tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post3935226577608319760..comments2024-03-28T16:08:29.578-04:00Comments on Sardonicky: When ObamaCare Becomes NanoCareKaren Garciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-45878678940971539062012-03-15T17:08:29.790-04:002012-03-15T17:08:29.790-04:00Yes @Black Swan - things are far more expensive th...Yes @Black Swan - things are far more expensive than they have to be in our medical system – a good portion of it being administrative costs and the hospitals trying to capture as much insurance money as possible. I relayed, in a distant past comment, taking my daughter on a Sunday to the emergency room for a bladder infection. Seriously, the test for this - in case you are a man and don't know this - is to pee in a cup. The nurse then puts a stick in the cup and can tell whether or not there are bacteria present. We spent four hours in the hospital seeing three people who took our insurance or other details, three or four nurses who took blood pressure, temp, etc., and finally a doctor – who, fairly enough, checked for abuse. My insurance was charged $1500.<br /><br />My point is why couldn't a nurse have handled this? If (s)he found anything wonky the nurse could have THEN called in a doctor. It was the same when I cut my hand with a butcher knife while cooking and anther time when I was bitten by our dog. Huge waits, nothing complicated that required a doctor - stitches and a tetanus shot - and each visit costing between $1000 and $2000 dollars.<br /><br />There are so many ways our medical system could work more efficiently and charge far less.<br /><br />Kat and Anne are both nurses, I believe. You both must be totally frustrated having to work within such an inefficient system.<br /><br />And this doesn't even address the reality that so many people won't go to a hospital at all because they don't have insurance and therefore won't go to the hospital for fear of the cost. If a broken leg costs $80,000 what do uninsured people do when they feel pains in their chest? or find lumps in their breasts? I will tell you what I would do, stay at home and hope for the best rather than burden the family I love with hundreds of thousands of dollars of hospital debt. You can bet plenty of uninsured people in their fifties and older do exactly that in America.<br /><br />But I guess the uninsured and working poor or unemployed are non-persons so they don’t count.<br /><br />And we think of ourselves as a First World Country. This alone is a shocking testament to how unfettered capitalism is an inhumane system.Valerienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-63030968427572143112012-03-14T18:06:54.095-04:002012-03-14T18:06:54.095-04:00@Black Swan
Geez! Sorry about your leg. This coun...@Black Swan<br /><br />Geez! Sorry about your leg. This country is a mess.James F Traynornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-37666902235559813322012-03-14T17:11:04.651-04:002012-03-14T17:11:04.651-04:00I'm going to have to say that I think it would...I'm going to have to say that I think it would have been the right time to pass single payer. The right would have had a field day with that. I'm of the mind that things are going to have to get worse before they get better. I am sorry that Obama wasted political capital with health care "reform". We did end up with an unholy mess. ACA made things worse than doing nothing. We need all sorts of reform to our health care system and single payer is just one part of that.Katnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-43025123757361320722012-03-14T15:24:14.241-04:002012-03-14T15:24:14.241-04:00@Black Swan,
I hope your leg is better. It's f...@Black Swan,<br />I hope your leg is better. It's fine to be a medical tourist if it's a non-emergency, but what can you do with a broken leg? I imagine getting through TSA security would be the pits. They would probably saw your cast off before letting you on the plane.<br />What a country.Karen Garciahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-35373326618771828922012-03-14T15:13:26.735-04:002012-03-14T15:13:26.735-04:00I thought I would share a recent experience I have...I thought I would share a recent experience I have had with our HealthCare System. I am in my 20's and was on my parents insurance policy until I turned 26. I was in school and unemployed and did not sign up for my own health insurance. The cheapest plans for catastrophic care start at around $89/month and have deductibles around $5000. This is a lot of money when you are a poor student. Unlucky for me, I broke my leg over the winter. My total medical bills are around $80,000. This includes surgery and 3 nights in the hospital, plus an ER visit, physical therapy and medications. I could have gone and had this surgery done in Spain for $12,000 plus airfare! Trust me on this, I priced it out and contacted surgeons over there. Now I am lucky, or not, that my financial destitution qualifies me for all sorts of charity care and with a little luck I will get almost all of my medical bills written off. <br /><br />Take what you want from this story. I just thought I would put it out there to let people know just how outrageously expensive medical care is. They may have put my leg back together, but the financial cost could ruin me for life.<br /><br />There is no option but single-payer Medicare for all. Anything else is pillaging the ill for the benefit of billion dollar corporations.The Black Swanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03988752808485377434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-26352085064965019902012-03-14T15:02:17.081-04:002012-03-14T15:02:17.081-04:00Single Payer or Medicare for All would cost less, ...Single Payer or Medicare for All would cost less, improve health for all and run so much more smoothly than the Rube Goldberg ACA -- or the hodgepodge payment system that now exists for the diminishing class of more-or-less lucky people adequately insured by profit-making interests. <br /><br />That Single Payer is vastly superior to ACA is provable with eyeshades and computers that can count, as well as through the experience of other countries. Want to check the math and the detail for yourself? Give this site a good look:<br />http://www.pnhp.org/ <br /><br />Q.<br />Why didn't such calculations and experience nail down Single Payer as a no-brainer for the US decades ago? What stood in the way? <br /><br />A.<br />The Private Health Insurance Industry. Duh.<br /><br />Guaranteeing the continued malfeasance (on an expanded scale) of the Private Health Insurance Industry through Obamacare is about as stupid as was bailing out Wall Street. When will the middle class tire of handing its money over to the rich? What's in it for us, if it's not too impolite to ask? What's the point of rewarding criminals and incompetents, unless of course you're on the take yourself?<br /><br />What should the US do with the Fifth Wheel of the Private Health Insurance Industry, if ever Single Payer becomes fact? (Ha! That'll be the day.)<br /><br />a) Throw it under the bus where it belongs?<br /><br />b) Develop a training program to qualify its over-bonused executives in more productive and socially useful lines of work?<br /><br />c) Retrain thousands of its benefit-denying desk workers into bedside clinicians? (For example, we are short tens of thousands of RNs and the shortage is getting worse.)<br /><br />d) Just give the whole lot of them six months of unemployment insurance and a CD of Bob Dylan singing "Like a Rolling Stone" over and over?<br /><br />How does it feel<br />How does it feel ....Jay–Ottawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10360356126450612113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-48204976188653256232012-03-14T13:40:22.250-04:002012-03-14T13:40:22.250-04:00Now that’s change we can believe in!
We continue ...Now that’s change we can believe in!<br /><br />We continue to lead the developed world in health care injustice and our health care system is the most expensive in the world.<br /><br />Why? <br /><br />The Affordable Care Act was written by and for the private health insurance industry.<br /><br />The HHS rule on the state insurance exchanges to be established under the Affordable Care Act hands control to private insurers! The HHS rule on the governing board composition states that “representatives of health insurance issuers, agents, brokers, or other individuals licensed to sell health insurance may not constitute a majority of the governing board.” The private health insurance industry can occupy up to one-half of the seats on the governing board. Conflict of interest? HHS’s response, “We believe that further definition of conflict of interest may create inconsistencies with State law and other existing State standards.” <br /><br />In Kansas, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is planning to let for-profit managed health care companies run the Kansas Medicaid program. Kansas Medicaid beneficiaries, long-term care for the elderly, disabled and mentally ill, will go into risk-based managed care plans run by three out-of-state, large, for-profit companies. Trust them not to cut services and to put to put patient’s health care needs ahead of profits?<br /><br />Hooray for profits for them! Hooray for austerity for the rest of us!Denis Nevillenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-68515924661995921692012-03-14T13:09:40.187-04:002012-03-14T13:09:40.187-04:00"What an unholy mess."
So true, Karen...."What an unholy mess." <br /><br />So true, Karen. It's about an hour later, and my brain still hurts a little after slogging through just your excellent synopsis of the revised CBO report.<br /><br />Quick note: The thoughtful and measured responses to DW's comments in the last post ("Fear, Loathing....") did NOT hurt my brain. In fact, they were exactly the kind of stuff that keeps me coming back for more here "in the salon of Sardonicky." God I love this place.<br /><br />One more thing. I'm sure many of you already visit the Vast Left-Wing conspiracy blog, but the comics have been so hilarious lately I have to post the link for those who haven't experienced them yet:<br /><br />http://vastleft.blogspot.com/Willnoreply@blogger.com