An Important Message - An Attempt To Get You To See The Danger That Is Staring Us All In The Face

I have put off writing this post for a very long time. I kept hoping things would get better or someone would see the missing bridge ahead and stop the run away train before it ran off the cliff. I need to warn as many people as I can before the train wreck occurs. This is not a doom porn post. What I tell you is pure unadulterated fact and as much as I would love to say, I see light at the end of the tunnel, I can’t. It would not just be a lie it would be signing a death warrant from many.

What I am going to tell you can be verified very easily by anyone that wants links and pictures or it didn’t happen. I don’t want to distract you by posting a bunch of links or videos because I want you to go and see for yourselves. The only way you are going grasp the full meaning of what I am going to tell you is to do you own legwork. You have to educate yourselves so you can understand the severity of the situation we are in.

I pray this post doesn’t erode into petty bickering, or name calling and I pray that even the trolls will understand the seriousness of the information I share. I am so afraid the America we love will soon be a fairy tale like “The Tale of Captain Walker.” Before I tell you the truth, I must give you the back story to my confession; not because I am deliberately dragging this thread out, nor am I trying to be dramatic. What I am going to tell you is something I believe everybody knows, but it just hasn’t clicked; not yet, so I am going to turn the lights for you.

I work in the medical field. I have worked in almost every venue of the healthcare industry, and I have worked as a staff member, an administrator, and educator. I see the handwriting on the wall every day at work, and one day, sooner than later, the wall is going fall and crash into a million pieces all around us and not anyone is going to get away unscathed.

Before 1930 very few people, if any, knew about health insurance. When Blue Cross came along and introduced all of America to a new and wonderful product that would assuage the fear and guilt that all parents feel when they have to work and not be there to protect and care for their child. Just for a measly 5 to 10 dollars a pay period, a parent could go to work with security and peace of mind, knowing if anything happened to their child they would be in good hands; the doctor and or hospital would be available to save and care for their child.

The founder of Blue Cross must have been a genius. Blue Cross made a fortune raking in those dollars from healthy, hard working middle class people. Other businessmen caught on to the gimmick and soon other insurance companies were giving Blue Cross a run for their money. The only thing that they didn’t factor in was that all those healthy parents and children would not stay young or healthy. Of course there was the occasional mishap. A child may have been seen in the ER or in hospital for your common childhood ailments, and a few unfortunate parents had children with conditions that were more serious requiring longer than usual hospital stays and medicine, but in the long run Blue Cross and all those other insurances was rolling in the money. Now those baby boomers are cashing in on their investment. The baby boomers are now sucking those dollars back quicker than a Dyson vacuum picking up sand, and Blue Cross the all those super wealthy insurance companies have gone from spotting, to frank bleeding to hemorrhaging.

I am sorry but there is no backing away from this precipice. Health insurance companies are dead and all the cologne and paint in the world is going to bring that fish back to life and it is starting to stink. Obama bailed out the too big to fail banks. He bailed out the too big to fail car industry, but all the tea in China isn’t going to help him bail out the insurance companies. The baby boomers aren’t paying into the system any more. In fact the cost of health care has risen to astronomical levels, meaning that they are taking out a lot more money than they put in. Obama’s grand idea of “forcing” “everybody” to purchase insurance is a feeble attempt to replace those baby boomer dollars that were lost with the following generations.

Under normal circumstance a company that is hemorrhaging to this degree would cut their loses and close shop. The insurance companies can’t do that. They have millions of people that have invested their hard-earned money in these companies and now that it is time for them to utilize their benefits the insurance companies can’t just say, “Sorry all gone!”. Our health system isn’t broken, it has been demolished. I don’t have an answer on how to fix this. I honestly don’t believe it can be fixed. It can’t even be rebuilt. They are going to have to come up with something fast, really fast, and forcing people to buy insurance premiums is not the answer. I don’t know what is, but whatever it is the government is facing a greater dilemma than anything else we are dealing with today. I don’t see the American people sitting still for insurance companies to take their tidy profits and ride off into the sunset while their loved ones die.

If you think this is no big deal or that it isn’t all that bad; go talk to anyone you know that works in the healthcare industry and ask them if they think everything is okay or it is no big deal. The insurance companies are so desperate they are trying to pawn off stone soup as Vichyssoise. The bottom in about to fall out the barrel. Americans are going to have to face a completely new model for healthcare that is going to seem foreign and probably woefully inadequate. Again, I don’t have a clue on how to fix this. I fear for our country and I am terrified for our citizens. I don’t see any kind of happy ending for us. I can’t even encourage you to prepare for the crash. How do you prepare for what is coming? I can tell you that now is not the time for fear, it is a luxury we can’t afford. We need to be proactive and we need to do something. I just don’t know what that something is.

There's a lot of blame to go around. Start with the lawyers and doctors. They started this vicious cycle that spun into the ground.

That first loud crack one hears
before the tree falls.

reply to post by Bilk22


I don't know Bilk. Seems to me one of our biggest problems going deep with-in ?
Is how we always look to point the finger at someone. It started in the Garden.
And got our cowardly butts kicked out of there and we still haven't learned the
lesson. Everything any man does is all of our faults.




Good thread OP

My point ? We will never solve any problem pointing fingers.

In my country the poor black people thought up a way to afford things that they need,say for instance there are 6 women who know+trust each other to be reliable+honest:each puts 500 bucks in a kitty,making 3K.Every month one of the women get this kitty,and the next month it's the other one's turn-called a "stokvel".In that way the afford more expensive things,it was especially good for those earning too little to open accounts at furniture stores or those that could/would not go into debt.I don't know,with the horrific cost of medical procedures like operations,if this could work,but if the medical insurance system in your country fails,a group of people could maybe club together and form their own informal medical fund/kitty in this way,to at least try and provide an emergency fund for members.Needs a lot more thought on practical management,this is the bare bones of the idea.Just something that occurred to me while I read your OP,I feel badly for you guys in the US.

reply to post by NightSkyeB4Dawn

Interesting view from the inside.

I live among a lot of older people. I am amazed at the care they receive for their ailments. Some are between 80 and 90 years old. They get free heart ablations, spinal surgery, hip implants, forever checkups and diagnosis all of which are very expensive.

Every time they "glitch" they are 911 phone call away from rescue by swift ambulances and medics. They evac them to the finest hospitals, the best doctors and most advanced medical equipment to patch them up and put them back in place at home so they age another few years.

And all for the insurance fee of a few bucks a year.

Theres a whole new hospital built nearby that has no emergency or outpatient treatment. All the beds in the multistory modern behemoth were full before they finished construction.

And thats mostly old people. How old do we have to be to finally let go of our grasp here? Modern medicine is so good nowadays at keeping us alive. I've visited with a lot of these people over the years and they are surrounded by bed ridden in-firmed bags of flesh that have tubes and machines monitoring them lest they god forbid, pass on.

Sorry about the callousness... I'm not that selfish about clinging to life. What makes elder people hang on and receive every new procedure multiple times to keep them alive like that?

reply to post by NightSkyeB4Dawn


Any suggestions OP ? I mean this should concern everyone of us and does for the most part .
So what do you see that can be done ? Even tho I'm pretty sure nothing will be.
I ask only because you are a long time study of the field.

reply to post by randyvs

Well they didn't need health insurance then and there was no law requiring it either. That's why I didn't mention it.

Both my folks are retired professionals. One a lawyer and the other a dentist. I remember hearing as a kid, a conversation they had at the dinner table regarding the change in the law that allowed professionals to advertise as any other business was allowed to do- TV, billboards and the like. Prior to that professionals could only hang a shingle outside their place of business and have a one line listing in the telephone book (remember those?) They both were against the change and saw the writing on the wall; that it would be ripe for abuse. Lawyers became ambulance chasers and the doctors greedy for more patients. Then malpractice became a big money maker for the lawyers and the cycle began. Then the insurance companies saw an opportunity to reap profits from this situation. The spiral widened and quickened. They were all looking for new revenue streams to exploit.

Now I'm not claiming all of the people that practice those professions are responsible or have that mindset, but the predatory practices of lawyers has effected everything and increased costs exponentially.

reply to post by NightSkyeB4Dawn


Yeah, I figured this all out some time back.

I'm old, I have no kids, and now I have a bracelet that says "Do Not Resuscitate."

Didn't like this craphole that much anyway....

Japan is slightly ahead of America
in seeing what the results of an
inverted-aging-pyramid are like.

It is too late to start having more
kids, at this moment. We are
going to have to go through this
the hard way.

I think he wants me dead. I'll die soon enough,thank you.
Your enemies are the banks.Keep your eyes on the ball.

reply to post by randyvs


I believe the very rich will have their own personal docters and their own personal health care - that's why the gov't officials have excluded themselves from obamacare.

The rest of us aren't even going to have docters - let alone "care".

It's coming. This year they haven't even talked about flu vaccines for the mentally ill that I work with in WI - I'm a RN. I personally don't believe in the flu vaccine, but every year up to this year, there's been a HUGE push to get everyone the flu vaccine by Sept. Not a word of it this year.

reply to post by NightSkyeB4Dawn


The unfortunate solution to your problem here is War. Clean house, so to speak. A major dent in population should bring the figures back up again.

reply to post by Bilk22

greedy

I know you are right Bilk in who you are pointing your finger at of course.
But do you notice something about this one word you used ? It's a problem
in all of us to some extent. I know, but I did say deep with-in.
However you aren't wrong in your assessment by any means.