How many of you have health insurance?

Blue Cross................Med and Dental with major medical and RX........222 a month

Kids have their own which is free through my work. Spouse has her own through her work, she pays around 140 a month.

As a side note, I have noticed that if I have to make a ER trip they are 1000 percent nicer when they see my insurance card.

[edit on 14-5-2008 by TXMACHINEGUNDLR]

Originally posted by enchantress62
I am a nurse, I work in a nursing home, and let me tell you there is a lot of waste going on within our current healthcare system that most ppl don't even know about. Example: In all nursing homes when a patient is put on a medication, then taken off, (like for example an antibiotic that is later found to not be needed) that medication, which comes in packages of 30 tabs is put into a box and later flushed down the toilet. We are not allowed to redestribute these meds, nor does the Rx take them back. It's illegal to give them to anyone else, and the patient is not allowed to give them to other family members.

I would like to respond to this. I am not a full fledged nurse, however I am a student nurse pursing a degree to become a RN, and I have worked in hospitals and nursing homes for my clinicals. I don't know what the policy is for your facility, but I know that all facilities have different policies when it comes to meds, how they are distributed, and how they are disposed of.

With that being said, if this is the policy for your facility, that is just plain ridiculous. All the facilities I have worked in have a system where the nurse gets the patients meds out of an automated machine. This machine is in a separate room and all the meds are kept in drawers. The ones I have used need a thumb print identification just to log in. The drawers only open after all of the meds for that patient have been selected and all of the meds are individually wrapped. You only get the meds you need for that patient that were ordered by the physician/doctor, and at the time they need them. Also the dosages are pretty standard and physicians know this. If a dosage is changed it should be pretty easy to get the new dosage by adding or cutting a pill if it's scored. If not the pharmacy should get the correct dosage. So for you to say you have a pack of 30 tabs that is flushed down the toilet just sounds ridiculous to me. I have never seen any meds used they way you describe and in that quantity all at once. Like I said, everything is individually wrapped and we only take what we need...usually one pill.

Originally posted by enchantress62
If a patient is put on say a heart med and later the doctor increases or decreases the dosage the original pills are thrown in the waste box. This is true of all meds. Now that's ok if you think in terms of one person but I work in a small facility and we have a maximum capacity of 78 ppl. Think of that in terms of the massive amounts of nursing homes and other related institutions across this country. We're talking billions of dollars litterally down the toilet! Mind you, the patient is not reimbursed for the cost of the wasted meds, nor is medicare/medicade reimbursed (which we the tax payers pay for) I am required to do this every night on my shift in the mean time. I have no healthcare insurance and am diabetic and anemic. So I get to flush the very medications I need to be taking and can't afford down the toilet every night!

Again, this doesn't sound right either. All the meds are individual wrapped, if in pill form. If the dosage is increased or decreased the nurse should be able to add a pill, or cut a pill in half if it is scored. The pharmacy should ALWAYS be able to provide to proper dosage pill no matter what. I am not sure what you mean by "original" pills. All the facilities I have worked at have all the meds individual wrapped and you get what you need. It's not like they just give us a jar with 50 pills in it to use on an "as needed" basis. It seems like your facility has some serious issues with meds distribution if what you say is true. It's unnecessary and very wasteful.

Originally posted by Malynn
You can crow your "it's all about me" ideology all you want. It seems like we're all about to find out how terrible this little dog-eat-dog experiment really was. If the current economic indicators mean anything.

I'm not sure what you mean and I'm not aware of any dog-eat-dog experiment. I do favor a reduction of Federal Powers. A person cannot realistically amd sustainably be responsible for the well-being of others wholly unconnected to their community. That's part of the problem globally now. For example, the US will go into places to "set up infrastructure" and then abandon them. If the population doesn't have the cultural wherewithal to foster certain types of social institutions, you just create unnatural power vacuums and worse yet, the people who were young during the "Helping" (occupation) are thrown to the dogs when the all-powerful Philanthropists get bored. Kids get vaccinated for childhood diseases so they can grow up, produce offspring without the means to support them, and become disease vectors themselves. Good intentions...
So what are you saying? Marxism is a bit outdated...
And I don't know any person or organization that uses Occam's Razor (maybe in a journal publication w/hypthesis test, but that is neither behavior or policy...) so we all must be really diligent and productive.

I don't have health care. My minumum wage job offered a healthcare plan after a year but I couldnt afford it because it was something like 40% of my paycheck every week and I barely make ends meet to begin with. I havent seen a dentist since my senior year of high school either. Im 27. Honestly if I had a serious medical problem I might as well just commit suicide. And I probably will.

I'm covered through the Marines, and my mom and dad until i'm 22. I've been very lucky to always grow up with health insurance.

reply to post by guyopitz


Right, because hospitals do not have a policy of accepting anyone in an emergency situation regardless of income level or insurance situation. Oh wait, they do have that policy. Well I guess you will not have to commit suicide after all... And wow, healthcare is available to absolutely everyone now, yet, socialist want us to have a government run system anyway... intriguing.

I have excellent insurance coverage and no, I have absolutely zero interest in universal health care for anyone else. Already the medical facillities in at least the 3 states I've lived my life in (New Mexico, Arizona, Washington) have laws on the books that state no emergency room or clinic can reject someone and refuse care of them because of lack of the abillity to pay for the care. This $20 figure of yours, I'd like to see a source on that one. Currently I pay roughly $350 a month, which is taken out before taxes are calculated, to cover myself, my wife, and 2 children for medical, dental, and vision coverage. Last I saw, and I can't find a source on this because I saw it several months ago on a local news program, unfortunately, Clinton's plan would almost double that and I'd lose a portion of my tax credit... plus my POS co-pay would double from $10 to $20, same for my prescription co-pay, and I'd also lose the freedom I currently enjoy to go to any doctor or specialist in the network without needing a referal or any primary care physician.

Sorry, no sale of this plan to me. I support deregulating the insurance industry, allowing generic drugs to be imported from Canada, and providing some sort of voucher program for low income to impoverished people so that the current system of leeching (ie: walking into an emergency room, getting treated, and walking right back out with zero accountabillity or responsibillity for the bill being tied to the patient) can be deep sixed. I also am 100% opposed to providing any form of free of charge care to illegal aliens inside this country. Far too many times I saw the figures for the hospitals in Tucson that laid out exactly how big a chunk of unpaid bills the illegals ate out of those budgets. In fact, it was highly offensive to me to have to sit for 20 minutes filling out paperwork and showing several different forms of ID and insurance cards to get my wife signed in for the birth of our son in Tucson only to watch a guy who spoke no english and was there in total violation of federal law get his wife back into a delivery room in a matter of several minutes purely because the hospital knew they had no insurance, no IDs or green cards, and it would be pointless to persue the missing money. 'Ere go, my insurance was billed nonsense like $450 for a packet of 3 little plastic tubes for my wife's I.V. $25 worth of plastic and they're charging 18 times that for it totally and completely due to having to make up for the missing revenue caused by having to treat someone who pays nothing for their treatment.

So no, I'm not about to buy into yet another plan by the liberals in America directed towards penalizing the successfull middle and upper middle class under the auspices of elevating the poor. It won't elevate the poor (who as I said pay little anyway unless they're poor and they suffer from Munchausens) it will simply bring down the cost charged to the insurance company or the overall cost to the hospital. Either way that savings will not be passed along to the middle class.

I am very lucky. I'm looking at my total compensation from last year here.

I contributed $520 for the year for health benefits.
My employer paid $4,350.

My insurance costs 400 a month. but I pay minimal because I've been working for this company for 9 years. I get the best healthcare in the US. I use it for check ups, and whatever else, I use it. I make sure I use it. do I want to loose this? perhaps not, but I want others to get the same benefits i'm getting because i'm not only thinking about myself. None of my 3 sisters have this insurance and they should. One of my sisters has to pay out of pocket 300 a month for her kid. That's just rude.

Some say you can't trust the government to run healthcare. Yet, you let your governemnt hire soldiers and run a war for you and then you trust that? How is it that you trust in your governemnet with the military, but not with healthcare? if you don't want the US government to run things here maybe you should move somewhere else, because they already run everything.

I am a 100% disabled vet but I was working as a contractor when I was injured.

I am paying $265/ month for major medical.

My oldest son looses his coverage 9/08 when he turns 18. Does not matter that he will continue to be a full time student in college.

Unless I can get reviewed and released to return to work this October, I can no longer afford insurance. They tell me now I permanent disabled [spine] and unemployable.

Fortunately my 12 year old will be covered until he is 18 under his mother's Blue Cross.

I am pleading my case in September to teach only either in the public school system in Florida or the new Joint Special Operations Command at Eglin AFB which in commutable to my home.

A lot of my former veteran friends are without any health insurance coverage currently. The post Viet Nam era vets need help.

reply to post by jedimiller


Oh I don't know, the Iraq war has its share of private investment .

Some have mentioned paying for other people's healthcare, keeping people alive, but they don't seem to realize how much of their tax dollars are going toward killing people in another country.

This site may be of interest.

It's costing every American household close to $5000 a year to run the Iraq war. But yet, people complain and beat their chests about the very thought of evil socialists coming in to steal your money to put it into health care .

Having said that, I don't think the public health system can cope with everything, and private health insurance has its place. Here in Australia the income rate for levy-free Medicare has been raised - this is going to see a lot of people who can afford private healthcare go into the public system, a system which is becoming stretched.

So, what will it be then. Private or public? I think there needs to be both. Can we trust government with our health? Well, if we can't, then why do even need governments? What's the good of them!

Let's just overthrow all our governments and replace it with private enterprise, run the world like a business, and let everyone fend for themselves to the death.

reply to post by jedimiller


I trust them with the millitary because the government has proven they're quite efficient at killing people (at least they used to be, before we were shelling out a couple billion per dead enemy combatant. Guess I can't say I trust them to run that, either.) They've yet to show any proficiency at keeping people alive, however.

reply to post by jedimiller

it impossible for it to be 20 a months. its stupid to even say its going to be that amount. its ignorant to even think about it. hahahaha
theyre going to tax the hell out of all of us if the dems wins. the rich wont pay, so we will. im not against it but its not possible so it doesnt make sense to have a program that will ruin our economy.

you said hilary healthy care is the only way to help ourselve, but isnt that dumb your depending on someone else so how is that helping your self??? something is awfully wrong with the way you think.

good luck in life

I am 32, single, and do not currently have health insurance. I just started a new job as an independent contractor and will be getting insurance on my own in the next couple of months- the rates I am looking at with deductibles that are reasonable are between $200-300/month, a couple of plans with vision and dental care tacked on. I did look up one plan that had no waiting period for pre-existing conditions and no deductible- it was $600 per month. I hope one day I can afford that kind of coverage.

And all of my previous full-time "corporate" jobs did have insurance- usually after 3 months because I am in sales and the turnover rate is high.

And I would not mind chipping in 20 bucks a month for universal health care if I am not struggling. To be honest, if I needed food on my table then heck no, but as long as I have food and shelter I would be fine with that.

reply to post by jedimiller


The Iraq war was pushed through without even the approval of Congress so how can you make the statement of us trusting the government to run the war that we had absolutely no say in, then we should trust them to run healthcare.

My heart goes out to those that cannot afford insurance; however, there are things in place to help those types of people. Already I am paying for other people to eat, to live, to enjoy education, all through my taxes, which the lower income families pay very little of if any. Now I have pay for them to have medical care as well?

You want Universal healthcare, lets not stop there. Let's make income tax fair too. Everyone pays a flat rate. I am sorry, but socialism is not for me.

To the gentleman that stated that his soon to be 18 year old was going to lose coverage but still be in college, look into your college sir. I do not know of many colleges that do not have a health clinic on campus that will gladly take care of your son while he is in school. Granted this will not cover anything major, but its better than nothing. If anything major arises, and I surely hope nothing does, then any ER will gladly accept you.

reply to post by GetOutOfMyRabbitHole


Noone would mind 20 bux a month, but you cannot supply healthcare to a nation for 20 dollars a month. These figures are made up by Jediguywhateverhisnameis to push his agenda. For 20 dollars a month the hospitals and doctors offices would be absolutely flooded with people getting thier stumped toe examined. Why? because "smile, its all inclusive." Then Reallysickjohnson goes in and has to wait 10 days behind Mylegitcheslarry because he just wants to make sure that his itch is not some new skin bacteria that will eventually devour him.

20 dollars..... right...

How do you cover a person for the cost of one single co-pay? Let's say this person goes to the doctor 3 times in a month.. who covers him? ding ding ding... the middle class and rich do of course! Through higher taxes... subsidies for lower income that will eventually come for those that cannot pay the 20 bux a month... and the guaranteed rise in this magical 20 a month initial cost that will soon climb exponentially...

Wipe the sleep from your socialist eyeballs.... This dream will never work.

My healthcare is covered by CMSP...
I can't believe some of the hurtful comments I've seen on this thread.

Originally posted by LordBaskettIV
If you are sick, then pay for it yourself. If you can't, that is no ones fault but yours. Why should we pay so thousands of people who should be dead can sit around and breed and waste others money?

Are you serious??
I was diagnosed with a chronic disease when I was 16, no cure, no known cause. I have no money since my condition makes it impossible to work. Is this really my fault? I didn't ask to be born, and I didn't ask to be sick.
I would love to be healthy, independent and able to take care of myself...It's embarassing asking for help and handouts, but I don't know what my other options are. I don't really want to die ..sorry to those of you who think I should.

I am responding to the OP and a few other posts that I have skimmed.

I think that universal healthcare would be great. Do I think it's possible, maybe, and even if not completely, I think at least some healthcare being free would be a nice break for some.

When I picture Universal Healthcare, I think it would be similar to that as active duty military. Since I am, this will be the best thing in which I have to compare. We pay 26 a month, or that's what comes out of our paychecks for our medical. Now on ships, the medical is not so great and since america isn't a giant ship, I will compare it to shore duty medical.

First, I want to respond to a post that said everyone will go to the doctor for every scratch and clog up appointments. Well, in the navy you have sick call. You have to get up early as heck and wait in a line and they have someone that screens you, if you are really sick, they make a doctors appoinment for you, same day, if you just have a cold they issue you a cold pack, if you have a scratch, well I assume they will give you a bandaid. There, that weeds out unessessary appointments.

I have had a baby, for free. I have had a root canal and my wisdom teeth pulled for free. I have paid nothing for prescriptions (well I guess if you guys want to cound 26 dollars a month, but for all this, thats chump change).

Also, it has to be a scary thing not having medical insurance. I mean one never knows what could happen to them. An overnight hospital stay can ruin someone financially. One doesn't know if they will get into a car wreck tomorrow and have to have emergency heart surgery that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I guess I will never see the logic in NOT wanting universal healthcare. I would be more than willing to pay double the amount, what did I read 50 bucks, to help someone be able to get proper healthcare. I mean isn't that a right? To be able to live a life where you can actually get the medicine prescribed to you without waiting or better yet without dying because you couldn't afford it? What about the guy on Sicko, who had to choose which finger he wanted to save! WTF. Why should we have to chose which of our OWN fingers we can afford?


Something really has to change. There are way too many people in financial ruin, over WHAT!? The fact that they were sick? They needed surgery? C'mon. Everyone deserves the right to affordable, available and quality healthcare. Bottomline.


So, in conclusion of this rambling post, I would have to say that I think the universal healthcare will work, why? because they already do it in the military, or the navy at least, and in my opinion, it is working just fine. Sure we have some people who never think that anything is good enough, but i've always been given professional and quality care (off ships, ships are another story).

I just had a thought... why don't those that don't want to participate still continue with their current health insurance. And those that want to do universal healthcare can pay 50 bucks and not have to worry about which finger they can keep if they ever have to make that choice.

Well, enough rambling from me.

Big props to the OP.

galatea

Originally posted by Astrithr
I was diagnosed with a chronic disease when I was 16, no cure, no known cause. I have no money since my condition makes it impossible to work. Is this really my fault? I didn't ask to be born, and I didn't ask to be sick.

Hi Astrithr, i'm sorry about your condition. as you can see others dont care for people like you. those who dont care for you are scum of the earth. those people who have insurance and money to pay in cash when they need a procedure. people like you should have their government take care of. I wish we had people in our government that cared, i'm willing to give up my California style healthcare to help people like you. I would stand in line for an hour, pay 75 a month and take care of myself better if I know that we were helping people like you.

I have a city provided co-pay coverage plan that uninsured people qualify for. Because we're low income we pay five dollars for generic prescriptions, twenty for covered brand names, twenty dollars up front for office visits, and twenty dollars for specialty care (referals to specialist departments at the local general hospital such as radiology, cardiology, etc.) but full price for uncovered prescriptions, and varying sums on a sliding scale for specific care, diagnostics, imaging, etc. Dental, vision, in-patient care, emergency surgery, and elective surgery aren't covered. We have to pay sixty dollars every three months to keep this plan.

Believe it or not, even that extremely low cost coverage is just barely affordable for us. If it were to go up any more (which it already has several times in recent years) we would be in a bad way, as we suffer from chronic health problems of various sorts and our future financial prospects are dim.

Still, it's better than nothing and I'm grateful for it. There are people a lot worse off with far worse health concerns. We'd never be able to afford a monthly premium for "real" insurance, though, at current prices.

I'd rather not pay for the rest of the 70% of you who don't have it through my taxes, but thanks anyway.

If you are sick, then pay for it yourself. If you can't, that is no ones fault but yours. Why should we pay so thousands of people who should be dead can sit around and breed and waste others money? This is a constitutional republic, NOT a democracy. Go fend for yourself or move to europe, THATS how america works.

I do not want to pay for other people's health care.

Pay your way, if you cant, die. Chisel your way through life. Folks have money and folks dont have money. That is how it is.

Why should I pay for your healthcare?

No person should have to pay for anyone else. If you can not pay yourself then tough, you dont deserve it.

If you cant pay for something yourself then you for sure dont deserve it....That includes health care.

This is America. That's how we do.

I have excellent insurance coverage and no, I have absolutely zero interest in universal health care for anyone else.

What happened to a country founded on Christian principals?

What happened to "love thy neighbour as yourself"?

Depressing, really.