OBAMA'S IMAGE FALLS TO THE MOB
Posted on 09/15/2009 4:34:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
bttt
Terrific overview. Thanks for posting it!
Thanks for the bump
Thanks for sorting this out for we “circus clowns”. :-)
You’re welcome
Sure would be nice to see a Republican leader on the Hill shouting this out everyday.
Herein lies the problem with this debate :
“...if Obama were to take that approach or even if he were to simply focus on helping the 8-10 million Americans who want health insurance but can’t afford it, ...”
“health insurance” ... but can’t afford it VERSUS health care but can’t afford it.
INSURANCE is a substitute for cash covered by someone else deciding how much your risk is worth. i.e., can they cover the risks of providing you service and not lose money on that risk. INSURANCE makes a profit on covering risks. When it comes to health care, the RISKS of covering you may be quite high, so your PREMIUMS AND DEDUCTIBLES MUST be high to make the business proposition work. So one cannot reform health care by asking insurers to accept unacceptable risks. OR, you are telling them to go out of business.
*IF* you MUST (or choose to) consume a lot of health care, or expensive aspects of health care, you indeed may not be able to afford health care. Regardless of whether you are insured or not. Sometimes you just don’t have the money for ‘care’. If you own five cars and money is tight, you might have to forgo the oil change at the right interval, or let that falling headliner repair wait. Health care is the same way. If that car breaks down and you cannot afford health care or towing, then sadly, you cannot afford car care.
As a nation we ought to be having a debate about whether or not health CARE is publicly subsidized or not; ie should SOCIETY bear the burden of collective health care. THAT is a rational debate. It is just fundamentally absurd to discuss whether or not insurance companies (risk coverers) MUST or MUST NOT provide all health care at an affordable price.
harrumph. flame suit on. ;-)
Good, easy to remember facts to combat the lies liberals try to spread.
You’re welcome :)
Not bad
It does???
I don’t think the question is really whether insurance companies are a for profit business (it’s gambling actually), but whether health care and the drug industries are and/or should be the same. One doesn’t always choose to “consume a lot of health care”, as if we were consuming bon bons.. things happen, people get sick, so sick that they have no choice. For instance.. I cannot afford health care, so I forego it, but what happens one night if suddenly I get acute appendicitis, a life threatening event, and am forced to choose between death or going to the emergency room.. this one event can bankrupt some people...what is your suggestion there?
Just so you know, it takes me a bit to get to answering your biggest point, so please bear with me as I go from the trivial to the important.
I have to disagree with how you have re-stated the question ... “whether health care and the drug industries are and/or should be the same”
There are four primary players in US health care —
(1) patients and their families/caregivers,
(2) health care providers, primary and secondary,
(3) therapeutics creators and sellers [ pharmas, device manuf., diagnostics, and similar] and
(4) regulators/influencers (FDA, legislatures, courts/lawyers and similar).
To believe that BIG PHARMA and BIG HEALTH CARE are in cahoots in the same industry is a naive and media-driven position (IMHO). I encourage you to read “Saving Lives; Saving Money” by Newt Gingrich. The first half of that book will tell why our health care SYSTEM is broken, and also why you can’t point THE finger of blame at BIG anything. But enough on that for a second.
BTW, the fact that you do not get all the health care you want due to costs/budgets reinforces my point about consumption. While not trivial like bon bons, a great deal of our US health care consumer spend IS discretionary spend. But that is not the major point here either.
Now, to the big point - to your real question, ‘cuz I think it gets to the heart of the matter: “... but what happens one night if suddenly I get acute appendicitis, a life threatening event, and am forced to choose between death or going to the emergency room.. this one event can bankrupt some people...what is your suggestion there?”
THIS question *IS* the core question — does our society have the moral and fiscal obligation to provide health CARE for individuals who cannot afford it? Whether it is ‘providing’ a pediatric office visit and a prescription of Amoxicillin for a three year old’s otitis media, or emergency appendectomies, or diagnosising and repairing an abdominal aortic aneurysm, or transporting and treating TIA or stroke victims correctly within the golden hour, or MRIs for brain tumors, or experimental cancer therapy to keep a 15 year old girl alive for another two years, or heart transplants, or EVERYTHING.
Where do you draw the line? If you draw a line, you ARE effectively assigning the ‘indigent’ to death! You are effectively rationing! I don’t have the answer alone. *WE* have to decide what we want to do as a society and a culture. THAT to me is THE health care debate. We should not try to ‘fix’ or reform health care unless and until we address that.
As an aside - if you really did have a septic appendix and needed an appendectomy, you CANNOT be denied emergency, life-saving care, regardless of your ability to pay at the time. You will get the bills, and you’d have to work out an eventual agreement (likely negotiated) on what you’ll pay, but US emergency departments are covered up in indigent care — for real emergencies, sure, but mostly for doc-in-a-box issues for those unable to pay or those willing to take advantage of our societal largess.
[Urban hospitals ‘fail’ financially because their patient portfolio is skewed by legislation to be unsustainable — think of any urban public hospital— they are ground zero for this question. Rural hospitals/ secondary care and access to care there is a different issue, but we won’t go there today. ]
So to a point, our society has already codified its desire to varying degrees, to provide care whether you can pay or not. We have drawn certain lines. We cannot afford to have no lines, and conversely due to cost we MUST draw lines. But where to draw those lines is THE question.
Thank you for your thorough and well thought out reply. While I did not actually have a “life and death” issue at the emergency room (impaled my foot with a random piece of wood at 10 pm), it cost me 1500 dollars..which I finally paid off in bits and pieces because I was in that in between place where I did not qualify for any of their programs.. I’m not frankly sure if it was actually worth 1500 dollars for the miniscule amount of work they did, especially since they seemed to think the whole thing was rather hilarious and showed me off to their co-workers like some kind of circus freak. My issue here is, I feel like the health care industry has us over a barrel, since they know there are times when we all will need them, and we can’t get along without them.
PING for good post on the ObamaCare topic.
If this is true, why are they trying to revamp the entire healthcare delivery system of the US?
Answer; Power, money and control.
This power grab must be stopped.
This is why it is important to vote in 2010 and get the majority back
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