Why Am I for nationa healthcare?

[DanteAlighieri]

There has to be a stick or a gun held by the government. That is regulation. An insurance company only has to look into my medical and debt history to see that I’ve cost over half a million dollars. No company would make that bet unless they’re forced to by the government. No one else has the authority to force them to take me as a customer.

Forcing a company to cover people it can’t afford to cover will cause that company to go out of business. Period. It’s simple economics.

Again, I’m sorry for your situation, but I’m only able to discuss the situation in a national context. I continue to pray for you.

Peace,
Dante

 

[DanteAlighieri]

Pathia/Rachel:

I’m on SSDI, so whenever I see someone say what you said, I start looking at his or her profile to see what the Chronic Conditions are:
Age 29 - 6’ tall
Strokes
Brain Tumors
Difficulty Walking - Mobility Impaired
Extreme Pain -
Difficulty Typing
Can’t get Medicaid (Dependents - Too much money from Disability)
Sterile - Intersexed Mosaic (XY, XXY, XX)
Mental History - Suicide Attempts
You said you were on disability - I assume it’s State Disability because you don’t have Medicare.
I hope that sums it up - feel free to correct or add. I figured I had spent 2 hours searching through posts, and that was enough.

Remember, I live with extreme pain, too, along with a few other Disabilities. So I can more than sympathize. I also tried to work through a lot of the pain, until I was laid off from a job and found no one else would hire someone as disabled as I was. You might be in that situation.

First, You do live SOMEWHERE, even if it’s a ONE-ROOM HOVEL (Been there, Done that)! Where you live gives those of us who want to help you an idea of the sort of conditions we’re operating under.

Pathia, I’m going to ask you to do me a few favors:

Start posting your situation (or a description) in the Prayer Request Section. Just ask for prayers and Healing.
List where you live - It tells us what kind of bureaucracy you’re dealing with & what shape the economy is in your state.
Please, try going back to Church, even if you can only do it once or twice a month. I know you feel as if you’ve been “asked to leave”, but that was your family, not God.
Most of the people here probably won’t be able to understand how angry you are about some things… John Heard will. Look at his site DREADNOUGHT
johnheard.blogspot.com/
and, Read what he has to say.
And, P/M me to let me know how things are going…

I know this may be hard for you to believe right now - You’re a child of God, made in the Image and Likeness of God, redeemed at the cost of the Son of God, who loves you so much He had your name engraved in the Palm of His hand while he was being crucified… You probably have a hard time believing that, but it’s true.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Your Brother & Servant in Christ, Michael

Very well said. I’m ashamed that I didn’t think to offer the same advice.

Peace,
Dante

 

[Ella]

The whole point of sharing the costs of medical care is so that everyone gets care and no one goes bankrupt. There’s no need for insurance companies to make any profits. When I’m healthy, I work and pay into the system. When I have an accident or get sick, the rest of the healthy people help pay my bills. Or that’s how it should be.
It works in other countries. No reason it couldn’t work here.

Exactly, Viki63.

 

[tjm190]

There is no shortage of care. Pathia can go to the ER if she likes, although it will not be the care she needs for a chronic condition and it will be extremely expensive (to society). There are not enough primary care doctors, because specialists make a lot more money, there’s little incentive to become a GP.
We need to reimburse doctors for good outcomes, not for number of procedures performed.

She can walk into the ER. She can not get care for chronic conditions- because we don’t have the infrastructure and man power. There aren’t enough doctors to treat everyone, just like there wasn’t enough oil to fuel everyone’s car during the oil embargo.

The whole point of sharing the costs of medical care is so that everyone gets care and no one goes bankrupt. There’s no need for insurance companies to make any profits. When I’m healthy, I work and pay into the system. When I have an accident or get sick, the rest of the healthy people help pay my bills. Or that’s how it should be.
It works in other countries. No reason it couldn’t work here.

A few issues-

• What are your incentives to pay into the system, rather than dodge the costs?
• Since you no longer have to pay any of your medical costs, wouldn’t your incentive to stay healthy decline?
• Why can’t insurance companies make profits?
• Ever wonder why insurance premiums go up every year when insurance companies profits don’t? That means the cost of health care is going up.
  But not because the machinery is becoming more costly to operate or the drugs get more expensive to produce- but because demand is going up and supply is stagnant. There IS a health care shortage, and prices go up so that the number of people willing and able to pay is equal to the amount available.

 

[aspawloski4th]

She can walk into the ER. She can not get care for chronic conditions- because we don’t have the infrastructure and man power. There aren’t enough doctors to treat everyone, just like there wasn’t enough oil to fuel everyone’s car during the oil embargo.

A few issues-

• What are your incentives to pay into the system, rather than dodge the costs?
• Since you no longer have to pay any of your medical costs, wouldn’t your incentive to stay healthy decline?
• Why can’t insurance companies make profits?
• Ever wonder why insurance premiums go up every year when insurance companies profits don’t? That means the cost of health care is going up.
  But not because the machinery is becoming more costly to operate or the drugs get more expensive to produce- but because demand is going up and supply is stagnant. There IS a health care shortage, and prices go up so that the number of people willing and able to pay is equal to the amount available.

With a college system that isnt free we wonder why the supply doesn’t go up.

 

[tjm190]

With a college system that isnt free we wonder why the supply doesn’t go up.

Fun fact- quality education costs money. The U.S. obliterates the rest of the world when it comes to higher education. (Not to say there aren’t good schools elsewhere, particularly in Japan and the UK.)

We have plenty of people in college- however, the high cost and many many years it takes to become a doctor are huge deterrents.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

There is no shortage of care. Pathia can go to the ER if she likes, although it will not be the care she needs for a chronic condition and it will be extremely expensive (to society). There are not enough primary care doctors, because specialists make a lot more money, there’s little incentive to become a GP.
We need to reimburse doctors for good outcomes, not for number of procedures performed.

The whole point of sharing the costs of medical care is so that everyone gets care and no one goes bankrupt. There’s no need for insurance companies to make any profits. When I’m healthy, I work and pay into the system. When I have an accident or get sick, the rest of the healthy people help pay my bills. Or that’s how it should be.
It works in other countries. No reason it couldn’t work here.

Why is there no need for an insurance company to make a profit? That’s patently absurd.

The reason that our economy is the biggest in the world…the reason that our industries lead the world…the reason that our standard of living is the highest in the world…is the profit motive. It drives businesses to compete with one another by trying to outdo one another. The company that offers the best balance of cost, quality, and customer service is likely to make the biggest profit.

The reason that one company makes a better profit than another is that it provides what its customers need more cheaply and/or effectively. If the insurance industry were able to compete properly amongst themselves, costs WOULD go down and coverage WOULD improve. It’s very basic economics.

If the government is the only (or even the biggest) provider of coverage, what possible motive would it have to provide good customer service or quality care?

Peace,
Dante

 

[LittleSoldier]

Little Soldier, you wrote:

Why did you have to declare bankruptcy? Why did you have to lose your house?

I think this may be applicable but I don’t want to get into trouble for putting too many personal things in a public post. Oh well, sorry, OK.

I had an upside-down mortgage. I thought that I could handle the mortgage payments as I had a good job with excellent job security. I never thought that I would get hurt. I wasn’t prepared for that possibility. I recommend (please!) that everyone purchase disability mortage insurance so that in case you get hurt your mortgage payments will be made. I didn’t do this. My fault, my ignorance.

When I got hurt my employer (a county government) granted me disability retirement and I’m very happy they did. I also had workers comp benefits. But I no longer had my job. I couldn’t do it anymore although I did try.

So I lost a lot of income and I had a moderate amount of debt (another point to everybody: watch those credit cards!!) but the biggest problem was that my house was worth one half of what I had paid for it and I could not afford the mortage payments plus the homeowners’ association dues. I had some income coming in but there was much more going out.

I contacted an attorney and he recommended that I declare bankruptcy. He asked me if I wanted to keep my house and I said “no” because I just couldn’t afford the payments. Also, I lived where I did because I could drive to work from my home. I no longer had my job so I had no place to drive to. My attorney told me that bankruptcy is really for people who have medical problems; that this is what the law is written for - not for people who want to fleece the system by running up huge debts and declaring bankruptcy as often as they can.

I had tried to refinance my mortgage. My mortgage company denied me. I tried to turn to the government as I had a FHA mortgage. I had read somewhere that the FHA would refinance mortgages for people in my situation. When I called the phone number I was given I got the following message: “There is no FHA refinance program in your area. Goodbye.” Dial tone.

I couldn’t do it. On top of all this I was in severe pain and it turned out that I needed back surgery. I had three; they all failed.

I moved in with my parents for about nine months until I had recovered enough from the second back surgery to be able to find another place to live. It wasn’t fair to my parents for me to live with them permanently.

I moved to another state, went back for my third back surgery (which failed), and then came back to my new home. I was very lucky. When I lived with my parents I was able to save some money because they were kind enough to not charge me rent. I bought another house (which was much less expensive than my previous house) and am still living there.

Like they say, every cloud has a silver lining. Even though I lost my job (and a career that I loved) I was able to move to where I had always wanted to live and buy a house. Unfortunately because I moved out of the state where I had worked the insurance plans I could choose were limited to three. A few years later my employer dropped it down to two: one which costs over $800 a month, and one with a $5,000 a year deductible. I chose the second because I can’t afford the first.

Because I’m disabled I’m eligible for Social Security and Medicare. I’ve been denied twice. That is Social Security’s normal operating procedure. The county I used to work for says I’m disabled. The federal government says I’m not disabled. I’m now looking for an attorney to help me with my third try. If I get Medicare I will feel extremely lucky.

 

[pathia]

The reason that one company makes a better profit than another is that it provides what its customers need more cheaply and/or effectively. If the insurance industry were able to compete properly amongst themselves, costs WOULD go down and coverage WOULD improve. It’s very basic economics.

If the government is the only (or even the biggest) provider of coverage, what possible motive would it have to provide good customer service or quality care?

Peace,
Dante

There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people that are unprofitable. More competition and less government means even more people will be forced into my situation. If profits become razor thin due to competition, then it will be even harder to get insurance. You keep saying I am a unique case, the 40+ million number is most likely bunk, but I imagine it’s in the millions. MILLIONS. I am not some unique ignorable case.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Pathia/Rachel:

I’m on SSDI, so whenever I see someone say what you said, I start looking at his or her profile to see what the Chronic Conditions are:
Age 29 - 6’ tall
Strokes
Brain Tumors
Difficulty Walking - Mobility Impaired
Extreme Pain -
Difficulty Typing
Can’t get Medicaid (Dependents - Too much money from Disability)
Sterile - Intersexed Mosaic (XY, XXY, XX)
Mental History - Suicide Attempts
You said you were on disability - I assume it’s State Disability because you don’t have Medicare.
I hope that sums it up - feel free to correct or add. I figured I had spent 2 hours searching through posts, and that was enough.

Remember, I live with extreme pain, too, along with a few other Disabilities. So I can more than sympathize. I also tried to work through a lot of the pain, until I was laid off from a job and found no one else would hire someone as disabled as I was. You might be in that situation.

First, You do live SOMEWHERE, even if it’s a ONE-ROOM HOVEL (Been there, Done that)! Where you live gives those of us who want to help you an idea of the sort of conditions we’re operating under.

Pathia, I’m going to ask you to do me a few favors:

Start posting your situation (or a description) in the Prayer Request Section. Just ask for prayers and Healing.
List where you live - It tells us what kind of bureaucracy you’re dealing with & what shape the economy is in your state.
Please, try going back to Church, even if you can only do it once or twice a month. I know you feel as if you’ve been “asked to leave”, but that was your family, not God.
Most of the people here probably won’t be able to understand how angry you are about some things… John Heard will. Look at his site DREADNOUGHT
johnheard.blogspot.com/
and, Read what he has to say.
And, P/M me to let me know how things are going…

I know this may be hard for you to believe right now - You’re a child of God, made in the Image and Likeness of God, redeemed at the cost of the Son of God, who loves you so much He had your name engraved in the Palm of His hand while he was being crucified… You probably have a hard time believing that, but it’s true.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Your Brother & Servant in Christ, Michael

Very well said!! I’m also in chronic pain. Sometimes I don’t realize that something that is so obvious to me isn’t obvious to everyone else. I mean, I know I hurt!! Why wouldn’t everyone else know!! I don’t want to complain to people about my pain but then I appear to be selfish and loopy and stupid because I can’t do what most other people can do and I take a lot of pain medication because I cannot stand the pain.

I remember trying to change a light bulb once and I could do it but I couldn’t get the light fixture back up. I kept trying and trying and I knew I would drop it and it would break. I live by myself so I had nobody to ask for help. What am I supposed to do - ask for help for every little thing? I set the light fixture down and sat down on the couch and cried and cried. For the first time since I had been injured I realized that I really was disabled - d i s a b l e d - and what that means. I cried also because I knew things would only get worse. I had already been told that the pain was not going to stop and as I age I’m going to fall down more and be able to do less.

Sometimes when people talk or write about their disabilities others think they are complaining when in reality they are just trying to explain. Few people want to monopolize a thread or a conversation by saying “poor me - look at poor me, how much I suffer, you don’t understand, yadda yadda yadda…” I know that, at least for myself, I would much rather talk about my (now lost) career, my family, my faith. But, honestly, the pain I am in monopolizes my life and I find it difficult to even think about other aspects of my life, much less talk about them.

I know I’m not explaining this well and I apologize for that. I just wanted to say I agree with you and you obviously went to a lot of trouble trying to help someone. Thank you. God bless you.

 

[pathia]

She can walk into the ER. She can not get care for chronic conditions- because we don’t have the infrastructure and man power. There aren’t enough doctors to treat everyone, just like there wasn’t enough oil to fuel everyone’s car during the oil embargo.

I’ve never had a doctor go “I’m sorry, I don’t have time on my schedule to treat you.” It’s always been that I can’t afford the drugs and tests that are necessary. Doctors you can usually arrange something with, lab tests and drugs you cannot and they are the vast majority of my monthly costs.

 

[tjm190]

There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people that are unprofitable. More competition and less government means even more people will be forced into my situation. If profits become razor thin due to competition, then it will be even harder to get insurance. You keep saying I am a unique case, the 40+ million number is most likely bunk, but I imagine it’s in the millions. MILLIONS. I am not some unique ignorable case.

There are lots of people who can’t talk up or down stairs, yet we continue building them- because they work best for the majority. There are some who can’t- so we build elevators and wheelchair ramps. If the elevators and wheelchair ramps aren’t up to par, that’s one thing. However, that doesn’t mean we need to stop building stairs.

 

[pathia]

There are lots of people who can’t talk up or down stairs, yet we continue building them- because they work best for the majority. There are some who can’t- so we build elevators and wheelchair ramps. If the elevators and wheelchair ramps aren’t up to par, that’s one thing. However, that doesn’t mean we need to stop building stairs.

THere’s a difference between ‘not up to par’ and non-existent. Ironic you use that as an example. I am disabled only because of this system. If I lived in any other 1st world country, this probably would have never happened. I can’t even leave, because the medical debt entraps me so badly. You can’t emigrate with large amounts of debt. This system traps me, abuses me and perpetuates my pain and suffering.

It’s more like I tried to use the wheelchair ramp, it collapsed and I got stuck in the rubble.

 

[tjm190]

I’ve never had a doctor go “I’m sorry, I don’t have time on my schedule to treat you.” It’s always been that I can’t afford the drugs and tests that are necessary. Doctors you can usually arrange something with, lab tests and drugs you cannot and they are the vast majority of my monthly costs.

Economic systems cope with shortages by raising prices. I was treated for cancer a while ago- and although my particular case may not have caused prices to rise, had a couple thousand pianos fallen out of the sky and killed me and many other cancer patients, I would have expected the cost of cancer treatment to go down. Why? Because less people would have been competing over treatment.

Tests follow the same logic- I had far too many CT scans (which apparently raised my risk of getting cancer again even further than I was already predisposed to, which is fun I guess) and the waiting times for those were already about a week or so on average. If the costs were lower, more people would be on those waiting lists, and the system as a whole would start collapsing.

 

[pathia]

Economic systems cope with shortages by raising prices. I was treated for cancer a while ago- and although my particular case may not have caused prices to rise, had a couple thousand pianos fallen out of the sky and killed me and many other cancer patients, I would have expected the cost of cancer treatment to go down. Why? Because less people would have been competing over treatment.

Tests follow the same logic- I had far too many CT scans (which apparently raised my risk of getting cancer again even further than I was already predisposed to, which is fun I guess) and the waiting times for those were already about a week or so on average. If the costs were lower, more people would be on those waiting lists, and the system as a whole would start collapsing.

Every time I’ve gotten an MRI it’s taken 6-12 months, because I have to wait for the right time and for when they’re training people, so they can do it for more or less free, even when they’re scanning for brain tumors.

As far as I am concerned, a waiting list is better than not even getting the option to get anything. I’d take it over what I have now any day, anything at all is better than what I have now, which is nothing.

 

[tjm190]

THere’s a difference between ‘not up to par’ and non-existent. Ironic you use that as an example. I am disabled only because of this system. If I lived in any other 1st world country, this probably would have never happened. I can’t even leave, because the medical debt entraps me so badly. You can’t emigrate with large amounts of debt. This system traps me, abuses me and perpetuates my pain and suffering.

It’s more like I tried to use the wheelchair ramp, it collapsed and I got stuck in the rubble.

In any event, the failure of systems designed to help those who can not use the majority’s system is not pertinent to how the system for the majority should be designed.

Other systems work by and large because they operate based on a lottery of sorts- rather than market based rationing (that whole willing and able to pay deal), you get government rationing, or an excess of demand (waiting times.)

Early on, it was know that my case would eat up alot of resources and probably end in failure anyway- any sensible regulator would have turned me down and treated someone else. The same actuaries who set rates for insurance companies will be working for the government deciding who is and is not worth the state’s resources.

 

[pathia]

In any event, the failure of systems designed to help those who can not use the majority’s system is not pertinent to how the system for the majority should be designed.
.

I am dying. It is pertinent to me. I do not want to die. There is only one thing left in my life anymore, surviving. I have nothing else, everything else was taken away.

 

[tjm190]

Every time I’ve gotten an MRI it’s taken 6-12 months, because I have to wait for the right time and for when they’re training people, so they can do it for more or less free, even when they’re scanning for brain tumors.

As far as I am concerned, a waiting list is better than not even getting the option to get anything. I’d take it over what I have now any day, anything at all is better than what I have now, which is nothing.

Of course the waiting list is better than nothing- however, there are plenty of people who will die on those waiting lists that would have lived had the system not been clogged.

(The wait time for an MRI is quite short for those who are ‘in the system’- albeit I believe I still waited longer than average because my case was to check for a recurrence rather than something for vital)

 

[tjm190]

I am dying. It is pertinent to me. I do not want to die. There is only one thing left in my life anymore, surviving. I have nothing else, everything else was taken away.

I didn’t say completely irrelevant, I said not pertinent to the way the system for the majority should be designed. Our nations contains over 300 million people- nothing is going to work for everyone; therefore, we build a system that works best for the majority. However, those not in that majority still need help- so other systems are put in place. In this case, those systems are failures.

 

[pathia]

Of course the waiting list is better than nothing- however, there are plenty of people who will die on those waiting lists that would have lived had the system not been clogged.

(The wait time for an MRI is quite short for those who are ‘in the system’- albeit I believe I still waited longer than average because my case was to check for a recurrence rather than something for vital)

So your solution is what? How do you let everyone get care? You seem to be indicating that some will always die from lack of insurance and that’s better than everyone getting care, but being in a line.