health insurance bill

[LostInTheWoods]

We may have the most advanced medical technology although that is open to debate too

All things are open for debate. I would challenge anyone to provide me with proof that the United States doesn't lead the world in both the quality and quantity of advanced medical technology.

but only if you are in a position to get it, with good insurance in place for you.

I addressed the availability of insurance previously in this thread. It is available.

Ever think about what the self-employed and people who work for small businesses are paying, if they can even afford insurance? For me as a hard working self-employed person, it's a good chunk of my income per month and I still have a high deductable so your statement is pretty off the wall from my perspective.

Health insurance IS costly. There are ways that cost can be reduced without this particular plan. And whether you're self-employed and self-insured or you have an employer supported health care plan, it is still a significant chunk of your monthly income.

As with most things in life (the things that must be purchased, anyway), you often get what you pay for.

Let's take tractors, for example. Do you prefer spending more for a bigger name tractor, perhaps a "green" one, or and "orange" one, that you can rely on for generally very good quality of construction, reliability, good support/dealer system, and a steady stream of quality replacement parts?

Or would you rather purchase a relatively inexpensive gray market tractor? Hopefully it will perform as advertised, but what if there's a problem? Would the big name tractor have been a better investment?

Now, let's look at healthcare. As it stands now, envision the following:

Provider: "Mr. Smith, with your symptoms, I'm afraid you may have esophageal cancer. Let me call Dr. Jones and get you in for an endoscopy this week."

Will the changes under the new, supposedly less expensive plan lead to this:

Provider: "Mr. Smith, with your symptoms, I'm afraid you may have esophageal cancer. Let me call the manager and get you in for an endoscopy. The current average wait is 70 days.


I'm willing to allow for a certain amount of extra expense to get the higher quality product when it comes to my healthcare.

 

[deerefan]

The health care bill is not about politics. It is not about reform. It is not about medical care. It IS about money. Someone will be very wealthy when it is all over. The bill is just a distraction, a cover up if you will. Money is at the bottom of everything they do.

 

[dmccarty]

Regarding the big bad health insurance companies.....

I pay quite a bit of money for insurance. Car, tractor, umbrella, house, riders, life, disability, oh, yeah and health insurance. Health insurance is a big part of our budget. We pay quite a bit in premiums. My company pays as well. I don't know how much since they will not say but it is part of my "Total Compensation Package". Since I don't know how much they are paying for my families health care I do not know how much I am being paid.....

Our out of pocket expenses every month would buy a nice car, truck or tractor. This is out of pocket. Not premium payments.

My family has some health issues. Thankfully nothing that is serious like cancer but the issues do consume money and time. I would venture to guess that the family has about a dozen different doctors we visit. Might be a tad more. Many of these doctors are specialists at the leading university hospitals in the world.

We deal with health care just a wee bit. I can only think of ONE time that we had to fight for coverage. In the end the coverage was granted. If it had not we would have paid for it.

Right now we have been fighting with a lab for a couple of months over a bill for a couple hundred dollars. The long story short is that the INSURANCE company has been HELPING us with the bill. The lab has messed up and the big bad insurance company has done more than was required to help fix the problem. Once this is finally resolved a letter is going off to that big bad insurance company to say thank you and praise an employee.

I have had big fights with car insurance companies but health care companies have never been a problem. And we are dealing with them FREQUENTLY. We have been doing this for 10-15 years with different companies.

I don't mind paying high health care prices. How much is you spouse worth? Your kids? Do you want the BEST care or the lowest bidder? Tain't nothing free. SOMEONE is paying for it.

We have had run ins with doctors over the years. Doctors who I thought long and hard about suing. One of them was our baby doctor for our first child. If he had been at the second childs birth I KNOW I would be a widower. Thankfully we had a different doctor for the second child. He and another doctor should not be practicing medicine. I don't know how you get these bozo's out of business short of lawsuits. On the other hand the lawsuits are out of hand. I will be danged if I know the solution on this one.

Idiot doctors have been more of a problem than insurance companies. I wish the idiots in Congress would worry more about making the US a country where business and thus jobs would thrive instead of making health care a bigger mess. I wish they would stop jobs from flowing overseas. I can pay the bills if I have a job. Not much I can do if the jobs have been offshored....

Later,
Dan

 

[arrow]

Regarding the big bad health insurance companies.....



I don't mind paying high health care prices. How much is you spouse worth? Your kids? Do you want the BEST care or the lowest bidder? Tain't nothing free. SOMEONE is paying for it.

We have had run ins with doctors over the years. Doctors who I thought long and hard about suing. One of them was our baby doctor for our first child. If he had been at the second childs birth I KNOW I would be a widower. Thankfully we had a different doctor for the second child. He and another doctor should not be practicing medicine. I don't know how you get these bozo's out of business short of lawsuits. On the other hand the lawsuits are out of hand. I will be danged if I know the solution on this one.

Idiot doctors have been more of a problem than insurance companies. I wish the idiots in Congress would worry more about making the US a country where business and thus jobs would thrive instead of making health care a bigger mess. I wish they would stop jobs from flowing overseas. I can pay the bills if I have a job. Not much I can do if the jobs have been offshored....

Later,
Dan

Dan
What is minded by me and I assume others is not my expense/quality ratio for healthcare. I know I am paying for others who do not have it and that is what bothers me the most.

I also have a rather fragile member in my family and have dealt with doctors of all sorts for 35 years. On three separate occasions I could have sued but elected to pick up the doctor by the throat until his feet were off the ground. I figured if he were gonna sue me for assault, I could threaten a malpractice suit and plaster it all over the papers about what an idiot this doctor was and how he almost killed my wife. Not one of these guys sued and one retired at 45 as I let it be known to everyone of these incompetents that they had no business having a degree in medicine. I am slow to temper so you can only imagine the absurdity of the situation to have angered me so. I could sum up and say "life threatening"

 

[dmccarty]

I also have a rather fragile member in my family and have dealt with doctors of all sorts for 35 years. On three separate occasions I could have sued but elected to pick up the doctor by the throat until his feet were off the ground. I figured if he were gonna sue me for assault, I could threaten a malpractice suit and plaster it all over the papers about what an idiot this doctor was and how he almost killed my wife. Not one of these guys sued and one retired at 45 as I let it be known to everyone of these incompetents that they had no business having a degree in medicine. I am slow to temper so you can only imagine the absurdity of the situation to have angered me so. I could sum up and say "life threatening"

Oh yes. I understand. BTDT and bought quite a few T shirts.

I have sooooo many stories.....

Too many stories. What some of the doctors have earned would put me in prison if I gave it to them....

One the doctors that almost killed my youngest should no longer be a MD. We knew the kid was in bad shape and we took the child to the doc who said she just had the flu. The baby had RSV AND a kidney infection. Long story short and it is a long story. The child and mom went to the hospital in the back of an ambulance while we were on Christmas vacation. The childs O2 was very low. The doc in the box called the paramedics who were used to seeing elderly people at this office. When the paramedic saw this little baby in distress he did a stutter step. He had a child that age at home.....

The wife did not realize that EMS is going to run them lights and siren to the hospital. Nor did she know that EMS will put it all out there for three groups of people. Fireman/EMS, law enforcement, and kids. :thumbsup: She did not expect them to be driving over sidewalks, off road, and medians. :thumbsup:

My wifes health issues can erupt if she is under stress. She was under stress. While the baby was being stabilized and put in a room, my wife was checked into the ER as well. My poor mother who just finished Chemo and who was NOT supposed to be exposed to germs had to spend the night with the baby. Course at that point she had already been well exposed so it was a moot point. I spent the night walking from the first floor ER to the top floor at the other end of the hospital. Back and forth. :confused2:

Thankfully we had GREAT doctors and nurses. The family was released from the hospital Christmas eve. The doctor who took over treatment was nice enough to treat my other daughter who had a raging ear infection. Again not treated by the idiot doctor at home.

The day care our kids were using was run by a couple who were kids nurses. The husband got out of medicine and was running the day care. Before the above happened I remember him asking which doctor was seeing our kids. I will NEVER forgot what he said. I caught his answer but did not understand until later.

When we told him the Dr's name. His response was that the practice had good Dr's. But he did not say WE had a good doctor. His word smithing caught my attention but I did not connect the dots.

We never went back to that practice. The so called healer missed RSV and a kidney infection in one child. And a bad ear infection in another. I have a photo of both kids right before the trip that haunts me. You can see the drooling that is a symptom of RSV on our youngest. We knew something was wrong with the baby but the so called healer said the child was fine.

We drive 50 miles round trip to take our kids to the doctor. We found competence at least in the Drs. The billing people have been a huge problem over the years but they have improved.

If you find a good doc. KEEP them at all costs.

Later,
Dan

 

[arrow]

Oh yes. I understand. BTDT and bought quite a few T shirts.

I have sooooo many stories.....

T

If you find a good doc. KEEP them at all costs.

Later,
Dan

Me too and you are correct with the second quote. May I add the same applies to a good auto mechanic.
I have gotten less angry,way less, at the man who just threw a punch at me. It was the insolence, arrogance and total laissez faire attitude of these punks with a degree of almost killing someone that would push me over the edge. I just knew that if allowed, they would take their godlike attitude an run ramshackle over the next person and finally off some one's loved one if they had not done so already. and this is the other thing that bothers me that I have to pay for these idiots' incompetance with increased coverage premiums. "Coverage" in this sense applies to CTA

 

[Cat_Driver]

I tend to see almost everyone carrying a cell phone. Now we all know the monthly payments of cell phone plus the cost of the phone, right.

Last week I needed to go to the Doctor so I went to one of those quickie doctor shops. I signed in waited about 20 minutes, saw the doc, she gave me prescription and I paid my bill. $38.00 for the doctor and no insurance involved.

So I find it hard to understand how all theses " poor people" with cell phones can't afford that same $38.00 when I know darn well they are paying more than that for their phones.

I see these same "poor people" ( generic term here insert whoever you want ) with their kids playing those portable video games that cost upwards of $200.00 and you can bet these same people have cable TV and on and on, yet no one ever seems to have money for health care? Why is that?

Out health-care system did not have to be turned upside down to be fixed.

All these examples that were brought out with so and so died because of no health care and needed 2 million dollars in radiation are more the exception rather than the rule. Or a group of so and so pregnant teenagers that didn't get prenatal care. How about they turn in their phone and pay for prenatal care for $38.00.

My Dad went 80 plus years and never went to the doctor, under these condition with penalties he would have had to spend 2% of your annual income would have cost him many thousands of dollars.

 

[brin]

Hit the nail right on the dead Cat Driver !

 

[bstrom]

All things are open for debate. I would challenge anyone to provide me with proof that the United States doesn't lead the world in both the quality and quantity of advanced medical technology.




I addressed the availability of insurance previously in this thread. It is available.




Health insurance IS costly. There are ways that cost can be reduced without this particular plan. And whether you're self-employed and self-insured or you have an employer supported health care plan, it is still a significant chunk of your monthly income.

As with most things in life (the things that must be purchased, anyway), you often get what you pay for.

Let's take tractors, for example. Do you prefer spending more for a bigger name tractor, perhaps a "green" one, or and "orange" one, that you can rely on for generally very good quality of construction, reliability, good support/dealer system, and a steady stream of quality replacement parts?

Or would you rather purchase a relatively inexpensive gray market tractor? Hopefully it will perform as advertised, but what if there's a problem? Would the big name tractor have been a better investment?

Now, let's look at healthcare. As it stands now, envision the following:

Provider: "Mr. Smith, with your symptoms, I'm afraid you may have esophageal cancer. Let me call Dr. Jones and get you in for an endoscopy this week."

Will the changes under the new, supposedly less expensive plan lead to this:

Provider: "Mr. Smith, with your symptoms, I'm afraid you may have esophageal cancer. Let me call the manager and get you in for an endoscopy. The current average wait is 70 days.


I'm willing to allow for a certain amount of extra expense to get the higher quality product when it comes to my healthcare.

Ok - so I would really like to know what your plan is for reducing cost of health insurance without this plan. This plan is probably not going to reduce the cost anyway.

As far as comparing health insurance to tractors it's a bogus and immoral analogy. None of us need a frickin tractor. If someone is dying of a disease and cannot afford quality medical care because they cannot afford that kind of coverage that is immoral in my book. With all the wealth we have in this country for people to suffer because they cannot pay their medical bills is immoral - got that? It's shameful. Sure they will get treated - sort of. But most of the low income people I know want to pay their bills and when they can't they don't like it. I'm sick of all the people in this country who have it made not giving a crap about those that don't when comes to something like dying from a disease or going bankrupt from one.

That's it for me, that's my two cents and I'm not here to convince anyone of my position because it's like talking to a brick with guys like you. Will this bill help? I don't know but at least somebody is doing something instead of just sitting on their butts like they have for decades. It's dam shameful is what it is.

 

[sweettractors]

What good is health insurance, if you don't have the extra doctors and nurses to take care of the 30,000,000 extra people getting access coverage. Ken Sweet