D
dmelosi
Guest
I asked if you knew any specifically.
No health insurance and no health care are 2 different things.
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No health insurance and no health care are 2 different things.
C
Cordelil
Guest
I have noticed that plenty of people here have buttressed their opinions with accurate empirical data and you have not. No offense but you have listened to some liberal opinions about socal issues in the U.S. but have no empirical data to support anything you say. To not know about the amount of Medicaid fraud is one example among many.
Listen, this type of discourse is not where it’s at. I suggest you spend more time with your faith instead of engaging in left wing polemics. For me, I am going to disengage from this topic and get back to theology.
John
D
Dale_M
Guest
It can be, but in practice it is the same. Lack of insurance leads to delayed care which results in worse morbidity and higher mortality.
As for knowing anyone personally, yes, myself when I was in my 20’s. Low wage, no health insurance. Sure I could go to the emergency room, but that is very expensive care and not particularly good care since there is no follow through (such as when I had salmonella, but no one told me even though I prepared food at work.)
J
Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
I think the post was aimed at me, as I was the one who was talking about New Orleans after Katrina. but I think the poster did not understand what I was saying, so the argument was aimed at me, but unfounded. The person thought I believed that the government was responsible for taking care of each individual person’s needs. I must have said something which gave that impression. It was not intended. I simply meant that the love given and shown by individual people and charitable organizations were the only source of good in New Orleans after Katrina…with the exception of the presence of the National Guard. And I was screaming at the Mayor of New Orleans for telling people that New Orleans was ready for them to come home when there weren’t hospitals, adaquate housing…meaning that there wasn’t enough housing to be found whether you could pay for it or not…there weren’t school facilities available…much less enough teachers, many places were totally unsafe after dusk, because the city had no electricity (which meant that people couldn’t come home to work on thier destroyed property).
I was screaming that the mayor had no business telling people it was time to come home to New Orleans. And those who wanted to take responsibility for themselves still couldn’t put their children in schools where even as of last September the public schools had waiting lists of 300 kids. what about their education. And what about the person who comes back to work on his property, and he accidentally steps on a nail contaminated with much worse things than tetanus? He will probably sit in a hospital waiting room for 12-15 hours before being seen…whether he has insurance or not. The grocery stores and department stores available to the poor sections of New Orleans were not up and running. So how were these people supposed to buy food and staples for everyday living…if they were lucky? enough to have been able to come home?
These are things that were still very much happening when Mayor Ray Nagin got on National Television and told people that the city was ready for them to come home.
And the big things that people needed…schools, electricity, water, gas and such are the responsibility of the government to a very strong degree. People in other places have no idea how difficult it is to get permits around the New Orleans area because of the inefficiency of the city government.
If it were left up to private companies, the New Orleans area would have recovered 75 times more than it has now. and if the government didn’t claim to be taking care of the poor people, charity would be moving faster also.
Not all poor people have made bad choices. Many poor people take on the responsibilities of caring for the children of loved ones. What should happen to the children of the mother and father who abandoned them for the demon of crack? Is it the children’s fault? Is it the great grandmother’s fault? When is the last time you came across someone who was determined to get a fix? Do you honestly think they can be reasoned with? And why should the great grandmother who is choosing to raise them as best she can NOT recieve help? What I am saying is the help will be much better able to serve if it is done with the love of people’s charity…not dependent on the government.
R
ribozyme
Guest
No you originally claimed the 70% figure. Yes there is Medicaid fraud, but the main weakness in that Heritage Foundation article is that it did not say what was the total budget of those programs. Could you use the Heritage Foundation’s information to support your original claim of 70%?
J
Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
Ribozyme, what he is saying is that his friends son in law is a bum. Definition of a bum is someone who refuses to get a job if it isn’t a high paying with ego trip job. He refuses to lower himself into getting lawful employment that will at the very least help support the family that he procreated. Instead, if he can’t have it all immediately, he will sit on his duff all day and contribute nothing.
Many men and women have less than corporate head jobs. They are not inferior, just as we who need their labor are not superior. That implication was never made.
Truth is, he was praising the guy who came to ask for work from him. When it comes to feeding and sheltering your family, the responsible thing is for pride to fly out of the window, and the father especially should do whatever he can to put food on the table. Not become a dependent of those who are doing whatever they have to.
R
ribozyme
Guest
I suppose one can give them a sense of pride when they are employed. I do not think being a servant for wealthier people will be conducive to that.
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/photos_images/news_images/04-2008/chinese-poster_lg.jpg
Look at this propaganda poster. Look how it makes the person proud of his job. How could we instill that sense to people? Are most jobs in the hospitality or service sector provide a feeling of a contribution to society (and not merely enriching the managers of the company)?
J
Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
***A single mother can only work so many hours in a day. And she pays for child care if she is earning enough. That is: not enough to pay for food, rent, utilties, transportation to and from work, and clothes for her children. Single mothers cannot get what you call “free medical attention” if they make more than $259.00 per month. I am unable to work all hours of every day because I have 3 young children that I must care for. I have to work only when my children are cared for. I cannot afford health insurance…period. Period. And even were I to find a high paying job, the pre existing conditions that I have would not be covered for 2 years…so I am still out of luck. And my spending habits have nothing to do with this. I am a person who can hold on to and make $20 stretch for many needs for 2 weeks. I hadn’t bought myself new clothes (Even undergarments) in about 5 years. All of my money goes to my kids needs. Needless to say, except for the few items someone else bought me something, I went without, except an occasional pair of $5 shoes from KMart.
And, I did not choose to be a single mother, it was forced upon me.
S
seekerz
Guest
Do we live in the same America? I think not. Unless an uninsured person qualifies for assistance, has the money to pay or experiences a medical emergency, he does go without health care.
Society’s most vulnerable should not be dependent only on emergency care - it’s a recipe for poor quality of life and financial disaster for the whole health care system.
The single worst malaise of our health care system I believe, is the failure to provide comprehensive, free or low cost preventive health care (including health education) so that less people end up with health emergencies or complicated illnesses.
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estesbob
Guest
Hospitals have to treat anyone who shows up . In addition the poor are covered by Medicaid. The overwheloming majority of people who lack health care are either are covered are temporarily out of job or , have the funds to pay for insurance but declined to do so. Mostly the young.
J
Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
I repeat. An adult (single mom of 4 with no help from father) who makes more than $259.00 per month in the state of louisiana is inelligable for free health care. The government couldn’t care less where that $260.00 per month is going to.
I have kidney and reproductive problems. This past year I got a job at $11 / hour, part time because I have to be there for my kids. I was trying to help my parents pay bills (as they are totally supporting us), and pay for all the things for my children…not to mention gas to get to and from work.
I was making about $1000 per month. Add food, rent, utilities, needed staples (like soap and toilet paper and tooth paste), plus clothing for my growing kids and then gasoline took all but about 50-75 dollars a month. What insurance will cover a person who is sick often on less that $50 per month. I have looked in the past, but can find no one when they find out I am not the picture of youthful exuberant health.
So, when I got laid off at the end of June, I didn’t seek employment, so that I could go have the operation I have been needing for the past 6 months but was unable to have due to lack of medical funds.
They cannot do the surgery until the 20 of this month, and it is driving me crazy not to be able to contribute much monetarily to my family. But I get no put downs from them. They know the surgery is very important, and also that I would lose the chance to have it if I make even $260.00 per month.
The system is wrong. It more than encourages people who are in need to become totally dependent on the government. If I want medical attention, I cannot get a job. So, since I am in desperate need of medical attention, I refuse to get a job.
that is a system meant to keep people down.
Still, I would rather live in the USA than be subjected to socialistic medicine where the government decides who gets medical attention, how and when…without giving choices to anyone.
The USA system has flaws to be sure, but because of many people having the choice in medicine, many poor people can get medical attention…even if they have to be unemployed to get it.
J
Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
The purpose of employment is to earn money to meet at least the needs of the employee’s responsibilities, within reason. The pride recieved from a menial job comes from knowing that you have done all that you could possibly do to take care of yourself and family…not lie around waiting for someone to take care of your needs and those of your family. You don’t have to have a high paying job to feel that sense of pride.
My father worked from the time he was 10 years old…and he never climbed up the corporate ladder. But I have the utmost respect for him for getting up every morning at the crack of dawn for 52 out of his 62 years of life to see to it that his family was eating and had shelter and our needs were met. And there was never a person that I was aware of that my father wouldn’t or didn’t give the shirt right off of his back to and for.
According to you, he shouldn’t have done that. If he didn’t have a silver spoon, or given the executive president job, he should have just let us starve.
Your pride comes from within, not the type of job you do. Your sense of worth would be better accomplished by looking to Jesus and trying to see yourself as He sees you.
I think that your lack of faith is your biggest problem, because your lack of it seems to have made you a bitter person.
J
Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
BRAVO !!! BRAVO !!!
M
MIZER
Guest
I doubt “most people” base their perception on anything on one set of writings. People are more complex then that.
J
Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
You are TOTALLY wrong in your statement!
Going to the Emergency room does not equal treatment. I have been several times to the Emergency room for kidney stone attacks, for kidney stones too big to pass. I needed to go to a doctor and have medical procedures…which the hospital nor doctors are obliged to give if I do not present them with money up front and paid many times in full. You are talking upwards of $10,000.
I am poor!!! And if I, as a single mother of 4 with no help from the father of my children, earn as much as $260.00 per month, I am inelligible for Medicaid. Rent, food, utilities, my kids need for uniforms and school supplies and shoes are not even considered important. Anything earned above $259.00per month makes me inelligible for state health care.
And, even charity hospitals charge money for their services. I currently have a $500 bill with a charity hospital for one emergency room visit…which did not take care of the actual problem. They just identified the probable problem and took away the pain.
All other hospitals charge even more. They are only required to stabalize your condition if you go to the emergency room.
And I run into people all of the time who are not “young”, and are working themselves into the ground to support their families…and still can’t afford health care costs. It isn’t a matter of having the money and being unwilling. It is about the phenominal cost of health care. Employers keep most of the employees at a part time level just to keep from having to offer health insurance. that means that an employee works just short of 40 hours per week, but is still not given the option of health or retirement benefits.
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estesbob
Guest
E
estesbob
Guest
Nobody said they got equal treatment. The question was are people in America denied medical treatment. The answer is no.
R
ribozyme
Guest
So do you think the poor’s treatment is inadequate?
J
Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
Nobody said anything about equal treatment. I said going to a hospital does not equal recieving treatment. In other words, just because you go to a hospital does not mean that they are going to fix the problem. They are only required to stabalize your condition. And many times, that is all that the emergency physician can do. If you have more than a simple infection, you are told to go to your family doctor to recieve treatment for your problem. High blood pressure…stabalize it, and send to family physician. Heart pain…stabalize it and send to family physician. Only, poor people don’t have family physicians because they cannot afford to go to the doctor!
I have been refused medical attention many times!!! If I cannot get an appointment with a doctor…as advised to me by the emergency room doctor who could do nothing to treat my illness other than pain control for the MOMENT…without laying $75-$150 on his receptionists desk before he ever sees me, I am turned away. The doctor is not required to treat anyone. Just like the hospital is not required to do anything more than to stabalize.
And you are still required to pay for charity hospitals and clinics run by the state. They are not free.
S
stcalixtus
Guest
In a perfect world everyone would have basic medical care, I would like to point out the fact that millions die every year from lack of basic medical care…you have no such problem.Lets say we re distribute all the money in the world to provide basic health care, fact is if we did their would be no money left over to treat patients with a poor prognosis, people who run up a million dollar bill and die anyway
if we redistribute healthfunds choices like that would have to be made.Are you doing everthing you can to promote your wellness? I hope so, because that is in your best interest.What are the circumstances of of your childrens father not being able to support? that is very sad indeed.It is a cruel world full of greedy evil people who do not give a **** about other people, I truly in my heart think everyone deserves at least basic healthcare anything beyond that one has to think of the plight of others in this world and be thankful for what med treatment they receive:ehh: .We essentially have to much medical care here as compared to some poor soul in sub saharan africa ect.You really come across as having a sense of entitlement, how did you get into your situation…is it all someone elses fault? I know of so many that cannot grasp the concept of personal accountibility,when one makes a decision of their own free will they have to live with the results…no government to bail you out right? I am all for helping each other and I certainly do my part
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