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Originally posted by Walkswithfish
reply to post by maybereal11
The summit and our posts here are ultimately irrelevant, one way or another (reconciliation) this monstrous bill will pass, and maybe you'll be one of the first in line for that rectal exam.
Originally posted by Walkswithfish
Heck, in Oregon their state run health care denied cancer treatment to a woman and suggested she take the option of physician assisted suicide (legal in that state)
The news from Barbara Wagner's doctor was bad, but the rejection letter from her insurance company was crushing.
The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.
What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.
"It was horrible," Wagner told ABCNews.com. "I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from the doctor and we will stand there and watch you die. But we won't give you the medication to live."
Critics of Oregon's decade-old Death With Dignity Law -- the only one of its kind in the nation -- have been up in arms over the indignity of her unsigned rejection letter. Even those who support Oregon's liberal law were upset.
Originally posted by endisnighe
reply to post by OutKast Searcher
No solutions? I find it hilarious that the Dems keep mentioning that their are things that the Repubs agree with them on, YET, they will not pass a bill on the agreed upon items.
To me, it seems like the Dems are the obstructionists in this debacle.
If they agree on some things, WHY NOT pass a smaller measure FIRST?
No, the Dems want a HUGE bureaucracy. That is their idea. They want a NEW and improved Medicare system for everyone. How are they going to pay for it?
source
McCain criticized a provision of the Senate bill that spared 800,000 seniors in Florida from benefit cuts in the Medicare Advantage program, the private insurance under the umbrella of the government program.
"Why should we carve out 800,000?" McCain asked.
"I think you make a legitimate point," Obama responded to a surprised McCain.
Ut...uh.....eh....er......ummm....thank you...????
Originally posted by Walkswithfish
reply to post by maybereal11
Which is worse, a government run system that denies treatment, or a private insurer?
Sixty-two percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses, according to a nationwide study released today by the American Journal of Medicine. That's nearly 20 percentage points higher than that pool of respondents reported were connected to medical costs in 2001.
Of those who filed for bankruptcy in 2007, nearly 80 percent had health insurance. Respondents who reported having insurance indicated average expenses of just under $18,000. Respondents who filed and lacked insurance had average medical bills of nearly $27,000.
The Truth About the Insurance Industry
Wendell Potter. Potter, ... worked in the health insurance industry for more than 20 years. He rose to be a senior executive at Cigna. He was on their calls, at their board meetings, in their books. And today, at a hearing before Sen. Jay Rockefeller's Commerce Committee, he testified against them.
What drove Potter from the health insurance business was, well, the health insurance business. The industry, Potter says, is driven by "two key figures: earnings per share and the medical-loss ratio, or medical-benefit ratio, as the industry now terms it. That is the ratio between what the company actually pays out in claims and what it has left over to cover sales, marketing, underwriting and other administrative expenses and, of course, profits."
Think about that term for a moment: The industry literally has a term for how much money it "loses" paying for health care.
The best way to drive down "medical-loss," explains Potter, is to stop insuring unhealthy people. You won't, after all, have to spend very much of a healthy person's dollar on medical care because he or she won't need much medical care. And the insurance industry accomplishes this through two main policies. "One is policy rescission," says Potter. "They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment."
Potter also emphasized the practice known as "purging." This is where insurers rid themselves of unprofitable accounts by slapping them with "intentionally unrealistic rate increases." One famous example came when Cigna decided to drive the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust in California and New Jersey off of its books. It hit them with a rate increase that would have left some family plans costing more than $44,000 a year, and it gave them three months to come up with the cash.
Originally posted by Mailman
Alot of you are saying things like "republicans don't support this"..
Now I am not a big believer in polls, but I think it is pretty concrete that the majority of this country doesn't support this.
Originally posted by Mailman
Alot of you are saying things like "republicans don't support this"..
Now I am not a big believer in polls, but I think it is pretty concrete that the majority of this country doesn't support this.
Originally posted by Mailman
You really have to wonder how he has this reputation for being such a good speaker. He is a terrible listener. from what it looked. You can clearly see him struggle to hear the oppositions words. He stops and stutters, without any form of a written speech or teleprompter.
Alot of you are saying things like "republicans don't support this"..
Now I am not a big believer in polls, but I think it is pretty concrete that the majority of this country doesn't support this. You can keep playing the blame game, and pointing fingers.