Health Insurance is not a right.

It is a service that must be bought and paid for. The question should not be why don't I have health insurance? The question should be, why is it so expensive to go to the doctor?

Every time you turn on the news there are more people whining about health insurance.

I had to go to Bossier City LA. last month to my grandmothers funeral. She was at Christus Schumpert Bossier hospital basicaly dead from cancer yet they kept her on life support for 19 freakin days!! You cannot tell me that the doctors and nurses didn't know that she would not make it a week. Finaly one of the doctors that actually knew her said enough is enough. She died about two minutes after life support was turned off.

Now why in the world would they do that? Probably because they knew her insurance company would pay for it and hey whats a few extra days at $2,000 a day?? Her insurance will pay.

Blame the lawsuits and greedy freakin HMO's.

When is the last time your doctor ( HMO ) made a house call?



[edit on 29-10-2004 by John bull 1]

Yeah, there is a conspiracy in health care!

How many of us have had tests we reallt didn't need. My neurologist insisted I needed aa MRI to help diagnose my migraines. (Of ourse, he didn't want to hear the fact that they were hormone-related )
I told him i was claustophoibic...all of a sudden, it wasn't as urgent.

A friend was supposed to get and EEG. When the friend asked the doctor if this test would show anything when certain symptoms were NOT present, the test was no longer needed.
Another friend no longer needed periodic bloodwork. This friend no longer had medical insurance to pay for these tests. So they bloodwork becaame unnecessary.

Between the insuracne companies and the malpractice attorneys, the patient doesn't stand much of a chance.

The fact that you're talking about the money that your family could have saved by turning off your Grandmothers life support early is a statement on privatised health itself. Your flippancy on the subject is equally disturbing. You sound more saddened by the cost than your Grandmothers death.

No, It just makes me mad that she had to lay there suffering when it did not need to be that way.

You�re probably right that it shouldn't have been that way. I wouldn't have wanted it for my Grandmother.

The sad thing is that in such a sad scenario your thread is focused on the cost. That's not your fault; it's your health systems.

I know that you don't think peoples last days should be determined by how much it costs but you have to realise that if you entrust things that matter deeply to people to private companies, profit is all they care about; and this is what you get.



Edit: spell


[edit on 26-10-2004 by kegs]

turning off life support is a more complicated issue than you imply.
many countries have well run public hospital systems.
good basic health care IS a right of any civilised society.
privatising medicine makes it largely inaccessible to many who require it.
your country is no longer civilised.

There are lots of things that the government provides that arent "rights", yet are invaluable to our nation. Sewage/electrical systems, street lights, highways, Social Security, law enforcement(FBI, DEA, etc.), etc.... none of these are guarunteed by the Constitution.
I believe that basic preventative healthcare should be provided to all citizens. When I say "basic", I mean just that. Annual physicals, basic dental care, vaccinations, etc. No expensive, radical or experimental procedures. Those can be paid for by the patient or private insurance.
By preventing problems from developing, we can save money in the long run. The real problem with the healthcare system in America is the use of radical and overly expensive procedures. Keeping a braindead person on life support at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars(which is what we do today), but not providing a simple physical for a child just doesnt seem reasonable to me.

My condolences to you and your family for the loss of your grandmother, but she didn't have to be on life support. She could have signed a "living will" prior to her health failing which would have enabled her doctor and your family to refuse or turn off the life support earlier.

and imo, basic equal healthcare should be a right for every individual.

Yes, that was found out the hard way. Now everyone in the family has a living will. No extended life support. If it is obvious after a couple of days you will die without it. Pull the plug as they say.

Originally posted by kegs
You�re probably right that it shouldn't have been that way. I wouldn't have wanted it for my Grandmother.

The sad thing is that in such a sad scenario your thread is focused on the cost. That's not your fault; it's your health systems.

I know that you don't think peoples last days should be determined by how much it costs but you have to realise that if you entrust things that matter deeply to people to private companies, profit is all they care about; and this is what you get.



Edit: spell


[edit on 26-10-2004 by kegs]

Trusting it to the govornment is not exactly smart either.

I agree, health insurance is not a right. But certainly we need some fixing in the health care system to make it affordable.

I agree health insurance is not a right but without employers help it would be virtually impossible for most Americans to afford. I work in the medical field and I can say first hand that this is a major crisis and something needs to be done now or the whole system could collapse. It distresses me to hear the politicians stating that they want to put the decisions back into the doctors and patients hands. It is the doctors that created this problem in the first place many years ago and the insurance companies decided that something needed to be done. Now, today, the insurance companies have turned the tables and have become big business and thus have become the problem. It�s almost as if we in this country have forgotten that these people, the doctors, provide us a service that in a way is no different than a mechanic or a plumber. Now I know that your body is vastly more important than your car or running water but think about it without us they have no job. Would you pay a plumber $2,000 dollars to �snake� your drains, a task that is essentially pretty easy once you know what you are doing? You would tell that plumber to take a hike but if you go into the hospital to have endoscope done that�s about what you will pay someone to run a hose down your throat in a procedure that lasts all of about ten minutes with nurses doing most of the work. Now don�t get me wrong, I want my doctor to be a professional and well versed in his trade but at what point did this person feel that his ten minutes of work was worth $2,000. It�s absolutely ludicrous what these people charge for their services. This is where the real problem lies. The medical field has become a very profitable business for a select few and we as the �consumer� are the ones who suffer.

I would not even want to speculate how to fix the problem. Last June I had to have surgery on my stomach to remove adheasions. I would be bankrupt if it were not for my health insurance. The bills are over 30k now. I live Northern Va., just a visit to the er is going to cost you at least $600. Just last month I was at our farm in Northern Missouri near Kirksville. My brother twisted his ankle. That er bill was a wopping $139.00. The doctor there will still make a house call! I do know two doctors who left this area to move to more rural towns. Both of them sighted two main reasons. They don't possibly ever have the time to see all of their patients and the cost of malpractice insurance was to great in this area. Its crazy.

I'm not quite sure how you're defining a "right" here. Do you mean right given by the United States government? If so then yes, you're right heath insurance is not a legal right protected by the constitution or national law.

If you are refering to an ethical right (the so called "god-given" rights) then it becomes murky, I could make a good case that as humans we, especially those in the healthcare field, have a moral obligation to aid the suffering, but from the sound of your post, maybe you wouldn't disagree with me on that.

Anyways, I agree with your charge that healthcare needs to be made more affordable, and easier for the masses to pay for. I don't pretend to have the answers for that, I really haven't studied it that much.

I, much like everyone else has their hospitalization stories, however there's one that could be of interest for a slightly different reason:

I was hospitalized a couple years ago, my apendex having burst, at a major research and teaching hospital. I had great service, pretty trim and responsive, they quickly found the problem, and I was on the opperating table with speed. I had an experimental surgical style using nanotechnological robots to remove the pecies of my apendex and leaving only a 0.5cm scar.

My doctor was a very nice bloke from India, and I was joking around with him during my recovery, I asked him how much profit the hospital was taking from my stay. He laughed and replied that the hospital was a non-profit venture, as was my insurance which, thanks to family, was through the hospital. When I got the bill, it was remarkably small for such a long stay and a high-tech procedure, quite to my surprise.

I wonder (I'm not claiming to be any kind of expert here) what could happen if the US mandated that all healthcare organizations should be run as non-profits. The government already gives sizable amounts of money for research. Could the costs of covering all research, or at least a majority, be offset by the money saved by not having to pay the exteranious costs of many Americans heathcare.

Imagine how much less the government would have to pay if all drug companies were non-profit! The drug companies research money could come from the government, while their multi-million dollar advertising campaigns could be scrapped. Companies could get back to beating the competition by making the best drugs on the market, rather than the best advertised.

Just an idea by someone outside the healthcare industry

May Peace Travel With You
~Astral