The Cost of Health Insurance...
By dodoguy
@dodoguy (1292)
Australia
March 28, 2008 4:47am CST
Hello Animes,
Here's a question for all and sundry, from any and every country that cares to share.
This COULD have gone into a number of other discussion categories, but it has such a big impact on people's budgets and their peace of mind, I thought the "Life" category was most relevant.
How bad is the Health Insurance where you live?
In Australia, it's starting to get pretty bad. Like around $1,000 a year minimum for a single person - and this is in a country where we supposedly have Government funded medical cover for EVERYONE, labeled "Medicare".
The Government "Medicare", though, only pays out according to a prescribed schedule of costs and for an approved list of medical reasons.
Meanwhile, the medical profession, selfless martyrs that they are, prefer to charge more - MUCH MUCH more - for their services than the Government is willing to pay, so we end up having to pay for Health Insurance to pay all the costs that the Government "Medicare" doesn't (ie, most of it). Either that, or be prepared to lose your house and live in the gutter in order to pay the cost of your medical bills.
I hear it's far worse than that in the USA. So much so, that medical costs are the NUMBER ONE reason for bankruptcies in the USA.
Which means, basically, that here is one more "industry" that is out of control and on the rampage, sucking the life out of everyone and anyone it can sink its teeth into.
So what's the story where YOU live?
Do you actually have Government funded health services in your locale - health services that actually WORK?
Or are you stuck with the same kind of slow-motion train wreck that they like to call "Health Care" in the USA and now Austrlia? That's the sort of system where medical practitioners, drug companies and insurance salesman get filthy rich by screwing the sick people until they die.
Please, tell us how it's going in YOUR neck of the woods.
I know they've got something good going in Cuba, and the Russian Federation is also renowned for having REAL medicine - that actually works without first bankrupting you or killing you.
So what's YOUR story? How hard is it to keep healthy (and solvent) where YOU live?
1 person likes this
4 responses
@AmbiePam (85680)
• United States
28 Mar 08
Health insurance in America is not good. A good bit of Americans are uninsured. There are free clinics, but sometimes they have very long waiting lists. I am on disability now, and even then I'm limited in the help I can have. When I was on an HMO, things were incredibly expensive, yet the health care was not that good. Everyone knows we need an overhaul, us common folks and politicians alike. And everyone is trying to come up with a solution. It's just that not even one political party can come up with a solution they all agree on, so they can then rise up and combat the other party's 'solution.' Somewhere along the way, the little people have been forgotten, by all parties. I can assure you, they don't bilk us of money until we die. I have been told there is just nothing for them to do for me that my insurance will allow. But with Medicaid, they do the utmost to keep me alive. Not get me well, just keep me on the status quo. LOL
-Spookybutt
1 person likes this
@dodoguy (1292)
• Australia
29 Mar 08
Hi Spookybutt,
We get a fair bit of coverage of the US "health care" system on the media here in Australia.
I saw an episode of the Oprah show which had Michael Moore and a few others talking about the situation.
It looks to me like the big money pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies have basically hijacked your health care system, and are accordingly milking the sick people for maximum profit.
And the best way to keep milking money out of sick people - is to keep them sick.
The scariest part of all this from my vantage point is that I can see the same thing happening here in Australia.
Which is crazy, seeing as how our natural state of being is to be healthy. At least, that used to be the case, a long long time ago on a different planet somewhere.
How in the world have we allowed it all to get so corrupted that we have to pay buckets of cash to the medical protection racket, year after year, just to stay alive?
2 people like this
@AmbiePam (85680)
• United States
29 Mar 08
Oh yeah, there is definitely a lot of bilking going on. But that truly is a smaller problem than it is made out to be. On the other hand, that problem should not even exist. To me the problem is overmedicating. I'm very lucky that even with my health problems, I have doctors who think long and hard over anything they prescribe me. They don't want to have to give me medicine. Some doctors are so arrogant that they hand out prescriptions like candy. I guess they have the mindset, that if they give them something, they will go away. Sadly, it is no longer just the doctor's job to take care of the patient. We have to research and be vigilant in everything that involves our health care. We can no longer trust the men and women in white. I know there are awesome medical professionals out there. But that doesn't change the ones that don't care, are negligent, or are just in it for the money, like you said. I had one doctor who quit seeing me because at the time I had an HMO. She so abhorred how HMOs tried to get doctors to do cheaper treatments, she refused to see their patients. Instead of wanting the treatments that would bring immediate results, they urged the doctors in their network to try the cheaper thing that may or may not work. In the long run the HMOs were shooting themselves in the foot. Ultimately those cheaper treatments didn't work, and reluctantly they would have to pay for the 'sure thing.'
@AmbiePam (85680)
• United States
29 Mar 08
I wish alternative and more natural medical practices were covered by insurance. I know I would be better if I could afford to have to be treated in a different way. A hundred years ago people distrusted medicine. Now you can't get anyone to listen to natural remedies for anything in the world! Medicine has been completely successful in its marketing. : (
@graceandowen (1637)
•
28 Mar 08
I am from the UK and we are very lucky to have free health care for all. The NHS (national health service) is often crtiastised but they do a fantastic job in my eyes. they have helped my son no end when he was in and out of hospital at a young age for different allergies, they provide free medication to all under 16 years of age and also free medication to all who are over 65 or those on a low income or not in employment.
I cannot praise our health service enough and feel privalidged to have such a service in our country.
@AmbiePam (85680)
• United States
28 Mar 08
A woman I met from England told me they still make house calls over there. She said however there is a long list to be seen for an ailment. Is either one of those true? It blows my mind that a doctor would make a house call! That would be really cool!
@MsTickle (25180)
• Australia
31 Mar 08
What gets my knickers in a twist over our so-called health system is that when all is said and done, we are getting sicker. But that make sense really. It would be a real shame if we were cured of our ills wouldn't it? It's not in the best interests of the pharmaceutical companies and GPs for us to be well...it's a case of "here, take these pills and come back and see me in two weeks.....ne-ext"
@dodoguy (1292)
• Australia
31 Mar 08
Hi MsTickle,
Twisted knickers aside, I do think you've colloquially nailed the guts of the problem.
It's the factory mentality, alright, with all the mainstream treatment "therapies" cunningly designed to maintain a rotating pool of chronically ill patients to keep that revenue rolling in, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
What a perfect "business model"! This is long-term strategic planning worthy of a team of Havard graduates. With millions of captive business units (ie, the poor slowly-dying patients) guaranteeing perpetual income for this cynical "health care industry". IMO, "disease care industry" is a much more accurate description, because that's what they're really looking after - that's what guarantees the profits!
They don't even need to cure anything (which they don't) - just "treat" the symptoms in the most profitable way, and try to keep the "business units" (that would be us) operating for as long as possible with as many "treatable" symptoms as possible without actually dying, in order to generate as much revenue as possible.
I think I'd feel safer with a witch doctor from some remote jungle tribe. At least he or she will TRY to fix any problems, and may well succeed. Moreover, THAT doctor probably won't charge like a wounded bull if the treatment doesn't work, and will probably be happy to take payment in chickens anyway.
1 person likes this
@olivemai (4738)
• United States
30 Mar 08
It is not too good here, similar to there, with free care for the poor and elderly, but the doctors prefer so much more money that people go broke paying for it! Or sudden diseases or accidents cause medical bills to be very high and people have to give up their previous life in order to survive!
@dodoguy (1292)
• Australia
31 Mar 08
Hi olivemai,
It really is awful to hear and see all this going on around us, yet no-one who is in a position to do something about it seems to actually want to do anything about it (or simply can't, because the allopathic medical industry has so much control over governments now).
I reckon if there's any change to this rolling nightmare, it will only come about by some sort of revolution. Either that, or it will take two or three generations to un-brainwash all the people who have been raised to accept this sort of racketeering nonsense as "normal".
1 person likes this
