Politics U.S Presidential Primary Thread (Read 20603 times)

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You know, most reasonable jobs provide decent insurance so it's almost next-to-nothing to pay for that kind of thing.  And you know, those benefits extend to the family pretty easily.  Now, let's just, for a second, read my other post about trying to make education better and cheaper, then I think more people would have access to decent jobs, and thus be able to take care of their families better.  However, if you decide that for some reason, it's perfectly acceptable to be a grocery store manager or something else that doesn't extend benefits, then maybe you should try to aspire towards something better.  Even better, marry someone who does.

And actually, as I recall, a friend of mine works for a grocery store as a manager and he gets reasonable benefits.

So because a few people have issues accessing health care, everyone else should get screwed over.  Especially when it's going to get a bunch of good doctors to quit because they won't get the type of money they deserve.

--Terin

are you kidding me? my mom has a "reasonable" job and we all have a $1,000 deductible. and, you know, there's 46.6 million uninsured Americans (as of 2005). i guess they just can't find a reasonable job? (not to mention my mom, who is a legal secretary, has a pretty "reasonable job" and we are basically uninsured)

you are so blindly unaware of how things actually are! it's pretty incredible!
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and ryan aint even got a nigger for a mom....
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A $1,000 deductible?  For what?  For something like a surgery?  That's pretty standard.  If I have to have some crazy tumor removed for $50,000 and I pay $1,000, that's a good deal still.

I've actually taken care of myself with and without insurance.  So I've had to deal with expensive procedures that drained me.  And I've had to deal with the same procedures WITH insurance.  It's a fact of life.

Now, fine, if you want to complain that everyone has issues with insurance, then fine.  I can understand that and you have a point.

My real question is, would you be willing to screw over the quality of our health care for the sake of giving health care to everyone?  Would you rather save most people (85% of people let's say) or try to save everyone and only 40%-50% are saved?

--Terin
Last Edit: February 19, 2008, 04:49:09 am by Terin
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A $1,000 deductible?  For what?  For something like a surgery?  That's pretty standard.  If I have to have some crazy tumor removed for $50,000 and I pay $1,000, that's a good deal still.

I've actually taken care of myself with and without insurance.  So I've had to deal with expensive procedures that drained me.  And I've had to deal with the same procedures WITH insurance.  It's a fact of life.

Now, fine, if you want to complain that everyone has issues with insurance, then fine.  I can understand that and you have a point.

My real question is, would you be willing to screw over the quality of our health care for the sake of giving health care to everyone?  Would you rather save most people (85% of people let's say) or try to save everyone and only 40%-50% are saved?

--Terin

--Terin

uh. do you know what a deductible is?

de·duct·i·ble      /dɪˈdʌktəbəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[di-duhk-tuh-buhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1.   capable of being deducted.
2.   allowable as a tax deduction: Charitable contributions are deductible expenses.
–noun
3.   the amount for which the insured is liable on each loss, injury, etc., before an insurance company will make payment: The deductible on our medical coverage has been raised from $50 to $100 per illness.

so no. we pay up to $1,000 on EVERYTHING.

also nice statistics what part of your ass did you pull them from??? do you really think if we had universal health care we would suddenly just drop to 1930s-era health care?
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AHAHHA I love it when white folks try to say I TOO HAVE DEALT WITH POVERTY ONCE I SLEPT ON MY BROTHERS COUCH its the funniest thing in th eworld.

directed to terin who is saying HEH I KNOW WHAT POOR IS I ONCE PAID FOR A SURGERY.
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A $1,000 deductible?  For what?  For something like a surgery?  That's pretty standard.  If I have to have some crazy tumor removed for $50,000 and I pay $1,000, that's a good deal still.

I've actually taken care of myself with and without insurance.  So I've had to deal with expensive procedures that drained me.  And I've had to deal with the same procedures WITH insurance.  It's a fact of life.

Now, fine, if you want to complain that everyone has issues with insurance, then fine.  I can understand that and you have a point.

My real question is, would you be willing to screw over the quality of our health care for the sake of giving health care to everyone?  Would you rather save most people (85% of people let's say) or try to save everyone and only 40%-50% are saved?

--Terin

--Terin

A lot of "reputable" people with insurance are faced with not only the large deductable, a lot of companies also only pay up to a certain percentage or a fixed number that is set to something quite low afterwords too.  The problem that comes after that, is insurance companies will then weasel out of paying it claiming about pre-exisiting conditions and all the bullshit, but that is more of another topic there.

The main bullshit that the bottom line falls at, is in the states, the medical practice and the insurance companies that pay for them are looking for a profit out of this whole thing.
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So because a few people have issues accessing health care, everyone else should get screwed over.  Especially when it's going to get a bunch of good doctors to quit because they won't get the type of money they deserve.

From what are you making these ridiculous conclusions from?

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dude, he had to pay for surgery once. he has insider info on this shit
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I wish I didn't get searched when I come through customs
I wish Christians stop beefin' with Muslims
Wish the poor didn't have to take welfare
Wish America had universal health care
Cuz ain't no help here
In a country where we don't fight fair
The American Dream becomes a nightmare
It's all hype here
And on this track, bust all I might bear
I wish Bush just get out of office (get out!)
Before he start World War III and try to off us
It won't cost them, but it will cost us
And right now, believe me, you lost us
brian chemicals
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AHAHHA I love it when white folks try to say I TOO HAVE DEALT WITH POVERTY ONCE I SLEPT ON MY BROTHERS COUCH its the funniest thing in th eworld.

directed to terin who is saying HEH I KNOW WHAT POOR IS I ONCE PAID FOR A SURGERY.

So I'm white now?  And apparently now because I've paid for surgery and been broke and working a low end job, I have no right to say anything?  Wow, ok.  I've paid my bills, which is more than you guys can probably say.

And FYI Ryan, there are different kinds of deductibles.  I pay $10 for doctor visits and $1,000 for actual medical procedures.  Two different deductibles.  I believe my new benefits are that medicine is also $10 as well.

Now, Atari and Quest-Master, you actually managed to explain this at a fairly mature level.

Atari: Yeah, I totally agree with you on insurance companies and companies themselves trying to avoid.  Was going to make a comment on healthcare being expensive to help facilitate better research, but hit the two caveats that 1) we're talking about insurance, not necessarily pharmaceuticals, etc; and 2) who's to say that even if it was someone who could put money to research, that they even would.  I totally understand.  But I think some profit should be achieved out of it too -- if you can make money, then it's a big deal, and you get selectively good people, ideally.  Maybe not always.

Quest: It costs more, yes.  But my question arises with if doctors are going to be paid less, are they going to want to be doctors still?  Money is a huge incentive for things.  I don't disagree that it is expensive here.  But what repercussions are we going to have if we start saying how much a doctor can make?  Or a surgeon?

I see the moral dilemma, make no mistake.  I'd be glad for everyone to have health care and live a nice long life, but the question is, if that happens, what repercussions is it going to have on our taxes and the quality of our health care?

Now, if somehow insurance companies got phased out, we got the same type of coverage with no additional taxes and everyone got coverage and paid less or nothing (or even if my premium rates only went up slightly -- like to $20 for visits to doctors/medicine, $1500 for surgery), that'd be reasonable.  I'd be in support if I got the health care I have now, but extended to everyone, and paid nothing (or little) else.  But the question that it boils down to is the *quality* and the *cost* in the long term.

Our military operations and the social security crisis right now is enough to scare me senseless with taxation right now.

--Terin
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whoa I'm not white I'm ASIAN heh....I worked hard.

I just...I'm sick of these taxes.

ps buttbuddy did you read my links?

the ones that demonstrated the complete NECESSITY of UHC??

or the ones about Ron Paul??

or are you just here like a fairy for Christmas STEEL PALADINES LOOK ITS A GIFT FOR YOU but I'M NOT YOUR GAME GOD I WILL FIGHT YU.

*throws up, drunkenly staggers to computer, plays Franco Battiato sobbing uncontrolablly*
brian chemicals
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And FYI Ryan, there are different kinds of deductibles.  I pay $10 for doctor visits and $1,000 for actual medical procedures.  Two different deductibles.  I believe my new benefits are that medicine is also $10 as well.

Now, if somehow insurance companies got phased out, we got the same type of coverage with no additional taxes and everyone got coverage and paid less or nothing (or even if my premium rates only went up slightly -- like to $20 for visits to doctors/medicine, $1500 for surgery), that'd be reasonable.  I'd be in support if I got the health care I have now, but extended to everyone, and paid nothing (or little) else.  But the question that it boils down to is the *quality* and the *cost* in the long term.

sorry bud but our deductible is $1,000 for any medical procedure. including routine checkups.

basically what you are saying is "i won't pay a dime more in taxes to cover 47 million Americans." hope you sleep well tonight!
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AHAHHA I love it when white folks try to say I TOO HAVE DEALT WITH POVERTY ONCE I SLEPT ON MY BROTHERS COUCH its the funniest thing in th eworld.

i had to do this once. it was horrible.
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i had to do this once. it was horrible.

imagine it for most of your life.

now imagine health care in that state.

off topic: any gws that want to experience the third world IN THEIR BACKYARD is free to stay with me in NC, just drop me a line.

its not that bad but you will see.............the nightmare................
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sorry bud but our deductible is $1,000 for any medical procedure. including routine checkups.

basically what you are saying is "i won't pay a dime more in taxes to cover 47 million Americans." hope you sleep well tonight!
this seems a little ridiculous, man.  who's the insurance provider for your mom's company?  i can understand large deductibles, but generally there ARE differences in prices for different levels of treatment (i.e. the deductible isn't the same for a checkup as it is for major surgery).  plus, is a routine checkup even classified as a medical procedure?  a checkup is just that; they're not treating you while you're there beyond perhaps prescribing you some type of medicine, so i think there might be some sort of differentiation between it and an actual procedure like a colonoscopy or something.  anyway, i don't know much about insurance, but since the deductibles for my parents' insurance, for visits to the doctor, are like $10-15 too, i think even if it really is a $1,000 deductible across the board, you might just have really, really terrible insurance, because i feel like that's pretty atypical, even with all the other obvious problems with the health care system.  in my experience, most insurance, if you can actually get it, is at least somewhat useful, and yours is more or less totally worthless barring the need for serious medical treatment (incredibly unlikely).
Last Edit: February 19, 2008, 05:17:46 am by bazookatooth
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this seems a little ridiculous, man.  who's the insurance provider for your mom's company?  i can understand large deductibles, but generally there ARE differences in prices for different levels of treatment (i.e. the deductible isn't the same for a checkup as it is for major surgery).  plus, is a routine checkup even classified as a medical procedure?  a checkup is just that; they're not treating you while you're there beyond perhaps prescribing you some type of medicine, so i think there might be some sort of differentiation between it and an actual procedure like a colonoscopy or something.  anyway, i don't know much about insurance, but since the deductibles for my parents' insurance, for visits to the doctor, are like $10-15 too, i think even if it really is a $1,000 deductible across the board, you might just have really, really terrible insurance, because i feel like that's pretty atypical, even with all the other obvious problems with the health care system.  in my experience, most insurance, if you can actually get it, is at least somewhat useful, and yours is more or less totally worthless barring the need for serious medical treatment (incredibly unlikely).

Anthem/Blue Cross Blue Shield or whatever is our provider. my mom's employer pays for the health insurance, however they had to raise the deductible because the costs would be so tremendous otherwise.
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I have Blue Cross Blue Shield and the deductibles are as follows:

Personal Physician Visit: $15
Specialist Visit: $25
Emergency Room: $100
Prescription Drug: 20%

For middle, upper classes this is a piece of cake. My family is kind of borderline lower/middle class. Just recently my mom refused to return for a second visit to an optometrist about a problem with her eye because she felt he didn't help her at all and was forcing a second visit. Basically it was just HMM LETS TRY THIS MEDICINE MAYBE IT WILL HELP COME BACK NEXT WEEK. $25 may not seem like much, but when physicians make you keep coming back for follow-up visits for EVERYTHING including fucking CONTACT LENS FITTING, the payments build up quickly!

The ER payment is also kind of ridiculous considering thousands of people walk into the ER every day with shit like domestic violence that unfortunately occurs repeatedly.

But yeah, $1,000 for everything sounds quite ridiculous.
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I've never encountered the follow-up visit thing, but my experience with specialist physicians is also very limited.  To be fair, though, even for a borderline lower-/middle-class family, $25 per visit is pretty inexpensive.  Realistically, how often would a person need to see an optometrist?  I imagine that you'd go in every few months, unless maybe you've got serious eye troubles, and shell out the money for the checkup, at which point a follow-up one might be a good idea to monitor whatever treatment you tried the first time there.  It only adds up if you're using it a ton; I could understand if you were going every week and they actively seemed to be encouraging you to come back as much as possible to rake in the cash, but just going by family history (not even the healthiest of people!), visits to any type of doctor aren't common enough that follow-up visits would really strain our pockets, and we've probably fallen into roughly the same economic bracket as you the majority of the time.  Part of the problem on the employer's/provider's end is that, if the fees DON'T start to add up after a couple of visits, people don't feel any inhibition about scheduling appointments at all, for anything, because it's practically free.  I think this is why prices for things like specialists and emergency room visits are higher.  Not because they're trying to gouge you, but mostly because, from what I've heard, visits to such places are drastically higher (and as a result much more money for health care comes out of the employer's pockets) if they're priced more economically, so it's likely just put in place to discourage excessive use of things like ER facilities.

Mostly I'm saying that, if I had a plan like that, even as a lower-class family, I don't really think I could expect much better.  The only thing that might be a pain is, as you said, the emergency room.  But I think that's only for select cases, as I doubt there are many people who take regular trips to the ER (unless your dads tim the toolman taylor LOL), and most domestic violence instances don't even warrant going to the emergency room, I don't think, so what you'd probably be looking at is a somewhat high fee, comparatively speaking, every once in a blue moon.  Still, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, while I don't think $25 or maybe $50 every few months for a specialist visit is a big deal, $100 at the wrong time probably could be.  It's better than a $1,000 across the board deductible, though!
Last Edit: February 19, 2008, 06:17:18 am by bazookatooth
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Yeah, what I should have said is that I consider my family to have one of the better insurance plans in terms of low deductibles/co-payments.

However, when you're already paying a few hundred bucks / month for health insurance on top of unexpected visits to specialists, when 1/2 of your family income goes toward paying for a son's college tuition, when the cost of living is skyrocketing everyday, it really can be a huge problem!

$25 is pretty inexpensive, yes. But I'm fairly certain almost every specialist visit involves more than just the initial visit! I don't really want to get into my parents' medical history but my father had to go to the ER twice last year (once for lacerating part of his finger on a lawnmower),  and we've had our share of specialist visits with things ranging from optometrists, urologists, dermatologists, chest x-rays, etc etc.

I don't know, maybe we are just a health-needy family, but despite not being in charge of paying for health insurance, I can't help but feel like my parents consistently have something to pay for!
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Yeah, I guess you're probably right.  I doubt I have an appreciation for what it is to be really STRAPPED FOR CASH as a family since at this point, I'm essentially an only child, I don't have pricey tuition that needs paying, and the days of any of us really needing serious and frequent medical care are gone.  None of us really go to see specialists, and I've never even BEEN in an ER (although one time my brother almost cut his thumb off with a katana (yeah I'm serious) and that was pretty expensive).  Looking at it from the perspective of a family that might be more laden with bills and responsibilities than mine is, and might have an income that's already strained, the nickel and dime shit could potentially be really troublesome.  I've heard my mom complain in the past about having to send my brother thousands of dollars at a time because he's going to school overseas and has come fairly close to just flatout running out of cash and being homeless, so I can picture what that, in addition to a host of medical bills, could potentially do to a person's wallet.

I guess the path is clear for you, buddy.  It's time to stop screwing around in college and get a real job to help support your family!
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