NEWS: Health Insurance Costs Soar

POLITICS: Health Insurance Costs Soar

According to a new survey conducted by Kaiser:

Does this sound like a step in the right direction or the wrong direction?

I'm tired of empty promises on health care. Something needs to be done about this, and quickly. It's about time to stop putting the wants of insurance companies and pharmacutical companies above the needs of the average American family.

yet again another reason why Kerry should win the election, but due to the right we'll be stuck with another four more years.

The Bush economic plans are a long term disaster. His short term plans aren't much better...the same can also be said for his foreign and domestic policy...why does anyone support him?

Because he's keepin' OB/GYNs from gettin' outta business, so they can practice their love on women?

welcome to the age of the retiring baby boomers.

am i the only one that views healthcare as a major issue?

hell, no. it's another area where the "gated community" direction of domestic policy ("i got mine. screw the rest of you.") is slowing destroying the country. we lag well behind all other industrialized democracies in dealing with this issue.

we still have the best medical education and technology in the world, but access is going to get tougher and tougher for most of us.

Well if you marry into a family with the right last name, you can do anything, even become president.

Dont hold your breath. Things are gonna get worse still before they get better.

"Ownership Society" = [your name here]'s Ass in a Sling

Thank god for my Union and my employer paid healthcare.

Once I left my job - for health reasons - I had 18 months of COBRA coverage at about $400/month, paid by me (thanks Mom!). Once my COBRA ran out, I was told by the insurance co that my rates were going up astronomically - essentially "You're outta luck, poor person." OK. However, I take a pill that costs $13 a day (one pill), and several more that add up about a K a month. I turned to the public health care system (Medicaid) - was told "You have too much money to qualify for care." Unless you're on welfare or both disabled AND poor, you see, Medicaid is inaccessible. (Don't get me started on the number of illegal immigrants getting Medicaid.) I was literally thrown out of at least five different hospitals, administrators offices, etc, asking "HOW DO I PAY FOR MY PILLS?" I was told by one of them, "Do you have a credit card?" I was told by all the others to screw off.

In short, I am advocating the violent overthrow of our health care system. May the entrails of the prescription drug companies choke the last capitalist. Hasta la Revolucion, Siempre!

i love that picture of bush

You all are a bunch of fools. You think the bankrupt, corrupt politicians should run our healthcare system? Government already spends half of all the healthcare dollars and that is why the system is more expensive and less
operable. Medicaid, Medicare and now the prescription drug benefit are indecipherable, money managing disasters just like social security, welfare and public education. They take up more and more money and become more and more bureacratic and less able to deliver a product.

You complain about Enron, MCI, Halliburton but mention nothing about
the bankrupt US Government who has been lying to us for decades about the budget and is never audited by an outside party. The largest scam and bankruptcy in the world is the US and our state and local GOVERNMENTS who take money from us with GUNS and make false promises to keep the two party system going.

You simps in here are hypocrites who talk about how terrible the rich are and how they don't care and how corrupt they are when it is government who is destroying the healthcare system with their mismanagement through imposed insurance mandates and regulations, creation of HMOs, frivolous malpractice lawsuits and Medicare which overregulates, creates artificial demand of health care services and thus drives practioners out of the market and all that cost is made up for by raising prices in other parts of the healthcare system where YOU PAY THE EXHORBANT DIFFERENCE FOR GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT!!!!! That's why your insurance and your doctor bill is so high!!!

Canadians cross the border for treatment in the US since their GOVERNMENT RUN SYSTEM SUCKS.
They have to wait 40 days for MRI
or take a number and stand in line for heart attacks. This is the system you will get when you impose your wonderful revolution on everyone else.

The equitable distribution of services you pander for is really your demand for economic slavery to force people to work and provide a service for free.
Unlike the cotton harvesters of the 1860s who had no place to escape, the healthcare workers will eventually leave the practice and what and who is left will be understaffed, over demanded and then more politically motivated regulations will be placed in to keep the system 'equitable' which further results in poor service and higher prices.

If your revolution works so well, why don't you go to Cuba, Canada or England for treatment? No, the US still has the best treatment in the world but eroding away its accessibility due to idiots who want socialized medicine. If you are so right why is the American system worsening with more government control and not less? Remember, government spends (controls) half of all healthcare dollars.


The free market works for electronics-- computers, tvs, dvd players which get more sophisticated but lower in price and more accessible as capital builds and competition encourages more, better or bigger distributors. Same with food companies, supermarkets, cars, clothes, fast food, retailers and other products and commodities we need to survive or rely on. Think fuel companies are evil and charge too much without enough regulation? -- Well gas prices per gallon includes about 45 cents of taxation which is more than what the fuel companies make in profit off each gallon. So government gets more profit on gas where they do nothing to find it, drill it, refine it and distribute it whereas the fuel companies and affilitates do all that and have to jack over more to the crooked politicians who sit around all year in their domes and bribe ignorant voters like you with their pipe dreams of utopian 'free' healthcare and the like.

Free markets provide the economic engine and government sucks it away.
Private schools educate well while the
government (public) schools are failing. Private schools are actually cheaper because the cost of public schools is hidden in the mountain to taxes people pay. Yet another example.

GET REAL INSTEAD OF RHETORICAL!

Amen... in a far less obnoxious manner

The Bush faith-based healthcare system: pray you don't get sick.

Crunja said:

First of all - nobody " stands in line for heart attacks". It is, however, quite true that one might have to wait 40 days (or more) for an MRI. The only time I needed one I had it right away - but I was pretty sick. I'm sure that if it related to a knee injury I might have been waiting for a while.

You have left out the more positive side of the equation - you don't receive a bill!
This means that you don't need to decide if you can afford to go to the hospital, and no one goes into debt as a result of getting sick. Everyone also receives the same quality of health care.

Could the system be better? Of course, but that's a function of funding priorities. Government cutbacks have led to an erosion in the quality of service - but that's a policy decision rather than a fundemental fault of the system.

I have no doubt that the quality of health care in Canada is lower than the best health care available in the US. Unfortunately, I don't believe that the best health care in the US is available to most citizens. I would argue that Canadians receive better health care than Americans when you factor all citizens into the equation.

I guess it all depends on your point of view - whether you feel that health care is an essential service that all people deserve or whether only those that can pay deserve access. ( I'm allright Jack!).
It is worth noting that the vast majority of Canadians like the current system despite wanting improvements. Virtually no one wants to go to a US style system.

[Edited on Sep 12, 2004 by Pauillac]

wouldn't those canadians crossing the border for their MRIs have to pay for them in the US. and therefore be the people that can afford medical insurance?
rich people are always going to be able to get healthcare if they want to spend the money, the issue is that poor people can't get shit until they're destitute. did you read what mrsMF wrote? hospitals telling her she wasn't poor enough to get the medication she needs for free, so go run up credit card bills until you're really broke. it's by no means an easy task to find the perfect balance in a healthcare system, but there are people - and their number is ever increasing - that can't afford medical insurance, can afford to pay their own medical bills, but are considered by medicaid to be too rich to get what they need for free. that leaves a shitload of people stuck with no healthcare at all, and that is an issue that needs some serious time spent on it.

Exactly, anyone crossing the border for medical tests is paying out of their own pocket. There has been increasing pressure in canada for a two-tiered health care system. In this model there would be a national program, but people would still be allowed to pay privately for additional services.

This obviously leads to decreased emphasis on funding the national program and a different standard of care for the rich and poor.

Fuck that. If the wealthy get the same standard of care as the poor, - you can be damn sure that proper funding will be a priority.

Word Pauliac!!!
Health care is going to be the number one priorty for decades to come as the Baby Boomer generation requires more of it. The fairest and easiest way to administer it is a strong national health care program. This means a long hard look at what we find important in our lives to come up with the required funding. If this means less material goods then that's what it's going to take.

I don't have Health Insurance (Although I'm planning on getting some shortly)
Most of my co-workers and friends... don't have Health Insurance.

And the funny thing is... it's not because we can't afford it.
It's because our priorities are fucked up.

Most of our budgets include monthly expenditures on booze, eating out, playstation games, movies, weed and/or 'party favors', concerts, records, etc. that are probably AT LEAST twice the amount it would cost us for Health Insurance.

Now some people aren't in our situation. The extremely destitute. Many senior citizens, and they obviously need to be taken care of (and theoretically are?)

But there are a huge amount of people in the US, particularly young people, who CAN afford Health insurance but would rather just spend their money on having a good time. Is it ethical to take somone who's willing to make the sacrifices they need to make, by working hard/building wealth.... and force them pay for the insurance of those people who aren't willing to make the same sacrifices and just want to 'take it easy'?

If you're talking about kicking in toward premiums for an employer plan, I totally agree, but if you're talking about buying your own when you don't have a coverage option at work, I don't: individual plans--and not very good ones--are about $700/month. That's a hell of a lot of cash

That would be a lot of cash... slightly exceding the value of my monthly alcohol intake...
And perhaps I'm ignorant on the matter, but the Quotes I've been looking at aren't even 1/3 of that....

That's an easy arguement to make when you are young and have lots of disposable income with few responsibilities. ( I am definitely making some assumptions here).

Most people without health care plans don't have the money. This results in a real gamble (that they won't get sick) for them and their family. To say that anyone can have health insurance if only they have the discipline to set aside the money is disingenuous. It's like arguing that taxes would be lower if only it wasn't for all the low income tax "cheaters". Clearly the high income tax "avoiders" have a much bigger impact on the taxes that most individuals end up paying.

The ironic part of this equation is that when things hit the skids the resulting social costs are usually borne by the taxpayer anyway.

Agreed.

I very well may be off base but judging only from what I know, while SOME people are in situations that would prove extremely difficult to aquire health insurance on their own, I have a suspicion that MOST of 'most people' can, and just have fucked up priorites. In the service industry in particular, most workers I know don't have health insurance, yet a lot of us drink what insurance would cost in two weeks time. I have customers complain about not having health insurance yet spend $30 bucks everytime they sit down at my bar 3 times a week.

I live across the street from low-income housing and bartend up the block.
It's daily practice to see people scraping up what little change they have, every day, for a couple 40's of colt 45. ($150-180 a month?)

At the bodega where most of these people buy their food, it's interesting to see that even after they gotten everything they needed... they'll take whatever change they have from their purchases, down-to-the-penny, and buy soda, candy and chips, as if saving that extra dollar or two would be a crime.

And while it would be disingenious to say that ANYONE can have health insurance with a little discipline in spending... As someone who's spent months sleeping in parks or squats and has eaten in more than a few soup kitchens... I think that it would be equally dishonest so to say that MOST of the poor in this country, particularly in urban centers, have any sense of fiscal discipline or understanding, which contributes to their on going inability to 'afford' Health Insurance, among other things.



[Edited on Sep 12, 2004 by Mr_Black]