The Insured vs. The Uninsured.........  

Yes, I have seen the movie "sicko" I think it is crazy that American citizens are denied healthcare and even crazier that the American public is acting beligerant now that something is finally being done about it. I have insurance coverage and I get the run around from the insurance company, hospital politics and Dr's that pick and choose who they want to treat. If I am getting railroaded I can not imaging how hard it is for the uninsured.

You're wrong. NO AMERICAN has ever been DENIED health services from the hospitals or a doctor. It doesn't matter if you're a bag lady living on the street or Bill Gates's wife. If you need help, go to a hospital and they WILL help you. MOney doesn't matter as far as it's concerned. When you are sick, you CAN go to a hospital and they WILL treat you.

That's not the case in other countries.

Personally I think ANY government take over of medicine will lead us to a communist state where people in suits tell us how to live, eat and sleep.

NOW you can, and it could have a lot to do with the publicity brought in by the movie, Sicko. One person, without Michael Moore's knowledge, was repeatedly denied coverage for his child. She had a hearing problem, and they would not allow her the hearing aids (something to that effect). He wrote them a letter about the movie Michael Moore is filming, without his knowledge, and they changed their tune immediately.

As of right now, only emergency rooms are required to service you without coverage. In that movie, a dying child was sent away because it was not a Kaiser Hospital. She DIED on her transit over to a Kaiser hospital.

I would classify that as "denial of medical attention". My specialized doctor had point blank said to me that he would not treat me if I ever fell in arrears on my bills. My dental coverage is also fighting me on a bill that I paid my complete share; they are finding reasons they can't pay theirs.

Another thing - insurance companies play on the fear and hysteria, trying to make you believe this is a slippery slope into communism or socialism. They lobby politicians and others, so that they can have their insinuation come from someone more reputable and easier to believe.

They are manipulating us and taking away from the truth of the matter, and basically creating a smokescreen of hysteria, to halt progression.

Let's read the bill. Someone posted it here, scroll around and we will read it. I will return after to address it.

I already saw some generalized bull manure further down the page, and am running out the door, but will continue this after work.

Mystic, you're talking about going to an ER and, yes, they will treat you if you're sick but there are millions of Americans who aren't treated for the things that are wrong with them until it's too late. My husband's late wife never had any of the tests that would have identified her medical problem as colon cancer instead of gallbladder disease as her doctor thought it was. They had no insurance and you can't just walk into an ER and demand a colonoscopy because you might have something going on. By the time she was diagnosed...in extreme pain in an ER...the cancer had metastisized to her liver and she was terminal, Stage 4. She was then offered chemo as a hardship case but that would have only bought her a few weeks. What she needed was radical colon surgery and a liver transplant but she had no chance of getting either without insurance. So, yes, Americans do die due to a lack of affordable health insurance coverage. They die because they are denied diagnostic testing, routine screenings and preventative care. How many heart attacks and strokes can be avoided? How many cancers discovered and treated in the early stages? No American should die from a treatable disease.

I think that is why Obama is being so stubborn about this. He wants to see change while he is in office and won't give in to the lobbyists or blackmail from the insurance companies.

I applaud him for that, he is following through on one of his campaign promises.

He's only being stubborn about controlling the insurance companies because they've just dropped the provision for the public option from the bill. Now you know what he's really interested in, he is interested in control.

I am pretty sure it is intended for the people who are denied medical insurance because of a pre-existing condition.

You're "pretty sure"? I don't know, but I want to be certain of everything before agreeing to it. My life depends on it.

Exactly! Thank you ladybugmagic. I have studied the bill and if you need heathcare, how can you not be in support of this? The fear that is being pumped in by the insurance companies has taken over this debate. I have insurance and the care I receive is substandard and I know it, but I only have the option now of switching doctors. Same situation, different Dr's office, more copayments and insurance bills! Dr's have no obligation to be efficient. They have no accountability to the patient only the INS co and the hospital. There is something fundamentally wrong with the system we have now.

Did you know that Dr's are supposed to see 10 patients per hour? thats 6 min per patient...and off to the pharmacy or to another dr's office you go! That is what everyone should be afraid of!

Wow, six minutes? My doctor usually leaves me waiting two hours, charging me for each hour!

I don't want to be rushed, when my bodily health is at stake. Insurance companies customer service reps are only permitted three minutes per telephone call.

Wow! Scarey stuff.

Do you have a copy of a link online showing the bill? Where can the public read it, to put to rout all the speculation?

http://www.govtrack.us/co...

click on Full Text. You will then have the option of reading it as a PDF file or text. I prefer text.

I was denied medical tests and treatment more when I was on medicaid than I ever was on private insurance. That doesn't mean insurance is some great panacea, but it does prove that government isn't any more apt to approve necessary treatment than insurance.

btw, medicaid disapproved my cardiologist's referral to the Mayo Clinic. Their reasoning? They said that there were facilities closer to my home that would be able to test and treat me. First of all, that wasn't true. Most important though, we weren't asking medicaid to cover any of the expenses incured by the distance. It wouldn't have made a penny's difference whether the Mayo clinic was 1000 miles away or two blocks.

Then, after 3 tries, they finally approved.. which means they wasted far more dollars and time than would have been spent if they approved it the first time AND paid our travel expenses.

I really don't think it is about control. I think the government wants a healthier country. From my understanding, they are still willing to let insurance companies operate the same way they do, and you will still have your option of which doctors to go to.

I think there is a lot of speculation and fear. There was a post by a canadian who commented that we are being lied to.

http://www.mylot.com/w/di...

Scroll up to the top and through all the messages. He addresses a lot of misconceptions.

There isn't much point to learning about the Canadian system. Obama said the Canadian system wouldn't work in the US and this bill will be nothing like it.
Although I appreciate the interest of others around the globe in our welfare, it really doesn't affect them.

Actually, it's the insurance industry and the high cost of malpractice insurance that have driven up health care costs. The government does not dictate what an individual doctor charges and they certainly don't mandate what individual insurance carriers charge. If that were true every doctor in every field would charge the same...so would the insurance companies...and they don't. Many specialists do have their own testing equipment as well. I'm glad that you've done fine living without health insurance. Unfortunately, there are too many who don't. My husband lost his wife of 30+ years when she was 50 to a cancer that would have been treatable had they had health insurance and had she been able to get the tests that would have identified her "gall bladder" problems as the colon cancer it was. By the time she was correctly diagnosed...in an Emergency Room in extreme pain...she had stage 4 colon and liver cancer and her only hope was a transplant. You know the rest of the story. They didn't have the cash to pay upfront for her to even be put on the list and she died within a few months. There are too many stories like hers. Something needs to be done.

Spalladino, I am sorry to hear about the loss in your family. it's exactly those stories that make me angry. The Dr's and Specialists in this country need more regulation. Anytime someone has the symptoms, makes an appointment, see's the doctor and that Dr. leaves room for ambiguity or does not order to appropriate tests or perscribes the wrong medication.

People keep saying this is socialist healthcare.....What planet are these people on? Do you mean you do not want your Dr, to provide you with preventative care? Because he can make more money for the hospital, insurance company and himself, if he lets your illness GET WORSE?

I want my Dr. to tell me every possible thing that can improve my health before I get WORSE, before I need surgery, or an expensive stay in the hospital. All Americans deserve that! If they live and work and pay taxes in this country. Even the Young that "believe" they do not need it. They need to be covered too! Because when something happens and those bills start pouring in they will wish they had made better decisions about their healthcare! That is what Obama is fighting for and Thank God he Is!

Thank you Bailey. It saddens me to my core that the happiness I now have with my husband is due to the untimely and PREVENTABLE death of his late wife...who I knew years ago and liked. How many other people die needlessly every year in this country...from heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer...who aren't even aware that they are at risk because they don't have health insurance so they don't regularly see a doctor?

Re comment by Spalladino - It is tragic and criminal that anyone anywhere dies for lack of proper healthcare. It should never happen. But the insurance factor is what is hurting so many, especially now that our healthcare has been hijacked by the government and our doctor-patient, privileged, private relationship is being put in the hands of some czar, bureaucrat. I have written much about this before. The issue is critical and the O "administration" continues to lie and do all they can to both circumvent the truth and proper healthcare for the citizens of this country. At all cost to our lives and freedoms, they intend to pretend they're making compromises, but, in fact keep the same duplicitous agenda. No matter the Orwellian double-talk and double-think, they will increase our tax burden, ration healthcare, and allow older people to die, while paying for illegal aliens with our money. That has been O's promise to illegal aliens from the get-go, so that they will vote for him and he can continue to destroy our country and remove our freedoms. There was a video on You Tube (which I've heard has been scrubbed) in which Bill Richardson, NM,
addresses a group of illegals with O and assures them, "Don't worry; he's one of us."
And he is. And he is a liar. And no policy or anything he says can EVER be trusted.
Neither can anything be trusted from Nasty Pelosi, Reid, and a host of Democrats who call their constituents Nazi's, astroturf,etc. They, like O are corrupt and disgusting people who want to make us subsurvient to their agenda, greed, and power
mongering, in order to rule us. This healthcare issue is literally a matter of life or death to us as individuals and as a country.
P.S. Canada is not rethinking their nationalized healthcare because it is not working and people must wait endlessly or be denied and I don't know how many have died needlessly.

Re my prior comment to Spalladino , there is a typo. It should read "Canada is NOW rethinking its nationalized healthcare.











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sid556, thats what a lot of people do not understand. It is not a handout. You have been paying into the system your whole life. God Bless you and your family. I hope you all never need healthcare...wouldn't that be wonderful if your entire family were healthy through old age! Unfortunately, people need healthcare and people need education on how to stay healthy, how to stay out of the hospital. My mom does not have insurance and she has worked, paid taxes and lived right here in the US her whole life. She has some medical problems which I know she tries to treat at home. A year ago she was seen by a clinic Dr. He wrote her a very extended perscription....(she is still refilling the meds) however he has not seen her in months. How do we know her condition has not changed? We don't because we can not afford the bills that come along with those visits. That literally rips me up inside to know she could be taking something that she does not need. I tried putting her on my ins at work and ofcourse they said no, even though I was willing to pay for it. The sick part about it was, they told me if my mom were my lesbian partner or my DOG I could put her on my Insurance plan. I was so upset I had to leave for the day!

I am so sorry about your mom's health. I really don't understand why a person can't add on whoever they want to their insurance as they are paying for it. That just seems wrong.