Quote:
Originally Posted by kutulu
The problem is that no matter how much you want to talk about opportunities, the number of people far exceed the number of opportunities. In the end we still need dishwashers, grocery baggers, and all the other low wage jobs in order for our economy to work. Whether or not those people are lazy is irrelevant, we need those jobs filled. Those people may not need the amenities that the higher paid people get but they still have the same health care needs.
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Most people have several opportunities to make things right during the right time of their lives. The difference is whether they see it or not. Likewise, many people try to push them in the right direction, but many are too hard-headed or scatterbrained to listen. That was me growing up. I was too hung up on my abused past to deal with the present, until I found motivation through that sense of needing to provide for the one I love. Plus, I knew I had to grow up sometime anyways. I dreaded the responsibilities I would be taking on. I feared losing the battle. I was in the process of going to trial and feared I would be in prison for a while. I got lucky because others saw my struggle and used their pull to keep me out of the worst, and I ended up with probation and a lenient fine and community service period. It helped that the judge was retiring as well.
I saw the opportunity and brought myself from failing every class but the sciences (I always enjoyed biology and the like) to passing every class. Others saw my attempts at reviving my education and helped, too.
See, it's not that the world is against you. The world is against you as long as you are against the world. When you actually try, people around you see that and help. If some illiterate boy tried to read and wanted to learn, people would help him. If he sits back and ignores english class and gets passed anyways, then people are failing him and he is failing himself. If a kid has a disability like I did, then he should be put in classes that handle his issue. In Houston I was put in special ed classes. In beaumont, the entire ISD was special ed. I was years ahead of my peers when I moved. That is a failure of the system, and IMO that should be fixed above healthcare.
Speaking of, back to healthcare. You do make an interesting point on the fact that they need it as much as anyone else. Ironic, because I had NO insurance at all until I started working in IT. I barely knew health insurance existed until I was out of college.
Maybe we could set tax bracket standards. If you're a professional bagger, you get gov't healthcare. If you're a banker, you get your own. I don't know what's best, this is not my area of expertise. I do know that I don't want my current system to change though. I don't want to be forced to go to the doctor that everybody else goes to. I want to choose my doctor. I don't want the gov't to give me a list to choose from, either. I don't want to pay for some else's healthcare, or their food, or their housing, or their medication for their addiction. I would gladly pay for AIDS education though, or sex education in general, or research into controlling tuberculosis. That is definitely a worthy cause for me. Feeding and treating a family of 5 because the mom's ultimate fantasy was to do every boy on her block is not what I wish to pay for.
---------- Post added at 01:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:44 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by dippin
story time, so you can maybe envision a system with fewer overhead costs.
My brother lived in France for a while. One night, he was out with his girlfriend, and a drunk guy started hitting on her. He told the drunk guy to cut it out as she had company. The drunk guy sucker punched him and ran away. It was a friday night. He went to the ER. The triage nurse talked to him and sent him to the appropriate doctor in the hospital, where he had an xray done, was diagnosed with a fractured nose, and the doctor tended to him and gave him pain killers. The fact that he didn't have to pay a cent is beside the point, the point is that in his entire visit to the ER he talked only to 1- a nurse, 2- the doctor.
I live in the US. I have good health insurance provided by my university, which gets good rates since they operate what is generally considered a top 10 hospital in the US.
Playing basketball at a private gym once, I rolled my ankle and severely sprained it. I went to the ER, where after talking to the admissions person I was sent to the person in charge of insurance. After giving them my insurance information, I saw the doctor and was taken care of. At the time I didn't have to pay anything as they sent the info to my insurance. A few days later my insurance called to ask me where I got hurt, and i told them. They decided to go after the gym's insurance company to get the money for my treatment. Long story short, to deal with my ankle sprain, the billing depts. of the hospital and 2 different insurance companies had to get involved, and legal action was threatened by all parts, so we are also talking about lawyer costs. From the point of view of my insurance company, it made sense, as it cost less to them to go after the other insurance company (especially given follow up appointments and etc) than it did simply paying for everything. From a societal point of view, we are talking about severe overhead costs that drive prices up very fast.
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Now I'm not going to lie, that is disturbing to me.
Bear in mind I have very little information to go on concerning what is planned in the upcoming proposals.
What I wonder is why we should somehow restructure our health care when the insurance is to blame. What if insurance companies were forced to work with people, or be sanctioned or dissolved? Just a thought.