Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

I'm not sure how old you are or what you've had to pay for in life, but do you know how expensive it is to pay for your own health insurance if your employer doesn't provide it? I have to assume that you don't based on what you've said, because it's simply not as easy as doing a bit of camparison shopping and choosing the budget plan that suits you. We're talking about prices that are way out of reach of your average middle class or lower income families/individuals, not to mention the fact that if you're already sick, you won't be able to get health insurance and you're screwed.

So then you are fine with the idea of a system that encourages people not to play sports because it doesn't pass your risk assessment test, whatever that may be based on.

Are all sports risky? What about softball compared to football? Or volleyball compared to running a marathon? Who would determine what's "risky", or "smart"? Could you still get insurance for a less "risky" sport, but have to pay a higher premium?

I have to say that I don't see where the logic in your stance is coming from at all.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

last august i went for a walk with the dog and slipped on a patch of mud and cracked my kneecap. it's my fault, i was engaged in the risky sport of walking. i should have been denied coverage because i chose to engage in risky behavior.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

adding to the comparison shopping point...

Last year while working for (and insuring) myself, I was sent to see a neurologist because of severe leg pain, muscle spasms and weakness in my legs. My $550/month HMO health insurance covered most of it, sans deductible. When it came time for an EMG (electro mumblemumblemumble-o-graph) my insurance wouldn't cover the test because I didn't go through the proper channels. Turns out, I needed my primary care physician referral, and not one from specialist that the prim. care phys. referred me to in the first place. How do they think I got there in the first place? Ugh. So now I'm out $1200 out of pocket because I don't know, I'm retarded like that and wanted the test results.

Fast-forward 6 months and I'm at a new job. This new job has benefits that come directly out of my paycheck. I made another appointment with the neurologist to see where things stood. He ordered another test and wouldn't you know it, my new insurance wouldn't cover a single penny of the office visit, the procedure, or hell, even the primary care phys. office visit. Seems that my new insurance carrier has a 'previous condition' clause in healthcare. If you've been seen for an ailment in the past 8 months while under the umbrella of another insurance, you're screwed. I went to the website to confirm but all I saw were smiling multi-cultural faces and old people. Then buried deep within, I found their claim. So now, I'm faced with the following options:

1) Keep TWO insurances for the 8 month gap. Problem is, if I had used my first insurance for the tests, then the 8 months would have started all over again. Sigh. I got them to admit this over the phone.
2) Wait out the 8 months before a follow-up visit. I don't know about anyone else but I put my health above most anything. I'm not waiting.
3) Pay for the tests myself and throw money that I've already paid both insurance companies down the drain.
4) Fight with credit bureaus and collection agencies as to why my dr. bills are unpaid.

I chose 3. Last years + some of this year's medical costs out of my pocket totaled ~$9500+. Thats RIDICULOUS for someone who is quite healthy aside from one or two common colds and a nerve concern (which turned out to be nothing major but still something necessary to have checked out.) $6600/HMO-yr. + $1200/test + $1200/second test + $200/specialist visit.

Now, what choice did I have as a consumer? Could I have told the original insurance company that I didn't want their business? Sure, but where does that leave me now? Could I have told my company that I didn't want their insurance? Nope, thats the one they offer to me. I would have had to pay even more for my old one. As a consumer, I was stuck between a rock and a rock. With a potential issue on my hands, I had to see a specialist. The specialist won't see me without insurance and the insurance companies won't insure someone that they suspect knows of an ailment.

Privatized insurance companies prey on the likes of me. They want me to pay their premium, and then pay out of pocket as well for tests that I don't want to wait on. If I make one false move, they deny coverage because well, they aren't me, and they don't feel the fear of a physician telling them, "we're going to test for muscle disease."

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

now suppose your source of income paid you minimum wage. how likely would it be that you had a spare $10k lying around to pay for these tests? wonderful that it turned out to be nothing but the symptoms you described indicated some potentially debilitating conditions.

i'd like to know what IsiliRunite would suggest for someone in your position, who is without the income to cover even a portion of that expense.

that's the issue with universal healthcare. denying universal health coverage is basically saying, "i'm sorry you're experiencing symptoms of multiple sclerosis, you should have been born into a wealthier family."

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

so what's the deal with dunhill cigarettes outsourcing to bangladesh? they used to be made in switzerland and they were the best cigarettes out there. then they changed the package and started making them over there and now they're shitty. the lights are like smoking carltons and the regular ones are like marlboros in a fancy box. and they're still selling them at what, $6 a pack? i understand the ones they sell in england (not the 'internationals') were in a different package and were a bit different from the internationals a couple of years ago, so they haven't started selling the shitty ones in england, too, have they?

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

exactly!..............

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

The moment I started second-guessing what my best option was, I realized how mad I was at the state of health insurance. To think I even considered waiting a few months is ridiculous.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

i have my own anecdotal argument to share because it's easy to just talk about the poor (which i'm guilty of). but the reality is it's a crisis for all income levels at this point and we can't just sit in our comfortable middle class houses and dismiss the problem so easily.

i have a friend who lost her father this spring. he suffered a stroke the day before thanksgiving which resulted in a coma, a persistent vegetative state. he wasn't dead, he wasn't alive. he ended up in the hospital on life support through christmas because the doctors had to wait to see what would happen as the swelling went down. the prognosis wasn't good, but until they had time to see how the situation developed, they couldn't just immediately discharge him to hospice or predict any kind of recovery. eventually the hospital discharged him and recommended hospice. he wasn't improving but he wasn't worsening, and he needed a ventilator and a feeding tube.

then in january they received terrible news. their private health insurance was dropping them because they felt he'd exceeded his lifetime allowance of coverage. then the news got worse. as a retiree he also had coverage through medicare, but medicare felt his situation was beyond their scope so they denied coverage, too.

the respirator alone cost $900 per day. my friend's mother was faced with an agonizing decision. pull the plug on her husband of 35 years because she couldn't afford to keep him alive, or sell their home of 20 years to pay for his medical care. a callous person would say pull the plug. i challenge that callous person to do so if they're ever unfortunate enough to find themselves in this painful situation.

ultimately she was able to scrape together the money to cover his expenses, while lawyers (which she also had to pay for out of pocket) took the private insurance company and medicare to court. ultimately, though, he didn't make it. in april he suffered a series of heart attacks and passed away. and the fight with insurance and medicare is still unresolved.

now, let me be clear about their financial situation. my friend's father worked as an engineer in telecommunications (mostly verizon, since before it was verizon) for his entire career. your classic member of the baby boomer generation, he joined up with his company in his late 20s and stuck with it all the way through retirement. he made very good money and retired quite comfortably with benefits that included a comprehensive health care plan that he had paid into for decades. his wife is a realtor who makes a fine living selling homes in the NYC area. they own a good sized home in queens, NY, and put three kids through college. this is a family that lived quite comfortably and if not for the way circumstances worked out he and his wife would have lived out their golden years with the financial freedom and comfort that those of our generation dream about.

but one afternoon in november he had a stroke, and two months later his soon-to-be widow contemplated selling their family home to pay for the medical care he needed during his darkest hour.

now. is she "stupid" for not leveraging her awesome power as a consumer and finding a company that would cover her husband? what were her options? did she deserve to suffer the stress of the currently available healthcare systems as she experienced the agony of watching her husband die?

this isn't a crisis for the poor. it's a crisis for every one of us. if you think you're financially stable enough to not worry about healthcare, you're dead wrong. this is becoming more and more common, as the cost of healthcare rises and insurance carriers include more and more exception clauses in their coverage. when you deny the idea of universal healthcare, you approve of a world where the situations like the one described above are possible.



and to tie it back to the original discussion, he might have eaten a high trans-fat diet for all any of you know. maybe he ate too much sodium. maybe he ate too much red meat. maybe he smoked. maybe he made lifestyle choices that led to his stroke. maybe he didn't. but what if he had? did my friend's family deserve to suffer in the end, because he may have made lifestyle choices? if i told you he'd eaten a lifetime of fatty foods and smoked, would you shrug and say, "oh well, he should have lived better." what if i said he was a slim, fit man of 65 who jogged daily and ate healthy foods his whole life? would that make the situation more tragic? when we debate the merit of lifestyle choices and what people "deserve" as a result of those choices, we delve into dangerous territory.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

Quite scary that someone of their position ended up in that situation. I think it makes your point well.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

And if you approve of universal health care blindly, without consideration to its actual implementation, by the same logic you could be very well be approving of

...a woman dying while waiting hours in a backed up waiting room
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col...erg021011.html

...a woman waiting 3 years while living through excruciating pain to get a fairly standard operation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc2n8...m/twowomen.php

...a man living in his house for a year because he had to wait for someone to patch the gaping hole in his head, for fear something would touch his exposed brain tissue
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/216280

did I mention there's no doctors available in toronto? like, none.

and this brings it home, an independent study on universal health care up here in the north that concluded the following effects of universal health care, the unfinished health care revolution

• Political leaders told the public they were decentralizing health care to bring decision-making closer to home. But, in most cases, they were trying to insulate themselves from the fallout of closing hospital beds, firing highly paid administrators and reining in spending.
• No one wanted to take on the medical profession, so doctors remained outside the system, operating their private practices on a fee-for-service basis.
• Major chunks of the health-care system – mental health and chronic care – were overlooked, leaving patients without access to a full range of services.
• No clear lines of accountability were set. Governments and regional health boards blamed each other whenever an unpopular decision was made. Patients couldn't figure out who was in charge. Taxpayers didn't know where their money was going.

My point isn't to prop up the us system as some success story. I'm merely surprised how uninformed my fellow americans are about universal health care. THey seem to see it as the mythical gum drop kingdom and they allow their presidential candidates to talk down to them accordingly.

Again, I'm saying its not the end of the road. Now that I'm a permanent resident of canada I get health insurance even if I think my boss is a pig and want to quit. No more hassle about pre existing conditions or being tied down to th "company store" model of health care. But then if I do get sick I might have to fly back to the states to get my needs taken care of before I like, die or something.