlighted paragraph that said this monitor was used. It was painful for them to acknowledge that those words were there. They finally paid.
As for death panels, in my opinion, just ask the 47 million people without insurance what that's like. Wondering if your number is going to come up. Liver and heart transplants mean a lot to them and their families, too.
Fraud is a huge issue here. I think you all have really nailed it on the head. We need more checks and balances over checks and balances and that still doesn't seem to be enough. Someone still turns their head and walks away from it. They should be fired and deserve no more than a job flipping burgers for the rest of their lives. I'm afraid we would see a lot of familiar faces at Macky D's. I was astounded at the fraud that day care owner in Milwaukee was doing and all of the people who knew she was doing it and did nothing. There was a lot of messed up stuff there, and we can be sure it is happening everywhere. That really chapped my hide! No doubt we live in a messed up greedy nation.
Just interesting, but no point. We had a foreign exchange student from Norway live with us several years ago. Now mind you, she was a 17 year old girl, but she said that in Norway, their healthcare is provided and they have a fairly organized country. People have to work. There is something for almost everyone unless they are disabled or really old. There is no status for what you do. No one is really much wealthier than another there. She said she loves it there. I think a lot of Scandinavian countries are like this. I also heard that Iceland's finances were in the brink, too, awhile back. So not sure how that is working out for all of them.
