I've sporadically followed the healthcare debate and I have a sporadic knowledge of how the current US system works. However, I'm interested to know if one particular issue is being accurately presented. The fact as I understand it: You get health insurance through work and that is how most people with insurance have it - So what happens to people under the current system who lose their job? Presumably insurance is expensive enough that you will struggle to pay it (especially for a family) if you have no wage coming in? - So what do people do? Just pray no one gets ill while they look for work? - What if someone does get ill? They get no treatment at all? What if you can't work due to some pre-existing, chronic or acute condition? Are you then in a situation where you cannot work and therefore have no insurance and also can't get any (without ludicrous expense) because you are already sick? My knowledge of all this is largely from the UK media and I wonder to what extent they are accurately representing things - because it is clear that the US media is misrepresenting the UK system.
There are several steps. One is that states the Feds have programs that allow you to continue your insurance for a period of 9 months to 18 months, but paying for it all, instead of splitting it with the employer. This is very expensive. When you join a group insurance, like through a new employer they cannot deny you based on pre-existing conditions. Only if you try to get private individual coverage, does that happen. In truth there are 3 main changes that should be done here. 1) Major tort reform. 2) Detach insurance from employment 3) Make regular doctors visits out of pocket, with insurance becoming catastrophic insurance that pays for major crises.
I'm afraid I'm not the person to answer your question about US health care (I've lived almost all of my adult life outside of the US; even when I had a US employer--which has not been all the time--my health care has been taken care of differently), but this last statement intrigues me. How is the US media misrepresenting the UK system? (Not that I doubt it; I have very little confidence in the media as a source of reliable information. But I would be interested in knowing just how.) BTW, this thread gives some extremely interesting information on how the US health care system works (and doesn't work) and various proposals for fixing it. I don't know if you saw it, but if you didn't, and are interested in the subject, it is well worth the read.
Well only regarding all the talk about death panels and killing of the elderly to save some cash and the idea you can't actually get treatment in a reasonable period of time. I'm sure that's not something that's abounded in all US media though. I'll have a nose through that thread you linked to. Ta.
PGT, I have heard that for example in the British system dialysis is only paid for up to a certain age, now around 63 or something like that. After that it is cut off Is this true?
One important thing to note RE: the bolded part: One used to get health insurance through one's job. Employers offered to pay for employees' health insurance under a group plan (cheaper than each individual buying their own), in lieu of higher salaries, as an incentive to take the job. Originally, the employer paid 100% of the premium. Somewhere in the late 70s/early 80s, some employers started requiring employees to pay up to 50% of the premiums or else opt out of coverage. Somewhere in the 90s, some employers stopped paying anything, but still allowed employees to buy into the group plan, which cost them much less than if they bought into individual plans. Then came the trend of employers saying "Fuck you...we're not offering group plans. Go find your own." A trend which increases year after year.
That's not true. That it isn't has been highlighted as one of the faleshoods being propagated on several of the news programs I've watched.
Of the dozens of companies (actually close to 100 companies, most over 500 employees) that employ in my field, I do not know of even one that does NOT pay 100% of the group plan premium for their employees. Employees have to pay a nominal out of pocket fee for dependents though. Mine works out to be about $40 a month (medical AND dental, vision, etc. all included) to cover my wife.
The exception these days, not the rule. Except for unions, of course, which is one of the reasons you lot despise them. And I did emend my original post to say "some." Might make an interesting poll...
If you lose you're job you can pay yourself for extremely expensive insurance in most cases. Sometimes you can't even get insurance if you are like me and have a pre-existing condition. If you get sick and aren't weathly you will go bankrupt or if you are poor the state ends up eating the massive cost. What a lot of opponents of health reform still don't seem to realize is we do have a universal care system that is ass backwards, paying for expensive emergency care while refusing to pay for much less expensive preventative care. And I don't favor tort reform because where it's been tried, like in Missouri, it hasn't worked. Most medical lawsuits are ones of necessity, in that person is faced with a sliver of a chance lawsuit for bankruptcy. You remove medical bankruptcy and the problem will take care of itself in large part.
That's assuming that I only get what I get because they are paying for medical insurance. When they took car allowance away, they didn't simply bump anyone's salary, why should the health insurance be different?
I haven't had health insurance since Dec. 2001. No member of my immediate family has had any health insurance for the last 6 years. If I purchased insurance for my family of three through the school I work at, it would cost $7,200 a year. Our families TOTAL medical bills over the last six years has barely been $3,000. And that includes two emergency room visits. Health insurance just is not worth it.
What difference would it make? Lets say I have health insurance. I get a crippling injury or a major disease. It will bankrupt me. Any conceivable health insurance that I can afford will still leave me with essentially unpayable bills if I suffer a severe injury or major disease. Same if I have no insurance. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has talked about this before. He has commented that when we talk about people having to declare bankruptcy because of medical bills, what few mention is that MOST of those people ACTUALLY HAVE INSURANCE.
Ok so why don't you take the money that you're not spending on insurance and put it in an account? If worse comes to worse you'll at least have that to spend, even if it won't pay it all, it'll help.
Who says I don't? No, I don't save $7,200 a year, but I try to save as much as reasonably possible. Of course, the state education dept. automatically takes 6% of my income for teacher retirement.
Seems to me that a lot of the personal stories offered by WF members confirm that the system is broken, but those people appear (to me at least) to be acting against interest in opposing real reform.
It's "broken" for reasons not necessarily bound to individual outcomes. No system should be deemed a failure just for not unconditionally providing for every man, woman, and child.
Because if they don't, you'll quit and find a better-paying job, assuming there are jobs to be found. In the current economic climate, it's equivalent to a (likely necessary) wage cut.
I don't even know why I am asking this but... You see nothing wrong with a system that would allow someone who has previously been in full time employment losing their job due to illness which required constant treatment in order to manage it, eg a degenerative disease, and finding that they now have no insurance, no reasonable way to get some and the need for regular medical care?
Personal responsibility has no "bad luck" exemption clause. The choice is either 1) planning your life around whatever drastic measures are necessary to prepare for something like that (no pleasures, no luxuries, no waste, live a clean, spartan life and save every dime), or 2) gambling on the odds that it won't happen to you (which is what most people do). Simply carrying health insurance rests firmly under #2, and should never be mistaken for satisfying option #1. Whether or not I see something "wrong" with it is irrelevant. The time to make that assessment is when you're shopping for insurance, and if what happens to you is spelled out in your policy (microscopic fine print or not), you have no one to blame but yourself. There are no true guarantees or free lunches in life. There is no inherent right to anything that must be provided at someone else's expense.
I'm glad I live in a country where the vast vast majority of people are very happy to provide it As am I of course
Well unsurprisingly I disagree but we knew that. More importantly I think this really gets to the nub of it all. I could not agree with a system of healthcare that allows that situation. We could disagree further on the nature of the preferred system, the level of govt involvement, what treatments beyond the necessary you should be able to access etc etc. But that's mostly detail and we might agree on some things. The important thing is that to me a civilised country should not be a position where people who might have worked all their lives get an illness, lose their jobs and are then just FUCKED.
Most of us just pay the damn bill, if you dont have a job welfare will pick up the bill. (as long as you dont own a shitload of expensives cars, trucks,boats, motorhome, stocks and bonds)
And to me, the concepts of "civilized country" and "unearned entitlements" are incompatible, regardless of circumstance or anyone's idea of "fairness."
Right, hang on. Is this true? If you can't pay then welfare will pay? What do you mean by a 'shitload' of stuff? Do you really mean someone would have to basically sell everything you own first?
Really? Here was me thinking foreign investors and the printing presses were currently funding everything, what with the UK government overspending to the tune of over £10 million an hour... In order for both the Tories and Labour to be seen as the 'party of the NHS', god alone knows what other services are going to have to be cut to balance the UK's finances. Especially with around 10% of the population living on benefits alone, and that's likely to increase. The Leg-Iron blog has some good views on a national health system
