Comments | laserith: Obama's Healthcare Solution

laserith

Obama's Healthcare Solution

Mar 27, 2009 16:48

I wrote this a while ago and have been thinking about posting it for a while now... It's long, but I enjoyed researching and writing it so I thought I would share it. I apologize in advance :) First though, here is where I got most of my information:

Obama's site on Health Care
Obama's Health Care FAQ
Obama's Health Care PlanI also looked and ( Read more... )

government, health, health care, obama

Comments 8

spacefem March 30 2009, 00:03:54 UTC

I... kinda skipped to the bottom of this. But I know plenty of people who fall in the middle of things... don't qualify for government health insurance, and can't afford their own.

I think people have a right to healthcare, just like they have a right to food. Maybe not unlimited... we have to figure out some way to keep costs from going out of control. I wish there was some way to give the guy with strep throat the antibiotics he needs, but tell someone else, "I'm sorry your baby was 3lbs at birth, his odds aren't good, we're not going to put a million dollars towards saving him."

spacefem March 30 2009, 00:23:27 UTC

okay I felt bad about commenting without reading, went back and read ( ... )

laserith March 30 2009, 18:50:41 UTC

Thanks for the comments!! And, thanks for reading, I know it is a large wall of text! As a reward for your comment... another wall of text ( ... )

spacefem March 31 2009, 00:53:23 UTC

I guess when I say "right to food" maybe right's the wrong word... what I'm saying is that it's in society's best interest to NOT let people starve to death in the streets. When I'm 80 I might need a doctor, and my odds of getting a doctor are higher if part of my paycheck goes to buy food and education for some kids now, even if their parents are strung out on meth ( ... )

laserith March 31 2009, 14:52:21 UTC

I guess I jumped on the term "right" because I feel like it is thrown around way to much these days and people don't understand what their rights really are ( ... )

peacegood April 4 2009, 19:35:44 UTC

We kind of do have a "borrow" system with insurance. If you owe $2,000,000 to a hospital because you do not have insurance, they pretty much know they aren't going to get the money from you. So they work with you. Just by talking to the billing department and acting in good faith by making a minimum payment (sometimes as low as $20), they will knock off a big chuck of that. And as long as you are making regular good faith payments, they can not legally send you to collections and hurt your credit. Plus, they have enough people not doing that much to spend their time and money collecting on. It's actually absurd, but I've seen it happen several times, including with my Dad. I think its partly because the hospitals ethically have to treat someone, even if they do not have insurance. Also, they get money for treating people without insurance from the government, so it's in their best interest to do so. In exchange, they have a difficult legal leg to stand on if the person they treated comes back and says they didn't want ( ... )

mindstalk April 5 2009, 23:39:32 UTC

FYI: every other developed (and some not so developed) country in the world has universal health care of some sort, all of them spend less on health care (and that's comparing societies, not governments; the US *government* spend more per capita on health care than many "socialized" societies), and almost all of them have longer life expectancies than Americans. You have to get down to Portugal to find a shorter-lived developed country. Britain, possibly the most thoroughly socialized system (government owned and run hospitals, like the VA system) has only slightly higher life expectancy, but they spend half what we do ( ... )

laserith April 8 2009, 13:53:14 UTC

I guess in the end, I am not against universal health care as an idea. I've just never seen a plan for it in the US that I feel is workable. I think it is an ideal we should be taking baby steps towards where each step is designed to have low impact on the tax payer and overall economy while also work towards lowering the over all cost of health care.

I don't really care about the health insurance companies in the end, but they have to be there and functioning until they are no longer needed... I do care about the big pharma companies since they are the source of a lot of valuable R&D. That's not to say they are perfect and don't need change, but I think you need the profit motivator from the private sector to effectively drive the research.