I won't be around much in the future

[Qqmike]

btw, ditto what richb says about finding doctors here in NM--the very best gladly take on Medicare Adv patients.

[whatthefunk]

I wish more Americans would wake up and realize how stupid their health care system is. I live in a country with a national health care plan. Monthly payments are like a tax and based on income. For somebody of an average income the monthly payments are cheaper than your average American insurance plan. For low income people, the plan costs very little insuring that nearly everybody in the country has access to basic medical care. A visit to the doctor is also very reasonable and medication is cheaper than dirt. I can choose whatever doctor or hospital I want, dont have to wait for care or surgery, and the level of care is very high. Its not a perfect system, but wipes the floor with the American health insurance scam.

[GreyGeek]

Guess I am just lucky then. Here in Upstate new York, I have never heard anyone having a problem who was on Medicare finding a doctor or having large bills with catastrophic health issues.
by the way i have a $0 Advantage plan.

Lucky indeed. It's hard to pull doctors from the big cultural centers to hicksville Nebraska, even when Medicare and health insurance wasn't wacked up by the gov.

Also, $0 Advantage plans are probably more correctly described as “zero premium above your monthly Medicare Part B premium”.

[richb]

Correct. They are subsidized.

From Tapatalk

[life0riley]

The economic downturn affected my aging parents. My father worked for a large company for 35 years. He retired with full pension and full Health Insurance which included care in a long term care coverage. My mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease, and she had multiple small strokes. This left her bedridden and my father of 86 years could no longer care for her in their home. My father had to put my mother in a skilled nursing facility.

Before all this happened the large company my father retired from went bankrupt. That company took the government bailout and part of the plan was eliminating the retirement benefits the the people that were already retired. So my father looses his health insurance and the only thing he is receives is a small stipend to cover insurance premium costs. This wasn't nearly enough to purchase a good plan, so he ends up with minimal coverage.

I have two other brothers. One is housebound in Texas and disabled from a motorcycle accident. I was temporary guardian until he regained consciousness and went through enough rehab to be allowed to live alone. I couldn't be his guardian permanently, because I was neglecting my own family, and it was impacting my job. I have another brother that lives four hours from my parents, and I live nearly 1000 miles away in Oregon.

For two years my father drove to the skilled nursing facility twice a day to have lunch and dinner with my mother. Early one day I received a call that my father was found lying by the front door inside his house. He apparently had a stroke and Life Alert notified the neighbor who had the key to the house. My father ended up in the same skilled nursing center my mother is at. After a month in the skilled nursing facility he was notified that his insurance no longer covered his stay. They tried many times to send him home even thought he couldn't possible take care of himself.

Twice a year we take our vacation and visit my parents. This way our kids get to visit their grandparents. In the spring of 2011 my father dropped the bomb on me. While we were sitting with my parents in the skilled nursing home dining room my father told me he wanted to sell his house. He planned to use the money from his house to pay for his stay in the skilled nursing home. This way he could be with my mother, his wife of 65 years.

A few months later I traveled alone by train to my father's house. In one weekend my brother and I cleaned out the house. We took what was sentimental to us, and the rest we sold in a yard sale. It was difficult to see the things we grew up with sold in a yard sale. I ended up some furniture including a dining room table my parent purchased some time in 1950. I basically filled a 16 foot truck and drove it alone back to my wife and kids in Oregon.

The most valued possessions I inherited from this are the volumes of photo albums of our entire family over the years and the letters my father wrote to my mother when he was in the Navy World War II.

Its been nearly a year and a half since my father gave up his home. I still have problems accepting what happened. People tell me it is just a transition in life, but that doesn't help. It was very difficult for me to see my father who took pride in everything he owned give it up so easily. Once he asked me what I took. I listed it out for him, and all he said was “Good.” He never mentioned it again. My only consolation is my father made his choice.

[SteveRiley]

I wish more Americans would wake up and realize how stupid their health care system is.

Many Americans are simply afraid of the government. It doesn't help that we keep electing politicians who profess to hate it. Would you get on an airplane piloted by someone who hates to fly?

J. Random American is willing to fall for supposed myths of "rationing" and "death panels." What they fail to realize is that rationing and death panels exist in our current system: insurance companies routinely deny care (rationing), and people die as a result. This is necessary, of course, to ensure that the insurance companies remain profitable. But what purpose do they actually serve? Absolutely none whatsoever. They move money around and keep a percentage for themselves (Aetna's CEO total compensation for 2012: $36.36 million -- that's fscking outrageous). A single payer system, without a need to turn a profit, saves everyone money, lowers costs, improves quality, and people live longer. The heath and mortality data of countries with such systems proves this.

[Feathers McGraw]

Plus having a National Health Service provides endless material for publications like Private Eye... loads of stuff like this:



Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ImXIGiOFNB...gs_cartoon.jpg

[GreyGeek]

+1,000 Steve!

That one corporate CEO can deliver millions to one or more Congressmen, the people's elected "representatives", and reverse the will of the people as expressed in the ballot box is criminal, and should not be allowed. Any corporation found guilty of attempting to or actually ("campaign contributions") bribing a Congressman should be given the death penalty -- the assets sold off and given to the workers to support them till they find another job. The congressman should be imprisoned for violating his public trust as a representative of the PEOPLE. But, it will never happen. Sheeple sleep.

[Qqmike]

The 85 Richest People In The World Have As Much Wealth As The 3.5 Billion Poorest

http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-richest-people-in-the-world-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest/

which we all read/heard the other day on the news. No surpise, of course. Like it not, the wealth must be redistributed somehow. People at the bottom will have nothing to lose by violently storming the castles--in all countries. Maybe they don't all NEED a fancy refrigerator or a car or diamonds and gold; but they do need clean drinking water, basic hygiene, food, shelter, clothing, some health care, some education, and some more. And maybe all of 'us' (7 billions) do need some connection to the Internet, maybe not with a $500 iPhone, but some connection, even shared or available in their villages/communities (as we do in some libraries).

[SteveRiley]

That one corporate CEO can deliver millions to one or more Congressmen, the people's elected "representatives", and reverse the will of the people as expressed in the ballot box is criminal, and should not be allowed.

Fix the American election system thusly:

1. Primary campaigns for office may begin no more than 120 days before the general election.
2. Primary campaigns will end after 90 days, followed by a single day of nationwide primary elections.
3. The general campaign immediately begins and will end after 30 days, followed by a single day of nationwide general elections.
4. All of the above is financed purely and only with money from the US Treasury, equally proportioned among all candidates.

This approach:

* Eliminates the corrupting influence of money on elections
* Destroys the need for politicians to run perpetual re-election campaigns, freeing up time to actually govern
* Neutralizes the power of corporations to obtain favorable legislation -- if politicians can't be bought, corporations won't pay for them
* Forces the cable news networks to cover something other than what J. Random Candidate did with his penis this week

[richb]

Agree with all that has been said except the death penalty part. I am not opposed to the death penalty, but it should be reserved for appropriate crimes. Election campaigns have become ridiculously long and the money involved is outrageous. And the money continues once the person is elected to influence legislation. Not what our democracy was supposed to be.

[SteveRiley]

Agree with all that has been said except the death penalty part. I am not opposed to the death penalty, but it should be reserved for appropriate crimes. Election campaigns have become ridiculously long and the money involved is outrageous. And the money continues once the person is elected to influence legislation. Not what our democracy was supposed to be.

I suspect Jerry was speaking figuratively. He wrote, "Any corporation found guilty of attempting to or actually...bribing a Congressman should be given the death penalty -- the assets sold off and given to the workers to support them till they find another job." Jerry wants to kill corporations that bribe. I think we can all agree this is a good idea.

[richb]

I suspect Jerry was speaking figuratively. He wrote, "Any corporation found guilty of attempting to or actually...bribing a Congressman should be given the death penalty -- the assets sold off and given to the workers to support them till they find another job." Jerry wants to kill corporations that bribe. I think we can all agree this is a good idea.

Yeah, I misinterpreted it.

[Detonate]

The only people in a position to change the system are those that have the most to lose by changing the system, so the system will not be changed.

[dibl]

I wish more Americans would wake up and realize how stupid their health care system is.

Me too -- those who are awake to this scam regret the stupidity of the rest.

"Major Medical" insurance was a valuable innovation that corporations invented during the WW II years to compete for the few available employees in the workforce (most of the able-bodied were in the military). It provided insurance for guess what -- major medical problems that required hospitalization and/or surgery. And that's all. No doctor visits, no shots, no lab work, no X-rays, no checkups for this or that. In the succeeding decades Major Medical was transmogrified into the "is my hangnail covered?" goofy insurance products that we have today. It's like grocery insurance or electric bill insurance. It's that stupid. I'm very much a free-market, capitalist, minimal-government kind of guy, but what we have in the medical insurance industry is just an expensive pile of stupidity, and while I doubt the federal government is the only authority that could possibly manage to dispense health care in my town, at this point I must concede that would be less stupid that what we're putting up with today.

/rant