Death panels versus "pay or die"

[WHAMPOM]

I still cant' get over how Republicans turned "counseling family members of terminal patients" into "DEATH PANELS!" Must be in how they perceive the world. Cockeyed!

 

[boomerang]

45+ million (and growing) uninsured Americans

If you count all the citizens of Mexico you could make that number a lot larger. Just because they're not here (yet) doesn't mean we shouldn't count them. Are they illegals if they're not here yet?

It's hard to take posts seriously that are based on fallacious arguments. I'm sure you'll get more responses though.

 

[Xellos2099]

Demand won't decrease. Patients per doctor may decrease but the same amount of people seeking health care will stay the same. Maybe long term, if people got regularly checked up, long term problems may be caught and prevented, thus requiring less doctor visits and be less costly to the patient.

Increase supply should equal to increase competition for business. The more the competition, the lower the price per doctor visit.

 

[sportage]

Pointless thread. Naturally people die every day because they are simply refused medical care. And where it really gets disgusting is when insurance YOU PAY FOR from your employer, decides they no longer are obligated to pay for your treatment.

I have a close friend that suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. She takes treatments, IV, every so often. A few months ago her rheumatoid arthritis flared up like never before. She could not work. Just standing caused her to faint from the pain alone.
She lost 40 #'s over a month’s time, just due to suffering and pain.
She actually looks like an AIDs patient, back from the early days of AIDs before treatment was available. She also pays for insurance, short and long term insurance, through her employer.
She was off work for two months, in and out of the hospital.
Her employer insurance decided they no longer were obligated to pay.
She tried to use her short term insurance. Turned down. Told her to get a lawyer and fight them. Her employer expected her to be back to work within two weeks.

She went in for rheumatoid arthritis treatments, and was told they could do nothing.
The nurse in the office, knowing the situation and her history, broke down crying after the office actually turned her away unable to offer treatment for her rheumatoid arthritis due to insurance rejection.

Last time I seen her, last weekend, she could hardly walk. She is 45 and looked like she was 85. I begged her to find a lawyer and get on SSDI. She is so weak, and when you are that weak, you hardly have the will or energy to fight. People don’t understand that, that one can get so ill that they have no will to fight.

THIS IS healthcare in America 2011. ANd I can easily see exactly how and why America healthcare has the highest death rate outcome.
People have this false belief that ANYONE can get quality healthcare in America... NOT TRUE!
People have this belief America has the best quality healthcare... NOT TRUE!
People have this belief if they work and pay for employer health insurance as well as short and long term disability that they are covered... ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!!!!!!!

You can spin and spin. Believe every lie about affordable quality healthcare in America.
You can believe that if you play by the rules, you are protected.
Think again!
All I can say is… anyone posting here, in favor of the current American healthcare system, has no knowledge of what they speak. And they better pray, and pray hard THEY do not find themselves victim of this system they blindly embrace. You play by all the rules, and fully believed you are protected, then discover you are not. I think that is called a wake-up call. Or a death panel.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

Your wrong to pull that emotional blackmail crap sportage. If that woman had saved every penny from birth she wouldnt be in this situation.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

Your wrong to pull that emotional blackmail crap sportage. If that woman had saved every penny from birth she wouldnt be in this situation.

It her own fault for getting rheumatoid arthritis in the first place.

 

[shira]

We don't have pay or die. Of the four people I've known most recently afflicted with cancer, three had no insurance and no significant assets. All received treatment, including one who, before his death, had received surgery, radiation, and three different chemo regimes for pancreatic cancer which was stage four when diagnosed. The other two survived, but having no real assets their debts will no doubt be entirely written off, or nearly so.

You're talking about health care in 2011. But if the would-be budget-cutters are to be believed, pay or die is unavoidable. If government spending is slashed, who's going to pay for the uninsured or underinsured? The answer apparently is: no one.

 

[Infohawk]

OP's complaint goes the other way too though. You have liberal posters who don't seem to recognize the European choices that have to be made if you go that route. They act like it's no biggie for the government pay for just about any medical care. In fact, the Europeans make serious decisions. I don't think it's as outrageous as many conservatives do, but you have to at least recognize that ANY system is limited in the amount of care it can provide.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

OP's complaint goes the other way too though. You have liberal posters who don't seem to recognize the European choices that have to be made if you go that route. They act like it's no biggie for the government pay for just about any medical care. In fact, the Europeans make serious decisions. I don't think it's as outrageous as many conservatives do, but you have to at least recognize that ANY system is limited in the amount of care it can provide.

Of course. There are finite resources.

But the right seem to think it's better to have 10 people die cause they cant afford healthcare, rather than have 1 person die from 'rationing' or whatever you want to call it.

We have UHC and there's never been a news story in my lifetime of someone who got fucked over buy rationing. And trust me, that shit would make the news in a heartbeat if some old person was told they couldnt have surgery or whatever.

It's process. They talk to the person and their family and explain that some massive operation will only give them a few more months to live so it's probably not a great idea.

 

[sandorski]

The US Right suffers from a Warped Puritan Morality. That is, everything is a consequence of some Persons actions. Something Bad happens to You, You did something to deserve it.

 

[glenn1]

The far right position on this is the same as their position on anything: Poor people deserve what they get and get what they deserve because they are poor.

And "pay or die" is good. Pay or die health care. Let's e-mail our congress people.

And the left position is that we should have "you pay for me" healthcare.

 

[Murloc]

Pointless thread. Naturally people die every day because they are simply refused medical care. And where it really gets disgusting is when insurance YOU PAY FOR from your employer, decides they no longer are obligated to pay for your treatment.

I have a close friend that suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. She takes treatments, IV, every so often. A few months ago her rheumatoid arthritis flared up like never before. She could not work. Just standing caused her to faint from the pain alone.
She lost 40 #'s over a month’s time, just due to suffering and pain.
She actually looks like an AIDs patient, back from the early days of AIDs before treatment was available. She also pays for insurance, short and long term insurance, through her employer.
She was off work for two months, in and out of the hospital.
Her employer insurance decided they no longer were obligated to pay.
She tried to use her short term insurance. Turned down. Told her to get a lawyer and fight them. Her employer expected her to be back to work within two weeks.

She went in for rheumatoid arthritis treatments, and was told they could do nothing.
The nurse in the office, knowing the situation and her history, broke down crying after the office actually turned her away unable to offer treatment for her rheumatoid arthritis due to insurance rejection.

Last time I seen her, last weekend, she could hardly walk. She is 45 and looked like she was 85. I begged her to find a lawyer and get on SSDI. She is so weak, and when you are that weak, you hardly have the will or energy to fight. People don’t understand that, that one can get so ill that they have no will to fight.

THIS IS healthcare in America 2011. ANd I can easily see exactly how and why America healthcare has the highest death rate outcome.
People have this false belief that ANYONE can get quality healthcare in America... NOT TRUE!
People have this belief America has the best quality healthcare... NOT TRUE!
People have this belief if they work and pay for employer health insurance as well as short and long term disability that they are covered... ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!!!!!!!

You can spin and spin. Believe every lie about affordable quality healthcare in America.
You can believe that if you play by the rules, you are protected.
Think again!
All I can say is… anyone posting here, in favor of the current American healthcare system, has no knowledge of what they speak. And they better pray, and pray hard THEY do not find themselves victim of this system they blindly embrace. You play by all the rules, and fully believed you are protected, then discover you are not. I think that is called a wake-up call. Or a death panel.

yeah if even the insurances don't pay then something is not working...
It's just wrong that money has to come first.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

And the left position is that we should have "you pay for me" healthcare.

OMG Socialism!!!1

 

[Bowfinger]

One minor correction - the right thinks self-responsibility is the key to prosperity. The left feels that collective responsibility leads to prosperity. Society can prosper, or fail to prosper, either way. A society with far too little self-responsibility will always fail, as witnessed by all Communist nations, but short of that may still prosper at a level lower than optimum. A society with too little collective responsibility may still prosper, but that prosperity will be even more unevenly divided than any society must be. (For any society must have unevenly divided prosperity if it is to have any significant prosperity at all.) The main difference between left and right mainstreams is not absolute self-responsibility or absolute collective responsibility, but about society's balance between the two. Not many left wingers wish to turn over all their income to government, and not many right wingers refuse to drive on government roads; we disagree on how far government should reach.

Well said. It's a shame P&N can't have more discussions about how to strike the best balance instead of the constant demonization and use of straw man extremes.

 

[Bowfinger]

And the left position is that we should have "you pay for me" healthcare.

That's not really the left's position. That's the position of pretty much the entire industrialized world, left, center, and right, except in the United States where oppressive marketing by special interests has duped too many into advocating against the overall best interests of Americans.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Pointless thread. Naturally people die every day because they are simply refused medical care. And where it really gets disgusting is when insurance YOU PAY FOR from your employer, decides they no longer are obligated to pay for your treatment.

I have a close friend that suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. She takes treatments, IV, every so often. A few months ago her rheumatoid arthritis flared up like never before. She could not work. Just standing caused her to faint from the pain alone.
She lost 40 #'s over a month’s time, just due to suffering and pain.
She actually looks like an AIDs patient, back from the early days of AIDs before treatment was available. She also pays for insurance, short and long term insurance, through her employer.
She was off work for two months, in and out of the hospital.
Her employer insurance decided they no longer were obligated to pay.
She tried to use her short term insurance. Turned down. Told her to get a lawyer and fight them. Her employer expected her to be back to work within two weeks.

She went in for rheumatoid arthritis treatments, and was told they could do nothing.
The nurse in the office, knowing the situation and her history, broke down crying after the office actually turned her away unable to offer treatment for her rheumatoid arthritis due to insurance rejection.

Last time I seen her, last weekend, she could hardly walk. She is 45 and looked like she was 85. I begged her to find a lawyer and get on SSDI. She is so weak, and when you are that weak, you hardly have the will or energy to fight. People don’t understand that, that one can get so ill that they have no will to fight.

THIS IS healthcare in America 2011. ANd I can easily see exactly how and why America healthcare has the highest death rate outcome.
People have this false belief that ANYONE can get quality healthcare in America... NOT TRUE!
People have this belief America has the best quality healthcare... NOT TRUE!
People have this belief if they work and pay for employer health insurance as well as short and long term disability that they are covered... ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!!!!!!!

You can spin and spin. Believe every lie about affordable quality healthcare in America.
You can believe that if you play by the rules, you are protected.
Think again!
All I can say is… anyone posting here, in favor of the current American healthcare system, has no knowledge of what they speak. And they better pray, and pray hard THEY do not find themselves victim of this system they blindly embrace. You play by all the rules, and fully believed you are protected, then discover you are not. I think that is called a wake-up call. Or a death panel.

Yet I had a close friend/coworker who fought colon cancer for 3 1/2 years. He wasn't fired, his insurance wasn't cancelled, and he went on short disability several times during the 3 1/2 years for chemo treatments. The maximum he paid was the $2,000 per year (including deductible).

 

[Mursilis]

The US Right suffers from a Warped Puritan Morality. That is, everything is a consequence of some Persons actions. Something Bad happens to You, You did something to deserve it.

I guess it's "Make up stuff on the Internet" Day again. I'll play. The US Left likes to kick puppies!

 

[Bowfinger]

I guess it's "Make up stuff on the Internet" Day again. I'll play. The US Left likes to kick puppies!

Really? That seems to be a common theme. We even see it in this thread. People aren't poor or don't lose health coverage due to external circumstances. It's because they're lazy or stupid. Certainly I agree not everyone on the right uses that excuse, but a great many do.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

It's at the very core of the Randian ideology running conservatives these days. It's not like they are keeping it secret.

 

[JohnnyGage]

I still cant' get over how Republicans turned "counseling family members of terminal patients" into "DEATH PANELS!" Must be in how they perceive the world. Cockeyed!

I can't get over how when someone says "hey, maybe we should restructure medicare so it will be solvent past 2020" and Democrats scream "YOU'RE KILLING GRANDMA!" yep it's totally cockeyed.

 

[Mursilis]

Really? That seems to be a common theme. We even see it in this thread. People aren't poor or don't lose health coverage due to external circumstances. It's because they're lazy or stupid. Certainly I agree not everyone on the right uses that excuse, but a great many do.

Keep clinging to those strawmen, if that's what works for you then. It certainly can't be that anyone on the right would like to see universal coverage, but simply doesn't trust gov't and its inherent inefficiencies to do it any better than the private sector (and probably much, much worse).

Of course, the so-called puritans of the right have a point, regardless, when it comes to health. My father was a pack/day smoker for 30+ years, and obese, and thus the massive MI that killed him at 60 was no surprise. My mom's been a registered dietician for 40+ years, and even as society learned more about what diabetes can do your health long-term, she says the number of diagnoses and the degree of compliance have only gotten worse over the years. She tells severe cases that they could lose their feet, their kidneys could fail, and they could go blind if they don't get their diabetes under control, but are they willing to stop eating buckets of chicken at a time? For most, no. And when told they need to lose weight, they don't want to be told about exercise programs or health clubs (with fees paid by the insurance companies!) - they actually get angry at her when she suggests this! No, they insist on gastric bypass surgery, since that's the "easy" way out. Many Americans are as short-sighted about their health as they are about their finances, and you need only look at the housing crisis to see how that played out.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

People not taking care of their own health vs. accessibility to healthcare are two related but separate issues. Both need to be addressed if there's any hope of actually fixing our healthcare mess, but guess which side screams OMG Socialism!!1 when there's an attempt to.

 

[wirednuts]

It her own fault for getting rheumatoid arthritis in the first place.

i agree, i mean its actually the parents fault for getting together knowing full well their genes would lead to a rheumoid baby, but its just like when your parents die and you get their house. youre stuck with the arthritis and a complete idiot to think someone else should have to pay for that. survival of the capitalist fittest!

 

[JohnnyGage]

Pointless thread. Naturally people die every day because they are simply refused medical care. And where it really gets disgusting is when insurance YOU PAY FOR from your employer, decides they no longer are obligated to pay for your treatment.

I have a close friend that suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. She takes treatments, IV, every so often. A few months ago her rheumatoid arthritis flared up like never before. She could not work. Just standing caused her to faint from the pain alone.
She lost 40 #'s over a month’s time, just due to suffering and pain.
She actually looks like an AIDs patient, back from the early days of AIDs before treatment was available. She also pays for insurance, short and long term insurance, through her employer.
She was off work for two months, in and out of the hospital.
Her employer insurance decided they no longer were obligated to pay.
She tried to use her short term insurance. Turned down. Told her to get a lawyer and fight them. Her employer expected her to be back to work within two weeks.

She went in for rheumatoid arthritis treatments, and was told they could do nothing.
The nurse in the office, knowing the situation and her history, broke down crying after the office actually turned her away unable to offer treatment for her rheumatoid arthritis due to insurance rejection.

Last time I seen her, last weekend, she could hardly walk. She is 45 and looked like she was 85. I begged her to find a lawyer and get on SSDI. She is so weak, and when you are that weak, you hardly have the will or energy to fight. People don’t understand that, that one can get so ill that they have no will to fight.

THIS IS healthcare in America 2011. ANd I can easily see exactly how and why America healthcare has the highest death rate outcome.
People have this false belief that ANYONE can get quality healthcare in America... NOT TRUE!
People have this belief America has the best quality healthcare... NOT TRUE!
People have this belief if they work and pay for employer health insurance as well as short and long term disability that they are covered... ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!!!!!!!

You can spin and spin. Believe every lie about affordable quality healthcare in America.
You can believe that if you play by the rules, you are protected.
Think again!
All I can say is… anyone posting here, in favor of the current American healthcare system, has no knowledge of what they speak. And they better pray, and pray hard THEY do not find themselves victim of this system they blindly embrace. You play by all the rules, and fully believed you are protected, then discover you are not. I think that is called a wake-up call. Or a death panel.

We could have Hayabusa Rider come in and tell you about the AIDS patient that couldn't get his meds from the pharmacy because New York states medicaid wouldn't give him the new number for his insurance card. The patient died because of a stupid number that no one was able to give the pharmacist the new number over the phone and couldn't do so for six weeks. BOTH situations make me nauseous BTW. Neither should happen.

We all have these situations we can bring in. Being in the medical field, trust me no one is dying in the streets. We do everything we can to help anyone survive regardless of coverage. I work at a smallish hospital, and we have at least 10 discharge planners and at least 6 full time social workers all making sure that people are covered by whatever means possible. Do people fall through the cracks? Of course, but that is going to happen whether they are covered by insurance or the utopia of single payer.

 

[werepossum]

Well said. It's a shame P&N can't have more discussions about how to strike the best balance instead of the constant demonization and use of straw man extremes.

Thanks. I greatly value your opinion - even if I sometimes violently disagree with it.

We could have Hayabusa Rider come in and tell you about the AIDS patient that couldn't get his meds from the pharmacy because New York states medicaid wouldn't give him the new number for his insurance card. The patient died because of a stupid number that no one was able to give the pharmacist the new number over the phone and couldn't do so for six weeks. BOTH situations make me nauseous BTW. Neither should happen.

We all have these situations we can bring in. Being in the medical field, trust me no one is dying in the streets. We do everything we can to help anyone survive regardless of coverage. I work at a smallish hospital, and we have at least 10 discharge planners and at least 6 full time social workers all making sure that people are covered by whatever means possible. Do people fall through the cracks? Of course, but that is going to happen whether they are covered by insurance or the utopia of single payer.

Well said. I think there are three core problems to solve - providing universal access to health care, controlling costs, and moving health insurance costs from the employer to the individual and/or government (for purposes of competitiveness.) None of those are stand-alone, they each influence the others. I suspect we'll eventually have to adopt a split system such as Spain's where everyone gets government-supplied basic care free, with the option of buying better and/or quicker care via private insurance or fee-for-service. (I'm ignoring for the moment that Spain is even more broke than are we.)

My preference would be for universal health savings accounts with catastrophic care riders, making each individual responsible for managing his own health care costs. Money would come out pre-tax, and low income individuals would receive government assistance. I fear though that as a nation we've become far too entitled to accept that; we've come to feel that our health care should be paid by "someone else".