Okay, bear with me - this is a bit long, but I hope this will be my last post on the subject.
(1) As far as I can tell, Medicare IS socialized medicine. When the program was developed, people were screaming bloody murder that it was going to ruin America. (Imagine, providing a health care safety net for our senior citizens!) America endures - of course, Medicare doesn’t do nearly enough for seniors.
(2) Although I’d usually argue that what’s good for one group is good for all groups, I think senior citizens are entitled to special treatment. But I still want the public option. Read on.
(3) I’m a Volunteer Independent Advocate for the Elderly - have been for over 10 years. During that time, I’ve seen Americans who have spent their entire lives working hard (and saving their money) lose everything, in as little as 18 months, when they/their spouses develop serious illness. They do everything right - everything - but their insurance claims are denied, often illegally, and they get stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. They’re good, honest people and they pay a lot of those bills out of their own pockets, because they think they have to. And don’t forget - they’re sick, they’re older, so they’re not working. Their savings don’t last very long.
When they call me to help them, I check the paperwork, & almost always find they did everything right. They were cheated by their insurance companies. But by then, the only way they can recover their money is to sue the insurance companies - which takes money they no longer have - and the insurance companies would rather drag the issue out in court than pay what they owe. I’ve seen it happen over and over. (If they call me sooner, of course, I can do more for them.)
There was a time that America had the best medical system in the world - but that time is over. Our hospitals don’t even have the lowest infant mortality rates or the best post-op survival rates anymore. (Don’t even get me started on all the third-rate nurses our hospitals are importing!)
Here’s what people don’t get: the medical community is NOT free to practice medicine anymore. Big insurance companies, not physicians, are making medical decisions.
My uncle was a surgeon all his life, and he did a lot of good in this world; his son’s an endocrinologist. My sister’s a hospital director. We have lots of medical people in my family.
Never in my life did I think I’d support socialized medicine, but I’d much rather trust my health care to socialized medicine than to a greedy corporation who answers to no one but its own stockholders.
(4) As for the source of the crappy insurance system in this country, especially the HMO/PPO setup, you can thank Richard Nixon - he set it up with his buddy, Mr. Kaiser (as in Kaiser Permanente). We know this because Nixon recorded his meetings with Kaiser in which they agreed that setting up this new insurance company-controlled system could be very, very profitable - for them.
You’ve never had a claim denied? Count yourself lucky, but don’t expect that it will never happen to you. It might.
You don’t mind paying $1200 month for insurance? Great!
Would you mind paying one-half of your entire net monthly income for a health insurance premium? Because I mind it very much.
I’m glad to hear that you have a great health care support system around you that doesn’t require insurance - it sure doesn’t exist anywhere around me. The social workers in my area confirm that our county hospitals are hopelessly overwhelmed with uninsured people with all kinds of health problems. Apparently, there are no resources left to help seniors who have spent their entire lives building this country.
I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to help seniors who are in desperate need. I do everything I can for them: writing demand letters to insurance companies, begging for samples of everything in the world (so they won’t have to buy it), calling favors in from journalists, anything I can think of that might give them a little hope.
Socialist cry-baby? Nah. Disabled, semi-socialist grouch who kicks butt on behalf of those who need assistance … yeah, maybe. That might be me.
OKAY, I’M DONE. I apologize for the rant, but this issue is not an intellectual exercise - it’s where I live.
If anyone wants to discuss this further, please email me privately: SWANWRITES@GMAIL.COM. Maybe I can convert you into a volunteer advocate, too, eh?
Let’s not clutter up the comics page with it anymore. This is supposed to be a site for fun, right?
zero about 14 years ago
Passing on joke which would be in exxxtremely poor taste….
ksoskins about 14 years ago
Sometimes Dr. Bob went too far.
Colt9033 about 14 years ago
You would think worst thing you’d heard from a surgeon working on would be “Oops” or we didn’t receive approval from your Insurance company.
celeconecca about 14 years ago
Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rab…. oops!
pschearer Premium Member about 14 years ago
I still hate hearing “oops”, even almost 50 years since I last was a nuclear weapons assembler.
freeholder1 about 14 years ago
Following RC’s lead:
“The first cut is the deepest…”
First and last episode of “Rod Stewart: Surgeon”
freeholder1 about 14 years ago
Looks more like normal private practice to me, Fish.
Coyoty Premium Member about 14 years ago
And he thought no one would find out about his carving his initials into the patients.
Tsigili about 14 years ago
Okay, bear with me - this is a bit long, but I hope this will be my last post on the subject.
(1) As far as I can tell, Medicare IS socialized medicine. When the program was developed, people were screaming bloody murder that it was going to ruin America. (Imagine, providing a health care safety net for our senior citizens!) America endures - of course, Medicare doesn’t do nearly enough for seniors.
(2) Although I’d usually argue that what’s good for one group is good for all groups, I think senior citizens are entitled to special treatment. But I still want the public option. Read on.
(3) I’m a Volunteer Independent Advocate for the Elderly - have been for over 10 years. During that time, I’ve seen Americans who have spent their entire lives working hard (and saving their money) lose everything, in as little as 18 months, when they/their spouses develop serious illness. They do everything right - everything - but their insurance claims are denied, often illegally, and they get stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. They’re good, honest people and they pay a lot of those bills out of their own pockets, because they think they have to. And don’t forget - they’re sick, they’re older, so they’re not working. Their savings don’t last very long.
When they call me to help them, I check the paperwork, & almost always find they did everything right. They were cheated by their insurance companies. But by then, the only way they can recover their money is to sue the insurance companies - which takes money they no longer have - and the insurance companies would rather drag the issue out in court than pay what they owe. I’ve seen it happen over and over. (If they call me sooner, of course, I can do more for them.)
There was a time that America had the best medical system in the world - but that time is over. Our hospitals don’t even have the lowest infant mortality rates or the best post-op survival rates anymore. (Don’t even get me started on all the third-rate nurses our hospitals are importing!)
Here’s what people don’t get: the medical community is NOT free to practice medicine anymore. Big insurance companies, not physicians, are making medical decisions.
My uncle was a surgeon all his life, and he did a lot of good in this world; his son’s an endocrinologist. My sister’s a hospital director. We have lots of medical people in my family.
Never in my life did I think I’d support socialized medicine, but I’d much rather trust my health care to socialized medicine than to a greedy corporation who answers to no one but its own stockholders.
(4) As for the source of the crappy insurance system in this country, especially the HMO/PPO setup, you can thank Richard Nixon - he set it up with his buddy, Mr. Kaiser (as in Kaiser Permanente). We know this because Nixon recorded his meetings with Kaiser in which they agreed that setting up this new insurance company-controlled system could be very, very profitable - for them.
You’ve never had a claim denied? Count yourself lucky, but don’t expect that it will never happen to you. It might.
You don’t mind paying $1200 month for insurance? Great! Would you mind paying one-half of your entire net monthly income for a health insurance premium? Because I mind it very much.
I’m glad to hear that you have a great health care support system around you that doesn’t require insurance - it sure doesn’t exist anywhere around me. The social workers in my area confirm that our county hospitals are hopelessly overwhelmed with uninsured people with all kinds of health problems. Apparently, there are no resources left to help seniors who have spent their entire lives building this country.
I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to help seniors who are in desperate need. I do everything I can for them: writing demand letters to insurance companies, begging for samples of everything in the world (so they won’t have to buy it), calling favors in from journalists, anything I can think of that might give them a little hope.
Socialist cry-baby? Nah. Disabled, semi-socialist grouch who kicks butt on behalf of those who need assistance … yeah, maybe. That might be me.
OKAY, I’M DONE. I apologize for the rant, but this issue is not an intellectual exercise - it’s where I live.
If anyone wants to discuss this further, please email me privately: SWANWRITES@GMAIL.COM. Maybe I can convert you into a volunteer advocate, too, eh?
Let’s not clutter up the comics page with it anymore. This is supposed to be a site for fun, right?