rahl

You could get insurance through your church, or any association you belong to as long as they form a group. Group Health insurance is way cheaper than inidvidual insurance, especially if you have any health problems. If you have pre-exes you will be covered under a group plan but you would be unlikely to obtain individual coverage, at the least it would be extremely expensive that is why there is group coverage.

---------- Post added at 02:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------

Everyone is private health insurance would, and depending on the type of plan the government puts out, Everyone in the supplemental market like myself would also. The only insurance agents left would be life insurance, and property and casualty.

---------- Post added at 02:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:37 PM ----------


just like any business or government agency, there are those who act ethically and those who don't but the vast majority of health insurance companies act ethically. They are strictly regulated by each states department of insurance so if you think this problem is solely the fault of the big bad insurance companies think again. Premiums go up as a result of the cost of care going up.

ratbastid

I've got to think that the job losses would be offset by new hires in the administration of government programs, at least somewhat. It wouldn't be the raw carnage you're depicting.

That may be the way you justify it as somebody inside the industry. Caregivers say the cost of care goes up because of how insurance handles claims. So, who do you listen to? I can tell you from the outside that the whole thing is like betting against the house. The house will fuck you any way it can. Occasionally you get a comped dinner or something, but only so the money keeps coming out of your pocket and into theirs.

rahl

That may be the way you justify it as somebody inside the industry. Caregivers say the cost of care goes up because of how insurance handles claims. So, who do you listen to? I can tell you from the outside that the whole thing is like betting against the house. The house will fuck you any way it can. Occasionally you get a comped dinner or something, but only so the money keeps coming out of your pocket and into theirs.[/QUOTE]

It's not the way I justify it, thats the way it is. The majority of my business comes from groups in the healthcare field(hospitals, nursing homes etc.) As far as hospitals go, they have to do a certain number of tests in order to cover their backsides from malpractice suits, in which case insurance companies will not pay for blatenly unneccessary tests. That is the ONLY time your insurance company will deny payment, or if you went to see a specialist without a referral from you PCP, which is stated in plain english in your policy. If your insurance company doesn't pay a claim it is most likely your own fault for not following the terms of the policy, but most times the insurance company will work with you or give you the benefit of the doubt. I know the company I work for does it all the time...someone has an accident that is not covered on their supplemental plan but a phone call to me from the insured then a phone call from me to my company will 90% of the time get them paid.

My point is people need to read their policies and stick to the guidelines, if they don't understand I guarantee you a quick phone call to their agent or to customer service will clear up any misunderstandings

roachboy

interesting perspective, rahl.

someone else already said this, but the difference between your viewpoint and that which should logically be informing the debate about the healthcare system and what should be done with it is that of the anecdotal to the systemic.

roughly 40 million people without healthcare insurance of any kind in an advanced post-industrial society is a political and ethical problem. it is a systemic problem. what it really cuts to is the american class system and its inequities, but rather than talk about that, we're instead assuming, as conservatives long have, that the american class system is a fact of nature and not a matter of social choices and history and so produces "natural" outcomes that may not be wholly swell and which may require certain adjustments be made once people figure out--and god knows why it's taken this bloody long--that there are both political and ethical problems which follow from the existing arrangement in the states.

i would think something like the french model would be pretty well suited to the united states--basic health care is universal and provided free to everyone---more advanced health care is covered by mandatory insurance which is subject to a sliding fee scale--so that for the poorer segments of the population, it is free as well, but not for the more affluent. this is not a problematic situation from any viewpoint so long as you keep in mind that the objective is not to allow a so-called advanced society to have it's less affluent members subjected to poor-to-non-existent health care because of their income---or if you want to use a conservative trick--for the children of the poor to find their lives socially valued less than the lives of the children of the more affluent.

medical schools are state operations, there is no mountain of debt that you acquire to go through it.
doctors are state functionaries, so do not command whatever the market will bear as salaries.
pharmaceutical prices are strictly controlled
and whaddya know, france has one of the best health care systems in the world, and there is no compromise on research etc.

why this kind of model is not an option and only the vastly inferior english one is, i have no idea.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ratbastid

In case you're not aware, that's what justification sounds like.

And your "partners" in providing health care say the opposite.

Who is a consumer supposed to believe?

rahl

I already stated that I don't know what the best answer is, my opinion is that switching to a single payer over night would make things infinately worse for quite some time. But like I stated earlier as well unless you work directly in the insurance field or medical field you really have no clue as to what you are talking about

---------- Post added at 03:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:41 PM ----------


I will also concede that Malpractice insurance PREMIUMS play a factor in health care costs as well, but as long as a doctor is on the hook for several million dollars, and an insurance company is needed to help cover those costs, the premiums are going to be extremely high.


I'm very hesitant to say this next part because it is a very synical way of looking at it, and I'm sure I will get hammered for this but please keep in mind this is just one way of looking at it. Some people complain that their insurance has caps on it, usually around1.5 million lifetime benefit. If there is a government plan it will almost certainly have a cap as well, because your typical american doesn't warrant the spending of 1, 2, 5 or 10 million dollars to keep alive because if it costs that much to treat it is most likely a terminal illness, and the few years you may be kept alive your monitary contribution to society will never justify that sort of expenditure to keep you alive.

roachboy

rahl---that's like saying that unless you have worked on social and/or class analysis, you don't know what you're talking about.
which i have. which you haven't.

because your viewpoint, while interesting in this context, is anecdotal, you can't maintain this position of He Who Knows if the type of question gets shifted away from your baliwick.

one of the underlying issues here really is: what kind of question is "what should be done about the health care system"

i think it's a social and political question.

so it's fine to offer versions of one's expertise in the context of a question the nature of which you imagine you control--but the fact is that you don't control the nature of the question.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

rahl

Understanding the causes of the problem is the first step to fixing it. My point is that if you don't work in either industry it's hard to know what they are, all you have to go on at this point is what your particular political party is spueing, whether it be republicans or democrats. I also understand that there are social aspects contributing to the problem, but as soon as something gets politicised like this, imo whats best for people usually gets tossed out the window and it becomes whats best for the party

roachboy

um first off i really have no idea, apart from the number 40 million, what makes you assume that i am repeating (spewing as you so daintily put it) a line from either of the rather sad mass political parties.

i don't recall the french system factoring into debates in the state much at all---i assumed this was a function of parochialism---you know, that most of what's available about the system is written in french.

secondly, i really have no idea what possible basis you can have for arguing in effect that because you work in insurance that you have a monopoly on the coherent way to frame the question of what to do about the health care system. you've done it several times.

again, the information that you've offered is interesting, but its relevance to the discussion hinges on the kind of discussion that it is--you want to restrict it to a technical discussion which presupposes that the existing system is functional and legitimate.
you don't seem to recognize that you do this because, it appears, you default into this position because your technical knowledge presupposes it.

but what happens if the organization and orientation of the american insurance industry is a significant expression of the problems that the thread is designed to address?

one thing that means is that your viewpoint gets positioned in a way that you might not like.
obviously you recognize that implicitly, if your pissiness in response to my reply is any indication.
but you don't seem to even go as far as to acknowledge that the industry which situates your technical knowledge is a player in this game, with very particular interests at stake in this game, and so your attempt to position yourself as The Man with respect to the game as a whole amounts to a political move on your part.

the next move you make is predictable and frnakly kinda depressing and crude: if you do not work in the same industry--which appears to mean also that if you do not share your particular understanding of what is and is not a political interest within this larger debate--then you cannot know what you're talking about.

so what you're saying, rahl, is that the question of what should happen should be decided by a technocratic panel of people like yourself whose institutional interests militate against any change at all.

and anyone who disagrees with you on that is some partisan shill.
not the paragon of neutrality that you are.

again, if the debate were actually about the existing system, you'd be in a pretty strong place to position yourself as you do.
but given that the debate is not about that, but about how to change that system, you aren't in a strong position.
no amount of snarkiness changes that.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Rekna

That is bullshit. Many people in this world can tell you things that are wrong with the health care system based on their own experiences with health care. Maybe they had their plan recinded, maybe they were denied coverage, etc. Just because someone doesn't work in the profession does not mean that they don't know anything. You have great qualifications to discuss this topic but that doesn't mean others don't have qualifications or unique experiences that add to this discussion.

rahl

Very true, but when people who don't know the industry on either side(medical,or insurance) and they try to tell me whats wrong or that they know better than me what would be a better system, I just don't get it. I only responded to this discussion to try to give my viewpoints and experiences from an insurance point of view and I get bashed and told others know more on the subject because they read about it somewhere.

RoachBoy I know you are the end all and be all of political discussions and the rest of us should bow down before you, but with all due respect almost every one of your post are snarky and condescending not mine.

kutulu

I think a single payer universal system would be best but I don't think it is feasible with all the insurance companies already existing.

What I would like to see is have govt take the place of employers in negotiating insurance premiums. Instead of each insurance company having to negotiate with each business they work with they instead negotiate one rate for each type of plan that they want to offer in a regional market.

Insurance companies would be able to negotiate with regional/local doctors and hopsitals to determine what they will pay them on their own as it is now. They create plans based on local market areas. Consumers would then pick whichever insurance company fits their needs based on cost, coverage, doctor network.

The plans can be paid for by taxes on employers on a per employee basis. Determining that rate would be tricky. Ideally, it would be as close as possible to the current average amount businesses pay towards their typical employee's premiums. Therefore there is not much of a change in what they are paying. Hopefully, since it would be much cheaper for an insurance company to negotiate one rate with the govt vs 1,000's of different rates with varying businesses based on multiple factors, there could be an immediate reduction in costs. Obviously we can work out subsidies for small businesses where this would be a major burden and assistance for low income families.

Under the new plan, people could continue to have their premiums deducted from their checks if they wanted to.

This could completely replace medicare for seniors and any state-specific publicly funded health care options for the poor so that might also have big changes in costs.

rahl

The problem with that is that Insurance companies don't negotiate prices with employers. The premiums are what they are based on the risk level of the employees, which is determined by medical history, age, gender and type of work that is performed.

flstf

From a health care consumer standpoint it is valid to point out that there is little or no competition which may be one of the causes of out of control costs. It seems that the government will have to step in and try to control costs somehow if the so called free market does not.

In my small circle of friends and family, no one shops for health care provider pricing, most seem to only be concerned with the co-pay required from their employer subsidized insurance plans. Those few like myself who try to shop pricing soon learn that it is very difficult. For whatever reason this seems to be an industry that does not lend itself to competition and probably must be controlled.

Derwood

there's zero competition on an individual level because almost everyone's insurance is through their employer. If your company says "we're switching from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to Cigna this year", you don't have a whole lot of choice in the matter (unless you want to drop your company insurance and pay double to get it individually)

Cynthetiq

Make doctors and hospitals PUBLISH rates, everyone pays the same rate. No "group discount" everyone is in the SAME group, everyone gets that discount.

This way I can shop around to see just how much all the ITEMS cost and make decisions based on actual costs as opposed to estimates and unknown items. Getting 4 bills for my operation was just stupid. Getting billed for an Xray for a normal visit because the insurance company decided that it's a different company so it's covered differently and I pay that out of my own pocket, I guess when I'm being wheeled on a gurney I need to ask what is and isn't covered by my insurance BEFORE they provide service.

Finally, pay. I'm now on 80/20 instead of the $10 copay. I can tell you that it's more painful to pay for the 20% but I am much more thoughtful in going to the doctor or dentist. Much more thoughtful.

---------- Post added at 07:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 PM ----------

Most employers I have been employed by have 2 or 3 different plans, basic, middle tier and most expensive tier. All with different companies.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Derwood

which is MUCH different than getting to choose between 3 similarly priced plans from 3 different companies

Cynthetiq

Actually I"ve been in companies that also offered a choice from the same company.

BUT there's people like me that are DINKs and when my wife works in another company come open enrollment for insurance we compare and contrast. It gives us plenty of choices, in fact, sometimes the choice of 6 different companies and plans.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

kutulu

You're missing the point. Whether or not there is a 'negotiation' they still need to evaluate each business (or group) individually and come up with different numbers based on that evaluation.

They may not do much negotiation with the little guys but if a giant corporation didn't like the rate that their current insurer was offering for the next year of coverage and threatened to leave they are going to reconsider.

Shopping around works just fine when you are planning treatment or routine visits. In the event of an emergency you don't have time to shop around.

It really isn't that simple. In exchange for 80/20 you might have lower premiums. You trade a lower monthly bill for more expensive treatment. Then you might even have deductibles, and all sorts of shit. When we had the HMO we had copays and no deductable. We switched to a PPO. We got much lower premiums but now we have deductibles and shit like that.

I've had two professional jobs. With the first one, there was one plan. Take it or leave it. My current employer has about four plans to choose from but they are all with Aetna.

rahl

There are multiple companies to choose from so prices are extremely competitive. Your employer shops around each year come renewal time and decides what is the best and often cheapest plan for the employee's

---------- Post added at 08:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:03 PM ----------


The reason you pay one company for an er visit and another for an xray has nothing to do with insurance. Each hospital basically subcontracts certain departments. so there are multiple companies billing your insurer for each incident

Willravel

Competition does not always drive down prices, especially in an industry that often collectively asserts its power. That competition always equates to lower prices is an economic myth. It certainly can, but it's no guarantee.

Derwood

Companies are going to shop around for the cheapest option FOR THE COMPANY, which often means worse coverage for the employees.

Cynthetiq

I like this... I explain how I would reform it and everyone is more interested in bashing other people's responses without including their own.

follow directions much?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Willravel

Ah, but you yourself are doing the same thing in the post where you're calling people on doing it.

rahl

It's preciesely situations like this that provide me an opportunity to offer supplemental products to groups. It's cheaper to offer a high deductable plan and supplement it with a gap plan to help cover that deductable.

Cynthetiq

got it, but quite busy and very tired.
is that like insurance insurance?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

rahl

No, it's insurance that fills in the holes that your medical insurance doesn't cover. 5 years ago the typical deductable was around $500. Now it's around $2,500, so my company has a product that will pay out $2,000 to help you with the rise in deductable.

Willravel

I can't afford my insurance because my insurance insurance copays are too high when I want to access my insurance.

And I was just razzing you there, Cynth.

Vigilante

I don't know how I would reform it. What I do know is that anything from the government is shitty. Ever eaten government food? It's shit. Government clothing? More shit. Housing? SUPER SHIT.

Health care will be no different. Anything for the people, by the government, will be shitola. No exceptions.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Willravel

Ever hear of the Human Genome Project? Or the CDC? Maybe you've used this "internet" thing (which was invented by the Defense Department)? How about employee rights, do you like not being exploited by your bosses? Maybe you'd like the lead put back into your gasoline, the CFC's back in your aerosal and the DDT and PCBs in your food? Oh, and of course there's public police and fire protection, public libraries, and the military.

I could probably name hundreds if not thousands of things like this. I could list them until I'm blue in the face, without even cheating and linking you to tons of websites.

ratbastid

The government already runs a health care program. It's called Medicare. It's not without problems, but generally speaking it's a damn-sight better than anything you can get privately. Enough so that you can't pry it out of old people's fingers until they're cold and dead.

Vigilante

I'm talking about what I think of as "handout agencies". Food stamps, projects, that sort of thing. You ever been to the projects, Will? Try some of that good ol gov't cheese - every day. Make something with it. It's like bad cheddar mixed with velveta. The almond butter was fantastic, too.

I fear the country will be one big charity hospital. Ever been to one with a broken bone? You get to sit for a couple of hours and bleed while several illegals in front of you complain about having a cold or are there with 5 kids because one of them has a simple salmonella/food poisoning incident. You don't get to jump ahead in line unless you have a coronary on the floor, but as we've seen in the news, sometimes even then you get to die alone.

...........

And old people often hang on to medicare because usually it's about all they've got left, aside from their kids chipping in. You should hear my mom. She's scared shitless that the gov't is going to leave the aging baby boomers out in the cold.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Cynthetiq

I can't tell you how many people in the NORC (naturally occurring retirement community) that I live in who are divesting ALL their monies and assets so that they can jump on the free medicare bandwagon. Transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars.... all so that they can get themselves from free healthcare.

When the medicare doesn't want to pay for the level of healthcare they want to have... oh you should hear them kvetch in the laundry room.

I can't tell you what kind of crap my grandparents go through to get some of that free medicare. My grandmother is in the hospital right now and I can't even begin to tell you the difference in the level of care between someone with medicare versus private insurance.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Willravel

I have to pick through this a bit to get at what you're saying. The only thing specific I can see is that you don't think food stamps work. Only they do work, and they work incredibly well. Do you know anyone that lives in Oregon? I do (HI SNOWY! *waves*). Back around 2000, Oregon had a serious hunger problem. Low income workers simply couldn't afford to feed themselves and their families, and it was at a rate that was alarmingly high. Because of welfare reform in the 90s, Oregon was able to change the income limit for food stamps, and between 2000 and 2004, Oregon was the only state in the country that was able to lower its hunger rate. Without food stamps, many hard working Oregonians would have starved.

But it gets a lot better. Food stamps are one of the most efficient ways for the government to stimulate the economy, according to most economists. Why? It's incredibly efficient.
Are you asking if I've ever had to wait in line at an ER because of an illegal guest worker? I haven't. In fact, according to statistics that you can find on google, most uninsured people in ERs are white American citizens.
Fear of something is not evidence of something because fear can be irrational.

Vigilante

Oh hey good for them. They could have also moved to better areas, or found ways to make ends meet. It's called survival, and as you should see by now, my personal view is that daily rations for rational adults should not be doled out by your gov't. For kids? Sure. For illegals or drug dealers or former inmates that don't want to flip burgers because of their felony/murder rap? Never. I hate food stamps. Yeah, give me food and housing so I can sit on my uneducated ass all day. Way to enable the laziness and breeding and keep the population dumb, all by gov't funding. Don't get me started on the lack of drug testing for recipients. Don't have enough to feed your kids? QUIT HAVING SO MANY FUCKING KIDS.

Fuck google. I sat there personally, more than once. This is Texas. I don't know about your nice little neck of the woods, but I have yet to visit a hospital for whatever reason and not see a stack of illegals in front of me. Hell, even when I'm not there for stitches or worse, if I walk by - oh look, a bunch of illegals in the ER. no halba espanol. That's not a racist thing, that's an immigrant thing. If it was germans instead, I would be complaining just as much. Danke.

Fear is always irrational. When you fear a grizzly charging you, if you are afraid, you are not rational. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be concerned. Plus if I say "I fear", you know I'm not talking in that panic-stricken sense of the term.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Willravel

Yeah, shame on them for being poor! Obviously everyone that's poor isn't working hard enough. They're all lazy and working as little as they can so they can get food stamps and work even less. DARNED POOR!
I see, so if you experience it personally, it's obviously very common. Interesting axiom. Let's see how it stands up, shall we? I've personally been shot in the leg, therefore being shot in the leg must be very common, and we have to do something about this leg shooting epidemic. If you've not been shot in the leg, you're one of the few lucky ones because my personal experience supersedes yours. And I don't need verifiable statistics on how common leg shootings are. Fuck them, my own personal experience is evidence enough.

And I never suggested you were a racist, please don't put words in my posts.

Vigilante

Wow. I totally didn't put words in your post, Mr. Pissy Pants. Maybe you shouldn't put "irrational" in my posts either then. Boo hoo. Seriously? That was there in case someone wanted to point that out - a disclaimer, if you will.

I never said shame on the people in Oregon. I simply said you can change your life if you get up and do something about it. Say one family owned 50 acres, but the economy was so bad, they couldn't feed their 5 kids. Well, 50 acres is alot. Sell 25. Now you can feed the kids. Or better yet, sell it all and move to a more prosperous state or town. Novel idea there. Sell your house and move. People do it every day. Sell your extra car to give you some time to find a job. Sell your body. That's a joke, but you get the idea. Ebay! Craiglist! That old baseball card collection. Really, you can do it if you think creatively.

The lazy part deals with what I see in Texas and the south in general. Fuck if I know what's going on up north - never been there. I would suspect it's not that much different though. Down here I've been threatened just for driving by the projects on the way to see family. Something about "wrong color". The cars are mostly SUVs with gold or chrome trim, drugs are being sold on the corner, and out that one window you can smell weed. Typical day. Great work, gov't!

I've been to the ER about half a dozen times for various stupidity and clumsiness. 5 out of 6 times I'm backed up with half the people not speaking english in front of me, and they all had 2 to 6 kids. The one time I didn't get backed up was because I got strapped to a board and brought in by waaambulance. Go figure, Will. It's Houston man, come on. Half the town is illegal. It's my demographic and obviously not your's.

It funny how you claim I put words in your posts, but that is your primary form of attack. We're speaking english, but not the same language. Try dialing it back a little man. I don't really feel like being pissy. If the proposals are so good, then give some facts as to why instead of trying to hammer on my posts.

So, what's so good about it? I haven't read everything, but does anyone have a list of what is actually being proposed?

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Willravel

Of course, it was just a disclaimer. How silly of me.
It's still the same conservative rhetoric. It's their own fault that the poor are poor. If they'd just work a little harder, they'd not be poor anymore! You assume that the poor are poor simply because they're not working hard enough, they're just not willing to "get up and do something about it". I cannot imagine a more untrue and horrible attack on the poor. Roachboy had a really eloquent response to a similar claim made recently, I'll have to find it tomorrow.
You know poor people that own 50 acres of land? By what measure are you determining "poor"?
Sweet, you just figured out a brilliant way for every poor person with 50 acres of land to make some money! Maybe, since you're on a roll, you can figure out how a poor guy with a Porsche can put some food on his kids' table. Or how a poor family that owns land that's sitting on oil can finally pay their credit card bills!
I'm not sure what this has to do with the government, the poor, or healthcare. Sorry you were threatened, though.
Do you have health insurance?

Vigilante

You think I'm saying this because I have money and poor people are lower than low? I hope not. I grew up with nothing. My aspirations were to make pizzas in high school or flip burgers and become a manager of a mcdonalds. In the orphanage, I made 2 dollars a week on good behavior. Less if I fucked up. My goal every weekend was to buy a quart of cookies n cream ice cream and a bottle of sprite so I could have a cookies n cream float.

I met my wife, got my shit together and now I have a BS in the sciences from A&M and I am an IT professional. This is the first time in my life that I am not dependent on my folks, and that's only been in the past few months. We're living paycheck to paycheck, but at least we're making it. And how are we making it? By not having kids and working hard. Oh and we took out loans and worked through college.

So guess what, I got up and did something about it. If my ADHD crazy violently beaten and damn near psychotic childhood ass could do it, so can some level-headed but otherwise poor individual. Use a fucking condom and go get a job. Sorry, that's my truth man. No other way to put it.

Down here several farmers went under or nearly went under because they had land but either lost crops because they couldn't treat them, or couldn't drum up enough money to raise cattle. That's my example. Of course, the rest that own a house can sell it. If they don't own a house, move in with the folks. No folks? Find a roommate to split the rent.

Umm, so have you never visited the projects?

Tell you what, Will. If you ever come down here to Houston, shoot me a PM. We'll get a beer and lunch, then head over to the projects in a town I used to live in. By the time we're back, you'll wish they had never been invented.

It's gov't funded living. Food stamps keep the massive families fed. Baybay kids run around without shirts. Since the food stamps and drug money keep them fed, the parents can chat all day, or sit around smoking weed or drinking, or use surplus money for gold trimmed wheels. All thanks to the wonderous food stamp act.

What I would like to know is why we can't wean those families off the stamps, and start paying more kids to go to college. Those project families aren't going to college. Half of them didn't even finish high school. With food stamps, they sure as fuck don't care now. It's like jail - why work when you can get free room and board?! A few of them ended up dead from the gangs they join. I know a few that went that route, one was even in my 9th grade science class. Another one got locked up for holding up a school bus with a shotgun.

Yep. I pay 400 a month for it. My wife has her's paid through work. When I get my next job (next week) I'll have much cheaper insurance through them.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

dippin

the key problem is that a fractioned system based on employment generates all sorts of perverse incentives. It is easier to compete for the "healthy" population than it is to compete via costs, and given the fact that its employment based the time horizon that is included in the actuarial calculations is generally shorter than it would be if different incentives were given (especially with medicare as a light at the end of the tunnel). The end result is that the American healthcare system has significantly higher overhead costs than any other industrialized nation, even in the most generous single payer systems.

Personally, I think that the primary goals of reform should be to end employment based health insurance, discourage the current "competition by denial of coverage" model, provide incentives for long term insurance contracting so that there is a bigger incentive to provide preventive care. How to do this all in a system where the government does not step in would be a challenge. Which is why I am in complete support of a single payer system, which has been significantly more efficient given international healthcare comparisons. State inefficiencies are ridiculously low if compared to the overhead costs of a system where companies compete to insure only the desirable demographics and every single procedure has to be verified ad nauseum by dozens of non medical professionals.

---------- Post added at 12:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 AM ----------

non profit doesn't mean low salary or no commission. In fact, several non-profits pay quite well. Non-profit means that the net profits of the company are reinvested in it instead of being distributed to the owners or share holders. And while I appreciate your concern for your job, the fewer non-medical people the system employs, by definition the more efficient the system is and the lower the overhead costs are.