Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Wallowers here only - celebrators start another post

Absolutely not true in our case either.. There has actually been some grumbling here in the UK recently, from the right wing tabloids mostly, about the 'problem' of 'health tourism'. People from poorer countries flying into the UK as tourists who head straight to Casualty pretending sudden illness and receive treatment for an existing condition they couldn't pay for at home. Something which the majority of us didn't really find as shocking as the Mail or Express. I'm sure the number of people abusing the system is tiny.

But, yes, just as in the US, any non-citizen turning up at Casualty gets all the care they need.

As with Germany, illegal immigrants and asylum seekers also have access to any care they need. Actually - more generally - to their detriment in many cases. Many complain that government rules while they pursue their claim mean that they are forced to live on benefits and are banned from taking work. Which I agree is ridiculous.

ETA: I should perhaps clarify that it's the being banned from working if you want to that I find ridiculous. Not the giving of benefits, which I have no issue with.

LabRat :-)

I agree with Lara and Labrat. It's not true.

In France, you don't have to be a citizen to have access to "Sécurité sociale": you just have be legally in France and you have a Social Security card, even if you are unemployed.

And EVERYONE, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers or ... tourists have access to any care they need just by visiting a hospital emergency room.

I apologize. I worded my statement badly and it is incorrect. I do not wish to cast aspersions on any nations or people who offer emergency health care to their non-citizens without restriction. I know what I really meant, but I didn't say what was in my mind.

Let me try to word my complaint better.

In the US, just as in most countries, anyone who shows up at a hospital emergency room or emergency clinic receives emergency care. I don't know how it works in all countries, but that means that someone who is in the United States illegally will receive that medical care also. I take it from the comments above that the same applies to most other countries, or at least those represented in this thread.

I do not begrudge any person receiving medical care in the US if he or she needs it. That was not my point. What I do resent is that the hospital or clinic has almost no hope of receiving payment for that medical care given to an illegal, because the illegal immigrant generally does not have the money on hand, nor does he or she have medical insurance.

That means that I pay for that person's medical care. I don't object to helping those who need help. I object to being forced to pay for that care without being asked about it, through increased insurance premiums or higher cost to me, or both. The point I failed to make earlier was simply that I will soon be forced to purchase "cover everything" medical insurance for myself through a government-run board who will then decide what care is best for me.

That's what happens when a government runs everything. Everyone gets the same level of service and no one has to pay for that service as an individual. The price of the service is harvested from the taxpayers' wallets. And the more people which use that service - which appears to be free but isn't - the more money it costs to run it. No nation can afford to give away medical care for everyone within its borders irrespective of cost. No nation in the world has that much money. Health care must, by all the rules of economics, be rationed at some point or the system ends up bankrupt.

This blog , which appears to originate in Sweden, submits that Sweden's health care system (basically a one-payer system, which the Obamacare system will be when fully implemented), doesn't work as well as advertised. There are also a number of comments at the bottom, most of which support the blog's premise. And though I haven't done so, I could list any number of similar Websites which would say the same thing about single-payer systems in other countries.

I understand that one or two malcontents do not make a case for a national failure. And I know that for every negative blog or article or even book there is a positive blog or article or book to counter it. I am not making a blanket condemnation of all state-run healthcare systems in the world.

However, I have yet to see any government of any nation take over large segments of the economy without damaging that economy. The wage and price controls, public works projects, and restrictive legislation of FDR's administration did not break the US economy out of the Great Depression. It took World War II and the need for soldiers and defense industry workers to reduce the unemployment rate to reasonable levels and to lift the poorest of the poor who wanted some measure of success out of poverty.

I know that not everyone agrees with my position on health care. That's okay. But I'd like to base the discussion on facts (correctly stated ones, please - I will be more careful in the future) and not on theory or rhetoric.

I also found, for example, a Swedish government website which touts the system without being a cheerleader for it. But any system is only as good as the people who operate and administer it. If there is no incentive for a person to do a better job, that person is unlikely to perform that job better than in the past. And placing all of our healthcare eggs in one government basket is a bad idea for that reason alone.

Getting totally off topic, so here goes nothing. :p

If everybody is in health care, there are some benefits, too. Not only does everybody have access to medical care, a dentist or whatever he needs, physicians, hospitals and all other providers of medical care are stopped from charging outrageous prices for their service. Because, as a physician, you cannot afford to charge more than is your due (as determined by the physicians' representatives and the health care system), or the health insurance companies won't pay it. If the physician still insists on charging more, he will have to tell his patients that insurance won't cover the cost and they'll have to pay for it themselves. Which is a very strong incentive to go visit a different doctor. :p

To quote from the text you gave:
Wait, what? As far as I know - and I think I know a lot about our system - we don't exclude pre-existing clauses. Period. The first time I even heard for real about something like the pre-existing causes thing was when talking to someone about American health insurance. Before that, I only knew the term from the TV series "Emergency Room" - and thought it was totally made up!

To take this baby totally off roads and since it's a research topic now
http://www.international.uni-hannover.de/krankenversicherung.html?&L=1
I just googled around a bit since I never had to think about it and that's what I found at the top of the search results. I don't know if there's more to this, but there seems to be at least a precedence. It it didn't look like it's just private insurance but rather the regular public health care as far as non-citizens are concerned Michael

Which is why everyone over the age of 18 should pay a flat rate 15% of their income (pre-deductions) including money earned buying/selling stocks to cover health care costs. So, everyone pays the same percentage rate of what they make. The rich pay more, because they earn more. That makes it fair. Businesses would prefer this model because then they wouldn't have to deal with confusing payroll deductions and insurance companies.

A govn't run board that decides your fate isn't any different that a for-profit board that decides you fate, in my opinion. At least, the goven't aren't governed by their bonuses on whether or not they approve or reject your claim. That can't be said for for-profit insurance.

Well, I do think things like cosmetic surgery shouldn't be included in health care and should be kept separate. So, if you still want to pay for services such as that, I say go right ahead. But NOBODY, NOBODY should have to pay 3/4 of their income to receive medical insurance (which is what we'd have to do we didn't get govn't assistance). Personally, I don't think Obamacare goes far enough. I'd love to have a system like Germany's (a country that currently isn't in the RED).

When I was a foreign exchange student in Germany eons ago, I cut my right hand while washing dishes. I was a student and had no money. My host couple hadn't come home from work, and my hand wouldn't stop bleeding. Finally, I went to my friends who lived next door to ask for help. They drove me to the hospital over my protestations that I had no money to pay for the care. I got right in to see the doctor and got 3 stitches. When the nurse came in to fill out my paperwork, I don't think she ever asked more than my name and maybe my address. Then they sent me on my way. I kept asking my friends where I needed to go to pay. They had no idea what I was talking about. I lived in fear of receiving that bill despite my friends explaining that they didn't pay for medical care, because THAT's how it is in the states.

In countries where there is state-run government health care, people go to the doctor when they need to, instead of waiting until they can afford it or they can no longer put it off (as we do in the States), which keeps costs down. Sure, people abuse the system, but that happens everywhere and is just a fact of life. But telling someone that they can't get medical care because they don't pay taxes, is just as logical as Superman asking if someone is a criminal before he rescues them.

There are those of us that live in fear that something's going to happen where we can no longer afford insurance or no longer receive our goven't assisted insurance. The stress doesn't do our health any good.

My husband works. I stay home with the kids because if I worked my entire paycheck would go to paying for daycare, which to me seems stupid.

Next year, when both my kids are in school, I'll go back to work, which will probably mean we'll earn enough to longer qualify for goven't assisted health insurance, so my entire paycheck will probably go to paying for health insurance, which to me is just as stupid.

Being able to see a doctor without going broke should be a fundamental right. As you wrote earlier:

If "Welfare" isn't another name for "health" I don't know what is.


Okay, and if I haven't made all you wallowers upset already, I think we should go one step further in following Germany's model. All German males when they graduate from high school are required to spend (correct me if I have the numbers wrong) a year doing military service, or two years doing community service (such as working in a hospital as an orderly) -- they do this instead of having a draft. That way before they head off to college, if they so choose, they've already spent a year living a real life, doing a real job and know what it's like. I think our system of going to college straight out of high school isn't teaching our children what they need to be productive members of society. The US should adopt this model and extend it to women as well.

I'm not wallowing over the election. I have better things to be wallow about than who's living in the White House. <<Steps off of soapbox>>

You obviously don't know what it is, then.

In 1789, when the Preamble was written, the word "Welfare" meant The quote is the primary definition of welfare from Dictionary.Com. It's from the Old English "wel faran" meaning "the condition of being or doing well." There is no fundamental right for a person to be healthy. A government which tries to guarantee that its citizens will always be healthy will go broke because people will always get sick and eventually die. Not health care program will ever change that.

The care you received for your hand injury in Germany was paid for. Not by you, of course, but someone had to cough up the dough. And you admit that some people abuse the system in other countries and would do it here, but you also imply that it's somehow better if a government-run system is abused.

And I never wrote that people should only receive health care if they pay taxes. You're putting words in my mouth and I prefer that you not do so.

Virginia, who pays three-fourths of his/her income for health insurance? I have never heard of anyone who does that, so if you can find some evidence please let me know. If it's true, maybe it will change some minds.

Yes, it is quite different. You made a misstatement when you claimed that for-profit insurance boards base their bonuses on whether or not an applicant's claim is paid or denied. The bonuses are paid on the profits of the company. If a company continually rejects claims that another company would pay while charging similar premiums, the first company's customers will take their business to the second insurer. A government board has no competition and won't pay claims based on a policy of retaining customers because they don't have to.

This also means that the government-run board has absolutely no incentive to improve its service record or change to better serve its customers. If you don't believe that, you can look at the performance reviews for any state-run agency in any US state and find that the majority of people working in those agencies just want the paycheck. There are some absolutely outstanding folks in state-sponsored agencies, but they're in the minority. And the best ones usually leave for the private sector, both for better pay and for the chance to do something meaningful without battling all the red tape in the state agency.

One more point about health care. Just because a person has insurance, that does not mean that said person has access to health care. An insurance card won't get you the time of day at a hospital that's closed because it ran out of money and couldn't pay its employees, or at a shuttered doctor's office which is closed because the doctor couldn't make a living doing what he or she did before.

And you've made the assumption that your final suggestion will be universally rejected by the "wallowers." I don't know why. I think that's an idea worth discussing. In fact, I would go even one step farther and make education a combined state/county responsibility. There's no way someone in Florida can determine the best education standards for third graders in Wyoming, or someone in Washington determine those standards for the whole country. I would insist that teachers teach the subject matter in their courses, beginning with the earliest grade the child attends. And I'd eliminate both the Federal Department of Education and all of the teachers' unions and allow the states and local school boards determine who is hired, who is retained, who is promoted, and where the kids can go. I'd also allow the students who refuse to do their work to fail entire grade levels and require that parents be involved in their children's education. And I'd stop rewarding women and men (especially men) for making babies and leaving them for others to raise.

The soapbox is open for business.

I took a week off and I swore I wasn't going to argue politics, but... Mitt Romney answered that:

"You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you're now going to get free health care, particularly if you don't have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity, I mean, this is huge," he said.

Thank you, Sue. I agree with you. I usually come to the Boards to avoid RL, but in case you're all curious, the answer is: ME.

Before my son was born (BEFORE Obama took office, mind you), we crunched the numbers. If we took the health insurance offered at my husband's work it would have cost us that much of his take-home pay (true, that was net, not gross, but when every penny counts those details don't mean much). Since then, we were able to sign up for a discounted health insurance through the state*, but neither myself or my husband have dental or vision (which we sorely need and for which we currently pay out-of-pocket).

We live in fear that we'll "earn" too much and lose even the little that we have. We can hardly afford the insurance at its current rate; a few more hundred a year in salary that might bump us over the line would hardly pay for the several hundred (at least $500+) more a month we'd have to pay to get private insurance for a family of four.

I can understand your hesistation on having the government run our health care, after how well (sarcasim) they've treated our Veterans in many of those run-down hospitals. When it came up for debate in my local area whether or not to close our local VA Hospital, the Veterans said they'd rather get care in a run-down hospital than not get care at all (or the equivalent of that since they would have to travel hours to get to next closest VA Hosptial). Luckily, our local VA hospital (which has been remodeled in recent years, I believe) was saved during the latest round of cuts.

*Since the recent recession our state's discounted insurance has been frozen and many people, in the same boat as us, have been kicked off and nobody new in-need has been allowed on.

Y'all do some interesting math.

I had asked for an example of someone paying three-fourths of his/her/their income (that's 75%) for insurance, and I got a quote from Mitt Romney where he mentioned $10,000 worth of insurance and how attractive it would be to someone making $25,000 to $35,000 a year. At the low end, that would be forty percent, not seventy-five.

Admittedly, forty percent is a whopping big slice out of anyone's income, but it doesn't approach the seventy-five percent Virginia cited earlier. And lest you think I'm just nit-picking, I want to remind you that this percentage was given as a reason to vote for the man who led the charge for government-guaranteed health insurance.

I know the kinds of calculations y'all are doing because I've done them. And so have millions of others. You're special, but you're not that special. This is called "life." In life, often we must choose one of multiple options. Do we got out to eat or stay in and put those dollars into our mortgage or retirement or college savings for our kids? Do we buy a house we can afford as long as nothing major breaks, or do we buy one with a lower price but in a less attractive neighborhood and a lower expected resale value? Does one partner stay at home with the kids and maybe get a part-time job, or do both work and force us to spend money on child care?

I've understand your difficulties because I've experienced them. But no one in the government owes me a living, either then or now. I'm responsible for my own life choices, just as we all, ultimately, are responsible.

Obamacare takes some of those choices away from us. And younger, healthier people generally need fewer healthcare resources than older people (late 40's to late 50's), but that works out overall because older people generally make more money than their younger counterparts. Taking an equal percentage from each person creates an imbalance between the individual cost and the individual benefit.

The system as it stood before 2010 was badly damaged and needed a major overhaul if not a complete replacement. But we don't need to replace an aging car with a Stanley Steamer, no matter how shiny it is or how convincing the salespeople are. We're already hearing about companies who are either cutting back on employee's work hours to pull them below the full-time threshold (Papa John's Pizza) or restaurants whose owners have announced that they will pass the added costs on to the customers (Denny's). Many more are making these hard choices without announcing their intentions to the world, and it's going to have an even more chilling effect on the US economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial average has dropped more than a thousand points since the results of the election were announced. All of the major networks are carrying stories about companies which are hunkering down to try to weather the economic storm they see coming on January 2nd. To top it all off, the most expensive provisions of Obamacare don't kick in until January 2014. Something has to change.

And it's going to be painful for all of us.

"only"?!?

(i.e. Note that the word "only", as in "Wallowers here only - celebrators start another post", has a Bizarro world definition here.)

I just noticed this topic today. I was a bit ticked
off by the other topic that did not want to let people
who are Not Happy with the election results have their say that i noticed shortly after the election. But i was not surprised. Liberals want to shut up conservative voices. I have been so depressed and upset since the election. I was just so shocked that people could be so stupid as to fall for Obamas' lies yet again. I am terrified at what the next four years will do to this country.
I can't imagine what on earth people were thinking when they voted for Obama? Do they think by voting for the most divisive, incompetent and arrogant person who has been in the office they would be doing something good? Do they actually like gas prices that are over $3 a gallon ? It was $1.89 when President Bush left office. Do they like anti business policies that are going to result in thousands more people losing their jobs? Duh! I am so angry at what Obama voters have done to us. I don't think people took a crazy bill they took a stupid pill!

FTR, this topic was started first. The other one only came about as a balance for those that are happy about the results.