The Future of US Healthcare

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Frenchie

You can stay on your parent's insurance until you're 26.

Originally Posted by Vexx

You're assuming the parents and the child have some sort of relationship that the parents offer that as an option.

Our current system has many, many, holes in its ragged safety net. Syn is pretty much in one of the holes.

besides Syn is 28, too old for that option. As Vallen said, you don't make enough to pay taxes, so you don't have to pay.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Vexx

You're assuming the parents and the child have some sort of relationship that the parents offer that as an option.

Our current system has many, many, holes in its ragged safety net. Syn is pretty much in one of the holes. My older son is in a similar hole except that he accidentally has parents who are okay with paying for him.... but we can't any longer because he's over 26 and still has no viable options for healthcare insurance.

As I posted above, no one who can't afford insurance is being taxed. And health insurance is being MADE viable now as well.

[synaesthetic]

Hopefully you are right. I would really like to get many of my health problems that have gone on for years due to simply not having enough money and no insurance, such as my teeth, fixed...

[Frenchie]

You don't have to convince me Vexx, I'm the first one to argue in favor of universal health care systems. There's this strange concept in the USA, however, where everyone feels the need to go-it-alone and if you can't do that then you're a pawn or a parasite.

I find that attitude unbecoming of the world's leading nation, but who am I kidding, it's not like the American people is going to turn around from years of anti-socialism propaganda in just 4 B.O. (8 if they're lucky) years.

edit: I wasn't making a jab at Syn, I can see his age. I was mentioning it in passing. Vallen is also correct, though my own knowledge is a bit old now admittedly. (I haven't researched the ACA for ages)

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Just for reference, here is the health insurance reform in as much detail as I could find that was still understandable:
http://www.reddit.com/tb/vbkfm

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Frenchie

edit: I wasn't making a jab at Syn, I can see his age. I was mentioning it in passing. Vallen is also correct, though my own knowledge is a bit old now admittedly. (I haven't researched the ACA for ages)

I figured you either didn't notice or were just mentioning it for anyone else who may have been curious. Also, I'm a she.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Just for reference, here is the health insurance reform in as much detail as I could find that was still understandable:
http://www.reddit.com/tb/vbkfm

Thank you, I've been searching for something exactly like this. I'll look over it after class.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I would really like to get many of my health problems that have gone on for years due to simply not having enough money and no insurance, such as my teeth, fixed...

As a side comment, you might do what many other americans have being doing for quite some time, cross the border to get cheaper medical attention. My cousion is a dentist with her own consultory and received such a client some months ago, but I have heard many other people have being doing so (probably because they do not have the money for a ticket to canada or can't resist the freezing temperatures). Languague can be a problem, but usually doctors have a better understanding of english.

[creb]

Because, it's never healthy to ingratiate one's self into only aping each other's views, let me just say this one time that I think an individual mandate on insurance is stupid, since it sort of defeats the entire purpose of insurance in the first place (a calculated risk vs reward).

I'm not sure how any of this magically allows people who can't afford insurance to suddenly afford insurance (and, no, simply saying it's suddenly feasible for those who were unable to afford it doesn't cut it). The central argument behind the individual mandate was that all those poor schmucks who go to the emergency room are driving up all the insured people's rates.

If that was really the case, then don't allow uninsured people to go to the emergency room. The argument against this was that people always end up going to the hospital eventually, and I laugh. What a nanny-state. If someone chooses not to have medical insurance, despite being able to afford it, then they should have that right. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Now, if the person simply couldn't afford it, nothing about the individual mandate makes me believe that's magically going to change. Stripping the rhetoric and emotional moralizing sound-bites out of this, and I fail to see any real good come from this bill outside of a hope that by making everyone pay, those of us who are already paying, will pay less (while those who aren't paying, pay more).

Ultimately, the root of all this is that we want to keep emergency rooms open for all. Which sounds great, but if that's the case, then emergency rooms should be simply another social service the government provides via taxes, and should be completely separate from health care and health insurance.

Done that way, it'd be far less intrusive than this idiocy.

/shrug

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by creb

Because, it's never healthy to ingratiate one's self into only aping each other's views, let me just say this one time that I think an individual mandate on insurance is stupid, since it sort of defeats the entire purpose of insurance in the first place (a calculated risk vs reward).

Actually, you don't have that in America. It is not a calculated risk vs reward because there is no reward for getting sisk.

What you DO have, is a calculated risk vs PROFIT. As in, the insurance companies try to make you pay them as much as possible when you are well, then deny as much coverage as they can as soon as you get sick.

No point talking about "calculated risk vs reward" when you don't get payout at all. The "pre-existing condition" clause allowed insurance companies to milk you dry, then throw you out onto the street to die when you need your money back. The insurance companies are not paid for helping you get better; they are paid to KILL YOU.

Hence, regulation. Insurance companies now are forced to help you when the time comes and can't weasel out of it. In exchange everyone get insurance, as it stops people abusing it by only paying for insurance after they get cancer or such.

[Sugetsu]

I'll just say it as I see it, most of the GOP voters out there are low information voters due to many reasons, such as religion, racism or old age beliefs. This is why they oppose the health care law, they lack the critical thinking and are easily manipulated. But once they begin receiving the benefits from the law they will start supporting it (quietly of course, ala social security and medicare).

This is why I predict that if Obama is reelected the discontent for the health care bill will dwindle drastically, and by 2016 Republicans will deter from running on the slogan of repeal Obamacare, because their voters will be too busy enjoying their health care benefits to run against it. This doesn't mean that they will stop trying to do away with the law, they will just simply change tactics by re-framing the debate (my money is on deficit and spending messaging).

The real losers will be the poor insurance companies. After all, they have been blocking health care reform for decades because they know that they can't keep their record profits if they don't reject those pesky risky clients with pre-existing conditions. Oh the tragedy; those poor CEOs won't be able to afford that second mansion in Malibu.

[monir]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Roberts's support for the dissenters' view on the commerce clause sends a signal out there to the institutional litigators to start proceedings to overturn Federal regulatory authority, based on the clause, in areas like conservation and the environment and return those powers to the states. I don't trust most states to do the right thing in these, or many other areas. My views come from growing up in the 1960's when expanding civil rights for African Americans required Federal intervention to demolish the racist institutions of legal segregation at the state level. I also think that national standards on things like air quality make much more sense than a hodge-podge of state standards. I think the Federal Government has a significant role to play in America's future, and to think that "drowning [it] in a bathtub" constitutes any sort of intelligent policy prescription seems to me to be madness.

This is exactly my concern as well despite the fact I approve the ruling by the Supreme Court. I'm hoping we will receive further clarification in the upcoming cases Supreme Court will review next year on Affirmative Action and Voting Rights Act. I also echo that a lot of these States are unfortunately not capable of doing the right thing for its citizen without outside intervention.

[Autumn Demon]

Obamacare's tool for giving more lower-income people health insurance was a vast expansion of Medicaid, but the Supreme Court ruled the federal government cannot force states to expand their Medicaid programs. Even if Obamacare is enacted in 2014 America won't have universal healthcare for a long time.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

Obamacare's tool for giving more lower-income people health insurance was a vast expansion of Medicaid, but the Supreme Court ruled the federal government cannot force states to expand their Medicaid programs. Even if Obamacare is enacted in 2014 America won't have universal healthcare for a long time.

Well, no. Obama can't force it. But for the first few years Obama is prepared to pay 100% of the costs and then 90% of the costs there after. The question is, why would the States not allow it?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Well, no. Obama can't force it. But for the first few years Obama is prepared to pay 100% of the costs and then 90% of the costs there after. The question is, why would the States not allow it?

Big Pharm still earns money - rather than collect from poor people who can die anytime and having to write off the bills, they can collect straight from Uncle Sam's Oval Office.

[Tempester]

As an American citizen, I want required prescriptions for drugs to be ditched. When I get a common flu, I don't want to pay some greedy doctor hundreds of precious bucks just so he can prescribe me some drugs I know I already need.

All drugs should be over-the-counter. I'm not a godforsaken child; sometimes I can decide what I want for myself. If I die from overdosing on a drug I chose for myself, it should be my fault and not the pharmacist's for selling it to me. When the medicare prices are as high as they are in the United States, the doctor should be the person to consult when you're really not sure about your condition, not the person to go to every time you get a tummy ache. To prevent me from choosing my own medicine is not only a breach of my rights as a human, but an insult to my intelligence.

I'm well aware that this system is in place because the American medical mafia wants to suck every last penny from its customers. But they get away with this by hiding behind the "It's for your own good! We're PROTECTING you!" excuse, which is apparently enough to convince millions of Americans who have no self-respect and personal responsibility whatsoever. Ironic that this breach of freedom flies in the same country that allows you to tote a gun everywhere.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Tempester

As an American citizen, I want required prescriptions for drugs to be ditched. When I get a common flu, I don't want to pay some greedy doctor hundreds of precious bucks just so he can prescribe me some drugs I know I already need.

Fyi, you don't need antibiotics for a flu. Just rest and take plenty of fluids and maybe a mild painkiller if it's necessary...

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by Tempester

As an American citizen, I want required prescriptions for drugs to be ditched. When I get a common flu, I don't want to pay some greedy doctor hundreds of precious bucks just so he can prescribe me some drugs I know I already need.

All drugs should be over-the-counter. I'm not a godforsaken child; sometimes I can decide what I want for myself. If I die from overdosing on a drug I chose for myself, it should be my fault and not the pharmacist's for selling it to me. When the medicare prices are as high as they are in the United States, the doctor should be the person to consult when you're really not sure about your condition, not the person to go to every time you get a tummy ache. To prevent me from choosing my own medicine is not only a breach of my rights as a human, but an insult to my intelligence.

I'm well aware that this system is in place because the American medical mafia wants to suck every last penny from its customers. But they get away with this by hiding behind the "It's for your own good! We're PROTECTING you!" excuse, which is apparently enough to convince millions of Americans who have no self-respect and personal responsibility whatsoever. Ironic that this breach of freedom flies in the same country that allows you to tote a gun everywhere.

I'm sorry but this is precisely the reason/attitude why it annoys me to no end when I have to meet a patient in the ER who complains of something easily prevented or treatable, but gets so much worse because they fuck themselves up by self-medicating or not seeking medical help when it starts to get worse.

It's much worse when a parent does it to their own children. I've seen it so many times already that I sometimes wonder how I can control the desire to just slap those mothers and lecture them.

Yes a medical mafia exists, but that is no excuse for someone to think this is enough of a reason to assume to know better than a Doctor who trains nearly 15-20 years of their lives to be able to treat and care for their patients properly. If a person had, as you said, a sense of personal responsibility then the obvious practice of personal and parental responsibility is to ask and consult those who know better when problems arise. Again I cannot express my exasperation when patients arrive for consult because of the lack of the above.

And some drugs are restricted for a reason. Here in the Philippines some drugs like anti-epileptics, anti-arrhythmics and psychiatric meds are restricted due to their narrow therapeutic ranges, high potential for side effects, high potential for addiction and abuse. Could you even begin to imagine what would happen if we just let everyone have over the counter access to these drugs? By the way doctors are allowed by regulated practice to refuse to treat or prescribe medications.

Probably not. Here's a short list. That doesn't even list the grave and fatal ones.

Prescription requirements are there for more reasons beyond your (valid) conspiracy theory of the pharmaceutical companies. If people want to pretend and play doctor, go right ahead, just don't go to us and blame us when we can do nothing to help you once you fuck yourselves up medically. And no, don't drive our insurance premiums up. Those are some of the reasons why doctors practice overly defensive medicine these days.

[Autumn Demon]

There are so many cheap generic drugs at pharmacies (<$5), but you need a prescription for them, and the co-pay for seeing a doctor blows up the cost.

[MeoTwister5]

I understand that the insurance and doctor's fee system in the US is completely fucked up, but one has to also understand the risk of not seeking medical advice when it is needed. If we were all trained in medicine, fine, but we're not. If you need end up weighing and the cost of consult with your apparent ability to treat yourselves and think you can, fine, but in the end all I can ask of patients is to PLEASE not get in over your heads.

If you need help, do it. Don't always think you know better.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Big Pharm still earns money - rather than collect from poor people who can die anytime and having to write off the bills, they can collect straight from Uncle Sam's Oval Office.

Err... Are you suggesting there is some magical way we can have drugs without pharmaceutical companies?
I don't like them, mind you. But you seem to be implying we should have pills and capsules conjured from thin air.

You might as well suggesting I should find a way to buy food without benefiting farmers.

Drug companies get paid no matter what happens. What's important is that less people die, and more people get treatment before their simple illnesses progress into horrible ones.

What America needs isn't for Americans to self medicate and poison themselves; what you need is lower medical costs over all. If you have medical insurance, you wouldn't need to self-taught drug compounding and earn yourself a trip to the emergency room.