Healthcare

[pecunium]

If there is any chance of getting this thing passed in a way which isn't designed by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to maintain the status quo, we have to fight for it. As I said before, it needs to be a steady drumbeat, not a brief flurry of activity they can write off as a small group of people with their knickers in a twist.

The press, of course, isn't helping much; the tea-baggers and "Brooks Brothers Mafia" get lots of airplay, but the 60-70 percent of the people who want to see meaningful reform are given short, if any, shrift.

One of my favortite blogs (Making Light) has a post on the subject: Pushing back on healthcare.

Abi is an ex-pat, one of the reasons she's still an ex-pat is coming back to the states would be, in terms of healtcare, expensive, and potentially ruinous.

There is not another country in the first world with our abysmal "system" of healthcare. Brazil, with 2/3rds our population, and 1/5th our GDP has national healthcare; so saying the US is "too big" to manage is nonsense.

The other arguments, also nonsense. If the present system is the best, than a "public option" will fail in the marketplace; if you want a "free market solution" then give the public option a chance.

Between Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, the VA, Tricare and the House/Senate plans, something like 40 percent of the population is already on a "gov't" plan.

Healthcare is already rationed, but not on any sort of measurement of actual limitaton. It's being rationed by corporations looking to make a profit. The decision on an MRI, or a CT scan, or a hip-replacement isn't being made on the basis of need, or availability; it's being measured against the bottom line. It also leads to distortions. A friend of mine was told his kidney transplant was going to be delayed. Why? Because the area hospitals were being denied kidneys as the result of some being sold to the highest bidders.

CEOs get huge "bonuses" for squeezing a few more pennies per share from the people paying for medical care. The uninsured get gouged. I had a kidney stone some years ago, and when I got the bill it was explained to me the hideous cost of a few hours treatement (about $8,000) was to make it possible to give a "discount" to the insurance firms, and still make money.

The way to offer that "discount" is to overcharge those who have no insurance.

This is no way to run a country.

Comments

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

CEOs get huge "bonuses" for squeezing a few more pennies per share from the people paying for medical care. The uninsured get gouged. I had a kidney stone some years ago, and when I got the bill it was explained to me the hideous cost of a few hours treatement (about $8,000) was to make it possible to give a "discount" to the insurance firms, and still make money.

I don't know if you listen to This American Life, but they had a story about recission the other week. Terrible.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I mentioned recission in an earlier post. If I tried to keep it all in every post, I'd never be able to stop writing. :)

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

I know, there are a lot of problems.

The "pre-existing condition" trap is probably the most egregious aspect to me, because if you consider the way that human bodies function, that's essentially healthcare which doesn't cover being ill.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

The cookie cutter plans for those insured with existing conditions (both public and private) drive me nuts.

Say you need leg braces, and you're a kid. And you grow. You get new ones. You have another growth spurt. Too bad, how sad, you hit your quota for the time period. (My kids went through something like that, with medical equipment, quite a few times.) X shrink visits, Y physical therapy visits, Z speech therapy, Q occupational therapy. Mammograms every T years. Medical need does not matter! Charts and checklists do.

[benet.livejournal.com]

Word. I'm really happy to see that my friends and loved ones here are starting to take up this fight: for awhile, it seemed as though, having worked like Hell to get Obama elected, everyone was going to sit this one out, and then when the dominoes fell and it was still the same old status quo, they were going to throw up their hands and say "oh well, can't fight City Hall", and go back to auctioning knick-knacks on eBay every time some uninsured friend needed their appendix out.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

It's apparent that the battle I think ought to undertaken is already lost.

What I want is at least reasonably good medical care for everyone. (Every single word in that sentence is there for a reason.)

What we're hearing now -- from President Obama, the leaders of the Democratic party, and even many liberals -- is talk about the necessity for "reforming and improving health-care insurance".

The latter is admirable, and long over-due, but it's far from being the same thing as the former need.
It (among other things) is certainly not the Change I had in mind when voting in the most recent Presidential election.

(Note: I have no purely-selfish interest in this matter -- I have, and expect to be able to retain, an HMO policy (withe the non-profit Kaiser-Permanente) that I can afford and with which I'm reasonably satisfied. My only vested interest is the semi-abstract, or second-hand, one of wanting to improve our society in general because I live in the midst of it and things that improve the well-being of a significant number of others benefit me indirectly. And yes, I can afford (and expect) to pay somewhat higher taxes, and am willing to do so if they produce good results. The current discussions & proposals do not appear likely to produce an especially good -- much less cost-effective -- health-care system.)

[jpmassar.livejournal.com]

No way to run a country

Andrew Sullivan (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/) has a series of vingettes from readers entitled The View From Your Sickbed, e.g., the latest one on getting pregnant and (almost) paying through the nose (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/the-view-from-your-sickbed-9.html)