It amazes me when I read about US healthcare.A question for you USAers.

a reply to: boymonkey74

I can tell you what happened to me while I have been on here at ATS as an example of what we have to put up with.

first off, I have been working and paying into taxes and SS(social security) AND medicare taxes since I was 19. Over time I have watch my SS and medicare tax go up till they were even more than my federal taxes.We were the baby boomers and there was more of us than the prior generation. So we were paying in MORE than could be spent on our parents retiring.There fore there should have been plenty of money to go around for even us when we retired. Not so.Congress will leave no dime untouched in its mission to spend more than America can give them. If they see a lump sum of money laying around, they MUST have it.

Case in point. My father never paid into SS.He didn't need to,he and the other railroad workers were exempt from it,since they paid so much into their own retirement funds. Before my father could retire,congress was drooling for that money,AND TOOK IT. The railroad men had no say in it at all. If our government wants our pensions,too bad so sad. They take them. Because they are crooks,plain and simple. Now why did they take it? Well to keep SS funded. You see they had already tapped into it and spent the money we had paid in all those years,so now they needed something to back it up.

So now we come to the current time. I have been working for 37 years, I finally got into and worked for Ford until they shut the plant here in St.Louis,so I lost everything.Okay,start over,I get a job in a chemical plant.I work it after asking during the interview,if I would have to work a swing shift or nights,since I had 2 other job offers that offered just that,and I didn't want either of those. I knew I was getting older and my health would not support swing shifts. I was told that they didn't have swing shifts there,and nights were already covered by others,so no I would not have to. So last year,guess what? I am working swift shift at night,finished that shift and got up to start back on days,when I found I had to hang on to furniture to get across the floor. I called in and went to my dr. My blood pressure was out of control at that point. I ended up having to have an EKG to see if it had damaged my heart.

I was put out of work until the medicine could be adjusted,came back and my dr had put a restriction on me,that they had to keep me on one shift only.Not saying which shift,just that I had to stay on one. They refused to deal with it and put me back out of work. Said I had to go to the dr and have her release me from restrictions. She wouldn't do it. Said she could not guarantee what would happen to my health. It ended up with me being on disability until it ran out(company paid one). I had to go to SS and they tested me and said without a doubt I was disabled.

I went last year from June through to March of this year WITH NO INCOME. I had to sell everything I owned to keep my bills paid. I have had to 'start over' 3 times in those 37 years and now am having to do it again. Thanks to NAFTA and other unforeseen effects of our banksters getting away with major theft. Ford took money from the US taxpayers like the other car companies. But we were still out of jobs. Now we have our congress trying to tell us that we are not ENTITLED to SS.That we need to stop waiting for an entitlement to support us. SAY WHAT????

Now having SS and struggling to make ends meet, I have to sell my house. I can not afford it anymore. If it had been one year later,I could have toughed out those last few months to pay it off. But I can't go another year and half.I have run out of things to sell. And guess what,I am not qualified for ANY health insurance at all.All I can get is a 'draw down' type which you pay $500 a month for. I only get $1300 a month. So how do I pay my rent and utilities and food? This is the kind of crazy situation we are in now. This is why Americans are getting so mad about how things are going.

I know this is long winded and for that I apologize. But I wanted you to see what working all your life here gets you. At the end of it all,no matter how hard you worked,no matter if you did the right thing or not,you are screwed. So I am looking for another country to live in with a lower cost of living,where I might be able to at least survive.This country could care less if you live or die.

originally posted by: buster2010
Taxes this high are you joking?

Nope. They are too high. Look at the waste. If the waste was gone, taxes would be lower. There is no reason for taxes to be this high. They only subsidize the waste.

Also where does this 85% of Americans were fine with the healthcare we used to have.

HERE - 2009 - Pre Obamacare

There is a clear gulf in these perceptions between the health insurance haves and have-nots. According to a Sept. 11-13 USA Today/Gallup poll, the 85% of Americans with health insurance coverage are broadly satisfied with the quality of medical care they receive and with their healthcare costs. At 79%, satisfaction with costs among Medicare/Medicaid recipients is particularly high.

The 15% who are uninsured are far less satisfied with the quality of their medical care (50% are satisfied), and only 27% are satisfied with their healthcare costs. (Sixty-nine percent are dissatisfied with their costs.)

a reply to: Prezbo369

◾Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day.

But hey, lets not blow things out of proportion any.

And it's not like the NHS doesn't have its own problems.

Research commissioned by Mencap last year estimated that 1,200 people with learning disabilities are dying "needlessly" in the NHS each year, largely due to delays or problems in investigating illnesses.

This is quite aside from delays in receiving care and patients in hospitals who can't seem to get nurses to give them water because the costs need to be cut. Sure you are guaranteed to have health insurance, but that doesn't mean you will receive it, just like folks are discovering when their Obamacare doesn't provide access to local doctors or hospitals or specialists.

a reply to: Dimithae

# man that sucks!!. If you find that country give me a call I will be on the first boat .

a reply to: Dimithae

Wow, your story sounds awful.
You may have seen my post on the previous page where I said that as I am self employed earning above certain thresholds so I had to contribute a minimal amount for my dental treatment this week.
Here in the UK if I was out of work then it would be free. All other medical treatment is free, regardless of income.

...curiously though, knowing the system as a self-employed person, if I had gone to a government office and declared myself as unemployed for a week (I haven't worked yesterday or today) I could have had the dental treatment for free.
Not my style though, and I couldn't be arsed with the multiple forms I would have had to complete.

a reply to: boymonkey74

I work for the NHS and I love the NHS: it costs less per capita (compared to the US insurance system) and we get all types of services, regardless of the cost.

But the main reason I love the NHS is that it treats everybody equal, all patients receive healthcare based on needs instead of wealth.

Is it perfect? Far from it, many things that could be improved, but it saves lives and, despite what you see in the news, the majority of healthcare staff do care about their patients and work hard to make sure they all receive the best humanizing care possible.

originally posted by: boymonkey74


So how can you fix it? or are you happy with OB care?.
Heck I just don't get it lol.

Neither do I. That's why I don't bother with health insurance in the conventional sense. If I break an arm, I'll go to the hospital, they'll work on it and set it, I'll go to the follow-ups until it's healed, I'll be billed for it, never pay the bill and my credit rating may suffer. Do I care about such things? NO. The chances of that happening are slim anyway because I'm coordinated and very careful with what I do.

If I get sick, which is very rare, I'll cure myself with over the counter s**t, rest, liquids and any natural cures I can find.

If the government has their hands in something like healthcare, I avoid it like the plague. (Pun intended.) They could screw up a 1 car funeral.

a reply to: boymonkey74

The thing is, I was raised to believe that if you got a job and worked hard,it would in time pay off. You put in your years and did what your company wanted,and you would reap the pay offs later on. Not so.All you get is kicked in the teeth. I never asked anyone to hand me anything. It was my place to make my way. I ended up with a husband that couldn't hold a job through half of our marriage.No problem, I went out and worked any and all hours I could get to make up for it. Finally walked off and left him to his own devices and had one less mouth to feed. I worked as hard as a man and made almost as much as one. In the end,it didn't matter. I would never do it again.

originally posted by: Dimithae
a reply to: boymonkey74

The thing is, I was raised to believe that if you got a job and worked hard,it would in time pay off. You put in your years and did what your company wanted,and you would reap the pay offs later on. Not so.All you get is kicked in the teeth. I never asked anyone to hand me anything. It was my place to make my way. I ended up with a husband that couldn't hold a job through half of our marriage.No problem, I went out and worked any and all hours I could get to make up for it. Finally walked off and left him to his own devices and had one less mouth to feed. I worked as hard as a man and made almost as much as one. In the end,it didn't matter. I would never do it again.

And your story is the kind that a social safety net is truly supposed to be for. Someone who through no fault of their own winds up with the thin end of the stick and can't do.

Why oh why doesn't it help you instead of every 16-year-old idiot who decides she is too cool for school and would rather drop out and have a baby to get big guv be her daddy instead?

originally posted by: ketsuko
Why oh why doesn't it help you instead of every 16-year-old idiot who decides she is too cool for school and would rather drop out and have a baby to get big guv be her daddy instead?

That is pretty much what most people in the UK and Western Europe wonder as well.

The US medical system infrastructure as it is couldn't handle a NHS model. It needs to be done incrementally, hence, Obamacare. I would like to think that if we (the US) ,with our massive GDP, backed out of some of our foreign campaigns, that we could find a national health care solution and with some major reform make it more affordable than it is today (just search for health care system waste). And I'm wondering if wouldn't be better done through a tax system overhaul at the same time. That would be an exciting platform for a presidential candidate to run on.

Everyone I've talked to from Canada or the UK like their health care system. I know that's anecdotal but I think there's some truth there. And no system will ever be perfect unless the vision of Gene Roddenberry is ever realized.

And, there's some other benefits that are hard to quantify. Such as- I have a good paying job and good health care coverage for my family at more than $1500/month between myself and my employer. I have wanted to go in business for myself for some time now but health care costs are a serious deterrent. What could I possibly contribute as entrepreneur?

a reply to: ketsuko

If you pay people to have kids,then that is what they will do. Sad state but true. Welfare for unwed woman needs to ONLY be conditional.

Such as:you must be drug tested every 3 months.You MUST be in a school for higher learning to get a job that will pay enough for you to in time get off welfare.If you lose your job,your benefits decrease. Can't tell you how many smart mouth welfare mothers I have come across that took it out on the public because they had to work. So they would mouth off and be abusive until they were fired.Then sat on welfare saying they couldn't work. And here is a big one,for each kid you have,the amount decreases,forcing you to go off it to live. If the children suffer,they get taken away.

My sons complained to me one day,saying mom,you don't even have decent clothes to go to work in! I told them its cause I couldn't afford it,I had to spend what extra money I had on their clothes because they had to go to school and I didn't want them to be made fun of over their clothes. Both my boys really appreciated that fact and did their darnedest to take care of their clothes.They saw how much I had to do without for them. THAT I'M NOT SORRY FOR. I would do that part again. I made a bargain with God that if I had healthy kids,I would do everything in my power to take good care of them.I'm not sorry for one thing I had to do without,nor anything I had to put up with for them.They are both outstanding healthy well built men now.And I am very proud of them.

originally posted by: newWorldSamurai
I have wanted to go in business for myself for some time now but health care costs are a serious deterrent. What could I possibly contribute as entrepreneur?

I can relate to that, I've been self-employed for a few years now, and healthcare costs/insurance are not an issue I have to concern myself with, just how much money do I need to earn, and how much of it do I have to pay in tax.

I could need a heart bypass, a prosthetic limb, and a replacement hip and I would have no worries about how I would have to pay for it. The fact I am a British citizen is my ticket to the treatment.

a reply to: grainofsand

But remember we have death panels!! (jk)

originally posted by: boymonkey74

Well, the truth of the matter is that people didn't get denied medical aid because of lack of means, they still went to the ER or called an ambulance and received the necessary care (for the most part...of course, there are the minority of exceptions). The difference is that the cost for the care that they couldn't pay for was (and still is) passed on to those of us who can.

Your embedded meme is a pre-Obamacare myth. All Americans had access to health care before--just many did not have access to health insurance.

Somewhere along the line, insurance and care got morphed together, and I think it was by progressive design.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Oh dear, Sarah Palin, oh dear oh dear.
'NICE' of course allocates care budgets and as I will always agree, no system is perfect, but I like the one I live in, and so do all my mates, ranging from millionaires to long-term sick alcoholics.
Healthcare with no questions of income or money in the bank is the sign of a mature society.
I genuinely wish everyone in the world had our system as a basic benchmark.

originally posted by: Boeing777
I think it would be easier if each state had its own NHS like health service with its own budget rather than one huge one responsible for 350 million people.

While I disagree with the need for an SHS (State HS) in the U.S., at least that would be more in the spirit of the Constitution and founding of our nation than the federal government seizing control of that aspect of its citizens' lives.

originally posted by: grainofsand
a reply to: boymonkey74

Oh dear, Sarah Palin, oh dear oh dear.
'NICE' of course allocates care budgets and as I will always agree, no system is perfect, but I like the one I live in, and so do all my mates, ranging from millionaires to long-term sick alcoholics.
Healthcare with no questions of income or money in the bank is the sign of a mature society.
I genuinely wish everyone in the world had our system as a basic benchmark.

Here's the thing:

You like your system. That's fine. It's your system.

We liked our system in a similar way.

Don't tell me you don't sit around with your family or friends and bitch about this or that that could be better about your system. I'll bet you do. You aren't going to come here and admit it because now this has morphed into a pissing contest where you can wave your system around and look down your nose at us and tell us you have a superior system and say, "neener, neener."

But what it boils down to is that neither system is perfect and both have their merits and flaws. And we both liked our systems before Obama and Co. got his hooks into ours to try to force us to have yours.

So let's just leave it there. You can like your system, and let us like what we had.

originally posted by: grainofsand

originally posted by: newWorldSamurai
I have wanted to go in business for myself for some time now but health care costs are a serious deterrent. What could I possibly contribute as entrepreneur?

I can relate to that, I've been self-employed for a few years now, and healthcare costs/insurance are not an issue I have to concern myself with, just how much money do I need to earn, and how much of it do I have to pay in tax.

I could need a heart bypass, a prosthetic limb, and a replacement hip and I would have no worries about how I would have to pay for it. The fact I am a British citizen is my ticket to the treatment.

People here are in financial ruin because of similar conditions. You can lose your house if you have a bad accident and are not insured,underinsured or simply can't pay the typical 20% that still comes out of your pocket even with coverage.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

It'll cost you in state taxes but easily do-able.
I am happy for some (British citizen) bum who has paid nothing into the UK to get healthcare when they need it, even though my taxes pay for it.
I have issues with paying them benefits to sit on their arse but if they need to be fixed medically then I am happy for my taxes to fund it.
They have no excuse to be unavailable for work when we have a healthcare system that fixes the lazy bastards as well.