Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for October 23, 2017

Covered by dirt.

We call those holes in the ground, “Obamacare Retirement Homes” around here.

It’s the time of year when our children have to wear swear cancelling headphones whenever I review our health insurance options.

In civilized countries, healthcare is a right. In America, healthcare is a product. Amazing how many people think this is a good thing.

Anybody else find the ways in yet? When you see that clear panel, you know you’re there!

Republicans claim that everyone will have ‘access’ to health care.

Of course you need money to actually get that health care, so it is just one more issue that Republicans lie about. You know, seriously, not literally.

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The trickle down that showers on everyone is golden, but it ain’t gold.

I noticed it was designed so that if you go to the left, you end up in the grave. If you go to the right, you hit a dead end very quickly.

With Trump"care" there’s no maze, just straight to the grave past the robbers!

Looks like it’s based on the VA system: “Delay, deny, perhaps they’ll die!”

I see it covers pre-existing conditions… six feet down.

Looks like the trolls got up early this morning.

Izzat the maze from the Shining?

Healthcare is NOT a right, it is something you buy just like a car. Prior to AHCA everybody bought their coverage and the govt didn’t owe anybody anything. - I would love to see this country have a viable healthcare program but nobody can come up with a solution that is (1) Affordable and (2) doesn’t go against the capitalistic principles that make this country work. 1. AHCA – The A stands for affordable and nobody tries to say it is affordable any longer. It was designed wrong. Instead of attacking the issues that made health care unaffordable it went after the symptoms instead and tried to fix things by having the govt pay. The insurance companies, doctors, and everybody else saw a free pay raise and prices went through the ceiling as they still do. My premiums went from $750 to 875 to 975 and then just as I got a promotion where I could get healthcare through the company, I received a letter saying the premiums on my wife and I with no real health issues went to $1265 per month!!!!! The company I work at now has not released rates but now the Silver plan is a “High Deductible” plan which means we will have to go to Gold to have any real coverage. 2. Obama told Congress it wasn’t a tax. Then he told the Supreme Court it was a tax. The problem is no matter what it is called, it tries to force people to pay for insurance whether they want it or not.They have to force the young and healthy to pay in order to cover the older and sicker people. But the young just paid the penalty instead. - The only way I foresee having a national healthcare program is to have the govt take over the insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors. Then they can set rates and dictate what is covered and what is not. Think Medicare. My father in law thought his Medicare supplement covered what Medicare didn’t. WRONG! It covered the portion Medicare didn’t pay on what it ALLOWED. IF something was not allowed under Medicare, it wasn’t allowed under the Supplement!!!

If somebody can come up with a plan that presents affordable costs and doesn’t require the govt to take over the insurance and medical industries to control prices (called socialism) and doesn’t put the govt in control of who gets treatment and who doesn’t (aka Charlie in England. They wouldn’t even let him leave the country to get treatment elsewhere! ) Then I would be ALL FOR IT! So far ASHCA is a gigantic failure. Everybody has turned it into a Obama-Trump political issue. The real question is How Do You make HealthCare work? Nobody has an answer.

Bravo!Make Congress and all of govenment have to live under the provisions of the act and it would be changed in a heartbeat.

We all want free govt healthcare but then we complain about how incompetent the govt is and we complain about how England treats its people (like the little boy Charlie) http://www.bbc.com/news/health-36101302. The problem is that is what it will take for healthcare, to let the incompetent govt run it. The govt will determine if you get treatment and all the details of that treatment. Do you really want that because that is what is required.

Trump said, “I’ve got this really great health care plan. Trust me, you’re gonna love it!” Now that it is here what we have is sort of like Obamacare. Well, it’s exactly Obamacare. Except it now costs 20% more for less coverage. Are you loving it yet?

@whiteheron: I am with you on that. And, think what might happen to the good if pols were required to live by every regulation and rule they devise. Health care, insurance, tax programs, expense accounts, contracts – the list never ends.

But, then, they excuse the differences with ‘Well, you have to understand that what’s good for you, might not be good for me’

“TrumpDon’tCare” in one picture! Nailed it, Wiley!

This all is our health care system: I need glasses, through my plan they are $800. The plan covers 80%,that leaves $160. Walmart sells two pair for $80, this would save my plan $640 – $60 or $580 but the plan will pay ZERO on the Walmart glasses. Without the plan I still save $80 and get two pair. This is part of our system. Although I paid on my plan all year I still buy the Walmart glasses and save $80. We have great health care.

I thought you had to go through a Republican Death Panel first.

Health care certainly is not a right in America, 5 million American families go bankrupt every year to pay medical bills. Civilized countries cannot believe how primitive we are.

The dominating “leaders” of the Republican party rarely express the thoughts and wishes of the conservative majority. The only reason we vote for their choice is that the alternative is worse.

Cancel one, just one, aircraft carrier order, and put that 5 billion into healthcare for everyone. I know it’s chump change to the gov, but not to most of us folk.

Death is the poor man’s doctor.Every other developed country in the world negotiates health care/drug prices so they bargain with the largest group possible (all citizens) for the most affordable care and no one does this in the US.This is why the same meds for your pet costs 5 times less than it does for the pet owner – and yes I personally know people who buy pet meds for their own use because they can’t afford it otherwise.This is why health insurance coverage costs so much because no one gets the price down to affordable first BEFORE worrying about insurance coverage.This is why deductibles are so high that even people with insurance can’t afford to see a doctor because they can’t afford to pay the deductible.And it’s also the reason why something like a diagnosis of cancer often means you have to make a choice to either pay for chemo or pay your mortgage and in order to live you have to lose your house – happened to two of our neighbors.The last time I had to make an appointment to see a specialist it took 12 weeks.For profit healthcare is obscene.While no system is perfect, I’m not seeing how universal health care could be worse than what we have now.

Supposing we tax by age, and not by income? When you’re twenty five, you pay a lot, and the price goes down as you age, not up. Sad to realise that I’ve been informed that my supplementary coverage will rise substantially every year from now until I’m eighty, and it already costs three times as much as Medicare B. Yet, no COLA on the horizon, and my medical costs take away a third of my social security. The whole thing is a racket to line someone’s pockets!

It is all your fault you were not born like “me”; the exclusive ‘trump’ way.

When I visit the US, the thing that scares me the most in requiring medical attention while I am there. The Canadian system, while it does have its flaws I would like fixed, saves lives.

My older child was an emergency C-Section with both lives in the balance. Cost to me $0. Could I have afforded paying for that? No. I would have been bankrupt, and my doctor would have gotten very little for saving two lives.

My younger child, a planned C-Section due to what happened the first time. Cost to me $0.

Last week, my younger child, now 13, fell and badly broke his elbow. Taken to a small town hospital, transferred to the specialized children’s hospital in the larger center an hour away by ambulance for surgery. Again, I likely would have been bankrupted by the costs, but the cost to us, was also $0, which included tickets to a CFL football game and a chance to meet some of the players. Got to meet the players, but do to the timing of the surgery, wasn’t able to go to the game. Gave the tickets to another family though.

I am receiving ongoing treatment for my mental illness which could have lead to my suicide. Cost to me, about $13 a month for my meds and some gas to travel to my psychiatrist.

In all cases, we were having discussions with the doctors about the treatment plan, based soley on a medical professional’s years of experience with this type of injury. Cost wasn’t even a thought. We don’t even get a statement saying how much it cost.

A homeless person in Toronto can go into a doctor’s office or ER and get the medical treatment he needs. The doctor still gets paid. In the US, he might be able to go to the ER, but the hospital will not get paid, and has to add that cost to everyone else’s bill, so you are paying for other people’s health care. In Canada, we just admit that up front.

The Canadian system is great for emergencies. Just do not be in need of anything like heart surgery.

Nope, sorry, being buried isn’t covered either. It still costs to dig the hole, buy the casket, and get the headstone.

A market-based solution, I see.

If you think destroying America’s Health Care System to pay for tax breaks for the 1% is totally insane, maybe you should stop voting for greedy Republicans.

A society is not measured by how it treats it’s rich and powerful but by how it treats it’s most vulnerable

I think you have to pause at one place in the maze where you are held upside down and all the money is shook out of your pockets

Its not insane, it is quite evil if you consider how many would die prematurely because of it.

Its simple – go to a single payer setup, and base it on medicare. It wouldn’t be hard to do – there would be a base charge for Medicare, and if that is all you want, then you can just stay with it. BUT, as with retirees now, if you want extra coverage, buy it on the private insurance market. There would need to be an adjustment for drug prescriptions so they would be handled by medicare.People would be covered the moment they are born, until they die.Payment would be a monthly deduction from one’s paycheck. If on welfare, then a monthly deduction from your welfare check.Everyone would be required to pay, and EVERYONE would be covered the same way. Politicians, military, regular folks – EVERYONE.

Here’s my take on the healthcare issue: fix the huge healthcare cost problem FIRST, THEN figure out who’s going to pay for it. But with Congress in the pockets of big pharma, the health insurers, and the Kochs, it ain’t gonna happen. It’s just going to get more expensive and more restrictive. We’re doomed.

All I want is a health plan with a website that doesn’t raise my blood pressure just trying to log in.

Love the maze. I did it in reverse first.

That’s how it is now. You wouldn’t believe the headache I had getting medical insurance under the current “Affordable Care Act” (make that “Unaffordable”). The only ones doing well with ACA and whatever lousy replacement is eventually implemented is the medical insurance industry.