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#481 |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: between my head and heart
Posts: 41,232
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I honestly wish the informed conservatives would show their faces and the rest stay home... but then I guess Rush wouldn't have a "movement".
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#482 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Band-aid Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Ohio
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I know! I can't believe they're letting these kooks dominate the tone of the opposition.
__________________And then you have people who DO seem to be reasonably intelligent fruitlessly trying to defend this indefensible nonsense. It'd be like me trying to defend the idea that George Bush planned the 9/11 attacks just because I didn't like his policy on Iraq. |
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#483 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Kettering, Ohio
Posts: 10,763
Local Time: 08:07 AM
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#484 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Band-aid Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Ohio
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![]() It was nice to hear Frank call that out, so maybe. I don't know if that would be very "presidential" though. |
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#485 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Kettering, Ohio
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Quote:
Anyway, I agree with your previous post about public/private non-profit/private. Except that there should't be any for-profit private insurance companies. The idea of profit and industry should never be a part of the healthcare discussion. There should only ever be one motive in healthcare, and that's healing people or preventing them from getting sick in the first place. Money shouldn't come into it. Ever. This is why I hate the argument that for-profit health insurance companies are necessary because they create competition and competition breeds research and innovation. If you're a company trying to find cures for cancer, aids, alzheimer's, parkinson's, spinal cord injury, whatever, your motivation shouldn't be money, it should be commuting a cancer patient or an aids patient of a death sentence and giving them the chance to live to see their children and grandchildren grow up, it should be to give an alzheimer's patient the ability to think again, to recognize their loved ones again, it should be to give a parkinson's patient the ability to control their body again, it should be to give paralyzed person the ability to walk or even run again. It should be to give people their health and their lives back. The motivation should be to ultimately live in a world where there's no such thing as a terminal disease or an incurable disease, not to make a buck. |
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#486 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Band-aid Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Ohio
Posts: 4,905
Local Time: 07:07 AM
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I just don't think the insurance companies really have anything to do with actual health care (or they shouldn't any way). Really what they exist to do is to say--"You give me a little bit of your money every month and if something horrible happens to you we'll pay for the medical costs." The entire business is built on the assumption that the liklihood that something horrible won't happen to you is greater than the probablity that something horrible will happen to you. Which is fine, if you're a healthy person. All insurance works that way, and I don't think that's bad--as long as you're not relying on insurance to pay for all of your health needs (which most of us are). It'd be like depending on the car insurance people to pay not only for accidents, but also for maintenance, oil change, new tires, broken air conditioner, as well as subsidize the cost of gasoline. Those insurers couldn't remain profitable unless they found away to get out of providing most of the benefits they're supposed to be providing. That's what the health insurance companies do. |
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#487 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Strong Badia
Posts: 3,443
Local Time: 12:07 PM
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It seems on both sides of this discussion that two separate but related issues are being conflated -- health care, and health insurance. No one legally can be denied health care in the US -- everyone has the right to care. In this country, if you don't have health insurance, you are still legally allowed to receive assistance, regardless of your ability to pay. State insurance covers the gap. This is particularly true for uninsured mothers, whose costs for delivery etc are assumed by the state. Health insurance, while related, is something different.
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#488 | |
Self-righteous bullshitter
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Soviet Canuckistan — Socialist paradise
Posts: 16,900
Local Time: 09:07 AM
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Do citizens of each state have state insurance, or is it a state-by-state thing? What is covered with this state insurance? While no one is denied health care, why are there stories of less affluent people mortgaging their home, going bankrupt, etc. for some procedures? Wouldn't the state insurance "cover the gap" as you say?
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#489 |
Blue Crack Distributor
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Seattle
Posts: 64,498
Local Time: 05:07 AM
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For the state insurance programs I'm aware of, you must qualify for them, usually by being considered "low income." I'm pretty sure that not all states have these programs. I don't know what the coverage level is for the various programs, if there's substantial out-of-pocket costs, or high deductibles, or what.
I might not get booted out of the hospital if I show up with no insurance and all my arms falling off; they'll sew my arms back on and send me on my merry way, but I'll be followed into oblivion with bills for all the gajillions of dollars I'd owe to the hospital. |
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#490 | |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 34,032
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why does receiving health care become the #1 cause of bankruptcies in the US? |
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#491 | |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Aug 2002
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Yes, if it's an emergency. If it's not, or if it's not defined as an emergency by the insurance companies, you can definately be denied. |
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#492 | |
Blue Crack Supplier
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A diabetic sees their podiatrists, the doctor starts to see the signs of early charcot foot but tells the patient they need surgery asap. Well if the patient doesn't have coverage, or even they do but it's just not that good, the surgery will cost them several thousand, and when you are on the line or hovering over the poverty line a couple of thousand can cause huge problems. So the question is have the surgery and go late on the mortgage, or wait until it gets worse and the state pays for your amputation? This is a real example we see in my hometown all the time. It's considered elective until it spreads a certain amount, then it's emergency and they can't save the foot. So you get a free amputation, but you're wheelchair bound for the rest of your life. That's Nathan's definition of covering the gaps. |
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#493 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Strong Badia
Posts: 3,443
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Give me a break, BVS. I was defining terms. I haven't said what I favor one way or the other. I have some reservations about going from "everyone has the right to health care access" (which I agree with) to "everyone has the right to health insurance" -- however, as you pointed out in your examples earlier, the one has a direct bearing on the other.
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#494 |
Self-righteous bullshitter
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Soviet Canuckistan — Socialist paradise
Posts: 16,900
Local Time: 09:07 AM
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.
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#495 | |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: between my head and heart
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The "covering the gaps" is a pretty big misconception, and many have it, it just sounded as if you were defending it... my apologies. |
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#496 | ||
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Strong Badia
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#497 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: May 2002
Location: Tempe, Az USA
Posts: 12,856
Local Time: 05:07 AM
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#498 |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: between my head and heart
Posts: 41,232
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Surgeries get cut due to underfunding in our current system too
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#499 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
VIP PASS Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: London/Sydney
Posts: 6,609
Local Time: 12:07 PM
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I mean you need quite a truly amazing the level of dumb to claim ‘Nazi’ over a fucking simple healthcare policy that virtually every other modern western democracy already has in place (or something similar), and then a truly amazing level of dickhead to respond to disagreement on that call with “Oh, well, you’re gay, so fuck you”. |
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#500 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Band-aid Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: watching the Cubs
Posts: 4,292
Local Time: 06:07 AM
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