Healthcare in the U.S.

[screwballl]

I saw part of the movie and had to go puke at the sheer annoyance of having to hear or see him for more than 3 seconds... what he spouts is as if this free medical system is the answer to all of our prayers... yet look at Canadian healthcare... look at the wonderful Cuban free healthcare....
Granted our system is far from perfect but it is much better than most healthcare systems out there.

[Gig-O-Ram]

Originally Posted by screwballl

I saw part of the movie and had to go puke at the sheer annoyance of having to hear or see him for more than 3 seconds... what he spouts is as if this free medical system is the answer to all of our prayers... yet look at Canadian healthcare... look at the wonderful Cuban free healthcare....
Granted our system is far from perfect but it is much better than most healthcare systems out there.

First, what was wrong with Canadian healthcare? Cuba? Okay, so they didn't have really shiny waiting rooms, but so what?

Also, go back to the previous page and read my last post about what these people get.

EDIT= Okay, I read the thing that girl wrote about what she saw in Cuba - which BTW, I notice is slanted to the conservative side, as I saw Hannity and Colmes names right below it, so now I know the angle it comes from. And maybe "Sicko" is slanted a little left, but so what? That's beside the point. The stuff I was talking about earlier, I didn't say anything about Cuba. I was talking about Europe and Canada.

I'm kind of sorry I brought this up now...

[screwballl]

with any "free" or subsidized healthcare system, there has to be some priority system in place but also enough money put towards paying the doctors. This is why private practices are starting to take off exponentially in Canada because having to wait a month to get seen for a viral infection is not beneficial to a persons heath..
The real balance comes in with a combination of private and public practices. Where a certain income braket (based on tax paperwork, say under US$75,000 per year) and lower has public healthcare available to them IF THEY choose. Anyone higher has to pay for themselves or their own medical plan. As it is now in the US, the most someone (an entire household) can make to receive free healthcare is I believe $18,000 per year. Even if the household makes 18,020 last year, nope, no free halthcare for the adults (the children are covered at least to age 12 depending on the state).

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by Gig-O-Ram

So, let me understand what you mean...If someone can't get or afford medical coverage, then what? They can just die? Nice.

This is the difference between the USA and places like the UK or Canada...they give a damn about each other, and they give a damn about more than money. Would you feel this way if it were you?

I provide health care for myself and my family. My Son is autistic, and requires quite a bit of special care. I pay for him to go to a school the specializes in autistic children in Denver CO. I also have to pay for some of the special treatment he needs because it isn't covered by my health insurance.

So I understand that health care is expensive, but I am sick and f**king tired of people bitching about the health care system. What you don't seem to realize is that in those countries that have state funded healthcare their taxes are around 40-45%. You think Hospitals in the US are crowded? Try going to the ER in a German Hospital, I hope you have 3 days to wait in the waiting room. Need surgery, try a 6 mo to 3 year waiting list. They have their issues too. Their is no perfect solution. Either the poor get screwed or the middle class gets screwed there really is no happy medium. My suggestion get a damn job with good health care benefits and worry about yourself. I sure as hell don't have the time, money or patience to worry about anyone else buy myself and my family. Oh and of course you guys.

[azianai]

i agree with hitman, if you've actually ever experienced the national healthcare coverage, it is piss-poor. I had it in Taiwan when I was a kid (got ran over by a postal worker on amotorcycle and broke my leg). I was still young, around 3 at the time but my grandma said that to call the EMS to pick me up would've been 4 hours, she just loaded me into a taxi and got me to the hospital. There at the ER i was waiting for over 15 hours with a broken leg, even with the police there trying to rush it as the accident was a government official who caused it. Took them over a day before I was admitted into surgery. Now, i don't think that would happen in the US. I don't argue healthcare is expensive, but there are support for it. I cut my finger once on the meat slicer when i was working in a deli, NY State worker's comp covered my medical bills, my personal insurance wouldn't as i was injured on the job.
Currently im just a modest recent college grad making $30k a year. My current HMO plan with Oxford through my company isn't as great as my old family PPO coverage with Aetna, and i don't even get dental covered. But I know Oxford won't leave me high and dry if I'm in an emergency.

[Gig-O-Ram]

Originally Posted by Hitman

I provide health care for myself and my family. My Son is autistic, and requires quite a bit of special care. I pay for him to go to a school the specializes in autistic children in Denver CO. I also have to pay for some of the special treatment he needs because it isn't covered by my health insurance.

So I understand that health care is expensive, but I am sick and f**king tired of people bitching about the health care system. What you don't seem to realize is that in those countries that have state funded healthcare their taxes are around 40-45%. You think Hospitals in the US are crowded? Try going to the ER in a German Hospital, I hope you have 3 days to wait in the waiting room. Need surgery, try a 6 mo to 3 year waiting list. They have their issues too. Their is no perfect solution. Either the poor get screwed or the middle class gets screwed there really is no happy medium. My suggestion get a damn job with good health care benefits and worry about yourself. I sure as hell don't have the time, money or patience to worry about anyone else buy myself and my family. Oh and of course you guys.

You are fortunate that you are able to provide for your family's care. What I'm saying is that some people aren't so able, which is why I made the point to the effect of "can't afford it...too bad." The care you speak of must be very expensive, and to be honest, I don't know if I could provide the same were I in your circumstances, given my current job situation. It pays good, but I don't know that it pays that good. My job does have health benefits, but other than what I know just from initially speaking to the rep, I don't know how good it is because I haven't needed to use it yet. The same is true of my wife's plan...we haven't had to get deep into it yet. But she MAY have a problem with her heart, the extent of which we don't know yet. She saw a Nurse Practitioner the other day, who said she has a strong heart, but she may just suffer from low blood pressure - but we don't know for sure. Other tests may or may not be needed. But the thought of her having a real problem, and maybe not getting the proper care - This is why having the healthcare system controlled and ruled by these HMOs scares the hell out of me!

This job I have is the only one that came up for me after searching high and low for decent work here, so I had little choice as to what health plan I got. And if you read my last post on the previous page, I point out that I am full aware of the heavy taxes those people pay out for what they get.

[Boy'nBlack]

Gig, you say I'm rich and get this for nothing. I'm not rich (as the crow flies) and get cheap healthcare.

No one is just saying just die. Work harder, improve your surrounding, improve your fellow while you at it, and join capitalism. That's how it works. I don't want to work harder to support people who don't want to try. You can get the social side before even hitting the government support side. The system is in place so you can grab the ring and take it if you want it. There's rings for everyone, as the more of us achieve, the better we all are. Socialism has us all the same. Not healthy and is proven faulty. It's not self supporting. Socialism is pushed by a government in that they want the control, not us...the democracy. You give them the choice to kill or keep, they use numbers like we're a product.

I'm fully with Hitman in that I don't give a shit about some bum dieing on the road. I just don't. He made a choice in free will. Not one, hundreds. You don't chose to be a bum as a kid. I wanted to be a Highway patrol, and Highway patrol just happen to get good healthcare. Another person choses to just be a slug and not try. They get what they know is coming. It's obvious if you don't try what you get. When I ran out of logical choices, I joined the military. No, I was cornered into it. Police were on me, the Judge was on me, I had to make a living, and I believed in the state of the Union. More than most, it was a chance to show myself that I wasn't a failure. Blew that wide open IMO. Hooya!

The land of opportunity is why people come here. Illegally and legally. The opportunity of people already here, born here, legal citizens, is let aside; and so be it. Why do any hard working people ever think that's rational...to support people that won't better themselves? It's not a matter of can't here, it's won't.

So why don't you have healthcare? Or, why do you have a beef with the system? Don't say it's from a movie man. Michael moore is full of shit, proven after every release. But you give the feeling like you can't, and no one can. Well, ok then...me then. When I got out of the Navy and had two kids, the government was raping me so badly that I made, not cleared, $98 a week. I had a home, I had a truck, I had my health. But I can't keep lights on all the time and I was lucky my dad's buddies were on the city crew or I wouldn't have running water that wasn't a river. I rode a neighborhood kid's bike to work because I couldn't put gas in my truck ($1.23, remember it clearly). Pink and purple tethers from the bar ends. I had to buy her a basket because I wasn't riding that shit with a basket on it and took it off. What do I do? Ask for the government to fix my fuck up? No! I'm a man, and I do what I must. I finish college, on grants and the military fund (I paid into, dearly), and moved in my career. I've driven myself so hard that I've excelled and not just cleared bottom of the rung. That's just me, a single person, driving to achieve in a capitalistic world. And you have airplanes better equipped to stay in the air, dependable power to your sockets, and of course these little toys we play with in computers...product wide.

So don't say you need the government to help you. I'd suffer again just to show you guys what boot straps are for...pulling up on! Don't give me a single hand out, I'll fix it. That's John Fucking Wayne man, not Pierre Fransicco Duplate (made that up, like it?). We pull ourselves up, help those that can't...NOT won't.

Oh, and my kids always had state insurance. I always had insurance. Even when dead fucking broke and not just poor. You get a card for WIC so you don't look like a total bum, and they eat. State gives the health care and it's just the same I get now...Kids are front of the line, but behind heart attacks. You go for a cold, I say stay home and cure the coming Darwin Disorder.

Sorry, but this is just insane asking for the government to fix what you can't get through achievement. If you have a problem getting a good job there, move. It's what men do since we walked out of Egypt my man. I envy living in Oklahoma or Kansas, but that's when my work is done...not now. Our living curse is to work, and to provide. That's how it's written 2000 years ago and is no different now. If you need proof and aren't religious, then come walk with me anytime, anywhere. I'm proof that any stupid human can make a difference. Not socialism. That makes me freaking puke.

I think the Governemt should give everyone a bow, a quill of 6 arrows, and drop you outside of town...because you can survive on your own. You can, millions do...they're just made fun of because they can't spell cappiciiono (get it? I can't spell it! I'm funny). When that flathead bites your arm from noodling for food, you're just going to have to deal with it with no hospital. I kinda wish now that I'd gone to the hospital to set my left collar bone in 2001 after my 134Mph get of at Laguna, but hey...I think I can make it.

And if you think you can save drinking and driving fatalities, liver failure, kidney disease, lupus, prostate cancer, and that one where you forget stuff (not funny, I really can't remember)...please inform me. Love to know how the government can save me and my entire family. Stats tell me what I die from, and there's no cure. With no cure, they just help us to die softly, and that's nice to some. So I'll light up a lucky and try to get lung cancer before the other shit hits me. My whole world has dropped dead, and no hospital could save them if you gave them Bill Gate's wallet. Sad but true man. But when bad things happen, you don't ask for financial help! What an insult. At the most you need a friend. That's not some Senator. Go hug one. Try it.

So state your personal case here. More from me? I brought my boss from LA toward Manteca (modesto area) and he had a heart attack at a truckstop just over the grapevine. I gave him aspirin, stopped as needed, we get to a hospital, he stays while I run the joint, gets a stint...living today. I buy another plant, my boss gets a heart attack, angio plasti, a well needed diet, we golf every 3rd day at 5:20am. I'll tell ya when he passes. But hospitals are fine in my book. It's the 30 other idiots in the waiting room that worry me. I gotta step up and mangle spanglish to the receptionist to tell them the kid was dropped and the mom is worried. And my death is not a curable thing. It might be 5 minutes from now. My strive is for my fellow man, to succeed, not just sit there and get worse.

But again, $14 is not expensive, and that's blue cross. I had that when I was making $98 a week and not paying to keep lights on. But hey, we read a lot of books by the candle light. Might be why I'm really rough around the edges. Really rough. I don't give a shit when people say they're having a rough time. Where have you tried? Me, it's been San Diego, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Kansas (in general...several small towns), Tulsa, OKC, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Manteca/Lathrop, Weott, Fayetteville, Bartlesville, Rogers, and back to San Diego. I'm liven man. I see my brother if I need a check up, and all I really have is a cheap house that I don't live in some state I want to live in. Material.

If there was a movie to be made, it's in the midwest and south...people living. Iowa is flooded, but you don't have all the hype like Katrina. People hurt every single day, even of not their choice, and that's the people that need us. When your brothers and sisters here lose their houses to wind, water, and shake...where is your government? You just get by, and that's what you do. That's the cards you're dealt. The cards aren't shit though...you can make a hand, and that's the American way.

You're going to die. You can't help it. No government can help it. Live a better life and enjoy 30years of it. Make it past that, enjoy the next minute. It WILL help us all knowing you're expected to do so and have someone else pulling the strings stronger than a human can. Prolong it, or just live it. I'll live it and help where I can. Not through my wallet, and not to those that don't care themselves.

Do you fold with your computer by chance? If not, this ship turns wickedly away from your argument.

[Alzheimer's! that's it. Had to google "forget shit"]

[screwballl]

That is one major problem today... healthy people going to the hospital for everyday colds and the flu.... it is this "take a pill" society that we have become. It started with headaches some century ago, have a headache take aspirin... now there are "pills" for incontinence, diarrhea, back pain, little willy issues, allergies, sore finger, colds, flus, sinus and almost anything else that affects mankind. If anything, most of these pills are only transferring the problem from one issue to another.
Studies have shown the using Pepto Bismol, ImmoduimAD and those "type" of drugs may stop the gush but after years of usage it starts causing the body to make cancer from the poison it was trying to flush out. The only real pill that has not shown any long term heath effects is pure aspirin such as Tylenol and Bayer. Not acetaminophen or ibuprofen, but pure aspirin. Of course anymore they add these liquigels and "easy swallow coating" and other additional chemicals which alter how the aspirin works.
So except for pain and REAL medical issues, it is not suggested to take any pills for anything or else you better have a very good long term health plan for in 20-40 years when it all starts shutting down your body.

[Alzheimer's! that's it. Had to google "forget shit"]

that is hilarious... but it could be simple senility too

[Hitman]

Now that my friends is a Chumly post.

[Gig-O-Ram]

Originally Posted by Boy'nBlack

Gig, you say I'm rich and get this for nothing. I'm not rich (as the crow flies) and get cheap healthcare.

No one is just saying just die. Work harder, improve your surrounding, improve your fellow while you at it, and join capitalism. That's how it works. I don't want to work harder to support people who don't want to try. You can get the social side before even hitting the government support side. The system is in place so you can grab the ring and take it if you want it. There's rings for everyone, as the more of us achieve, the better we all are. Socialism has us all the same. Not healthy and is proven faulty. It's not self supporting. Socialism is pushed by a government in that they want the control, not us...the democracy. You give them the choice to kill or keep, they use numbers like we're a product.

I never said you were rich and get anything for nothing. I never said anything like that. I also never said I got all I've said from a movie. The movie just told me things I already knew about. And I also stated that I have insurance, but in my experience, the whole HMO thing is overrated.

I feel I've made my argument, so I'm not really going to say anything else. I work hard now, and I've worked harder in the past. I know what that's like and I know what it is to be nearly broke. And look harder at what we are - we ARE a product, to work hard and produce until we die. Then it's on to the next ones after we're gone. That's how capitalism works. That's why it's called Capitalism, which is also overrated - it has more to do with the money and production than it has to do with people.

I feel the way I do, and you feel the way you do. Enough said.