Health Care

[wolfrose]

So the same old lame scare tactic used to argue against universal health care is that there will be a bureaucrat in between you and your health care. So let's look at the definition of bureaucrat.

bureaucrat
Main Entry: bu·reau·crat
Pronunciation: \ˈbyu̇r-ə-ˌkrat, ˈbyər-\
Function: noun
Date: 1839

: a member of a bureaucracy


bureaucracy
Main Entry: bu·reau·cra·cy
Pronunciation: \byu̇-ˈrä-krə-sē, byə-, byər-ˈä-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural bu·reau·cra·cies
Etymology: French bureaucratie, from bureau + -cratie -cracy
Date: 1818

1 a: a body of nonelective government officials b: an administrative policy-making group
2: government characterized by specialization of functions, adherence to fixed rules, and a hierarchy of authority
3: a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation

Oh my! Sounds a lot like an insurance company to me.

Not so long ago my aunt had a blood test done that showed positive markers for pancreatic cancer. One of the things needed for further testing was an MRI study with and without contrast and the most important one being the one with. The insurance paper pushers decided that they would allow her to have the one without contrast but not the one she needed the most. They have also recently denied her another test that her doctor told her was needed. I will not even go into the medications the doctor prescribed that the insurance company will not approve.

So you see, that old scare tactic isn't a what if, it's an already is. Universal health care would be better because your doctor would have more say about what you need for your health care. Paper pushers who work for the insurance companies are there to make sure the insurance company makes money. They do not really care whether or not you are sick and need an expensive proceedure. Or rather they do care, because they stand to lose money if you actually need the health care you gave them money to insure you would get when you needed it... and they will drop you like hot potato if it looks like you're going to start costing them money.

Just sayin.

Comments

[lucifera-shadow.livejournal.com]

Word.

[minteckers.livejournal.com]

I don't know. My friends in Canada have had problems similar to those of your aunt.

One of my friends had a scary mole and had to wait months before she could get an appointment to even have it looked at, let alone get it biopsied and removed.

I'm not a socialist though, so it's probably extra easy for me to fail to grasp these kinds of concepts.

[gwenwolfrose.livejournal.com]

I have a friend in Canada that has had several procedures done in a timely manner. The key there was also that they got done and were not denied. My aunt waits for months on approval and then gets denied. She's been waiting since April for her pain medication to be approved.

Socialized health care isn't perfect but at least it doesn't say if your not rich enough to pay we will kick you to the curb to die. Everyone pays, everyone benefits. With our insurance for profit system just because you pay doesn't mean you will get the benefits in fact it's proven that if you really need it, you will not get what you paid for.

[minteckers.livejournal.com]

True, insurance is for profit and thus some things aren't covered. But what would the government do to pay for this ridiculously unhealthy country's medical bills? Tax us all into poverty?

I've got more health problems than the average person, and no health insurance. However I'm still not a fan of socialized medicine. I can' t think of a single thing the federal government does better than the private sector.

Now, seeing as I have lupus and pretty severe chronic depression, free healthcare would be GREAT for me, but I have to consider what is best for the entire country vs. what would be great for me. Ya know, the whole "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" I think for this country it would be a very bad idea. It would benefit everyone with health problems equally, but what would the effect be on the economy over all with Americans being forced to pay so much more in taxes?

The other thing to consider would be what if healthcare turned into the same ordeal as SSI? SSI is supposed to be there when you need it, but it's nigh impossible to get signed on, even when you have legitamate disabilities, and even then covering those people is turning out to be a problem.

If each individual state could work out a health program it would possibly be more doable. However even then the medium sized states are still larger than most of the countries that have socialized medicine, so it's hard to say. The entire country of Canada has as many people as the state of California, so it's hard to compare.

[gwenwolfrose.livejournal.com]

Well, they may get a slight increase in taxes but then they would no longer be dishing out $500 or more a month in insurance payments.

For the record, my husband spent over twenty years in the Navy. I have Fibromyalgia, Chronic Depression, Type 2 Diabetes and PTSD just to name a few. What I have for health care is a bit on the socialized side already, mine comes from the military. I'm taken care of for the most part so I'm not worried about this for selfish reasons. I worry about this for the kids who eat ramen noodles for dinner because they have a single mother doing the best she can to get by while her dead beat ex is out on the lake enjoying his new boat refusing to add the children to his health care plan at work and their mom makes just enough to not qualify for CHIP and of course cant afford to get her own insurance because she is already feeding the children ramen for dinner.

I think people like Bill Gates can afford to pay a bit more in taxes which is who the taxes are aimed at right now. The middle class (is there a middle class left) will actually get a tax cut under Obama's plan.

[solandra.livejournal.com]

I'm allll for socialized healthcare, I just wonder where the money is going to come from. I know if we cut just a tiny bit off of our insane military funding we could pull it off, but, we probably won't. Also, we need to work on getting Americans more healthy. Considering more and more people are becoming morbidly obese for one thing (It's genetics, right, not all the fast food and lack of exercise?), and there's beginning to be more old people than young, the medical bills are going to start piling up.