Affordable Healthcare Reform Will Never Work Until This Happens

originally posted by: Bhadhidar

originally posted by: visitedbythem
I was in a serious motorcycle accident about 9 years ago. My bill was 70 grand. I went to pay my portion, which was 5 grand ( my insurance paid the rest).

I live in California, too.

I had bypass surgery a few years ago with a hospital stay of several days.

My bill was $25.00, and I got to keep the pillow.

You need better insurance.

wow insurance with no deductible, how is that possible? Medicaid?

a reply to: ketsuko
As hard as it is for me to believe, I was born to in a time when people went to the hospital only if it was an emergency. A time when doctors came to your home if you couldn't make it to their office. When doctors could dispense medication from their medical bags and from their office. A time when if you couldn't pay your doctor, you cut his grass, gave his kids piano lessons, brought him a couple of chickens, a side of beef, or what you could afford, when you could afford it.

I remember when my mother became a nurse working for the Federal Government. Having Blue Cross and Blue Shield was one of the things that sealed the deal. We lived in the country and at that time we were 4 boys and 4 girls, that would end up being 5 girls and 5 boys, but at the time I am talking about, she only had the 8 of us. My mother said on a daily basis that it was a miracle that her children were still alive. We bored easily and nothing is more dangerous for a child growing up in the country than to be bored. It makes children do daring and stupid thing, and when you through competition into the mix, she was right. It was a miracle that any of us survived our childhood.

So knowing that her children would be able to be taken to hospital at no additional cost was a huge relief for her. Even though hospitals at that time were all non-profit hospitals. They were run and paid for by the State. They didn't harass people that could not pay, but people had huge egos and pride back then. Welfare or writing off your hospital bill was the absolute last option.

Making insurance a job perk became a problem, when greedy entrepreneurs saw the killing that BCBS was making off of healthy young people that had an aversion to doctors and hospitals, and they decided to grab a piece of the pie.

You Folks are blaming everyone & everything but where the blame belongs, which is on the hospitals.
They went "for profit" and it's been a $h!t-show ever since. They have to show a profit for the shareholders.

Now Congress isn't blameless with the ACA and caving in to the insurance companies, who also by the way need to show a profit.

The best thing that could have been done, but wasn't was extend medicare to everyone and maybe charge 200 bucks a month. That way the government could have set the prices instead of the hospitals.

Doctors are being squeezed in the middle by both.
There are some excellent medical blogs written by Doc's and they should have brought some soap to the party they found themselves saddled with.

a reply to: Caver78

You have good points. TI find it hard to believe that $200 a month would float a system for all though. I think a med tax on consumer goods and a wallstreet tax too.

a reply to: Caver78

]Doctors are being squeezed in the middle by both. There are some excellent medical blogs written by Doc's and they should have brought some soap to the party they found themselves saddled with.

I agree 100%. This will never change until they return healthcare to a service to humanity and no longer use it as a money making commodity.

Doctors and insurances that want to make a killing off of healthcare can offer and provide services to the 1%. Real doctors that want to practice medicine should be paid a very comfortable salary and be reimbursed for the cost of their education and compensated for any of their time and services provided.

Healthcare should have never been allowed to become a commodity,

DP

originally posted by: Bhadhidar

originally posted by: visitedbythem
I was in a serious motorcycle accident about 9 years ago. My bill was 70 grand. I went to pay my portion, which was 5 grand ( my insurance paid the rest).

I live in California, too.

I had bypass surgery a few years ago with a hospital stay of several days.

My bill was $25.00, and I got to keep the pillow.

You need better insurance.

I will pretty soon because Trump will be in office. My bills included an Airlift, and a day in Emergency and a week in intensive care.

Oh wait...... You must be one of the Illegals I paid for. Move along

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: visitedbythem

Wow. Now this is the stuff I enjoy reading.

Did you write down your experience?

I don't mean to pry, but I have never had contact with anyone who was "lucky" (and I don't mean to minimize your accident)enough to have this happen. Would you do a thread?

I have many stories and they are all true.

I wouldn't know which one to post, Heres a sample
My grandfather was born at the base of mount Ararat in 1900, we escaped due to a prophecy from a 11 year old Russian Pentecostal kid that could not read or write, who came over the mountain and lived among my people. ( This is all documented in a book , " The Happiest people on Earth"), 75% of my people ( Armenians) were slaughtered 3.5 years after he got out. 1.5 million people. Hitler commented that the world did nothing about The Armenians so they surely wouldn't do anything if he killed all the Jews.

In 1965 I had an in depth conversation with grandfather. He was 65 at the time. I asked him about Noahs Ark. I asked if it was a fairy tale or if it was true. He was startled. He said " Philip, If the people in our village heard you ask this, they would have thought you to be a fool. " He went on to describe where the Ark was, and that it was whole, and petrified, and completely covered, frozen in a deep layer of ice
High on the mountain above our village ( Our home and farm was in Turkey along the Euphrates river) and that it was only visible in centuries when there was at least 15 years consecutive drought. If I remember correctly , He also said people from our village ( near Harput Turkey) had been on and in it before, in the past, It was only exposed on the back side, and was the size of a giant ocean liner. They had to stack rocks and boosted a kid up onto the small portion of deck that was exposed. He looked inside and saw sectioned off areas. The whole thing was petrified like rock


Here is another
My neighbors did something about 7 years ago. Something Satanic. They somehow apparently opened a portol and spirits came through for at least 3 months between our homes. They did many things at both our homes and actually appeared in flesh form in their back yard, and inside my home 3 feet from where im now sitting right now. Many people in my home witnessed this. My neighbors got so scared they moved away, to the worst part of town.

Just before Christmas, My buddy had a very close encounter with a bigfoot on Ettersburg road, near Garberville. He saw it face to face from 20 feet, He was going into a hairpin turn, and it ran to cut him off. It was almost 7 foot tall. He was afraid it would flip his truck, He made the curve and buried the gas pedal.


Im the son of a genius research scientist. He is a Chemist, Microbiologist, and was Director of research for a fortune 500 company. He was once summoned to the Whitehouse, for a meeting with Vice president and the director of Agriculture ( the president was away). He was sent to Germany on behalf of the US, and I got to go. I overheard my parents discussing the contact the VP sent Dad to meet. They thought he had been a SS officer. This was 1973. We traveled all over Europe for 2 months after the business was done

That's just off the top of my head.
So anyway... The only thread Ive ever started was about hamburgers on National Cheeseburger day.... LOL

PS Everything Ive told you is the truth

People wouldn't even believe these stories, and I don't need to be harassed, So I mostly keep it to my self, But we sure have fun at family get togethers talking about this stuff. I wouldn't have said anything about this stuff, but I do see that we think alike on many subjects and I do respect you Bro.

originally posted by: visitedbythem

originally posted by: Bhadhidar

originally posted by: visitedbythem
I was in a serious motorcycle accident about 9 years ago. My bill was 70 grand. I went to pay my portion, which was 5 grand ( my insurance paid the rest).

I live in California, too.

I had bypass surgery a few years ago with a hospital stay of several days.

My bill was $25.00, and I got to keep the pillow.

You need better insurance.

I will pretty soon because Trump will be in office. My bills included an Airlift, and a day in Emergency and a week in intensive care.

Oh wait...... You must be one of the Illegals I paid for. Move along

My family has been in this country since before it was a country.

And, if it was not for the country family came from, this country would still be a colony.

So who should "move along"?

a reply to: network dude

A good union contract with health insurance benefits paid by our employer.

My HMO charges a $25 co-pay; $50 for emergency room service, waived if I have to be admitted to the hospital.

a reply to: Bhadhidar

Ah, employer paid. Good think you aren't self employed. Then you would see how things are on the outside.

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: Bhadhidar

Ah, employer paid. Good think you aren't self employed. Then you would see how things are on the outside.

There are far more people who are not self-employed than those who are.

Your choice to be self-employed is just that; your choice.

And with that choice you enjoy certain advantages and must accept certain disadvantages. Under our current system, one of those disadvantages is that you are responsible for your own healthcare expenses.

But that was your choice.

a reply to: GreyScale

What planet?

a reply to: Bhadhidar

But it is relatively easy to understand why there is a desert of individual entrepreneurship in the United States.

originally posted by: Bhadhidar

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: Bhadhidar

Ah, employer paid. Good think you aren't self employed. Then you would see how things are on the outside.

There are far more people who are not self-employed than those who are.

Your choice to be self-employed is just that; your choice.

And with that choice you enjoy certain advantages and must accept certain disadvantages. Under our current system, one of those disadvantages is that you are responsible for your own healthcare expenses.

But that was your choice.

yes, it is. But that doesn't change facts. Before Obama care I could afford insurance, after, not so much.