Don't sick and/or get accident if you don't have money

[chickan dippaaaaz]

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This is why people need to plan for problems and take care of their health. People need to prioritize their lives, including what they spend their money on.
I often hear people moan about not being able to afford decent medical coverage, but they have a car payment, cell phone, internet, cable TV, etc..... seems to me their priorities are askew. Many CAN afford it but they CHOOSE not to.

Like it or not hospitals need to get paid or they go away... you want cheap, find a county hospital or free clinic.

America has the best medical in the world. It seems that many Americans feel entitled to have it provided to them. We don’t need the government "protecting" us against expensive medical bills, we need them to stay out of the way.

It’s a sad day that many feel entitled, or that the government is here to protect us.... people really need to pick up a copy of the Constitution w/the first 10 amendments (bill of rights) to realize that what they want and feel entitled to is actually un-American and NOT what America is all about.

 

[chickened]

I think you are right on, Preventative medicine is the best medicine.

While we're at it lets make gasoline free or socialize that so many gallons a month... no wait that would be rationing and that never will happen with healthcare (ya right).

Maybe we should give everyone a free phone, free food, heck why not just give me a free paycheck and I will just stay home and not risk getting hurt afterall you can get hurt just walking out your door right?

 

[chickan dippaaaaz]

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how about a chicken in every pot!?... wait... um...nevermind

 

[FourPawz]

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Where I live, if you are a low income patient, you can check here first:

http://www.vafreeclinics.org/

In the US, one of the major causes of our health care problems are trial lawyers and their effect on the skyrocketing cost of malpractice insurance. My grandfather was a doctor in the early part of the twentieth century and he never turned anyone away, regardless of their ability to pay with cash. Of course, those patients DID repay him by giving the family eggs, or meat/vegetables, or even by cutting the grass or by shoveling the snow off the sidewalk. If you think such repayment would even occur to the majority of our low income people today, you would be in for a rude awakening, I'm sad to say.

 

[Dunkopf]

I just got my bill for 2 hours in the ER. Doctor saw me for about 2 minutes, nurse spent a good 5 minutes on me, most of that putting in a drip. Maybe 15 minutes getting 2 cat scans that required 2 technicians. The hospital bill was 21,023 dollars. The insurance company adjusted to 11,700 dollars. I am charged 1273.00 which includes my 1000.oo max copay and what was left of my yearly deductible.

I fell off a horse running at full gallop onto my back and hit my head. The ER said I needed the cat scans to be sure I didn't have internal injuries. Falling off a horse, fun. Spending 11,700.00 at the ER to confirm that all you have is bruised ribs, Priceless.

If I had waited till the next day and gone to my GP it would have been around 450.00 with x-rays and then another 550 or so for cat scans. So where does the ER get 11,700.00. If we had a single payer plan the visit would have cost the fed about 2000.00. The doc would be at around 200k a year, the nurses at about 60k a year.

Whoever said we have the best medical system in the world needs to actually do some research on their own instead of listening to talking heads. We may have some leading edge technology but our medical care system is somewhere around 33 out of 50 or so industrialized nations.

 

[chickan dippaaaaz]

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We have the best medical in the world is what was said...you added system. Im not going to get into people choice on how the obtain medical coverage

In our country he have the BEST care that one can get, and EVERYONE has access to it. How many other countries can say that?

 

[mulia24]

uh... em.. Beg your pardon, but it seems that lots of us are using a bit "high technical writing system".

I mean, emm... you're using a bit too deep English usage and I had to think for couples of minutes to understand what exactly the meaning of that 'string combination' actually means..

sorry, I'm not an English native speaker..

chickan dippaaaaz, first of all,

, em.. that's what I think when I opened an insurance account..

before I open that account for me and my mom, I've got pressed by my own mind about paying the premium, the premium alone are about 70% of me and my mom income. I've started to tighten my stomach although sometimes I've to get problem with the worm inside my stomach having strike..

FourPawz, I wish I live in virginia..

surely there will be people who love doing charity that will help the poor to get access to better healthcare, but their number are too low compared to those the poor.

the middle wealth people will have to keep their health or get themselves good protection to any problem about healthcare in the future.

live better, doing exercise, keep your stomach from getting 'forward' a bit inch..

 

[chickened]

I was raised on a working horse farm and have ridden a lot of horses mostly green, how does one "fall" off?
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[bakerjw]

How many people really even understand how the insurance industry works? I worked in life insurance for a short time and it was pretty cut and dried.

They take in premiums. Say $1,000.00 for example.
They invest the money in order to earn a profit. Say 30% margin. to end up with $1,300.00.
They pay health care providers from the premiums + the interest earned from the investments. So if they ended up spending the entire $1,300.00 then they'd be breaking even but still giving more out that they had received. They don't just take in money, dole it out as needed and skim off of the top. They make the money work for them. Now don't get me wrong. I am not a fan of insurance companies. But if being able to make money work for their policy holders is something that they do well then I think that we should allow them to do it. Now Take the federal government. If they take in $1,000.00 what will they do with it? Good ole Social Security is in wonderful shape now isn't it?

If we socialize our medicine you will have med students flocking to other fields in a panic. If you think that it is hard getting in to the doctor now then wait a few years after the implementation of single payer controlled by the Washington machine.

Tort reform and portability across state lines would be a good start to finding a solution... BUT... 97% of contributions to Democrats are from trial lawyers so tort reform is out of the question.

 

[Dunkopf]

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We have the best medical in the world is what was said...you added system. Im not going to get into people choice on how the obtain medical coverage

In our country he have the BEST care that one can get, and EVERYONE has access to it. How many other countries can say that?

Overall we probably have the best medical care AVAILABLE to those able to afford it. Our system of providing even mediocre care to our society is low on the scale.

Our problem is that being a doctor has always been a dream job. Mother to son "I would love to see you be a doctor when you grow up". It used to be that it was a dream because it was a profession where you were respected by all and you CURED people that were sick. In other words it was a highly respected profession and you were helping people too. It paid a good salary but didn't put you into the wealthy category. Just the upper middle class.

These days kids go into it to make money. Many still go into it because it is a noble cause. Some even work for peanuts at free clinics helping people for much less than their contemporaries. It has for the most part become a high earning potential profession. Not always for the doctors. Most GP's now work as part of a group for a salary. Marcus Welby is long gone. The company that runs the group provides facilities and manages everything. From what I have heard by talking to a couple retired doctors I have run across, they usually average about 200k a year. Not a huge salary by any means. It does provide a comfortable living though with enough money to buy a nice house and put your kids through college and still have a retirement plan and retire at 55 or so if you want to.

Specialist make in the million dollar range. Very long hours, lots of work. Lots of money and no time to spend it.

In socialized medicine there is still the 200k a year available of GP's. Yeah the doctor would have to help people that may stink once in a while. I can guarantee they already do that though. Surgeons and such would make a better salary. Specialists would be able to make good money working outside the system servicing those that could afford medical coverage through a private provider. In countries that have socialist health care the kids still want to go into medicine for altruistic reasons as well as a comfortable living. In America the eyes get fixed on the almighty dollar instead. So yes we would have some kids that wouldn't be interested anymore. There would still be plenty that were. Especially if tuition was paid for those that couldn't afford it. We have a lot of kids in our population that have fantastic minds but no means to go higher than 12th grade.

Making money on life insurance and auto insurance is fine. Making massive profits on peoples health is not fine.

BTW I'm in the insurance industry. My company provides life, property and auto coverage as well as all the usual investment opportunities a full service insurance company provides. I'm very aware of how insurance companies work. Their bottom line profit is around 6%. A lot of the health insurance companies make in the 15 to 20% range for bottom line profit. It's a racket that involves the health of our population

BTW Chicken. If you were actually raised on a horse farm (you obviously didn't grow up on one) then I know you saw a few people fall off horses. You could also ask Christopher Reeve if he was still alive. He was quite an accomplished equestrian. He fell off a horse. He's the guy that played Superman in case you weren't aware. In my case it had a lot to do with not having ridden a horse in 35 years and paying more attention to finding a comfortable position in the saddle instead of paying attention to the cow that my horse was chasing and the fact that the horse was a retired cutting horse. Also had to do with the fact that it was a regular saddle vs a roping saddle and my legs were not strong enough to hold me when the horse made a 90 degree turn at full speed that I wasn't anticipating because I am not an accomplished rider. Yep it was just plain stupid on my part.