What is "the change" everyone is talking about???

[Santiago]

I am totally out of my area of expertise. All I know is that I don't want people to choose between living or having any quality of life because they can't get (due to pre-existing conditions) or afford health insurance.

When you live in a small town with a 40% illiteracy rate, you get it. People can't afford to go to the doctor, so they get critical and end up in the ER at the local hospital. The queue is incredibly long. People who have acute problems are delayed because of the queue ahead of them is filled with people who should have been seen at a regular physician due to minor illnesses but can't afford it.

It's total chaos.

I agree that its sad that some people have to deal with this and make these decisions. I just don't think anything meaningful will be or can ever be done without meaningful tort reform. And as long as we have lawyers making the laws, that probably won't happen. Let's face it, we have a totally corrupt political system.

 

[NoHall]

So what's your point? Are you saying that what we are experiencing is as good as it gets?

I don't think that's the case, but I think the price war between the doctors and the insurance companies has to be torn down somehow. I've known way too many good doctors who have quit the bidniz because they're tired of fighting insurance companies all the time.

Maybe I've told this story before--if I have, humor me: I had my appendix removed and some other gastrointestinal work done a few years back. It just so happens that one of my friends from church and another friend/gardening client were both administrators at the hospital at the time. While I was recovering, I had conversations with them both about the $15 band-aids on my $15,000 hospital bill. They told me that if they charged me $1.50 for a $1.50 band-aid, they would only get 15 cents from my insurance company. Therefore, the hospital charges me $15 so they can get their $1.50. (And I've been told repeatedly that I have the best coverage for the money that's available.) Therefore, my $15,000 emergency procedure probably only cost $1500 in the real world.

And yet my premiums would be as much as my mortgage if I had a reasonable deductible, which I don't...

I have to leave this thread now before I have a stroke...

 

[DD]

I want to be able to deduct the finance charges from my credit cards from my taxes like "back in the day." Like that'll ever happen.

More important, I want everyone to be able to get health insurance at a cost that isn't insanely expensive, regardless of pre-existing conditions.

I'm with ya on this one, BR.

 

[Miss Kitty]

I've experienced the change and it ain't real pretty.

 

[NoHall]

I've experienced the change and it ain't real pretty.

(*snort*)

 

[DD]

I've experienced the change and it ain't real pretty.

No sheeeit.

 

[Beach Runner]

I agree that its sad that some people have to deal with this and make these decisions. I just don't think anything meaningful will be or can ever be done without meaningful tort reform. And as long as we have lawyers making the laws, that probably won't happen. Let's face it, we have a totally corrupt political system.

I am a Ph.D. mathematician. I have no clue how tort reform would solve the problem. Moreover, I don't even know what tort reform is.

But I do understand the proof of G?del's Incompleteness Theorem.

 

[NoHall]

I am a Ph.D. mathematician. I have no clue how tort reform would solve the problem. Moreover, I don't even know what tort reform is.

But I do understand the proof of G?del's Incompleteness Theorem.

Sounds like something I'd hear from the people who want me to get married...

 

[DD]

I am a Ph.D. mathematician. I have no clue how tort reform would solve the problem. Moreover, I don't even know what tort reform is.

But I do understand the proof of G?del's Incompleteness Theorem.

Sounds like something I'd hear from the people who want me to get married...

 

[Beach Runner]

I've experienced the change and it ain't real pretty.

Hell, yeah. THAT'S what I'm talkin' about.

Sounds like something I'd hear from the people who want me to get married...

Yeah, as in when I got engaged as a teenager, Mom said, "You're just gonna get pregnant and quit school." Then after receiving several degrees, Mom said, "When are you gonna get pregnant and quit school?" :funn:

Or when I was finishing my dissertation, "When are you going to finish your dissertation?"