[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')he only way to get medicaid is to have somebody else pay your bills, or live on the street.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'M')ost families do choose to withdraw food and water at that point. And that's their right, but I believe it should always be up to the family -- government should never make that decision.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have private insurance. I bought it off ehealthinsurance.com. No special rates or anything. It costs me $90 per month.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have private insurance. I bought it off ehealthinsurance.com. No special rates or anything. It costs me $90 per month.

[vision-master]

In 1987/88 I was self employed and paid over $125 Month as a single young male. Any yahoo that pay's $90 Month for insurance today has got to have a fricken joke policy.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jedrider', 'T')hat's interesting. What would they do? Could they become bankers or maybe welfare workers? Would they move to third-world countries to help people truly in need? Yes, the third option is the only true moral one!

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'I')n 1987/88 I was self employed and paid over $125 Month as a single young male. Any yahoo that pay's $90 Month for insurance today has got to have a fricken joke policy.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'T')he brothers girl friend had cancer 15 years ago. She pay's $700 Month for insurance.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'I')n 1987/88 I was self employed and paid over $125 Month as a single young male. Any yahoo that pay's $90 Month for insurance today has got to have a fricken joke policy.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hich is a pittance compared to what her healthcare costs have been and probably still are. Sounds pretty fair to me. Obviously she has the money or the premium would be a moot point. I'm sorry no one clued you in back in elementary school, life's not fair. It's not supposed to be. Sometimes you get cancer. Sometimes your dirt bag husband runs off and leaves you with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debts like happened to my sister. Sometimes a hurricane comes and floods your entire city and you and everyone you know lose everything. Some days you eat the bear. Some days the bear eats you. That's just how it goes.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'Y')our really not a nice person. Goodbye.

[rangerone314]

Why doesn't the government put effort into finding a way to reduce medical school costs so doctors don't have to go into debt, and find ways to have MORE doctors in the workforce. Seems if you increase the supply the labor cost will go down. But the bungholes at the AMA would probably have to say something about that.

From wikipedia: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ritics of the American Medical Association, including economist Milton Friedman, have asserted that the organization acts as a guild and has attempted to increase physicians' wages and fees limit by influencing limitations on the supply of physicians and non-physician competition. In Free to Choose, Friedman said "The AMA has engaged in extensive litigation charging chiropractors and osteopaths with the unlicensed practice of medicine, in an attempt to restrict them to as narrow an area as possible."

Profession and monopoly, a book published in 1975 is critical of the AMA for limiting the supply of physicians and inflating the cost of medical care in the United States. The book claims that physician supply is kept low by the AMA to ensure high pay for practicing physicians. It states that in the United States the number, curriculum, and size of medical schools are restricted by state licensing boards controlled by representatives of state medical societies associated with the AMA. The book is also critical of the ethical rules adopted by the AMA which restrict advertisement and other types of competition between professionals. It points out that advertising and bargaining can result in expulsion from the AMA and legal revocation of licenses. The book also states that before 1912 the AMA included uniform fees for specific medical procedures in its official code of ethics. The AMA's influence on hospital regulation was also criticized in the book.[19]

The AMA and other industry groups predicted an over-supply of doctors, and worked to limit the number of new doctors. But recently, the AMA has changed its position, predicting a doctor shortage instead.

[Pops]

Yea, you pay your money or you take your chances.

When we moved to MO I wasn't making a whole lot I and was only 47 (most in my family waited till 70-ish to get cancer and die) so I didn't get a new policy.

So let's see how not having insurance worked for me: lets just take that last 5 years at say $2k/year would have been $10k in premiums plus the $5k deductible plus probably 20% co-pay is another $4k, so I would be out $19k on my $20k hospital visit. Insulin and misc wouldn't be payed on a cheap plan so add in another $3k for the first year.

Without insurance and with a small income the hospital reduced the bill by more than half to $8k and Big Pharma takes pity on me and gives me insulin so it cost me $10k the first year to get type I diabetes instead of the $21k it would have if I had insurance.

I really don't know what an insurance carrier would do the next year with someone in my case but I assume they would either drop me or raise my rate big time - it's business after all.

Now, let me say I don't mind the $8k for the hospital ($20k for that matter) because I was about one foot over the line. My blood must have been pretty interesting cuz half my bill was lab work – I'm glad to know they were actually doing something with all that blood!


So I don't know, the people who saved my life did a perfect job as far as I can tell, it's probably a good thing I came in through the ER though.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'W')hy doesn't the government put effort into finding a way to reduce medical school costs so doctors don't have to go into debt, and find ways to have MORE doctors in the workforce. Seems if you increase the supply the labor cost will go down.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'I')t was a really eye opening thing to me to realize that medical school is so hard, because they wanted to limit the number of doctors, not because the material needs to be hard. The logic ran something more along the lines of "Well, we need to make the education at least eight years or too many people will do it. What can we teach in 8 years?"

We've got to start conceptualizing medicine as a service industry that can help with things somewhat, but ultimately can't change the reality that you're going to die. We must stop talking about "saving lives". No doctor ever "saved a life". Sometimes we can extend a life, but every patient any doctor has ever had anywhere ultimately dies.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'I') DO wonder if State health insurance boards are so effective at keeping insurance companies from illegalling denying claims or treatment in hopes of saving money by letting patients die, why not just have THEM run a public insurance plan if they are so effective, and the rest of government is not?

[rangerone314]

Interesting short article about claims denials with profiles of 3 cases:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/23/MNUK11C28G.DTL&hw=medical+care+state+denial&sn=001&sc=1000

[RedStateGreen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', ' ')First off I want us to have a serious heart to heart national dialogue about reconceptualizing medicine. We have been selling medicine as a path to immortality. Everybody wants to walk for a cure, stamp out heart disease, etc. We need to come to grips with the idea that miracle cures don't exist. If it's not curable already, it's unlikely to become so. We're all going to die some day. In some cases medicine can forestall that, but by no means can it change that reality.

[Quinny]

Its probably been covered elsewhere, but why is healthcare so expensive in the US despite the fact that it's not a universal system. You'd expect it to cost more to look after everyone rather than just a small percentag, but it doesn't seem to work like that.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quinny', 'I')ts probably been covered elsewhere, but why is healthcare so expensive in the US despite the fact that it's not a universal system. You'd expect it to cost more to look after everyone rather than just a small percentag, but it doesn't seem to work like that.