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 Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 11:00 am
He may be denied coverage but he would never be denied care. Hospitals cannot turn people away and if the person can't pay their bill, depending on how much that person makes, it is either a write off for the hospital or the person has to work out a payment plan with the hospital to pay his bill. Trust me people do take advantage of this. When I did my EMT training I had to run in a city for my clinical time and I can't tell you how many of my calls were we are poor and don't have a car or insurance but want to see a doctor so they call 911 and get a free ambulance ride to the hospital and then the hospital has to take care of the rest.
Even the monthly payments are not that horrible. My mother in law did a payment plan for her gastric bypass surgery and when my husband fell hurt his head we worked out a payment plan for that based on what we could afford.
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Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 12:36 pm
Chibi, that stipulation is stupid! I think most people against the current health care plan don't deny that. The system needs to be fixed, that's for sure. But I don't the government's ideas about how to fix it. I think it won't fix it but make it even worse.
We need to keep working until we arrive at a solution that is best for everybody.
Like shadowflameguardian said, treatment can never be denied. Billy will get his medical care (he must, according to law, and if he doesn't then that doctor is in serious trouble). But yes, there should be some sort of rule in effect that insurance companies cannot deny coverage to innocents like Billy who have lost health insurance through no fault of their own.
I do not have health insurance right now. I actually owe quite a bit of money for some blood tests I had done, recently. So I went into the Patient Services office on my way out of a regular appointment (no inconvenience) and sat down with a lady whose job it is to help me figure out how best I can go about paying. She actually asked me how much I would like to pay each month.
So I said . . . "I don't know, fifty dollars?"
She then calculated how many months I would be paying fifty dollars to pay off my bill for the blood tests. She asked if that was okay, and then asked me in which month I would like to start to be charged.
It does cost me more to pay for the blood tests out of pocket, but by making steady low payments, the medical bills hardly affect my livelihood.
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Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 6:36 pm
It was actually a classmate of mine's husband who has the Chron's problem. I didn't know his name, so I came up with a generic one. lol
It costs that much to have some blood tests done? eek
But, I guess in the end, it doesn't do much good to make too many speculations about how healthcare will change. We'll all be seeing the effects of the bill soon, for better or for worse.
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Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 6:41 pm
Exactly! My dad is in almost the same boat as Billy, except that my dad has lymphedema and not Crohn's (he lost his job last year and is now unemployed/self-employed), and my mom, a church secretary, doesn't get insurance through her job. Both my parents have so many pre-existing conditions that even crappy insurance would cost about twice as much as their house payment. I'm currently uninsured because I'm relatively healthy and seldom have to visit the doctor, and even though I'm a student, I'm almost through, so I'm just a part-time student (and will be until I finish my master's thesis--hopefully this fall), plus I'm too old to be covered by any insurance my parents might pick up. Even so, we think that the healthcare bill is a ridiculous idea that will cause more harm than good. As I said before, I'm not really convinced that the folks who dreamed up the healthcare bill actually have good intentions, and if the road to hell is paved with GOOD intentions, imagine what not-so-savory intentions will bring. I just don't trust any of this new legislation.
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Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2010 10:42 am
lilchibiusa It was actually a classmate of mine's husband who has the Chron's problem. I didn't know his name, so I came up with a generic one. lol It costs that much to have some blood tests done? eek But, I guess in the end, it doesn't do much good to make too many speculations about how healthcare will change. We'll all be seeing the effects of the bill soon, for better or for worse.
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 3:29 am
I want to quote something I learned from economics class:
"Tragedy of the Commons"
It speaks for itself, but a brief explanation I'll provide for the slow:
Public things diminish in value no matter what because people lack motivation to nurture it (i.e. public city restrooms).
In other words, it's real easy to neglect something that has become commonplace.
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Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 3:26 pm
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Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 5:30 pm
I think what it basically means is that no matter what we do it will not completely workout because people will not continue to see it through. It's a hot topic right now but eventually it will fade.
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Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 10:21 pm
Basically it's inevitable that public belongings will become overused/abused/neglected. This treatment of public belongings is said to be due to the fact that no one is held solely responsible of the said belonging and therefore people will simply stand and wait for someone else to take care of it for them. This is all basic psychology and plain human nature... The whole idea of self-interest and the "It's not just mine, so someone else will do it" mindset.
One perfect example would be my apartment cell's kitchen (theres 5 of us total in here). No one is held responsible for the care of the kitchen since we have weekly maids come by and clean up... so what happens? The countertops become messy and crap ends up all over the place til someone (me) does something about it.
So yeah, that's what is called the "Tragedy of the Commons"
If you don't believe this, then test it for yourselves -- it's essentially a law like gravity (under normal circumstances, otherwise it falls through... i.e. gravity does not hold in nanoscale and Tragedy of the Commons does not hold true in a society of perfectly good-hearted/responsible people)
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Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 9:21 pm
Oh, I see what you mean. That's a really good point. I can't see how making health care public will help anyone, 'cause everyone's going to be looking to everyone else to take care of it. :3 Did I understand you correctly?
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Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 12:19 am
GreenInkling
Oh, I see what you mean. That's a really good point. I can't see how making health care public will help anyone, 'cause everyone's going to be looking to everyone else to take care of it. :3 Did I understand you correctly?
Yeah, essentially.
The increased demand due to the increased number of people who now have access to health care combined with an expected decrease in human capital (number of personnel) due to the lack of external motivators and overall quality of service (unmotivated/disgruntled personnel) is definitely not a desirable mix.
The funny part about the public health care idea is that people would refer/comment on how Canada has public health care when at the same time people from Canada often come down to the US to get treatments for far more complex illnesses/conditions than a simple bone fracture or fever. What I'm trying to emphasize by bringing this point up is the fact that privatized health care promotes research. I'm pretty sure everyone can agree with me when I say that for most people (this is essentially a way of stating the 3 factors that must be present for a person do carry out an action): "there's no mirth in doing a massive research project assigned to you as homework for a class that isn't due (motivation) or graded (reward) or even related to the class itself (self-interest)" -- a lot of people honestly do it for the money and at the same time research can be done only if provided the money to carry it out.
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Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 10:44 pm
Ethereal Darkness GreenInkling
Oh, I see what you mean. That's a really good point. I can't see how making health care public will help anyone, 'cause everyone's going to be looking to everyone else to take care of it. :3 Did I understand you correctly?
Yeah, essentially.
The increased demand due to the increased number of people who now have access to health care combined with an expected decrease in human capital (number of personnel) due to the lack of external motivators and overall quality of service (unmotivated/disgruntled personnel) is definitely not a desirable mix.
The funny part about the public health care idea is that people would refer/comment on how Canada has public health care when at the same time people from Canada often come down to the US to get treatments for far more complex illnesses/conditions than a simple bone fracture or fever. What I'm trying to emphasize by bringing this point up is the fact that privatized health care promotes research. I'm pretty sure everyone can agree with me when I say that for most people (this is essentially a way of stating the 3 factors that must be present for a person do carry out an action): "there's no mirth in doing a massive research project assigned to you as homework for a class that isn't due (motivation) or graded (reward) or even related to the class itself (self-interest)" -- a lot of people honestly do it for the money and at the same time research can be done only if provided the money to carry it out.
Wow, Ethereal, that's really quite brilliant. Do you study philosophy?
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