Two-year-old Colorado girl denied health insurance for being too skinny

Originally posted by drwizardphd
Wrong. Health care shouldn't be a business in the first place.

The US is way behind the curve on this one.

That's a really good way to put it, thanks.

Since when does one have the moral right to reject a skinny girl and not give her treatment, in the name of profit?

reply to post by drwizardphd


Okay... and then how are doctors, nurses, health care workers, those who manufacture medical instruments, parts, machines, materials, medicines, medical researchers, etc. supposed to get paid for their work?

How are they supposed to make a living on that if it's not a business? Private donations? You tell me how the Hypocrattic Oath puts food on the table if medicine shouldn't be a business.

Originally posted by buddhasystem

I hear you! Let's be just like China -- lose our freedoms, confiscate land form farmers, and pay sh!t to workers. All in the sake of "competing". Let that skinny girl die and let her family go bankrupt because look, we still have a lot of mobility (downward) until we are like China.

By the way, last time I checked, German-made cars are highly competitive globally, and so it their other industrial product.

Well give Obama and all his Mao loving buddies a few more years and I am sure he will take all of our freedoms, our land, and pay .... to the workers. Even the Chinese call him Obamao because they know a communist when they see one.

Yeah well if Germans are so competitive why did they just throw out the Liberals and bring in the Convervatives and are headed toward getting rid of nationalized healthcare before the whole ship sinks?

reply to post by MJsGhost


Replies like yours honestly make me want to be Canadian - socialistic aspects aside, at least they seem to give a rat's $#@ about their fellow man...

Some of us do understand how health insurance works. Some of us actually have worked in health insurance. Some of us understand that pre-existing conditions are used solely to deny coverage to up profit margins. Some of us understand that even if a given claim is (accidentally) paid, there are entire departments of BC/BS (pick a state), United Health Care, etc. devoted to getting that money back - by going through a patient's medical history and finding anything, and I do mean ANYTHING that could remotely be considered non-disclosure (a benign mole removal five years prior, and a UTI eight years prior are just two that I know of); reason being they can take the money back from the provider and force that provider to balance bill the patient.

Also, did you know that the software employed by most of these companies is specifically designed to flat out deny the majority of claims the second they get uploaded into the system? Regardless of how routine the procedure, or whether or not both a referral and pre cert. was obtained from that company?

To say that health insurance companies care very little for the people who's lives they destroy is an understatement. You talk about risk? You take a risk deciding on which stock option to choose, you take a risk when you buy a lottery ticket... to deny coverage to a little girl because your obsolete "growth" chart says she's too skinny is sub-human; people shouldn't pay for health coverage only to have themselves reduced to a statistic on a pie chart... or at least that's what I think, obviously health insurance companies do.

reply to post by buddhasystem

Since when does one have the moral right to reject a skinny girl and not give her treatment, in the name of profit?

Nobody is denying her treatment, they are just not going to insure someone that they know is going to cost more than they can charge her family. Her family is still free to get her treatment as long as they pay for it. She is, afterall, their responsibility, not the insurance companies.

Originally posted by MJsGhost
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

Since when does one have the moral right to reject a skinny girl and not give her treatment, in the name of profit?

Nobody is denying her treatment, they are just not going to insure someone that they know is going to cost more than they can charge her family. Her family is still free to get her treatment as long as they pay for it. She is, afterall, their responsibility, not the insurance companies.

Yeah, I call this attitude barbaric. "As long as they pay for it" -- you know full well what happened to costs here, so I guess you wash your hands at it -- she's not getting treatment after all.

A society that doesn't care about saving one of its own is still in stone age.

reply to post by buddhasystem


Here's the situation the U.S. is in right now, in a nutshell:

We have a health care system that allows the majority of Americans access to quality health care. We have a great many American citizens who do not have access to any medical care and that needs to be corrected. The system is by no means perfect and does need an overhaul. Almost no one argues that it's perfect the way it is because rational folks know it isn't.

If you go with a government-provided healthcare system, everyone will have access to medical care, though that care will likely not be quality care. In fact, there's a good chance it will degrade severely at first (system shock) and then level off gradually as people get used to the new system. That leveling off will most likely not be near the level of quality that it once was as wait times may increase and we may see far fewer healthcare professionals enter the field. One reason for this - healthcare workers' wages would now be controlled by the government. In addition, everyone's taxes go up - not just the rich and the middle class, everyone including those living at the poverty level.

The questions that remain:

* Do you suffer as many casualties with everyone having sub-par healthcare as you would with only a percentage of the population not having access to quality health care? With sub-par healthcare, does the nation become more vulnaerable to pandemics and outbreaks that we would normally have money and resources to fight off?

* What is the overall effect on the economy with so much money in taxes being levied on people to pay for universal health care? America may be able to simply "exist" on such a system, but is to exist enough or do we as Americans expect our nation to "thrive"?

To me it's not that we don't care about our fellow Americans, it's what do we do that's in the best interests of the nation as a whole - for all of us?



[edit on 21-10-2009 by sos37]

reply to post by sos37


Did you know that this same group of people are putting money from their own to support the budget for the health care plan?

I bet this one is new for you.

"Exchange of interests" in U.S. health care reform a dangerous approach

What I wonder is why all this groups are helping with the health care reform if they would lose with it.

Because is all about private health care coverage.

what many people doesn't know so far is how Obama is paying for all this, well. . . Obama has been making deals behind close doors . . .,


EXCHANGE OF INTERESTS

In public, Obama often rails against special interests, accusing them of trying to jeopardize health care reform.

In fact, it is evident that he has been adopting a strategy of "exchanging interests" to make many interest groups jump on his bandwagon.


What the president is no telling he is selling us out because he needs to push his biggest accomplishment health care reform

U.S. drug companies, the first interest group to reach an agreement with the Obama administration, agreed to give the administration 80 billion U.S. dollars to cover some costs of the health care reform.

The U.S. Hospital Association, which represents the interests of major hospitals around the country, followed suit by offering to pay 155 billion U.S. dollars for Obama's health care reform.

In exchange, the Obama administration promised the two groups that it would reject any attempt from Congress to seek further reductions in federal payments to drug makers and hospitals under the government-run Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The American Medical Association, an interest group of doctors, offered their support for the reform on the condition that Obama would make sure payments made to them under the Medicare program wouldn't be cut by a big margin.

The American Nurses Association secured a similar deal.

As a result, insurance firms are virtually the only key interest group still firmly opposed to the reform.

But Obama has plans for reaching out to that group.

The president recently changed his mind and agreed to require individual Americans to buy health insurance. He had opposed the individual mandate during last year's presidential elections.

The new approach, which requires some 45 million Americans currently without health insurance to purchase insurance plans, would open up a new market for insurers.

We have been lie too in a way that is obscene.

news.xinhuanet.com...

reply to post by marg6043


"In exchange, the Obama administration promised the two groups that it would reject any attempt from Congress to seek further reductions in federal payments to drug makers and hospitals under the government-run Medicare and Medicaid programs. "

That's a huge gamble to make with 80 or 155 billion dollars. Any veto Obama stamps can still be overridden with 2/3 of the Congressional vote, even with a supermajority. And they by no means are sure that Democrats will retain control of the House and Senate in 2010.

*corrected dollar amt*


[edit on 21-10-2009 by sos37]

reply to post by sos37


I tell you whatever is cooking behind closed doors my friend is going to hurt us more than help with it comes to the health care reform, like I say is not about public option at all, but all for the interest of private insurance companies, no even regulations will be in the table like promised.

Originally posted by MJsGhost
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

I am sure all the realtively healthy people and the businesses really appreciate what amounts to an 8% tax on both individuals and business.

Do you realize that you would have to earn $130,000 a year before the 8% was more than the average family health insurance premium right now?

The federal government tracks average spending on health insurance for people with job-based coverage. The most recent figures are from 2005, and indicate that the average individual's job-based premiums were $3,991 that year, while families spent an average of $10,728.

And that the median income is only $50,000 which means most of us are paying more than 20% right now.

In 2007, the median annual household income rose 1.3% to $50,233.00 according to the Census Bureau.[4]

What a bunch of garbage. This is nothing but blatant propaganda.

If Obama was not trying to force his health care policies down the American people's throats, we would not hear about this. The media doesn't care that this little girl was denied coverage. All they care about is exploiting her situation for their corporate masters' interests.

All you people who follow in the media's footsteps and use this story to justify your brainwashed, delusional opinions about how health care should be government run should be ashamed of yourselves. You are just as pathetic as they are.