Hillary and her health care plan.......hmmmmm

[highgrade00]

im not even pretending to know all the ins-and-outs of Hillary's suggested healthcare plan,
but if any of you have actually had to deal with the current system... i mean reeeaally deal with the system... its nothing to be satisfied with. I for one think its time for a change...

realistically, this forum is populated with generally wealthy individuals... what about the people who aren't wealthy?!? i have friends who will be paying mounds of bs healthbills for the remainder of their lives because of this rediculous system that we currently have in place...

seriously, on a topic like this could you really expect to read much other than skewed responses?

[20ducks]

I am a US Army veteran and have first hand experience in receiving health care from the federal government. It is not what the private sector provides. I earned options of using my veteran benefits/government provided health care and I pay my fair share for private health care. Guess what is better for me.

btw, one consideration is the attitude of entitlements. Anyone care to address that perspective?

[baugelli]

Ah, an interesting topic for debate and something sure to come up quite often until next November.
Working in medicine/research has taught me quite a few things and hopefully I can bring some eveness to this debate.
Yes, in general, wealthy people have access to the best care in medicine either because they have really good insurance or they can just afford to pay for it out-of-pocket. For the rest of us who aren't that rich, we are either stuck with paying high premiums for personal coverage, if our employer does not provide it, or usually an HMO that our employers do offer. Now depending on your employer, and more importantly the number of employees, you can get some really great medical coverage. Take me for example, I don't make much but I have some of the best health care benefits in the medical/research industry which, in my opinion, offsets what my collegues make in increased pay. I know that if I were ever seriously injured or were to contract a chronic or terminal condition I would receive the best care and would pay next to nothing for it.
Unfortunately, most HMOs and PPOs that the general public has contains so many omissions and clauses that it can be a nightmare for most if you get seriously ill. Not only do you have to deal with your illness but you also have to fight your own insurance company just to get them to pay for what they're supposed to over. Now I'm not sure about other countries, but I do know that in the US most insurance companies automatically deny 90+% of all claims physicians and hospitals bill for, even if it's a covered expense, and I know enfield feels my pain on this one. The reason being simply money. How much money is a hospital/physician willing to pay a secretary to recover the costs of an office visit/procedure/hospitilization? At a certain point it becomes cheaper to take it as a loss than to pursue the claim. Insurance companies know this and use it to their advantage to increase their bottom lines. Now we all know this is not ethical, but unfortunately that's how big the business of health care has become.
Another major issue is dropping coverage. On more than one occassion I have seen a collegue who has had a clean bill of health for decades, and paid his premiums on time, contract a serious illness like cancer and have his/her insurance company drop them. Why can they do this, because when you sign the contract there is language provided for this underhanded move. Now granted, if you belong to a large employer it's less likely to happen, but for smaller companies this happens all the time and you almost have no legal recourse.
As for entitlement, 20ducks has a good point. It seems that a lot of people think they should be entitled to free healthcare, as well as many other things, without having to pay for it or work for it. If you don't believe me go to a local chain pharmacy late at night near a major suburban city. You'll see plenty of Medicaid people who are perfectly fine to work and earn a decent living but choose not to since they can get everything from housing to food to medicine, especially narcotics, for free. When you ask them why do they choose to do this they tell you that they believe they are entitled to it. Now I'm not saying everyone who is on Medicaid is a junky or abuses the system, but there is a good majority of people who do abuse the system and it takes away from those who really need it.
Now we all know the current system is broken. Just look at the budgets of any major hospital in any metropolitan area. Nobody is making money, and most can't even break even. So what happens, tax money is used to bail the hospitals out. So no matter how you look at it, whether we go with some form of managed care or not, tax payers are footing the bill. The way I see it, managed healthcare for the general public is no better or worse than the current system it's just a different way of looking at the same problem to see which is more palatable.
Sorry for the long rant but ten years of this stuff tends to build up some opinion and hopefully it's somewhat balanced.

[20ducks]

Now for comments regarding tort lawyers and the healthcare industry.

[Citation 650]

Now tell the answer to the quiz.

[Aebous]

Now tell the answer to the quiz.

x100000

I'm considering rallying other folk to send PM's so that we can get the answer.