(February 18, 2014 at 6:16 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: In NI, I had a fairly bad motorbike crash when I was in my late 20s. Nothing horrific - a few minor fractures, road rash, that sort of thing. I was in hospital for 6 days, had 4 weeks of physical therapy, and was on pain meds for about 3 months.

Total billing: £11 500.

My costs: £200 (cab fare to and from PT).

A socialist nightmare, that was.

Boru

You had to pay!!!! not in the UK that shits free (apart from the taxi)

HMOs are fucking EVIL!

I hate Edgar Kiaser and Richard Nixon over this!

My Mom works for Aetna, she pretty much thinks Obamacare is the end of the world. She's also the one who does the math to determine if you will be a financial loss for the company. She's pretty much a sheep, and worships anything that comes out of her CEO's mouth. Her belief is that the new health care laws will put her out of a job eventually, I forget the exact reasons why she thinks this. But he argument is pretty much what "could" happen instead of what "is" happening right now. Personally, I don't have a problem with the new health care act I'm about to be 30, my job I am at doesn't offer health insurance, why wouldn't I be for it.
I also never really got along with my mom, not because of what I bring up, but because of her way of thinking (and acting). She is also the same type of person who thinks a rise in minimum wage is solicism, but not working full time and still collecting.

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Also want to add, a friend of mine was diagnosed with lymphoma a couple years ago (before the healthcare act took place).
He walked into the ER with a tumor the size of a golf ball on his neck, he isn't very smart at letting it get to that point, but he did. He went in to the hospital because he could hardly breath, and eating and drinking were painful. He was uninsured, and they actually wouldn't have treated him because he walked in. The nurse had to lie on the paper work making it look like he couldn't walk in on his own to get treated. I'm not sure what kind of aide he got, but he got it. He doesn't have any signs of cancer anymore, but just the idea he could have been turned away is just sickening.

The insurance companies are proud of rescission.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/17/...-rescind17

Quote:Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive.

The hearing on the controversial action known as rescission, which has left thousands of Americans burdened with costly medical bills despite paying insurance premiums, began a day after President Obama outlined his proposals for revamping the nation's healthcare system.

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.

"No one can defend, and I certainly cannot defend, the practice of canceling coverage after the fact," said Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Tex.), a member of the committee. "There is no acceptable minimum to denying coverage after the fact."

Some people like to call this "the invisible hand of the market!"

The sick part is that that attitude is spreading out of the US... :-s

(February 19, 2014 at 12:02 pm)Asimm Wrote: My Mom works for Aetna, she pretty much thinks Obamacare is the end of the world. She's also the one who does the math to determine if you will be a financial loss for the company. She's pretty much a sheep, and worships anything that comes out of her CEO's mouth. Her belief is that the new health care laws will put her out of a job eventually, I forget the exact reasons why she thinks this. But he argument is pretty much what "could" happen instead of what "is" happening right now. Personally, I don't have a problem with the new health care act I'm about to be 30, my job I am at doesn't offer health insurance, why wouldn't I be for it.
I also never really got along with my mom, not because of what I bring up, but because of her way of thinking (and acting). She is also the same type of person who thinks a rise in minimum wage is solicism, but not working full time and still collecting.

Sounds like my dad, except he's a small business owner.

(February 19, 2014 at 12:02 pm)Asimm Wrote: My Mom works for Aetna, she pretty much thinks Obamacare is the end of the world. She's also the one who does the math to determine if you will be a financial loss for the company. ...

I doubt that Obamacare will put your mother out of a job. You Americans missed the boat on universal national health care. In Canada it started in the early 1960s before the insurance companies were deeply entrenched.

As I understand Obamacare, it is going to work through those same companies rather than having a government pay the doctors and hospitals. In Canada each province is responsible for health care rather than the federal government, but there are national standards which they must adhere to.

If you ever got a single payer system like ours, it might indeed put your mother out of work, because the duplication of effort by so many insurance companies is very costly. It takes an army of free enterprise gnomes to prove that the patient is not covered for what ails him. Way back in 1991 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study which commented that "Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts covers 2.5 million subscribers and employs 6682 workers, more than work for all of Canada's provincial health plans which cover more than 25 million people."

That is what drives up your health care costs, and not just the employees of the insurance companies. I have read that most American doctors need one full-time employee just to deal with the HMOs. Generally in Canada one receptionist can handle all the office work.

I successefull did a hep c threatment for just the usual moderator taxes (4 euros each, that I could not pay if I were unemployed at the time) for the appointments. The portuguese system might not be the most perfect, but I found no problem with it. The other day I needed to update my vaccines, payed nothing (moderator taxes are just for doctors appointments).

(February 18, 2014 at 5:51 am)Psykhronic Wrote: Someone once claimed to me that since the US utilizes new technology better than other countries, it has the number one healthcare in the world.

Last summer I went in for my routine yearly gyno exam. A few things about the process (paperwork, etc) had changed from the other times I had gone into the doctor that year. I was discussing these with my doctor during the exam and she informed me that within the next two years or so we would start to see doctors utilizing tablets and skype to keep in touch with their patients.

How long has that tech been out before the US formally adopted it for the uses it could have beyond hipsters? And these are just simple pieces that could have been linked up.

(February 19, 2014 at 3:34 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: I was discussing these with my doctor during the exam and she informed me that within the next two years or so we would start to see doctors utilizing tablets and skype to keep in touch with their patients.

For a gynae exam!!!hock: