real life, quoting ctv, wrote:Instead, MacEachern said the decision was made because the U.S. hospital was the best place to have it done due to the type of surgery required............
She had surgery and treatment in Toronto, and then went to California for breast reconstruction (which she paid for out of her own pocket).
So.... California is the best place to get a boob job? Okay.
Bush might say that if poor people can't afford health care, they can fly to Thailand where costs are lower.
Houses are probably cheaper there too.
Too much rice is constipating, too.
It will get rid of a lot of poor beggars.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 21, 2007
All the evidence suggests that it has finally become politically possible to give Americans what citizens of every other advanced nation already have: guaranteed health insurance. The economics of universal health care are sound, and polls show strong public support for guaranteed care. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Paul Krugman.
True, one kind of fear seems, provisionally, to have been overcome: the timidity of Democratic politicians scarred by the failure of the original Clinton health plan.
To see how much things have changed, consider Hillary Clinton's evolution. Just 15 months ago, The New York Times reported that "her plans to expand coverage are tempered and incremental," and that "she continues to shy from the ultimate challenge: describing what a comprehensive Democratic health care plan would look like."
Indeed, when she was asked how costs might be controlled, she demurred: "It depends on what kind of system you're devising. And that's still not at all clear to me, what the body politic will bear."
But that was then.
John Edwards broke the issue of health care reform open in February, when he proposed a smart and serious plan for universal health insurance ?- and bravely announced his willingness to pay for the plan by letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire. Suddenly, universal health care went from being a distant progressive dream to something you could actually envision happening in the next administration.
Senator Clinton delayed a long time before coming out with her own plan ?- a delay that created a lot of anxiety among health care reformers, and may, as I'll explain in a minute, be a bad omen for the future. Still, this week she did deliver a plan, and it's as strong as the Edwards plan ?- because unless you get deep into the fine print, the Clinton plan basically is the Edwards plan.
That's not a criticism; it's much more important that a politician get health care right than that he or she score points for originality. Senator Clinton may be politically cautious, but she does understand health care economics and she knows a good thing when she sees it.
The Edwards and Clinton plans as well as the slightly weaker but similar Obama plan achieve universal-or-near-universal coverage through a well-thought-out combination of insurance regulation, subsidies and public-private competition. These plans may disappoint advocates of a cleaner, simpler single-payer system. But it's hard to see how Medicare for all could get through Congress any time in the near future, whereas Edwards-type plans offer a reasonable second best that you can actually envision being enacted by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic president just two years from now.
To get there, however, would require overcoming a lot more fear.
There won't be a serious Republican alternative. The health care plans of the leading Republican candidates, such as they are, are the same old, same old: they principally rely on tax breaks that go mainly to the well-off, but will supposedly conjure up the magic of the market. As Ezra Klein of The American Prospect cruelly but accurately puts it: "The Republican vision is for a world in which the sick and dying get to deduct some of the cost of health insurance that they don't have ?- and can't get ?- on their taxes."
But the G.O.P. nominee, whoever he is, won't be trying to persuade the public of the merits of his own plan. Instead, he'll try to scare the dwindling fraction of Americans who still have good health insurance by claiming that the Democrats will take it away.
The smear-and-fear campaign has already started. The Democratic plans all bear a strong resemblance to the health care plan that Mitt Romney signed into law as governor of Massachusetts, differing mainly in offering Americans additional choices. But that didn't stop Mr. Romney from denouncing the Clinton plan as "European-style socialized medicine." And Fred Thompson claims that the Clinton plan denies choice ?- which it actually offers in abundance ?- and relies on "punishment" instead.
These attacks probably won't be effective enough to prevent a Democrat from winning next year. But that won't be the end of the story: even if the Democrats take the White House and expand their Congressional majorities, the insurance and drug lobbies will try to bully them into backing down on their campaign promises.
That's why the long delay before Senator Clinton announced her health care plan made supporters of universal care, myself included, so nervous ?- a nervousness that is not completely assuaged by the fact that she finally did deliver. It's good to know that whoever gets the Democratic nomination will run on a very good health care plan. What remains is the question of whether he or she will have the determination to turn that plan into reality.
With a majority in congress and a president from the democrats will almost assure some form of universal health care in our country - finally. Even if they just start with all childen to begin with, I'm for it.
A picture of health? - from today's The Guardian, about the British universal health system.
This one is directly addressed to USAFHokie.
The insurance companies - in this case BCBS - do
everything they can to deny every claim they think they can. And it isn't a case of 'mis-coding' or any of that BS either.
Quote: After going without any healthcare coverage for 3 years, (husband's employer didn't not offer it and husband and child have preexisting conditions that make self paid insurance imposable to afford) was ecstatic to find out my husband's new employer did offer insurance! Even though it is at a very high premium and a $2000 deductible, it's better than nothing, right? At least that's what I thought, till I tried to use Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City...
I set my daughter up a doctor's appointment for a well needed check up, and in just one weeks time was sent a statement for BCBS that they don't cover any of procedures that was done that day! NOT ONE!? So of course I called BCBS and they were very apologetic about this "mistake" and would fix it, it will take about 10 days. A week later I receive a bill from the hospital claiming that BCBS had denied all charges. I called the hospital and told them that BCBS opened a case about this, I kid you not, the billing clerk started laughing, and stated, "Good luck with that!" She went on to say that most of their patients have problems with BCBS paying up. I call BCBS and ask them about the open case on the claim. I was told by Jerri, that someone had just closed the case. She had no idea why they closed it, but was informed that she was "on top of it" and would take care of it, which was Aug, 16, 2007, but was also informed that it can take up to 3 weeks now to fix the problem. Jerri also had a bit of an attitude, which was totally uncalled for and unprofessional.
Now, on Aug, 29 2007 my husband and I suffered a devastating miscarriage. Being near midnight we went to the ER. The hospital was very compassionate about our loss and was able to get us in quickly and expedited our treatment. The following day I called BCBS and informed them that we had made a visit to the ER, and was told it wasn't necessary to call them just for ER visits, but only when we are admitted. Believing that BCBS would never make the mistakes at they did the previous and only time we have used our insurance I thought everything would go smoothly. Boy was I wrong!
On, Sep, 21 2007 I received a statement for BCBS that they were denying all of the claim. I called them and asked why they were denying the entire claim, and was told by Jane, "We do not cover ELECTIVE abortions. If you chose to terminate your pregnancy for non-health threatening reasons, BCBS will not cover it." WTF!!!??? I asked her, "Are you saying that my records state that I had an ELECTIVE abortion, in an ER at 12 o'clock in the morning?" It was then, I think it clicked in Jane's mind what she was dealing with and told me how sorry she was. I lost my cool and even started crying. I had a miscarriage not an abortion, and being treated in such a condescending way by BCBS really ticked me off. Thinking what an incredibly huge screw up, BCBS will be right on it trying to fix this, well you would be wrong. I was told to call the hospital and have them fax over my records stating I didn't have an elective abortion. Who the heck can get an elective abortion in a busy ER at 12am, anyway?
Mind you we have had Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City for less than three months, they have denied every claim we have submitted to them. EVERYONE! Even though all claims are clearly covered under our policy, is this the going to be the norm dealing with BCBS? Any help would be very much appreciated!
-Tonya Gullino
http://consumerist.com/consumer/top/blue-cross-blue-shield-calls-miscarriage-elective-abortion-denies-claim-302980.php
See, by making people jump through as many hoops as possible, a certain percentage simply give up. This translates to the profits BCBS requires to stay in business. They profit, from screwing people over - intentionally.
To deny this is to deny the state of our problems with health care in America.
Cycloptichorn
Do you believe that government action to mandate that everyone buy health insurance of some kind will itself improve or alter the behavior of the insurance companies?
Common sense suggests that , given the government guaranteed market, their bad behavior would get worse.
georgeob1 wrote:Do you believe that government action to mandate that everyone buy health insurance of some kind will itself improve or alter the behavior of the insurance companies?
Common sense suggests that , given the government guaranteed market, their bad behavior would get worse.
You can't just use one component of reform as a panacea for all problems. Gov't mandated insurance won't fix the problems with the insurance companies; restructuring of those same companies, de-linking of insurance from employment, greater oversight by regulatory industry, and increased education and awareness amongst the public about how these industries work are all required to fix the problems we see today.
cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:georgeob1 wrote:Do you believe that government action to mandate that everyone buy health insurance of some kind will itself improve or alter the behavior of the insurance companies?
Common sense suggests that , given the government guaranteed market, their bad behavior would get worse.
You can't just use one component of reform as a panacea for all problems. Gov't mandated insurance won't fix the problems with the insurance companies; restructuring of those same companies, de-linking of insurance from employment, greater oversight by regulatory industry, and increased education and awareness amongst the public about how these industries work are all required to fix the problems we see today.
cycloptichorn
What is "the reghulatory industry"? I think you mean government. Who will restructure the insurance companies? How will that improve their behavior and motivation? Who will "educate" the public? How will that help?
I think you are naively assuming the mice can bell the cat.
My personal point of view, the current system doesn't work. The objective is discover a system that does work. I don't know what that that entails, I'm guessing no one else does either. Could we explore ideas?
georgeob1 wrote:Do you believe that government action to mandate that everyone buy health insurance of some kind will itself improve or alter the behavior of the insurance companies?
Common sense suggests that , given the government guaranteed market, their bad behavior would get worse.
Medicare recipients don't face this kind of aggravation. We should just essentially extend Medicare to everyone.
georgeob1 wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:georgeob1 wrote:Do you believe that government action to mandate that everyone buy health insurance of some kind will itself improve or alter the behavior of the insurance companies?
Common sense suggests that , given the government guaranteed market, their bad behavior would get worse.
You can't just use one component of reform as a panacea for all problems. Gov't mandated insurance won't fix the problems with the insurance companies; restructuring of those same companies, de-linking of insurance from employment, greater oversight by regulatory industry, and increased education and awareness amongst the public about how these industries work are all required to fix the problems we see today.
cycloptichorn
What is "the reghulatory industry"? I think you mean government. Who will restructure the insurance companies? How will that improve their behavior and motivation? Who will "educate" the public? How will that help?
I think you are naively assuming the mice can bell the cat.
The alternative is to accept the cat eating a huge number of mice every year, and saying 'well, it's better then the French system.' Not acceptable.
Yes, the gov't is the regulatory agent. They do this for a lot of industries. The amount of regulation in the insurance industry needs to be stepped up.
The US people, through our gov't, can force restructuring of the insurance industry as we wish. Companies and corporations are not all-powerful in our society.
The public can be educated on this issue by a criticial examination of the actual practices of these companies.
Eventually the goal will be the dissolution of private health insurance in America - at least, it would be if I had my way. Now, I know that this makes you shake your head, but it seems to be a logical and viable alternative to our current situation.
Cycloptichorn
OK, let's follow Dys' suggestion and explore ideas.
How would you accomplish "the dissolution of private health insurance" in the country?
Perhaps like Advocate you would replace it with a government operated system like Medicare. That, however, entails more than a few issues that, like those associated with foreign adventures, may have some side and after effects that bear investigation.
Government sets the payment rates for services that it will pay under Medicare. It also insists that no additional charges can be levied by them. Many Doctors and Health institutions will not accept Medicare patients for this reason. If this system is extended we may see the flight of professionals from Medical practice and, equally importantly, the flight of private capital from investment in Pharmaceutical development, Hospitals and Clinics. How will you handle that?
Alternatively if you both allow providers to bill what they want and disconnect patients from the cost of the services they demand, we will see unbounded growth in the costs of such care. How will you manage that?
There are many other such issues, but this is a good start.
Quote:If this system is extended we may see the flight of professionals from Medical practice and, equally importantly, the flight of private capital from investment in Pharmaceutical development, Hospitals and Clinics. How will you handle that?
I would start by explicitly disagreeing with the assumption that private capital is responsible for breakthroughs in either pharma or medical technology. They may be responsible for the implementation of breakthroughs in technology, but the science primarily comes from gov't-funded university programs.
When we start seeing a shortage of doctors, the amount the remaining ones can charge goes up; this leads to more people wishing to be doctors. Not a hard thing to imagine, the free market balances itself out.
If taxpayers want better and more equipment for their hospitals and clinics, they vote to provide it. If they don't, they don't. Not a complicated process, and no less inefficient and costly then the current model.
Doctors can be mandated to accept Medicare patients; they are free to look for employment elsewhere if they don't want to, and we could easily find qualified doctors from abroad who wouldn't mind doing so.
Cycloptichorn
The widespread availability of practical applications of science depends on entrepreneurs, not government funded research. The Soviet Union had ample government funded science, but could neither feed itself nor take good care of its people.
Evidently you believe that like the UK's NHS we should start the widespread hiring of Moslem assassins to staff our medical clinics.
As for the rest of your self-contradictory observations, I suggest you invest a little time in studying the economic and social performance of socialist economic systems.
Quote:
Evidently you believe that like the UK's NHS we should start the widespread hiring of Moslem assassins to staff our medical clinics.
If you aren't interested in putting forth a serious argument, why bother posting, George? This is rather ridiculous.
As is your retreat to railing against socialism. It doesn't seriously address the topic, but instead seeks to discredit it by attaching it to a phrase which you find distasteful.
Cycloptichorn
georgeob1 wrote:The widespread availability of practical applications of science depends on entrepreneurs, not government funded research. The Soviet Union had ample government funded science, but could neither feed itself nor take good care of its people.
Evidently you believe that like the UK's NHS we should start the widespread hiring of Moslem assassins to staff our medical clinics.
As for the rest of your self-contradictory observations, I suggest you invest a little time in studying the economic and social performance of socialist economic systems.
Your comments are interesting. The fact is that half our drugs emanate from government-funded research (such as through grants to universities. The drug companies pick up the results for essentially nothing.
No one wants the government to take over research, the drug companies, etc. The thrust of universal care is a single-payer plan, which is what Medicare is.
