American Values and Health CareFollow

That right reminds me of a conversation I once had with my old history teacher in high school. We were talking about how the parties have pretty much swapped sides as far as ideals and party lines are concerned about every 40 years or so.

If Abe Lincoln were alive today, he'd probably be signed up with the Dems.
If JFK were alive today, he'd probably be a Republican.
If Jefferson were alive today, all we'd be hearing about in the news is whether or not he should be still be wearing a silly wig.

...or to put it the way my fiance's dad does: If you're young and Republican you don't have a heart. If you're old Democrat, you don't have a brain.

I think the single payer system is not on the table in the US right now. The unique American properties are a combination of distrust of government and lack of sympathy for fellow Americans (often due to actual racism although some of it is due to political philosophy).

If we bother to open a newspaper we all know: the single payer system would be vastly cheaper and that we would have more choice then we do now and that right now, if we get very sick, our insurance company will try to either kill us or move us to the government dole. We know that if our doctors order too many tests, they run the risk of getting kicked out of the network which provides much of their business. And so right now the doctor has to balance the need to do the test (and the risk we will become upset and complain, or potentially sue) versus the risk that our insurance will kick them out of network.

In short we all know our current system is badly broken. And that all of this can be rectified by a UK-style single payer system.

Those initial unique American properties are pretty strong, huh? Either that or people don't actually know the facts yet.

I would love having a single payer health care program. Our insurance (after paying it up till September) dropped us on July 1st (long story) and of course we didn't find out till we went to refill my prenatals and were advised that we didnt have insurance (on july 16th). We got their drop letter on the 23rd and still haven't gotten our refund. :(

Thankfully we saved enough to prepay my care (it comes out to less than I had to pay when I had insurance with Suki). No insurance carrier will cover me (preexisting condition). As for the family, Brent can go to a V.A. and for Suki there is an emergency care clinic that also has good rates. (Shes completely up to date on her vaccines, which our insurance also wouldn't cover unless we wanted to try to go on standby at the local base.)

Another point is, when I had insurance it was charged out the butt to overcompensate for all of the noninsurance carriers. >.<

I'm in a similar boat here. I'm leaving a job to start a small business (which already has one employee aside from me-- I'm creating new jobs! ;D). All I can afford is catastrophic insurance, and even if I could find a decently priced full coverage policy, it wouldn't cover the cost my narcolepsy treatments as it's a preexisting condition. I can pay for my modafinil, the generic's only ~$40 for a month's supply, but xyrem is about $600 a month so I'll be going back to the less expensive, less effective tricyclic antidepressants (which also make me twitch, and leave my brain feeling like it's been replaced with a large ball of dry cotton) so I can lead some semblance of a normal life.

I'm planning to take off most of August to accommodate the rebound attacks that will hit while I'm changing meds.

The fact of the matter is, this "American values" argument isn't a smoke screen, it's a sack of ********* In early America, the wealthy could afford the services of a physician to come to their home to treat their illnesses. What did the poor and working class do? They went to local poorhouse where they received medical treatment that was (wait for it!) paid for by the local municipality out of tax revenues. Granted, the medical care provided by these facilities was terrible on the best of days, but the fact is government-provided healthcare has been part of the American experience since the very earliest days.

The current insurance-based system is a product of the 20th century. Modern insurance policies started gaining popularity during the depression, but during World War II, they became a way of getting around war-time wage caps and by the 1950s employer-sponsored health insurance had become a standard component of compensation. Medicare and medicaids introduction in the 1960s did bring about a damaging increase in medical costs over the following decades (due to mismanagement, though, not some evilness inherent to government-paid healthcare). By the end of the 20th century, the universality of employer-sponsored health insurance combined with the skyrocketing of medical costs had priced even routine doctors visits out of the range of lower-income Americans. While the poorest citizens have medical access through Medicaid, there's a huge gap (filled with low-income workers, small business owners, and the self-employeed) who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to take on the crushing premiums of even a minimal insurance policy.

And what happens to these people in the event of a catastrophic illness or accident? They lose everything & go bankrupt, while suffering from the catastrophic illness or accident & taxpayers pay for it anyways.

And it's my personal opinion that this generally does not help the recovery process.

It's funny how much people talk about the issues with single payer systems. My whole extended family are Canadian. Not only do they have the same level of health care, even among those without separate, supplemental insurance, they haven't had to deal with the trauma of things like Mindel cited. My sister's closest childhood friend who had to go on welfare b/c she couldn't be insured anywhere and had such crazy hospital bills and a long term chronic illness. My family hasn't had to go to the ER b/c they don't have insurance but immediate medical needs like I used to have to when I had no insurance (as a young'un in my early 20s), even though I was working full time. We pay more in our system proportionately than Canadians. There are no positives for the consumer in our current system--only the providers and the insurance companies, the very people who are lobbying politicians and propogandizing the public.

Everyone knows that the people in Canada are miserable with their health care system and have to choose between waiting seven years for a gauze pad or sneaking over the border to take from sweet, sweet Liberty & Freedom Care.

It's a misquote, but yeah. He was talking about communists, which (in spite of what RushCo is trying to sell you) most Democrats are not.

I don't think you have the power to persuade all Republicans, and since when was the Democratic party renamed "Liberal"? :-P

When my grandma was a teenager in England, she became a Communist for a while. She was the kind of gal that Winston was criticizing. Drinking, smoking, hanging out, becoming RED.

Most adults who are working poor and working class aren't eligible for it, except here where they can pay into it. Also, undocumented immigrants don't have access to national healthcare plans.

I'd like to take this moment to apologise on behalf of Communism for all the "harm" we caused along the years.

We're sorry. We didn't really mean it. The Goulags? Yeah, sorry about that. The re-education camps? Ooops. The whole "Dictorship working on behalf of the proletariat"? Yeah, that was a bit of a blunder. What's that? The Khmers? Yeah, that too. Mao? Yeah, he'll make the blooper section. Stalin? Sure, but at least he had a nice moustache. My grand-ma? Dude, she's like 83, leave her out of this.

So anyway, no hard feelings I hope. Can we be BFF now?