IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

And if you had single payer insurance, okie, you would have had to work half as hard to pay for it, you wouldn't have the problem of being cut off if you started to cost them too much money, and you could have done much better for your family with the money you and your emplloyer didn't have to .sink into health insurance.

Ask some of the a2k people in single-payer countries. They don't envy us our system. They pity us.

Strange, I have relatives in foreign countries and they have expressed no pity whatsoever to me. In fact, there have been some comments of admiration for our medical expertise and advancement, and our system. In contrast, they have gotten acceptable medical care according to them, but also they have had to wait longer than they would have preferred to receive the care.

I suppose such certainly is a) related to the country you live in, b) how you compare it.

But my main point would be that everyone gets this here.
And if it lasts to long in one European country, just go to another.

The myth of waiting long can't be verified by my personal experiences in France, the Netherlands, the UK and Germany. But that's as anecdotal as is okie's relatives' experience.

Walter, I think much of what okie writes is highly colored. I simply do not trust his assessments.

I would have never guessed that, pom!!!! Be assured the feeling is mutual, pom!

Obama murdered Medicare

I seem to remember Obama claiming he was going to help pay for Obamacare by saving money in the Medicare program.

Kind of scary to realize it is in the interests of government now for us all not to live as long. I wonder what kind of a plan they are cooking up in the back rooms of Washington? Maybe if Obama encourages fellow smokers to keep up the habit, that will help keep more people from living long enough to have to use Medicare?

You have had to go to all of those countries to obtain your medical care? I thought you lived in Germany? Is the care in Germany not good enough or soon enough, you have to go to another completely different country to be treated?

Sorry that I was unclear - I might excuse this with the fact that I'm not a native American English speaker, and certainly I'm additionally not fluent in Oklahoma dialects.

When I'm in those countries, I use the free (as an EU-citizen) medical service there. It's cheaper than flying or driving home.

I do know, however, US-Americans, who are not only without health insurance abroad (though that is illegal here) but in their home country as well.

Thanks for the clarification, Walter.

I'm sorry, okie, that you' lived nearly 4 months with this wrong impression.

My bad.


But honestly, okie: when you're in a foreign country and have to go to the doctor's - do you fly/drive home? (In France and the UK, I had to go there, because I needed following up medication which started here in Germany. In the other countries, it just waere some minor things as far as I remember.)

[An EU-health insurance card, which every EU-citizen has got, is valid in all EU-countries for free treatment.]

No problem, Walter. We have just traveled to Europe once in our lifetime. I recall wondering what would happen if any of us got sick or something, but we were fine. We have relatives where we visited, and I just figured that if we got in dire need of something, they could probably tell us what we needed to do and it would work out, but likely we wouldn't need it, and we didn't.

Incidentally, I have had to use my insurance recently here a bit more, and I could not be happier with the medical care that we have received. The service has been top notch and extremely prompt, amazingly prompt in fact. As a matter of interest, my brother has also been in need of extra medical care recently, and his care has been totally and completely top notch and extremely prompt. In his case, perhaps it has been helped by the fact that he was a medical doctor his entire working life, and he had developed friendships and trusts with some of his colleagues. He would refer patients to specialists that he respected, and some of those same people are now probably going the extra mile for him.

Another little tidbit of history, when my older brother was only a year old, my parents took him to Denmark to stay a few months with my Dad's relatives there. My brother developed a bad cold that went into pnemonia. It was 1938 or 1939, and they received word that they should go home immediately, because Hitler was making bad noises about things right then, including invading Denmark, as you would know well. They caught a ship to England, but the ship to America would not allow them to board because of my brother's illness. He was hospitalized in South Hampton, and my parents were given housing and hospitality by complete strangers living there in South Hampton. Back in those days, the hospital would not allow any visitors, including parents, but my Dad finally said they were going in to see their little boy whether they liked it or not, and boy was he happy to see his Mom and Dad. Anyway, he got better and they returned home. I don't recall what they said about the cost of the hospitalization, whether they were charged or not?

Maybe, that's due the lack of a common language which renders you and your foreign relatives mutually incoherent.

It seems that okie confuses the quality of care with how said care is paid for.

Thanks for those stories, okie.

What makes me wonder is: why do you mention that medical aid is extremely prompt?

I mean, when I need some medical help, it has to be prompt, like when I have back pain, I get an date at the orthopaedic surgeon's praxis within the next few hours or at least the other day. And when she thinks, that x-raying wasn't helpful enough, a CT or MRT is done the same or following in a different praxis at the radiologist's.

The couple of A2K'ers staying with us the last 10 years and who had to go to the doctor's - they got their date just shortly after the phone call.
So, no problem of you would need ...

It was wise of you to start with "if" - Obamacare is already under assault in the federal district courts (Fla and Va). From the Virginia case:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/health/policy/19health.html
In that 3,000-page legislation Congress forgot to add a severability provision; if any part of those three thousand pages is found to be unconstitutional, the whole Obamacare fiasco becomes ipso facto null and void. Some people noticed that lacuna at the time, but they kept very, very, quiet

There seems to be little question that the penalty in question is a tax. It is irrelevant that Obama mentioned in passing that it is something else. The problem is that the conservative majority on the Sup. Ct. rules by pre-conceived results.

Puzzling comment - of course the USSC can overturn its own past rulings but generally does so only for very good reason. If by "pre-conceived results" you mean judicial precedent, how can you call it a "problem"? Stare decisis et non quieta movere is a principle dating back to Roman law.

I know, it is a bit too subtle. What I mean is that the majority ignores all law and precedent to attain the desired conservative result. This was certainly what happened in the Gore and corporate-political-contributions cases.

"The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 53% of Likely U.S. voters favor repeal of the health care law, including 43% who Strongly Favor repeal."

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law

Incidentally, I got a letter from my insurance company a couple of days ago, informing me of some changes due to Obamacare, and one of them is the removal of a lifetime ceiling on benefits. If I remember right, I think mine was 5 million as it was, which seems to me I would never use it up, either I would be cured or die first anyway. I suspect now that due to that stipulation, the next letter I get will be a drastic rise in insurance premiums. Only a guess, but probably a good one.