Health care - administrative incompetence

[kellyb]

If you have a disability, you get Medicare as well. This covers most of this stuff.

But *you* want to abolish Medicare, right? So in your ideal system, how would her medical needs be met? You said earlier in the thread that if you develop an illness you can't pay for, you'd rather die than accept tax money to pay for your treatment. Is that what you would have her do, too?

 

[Agatha]

But I've only had the RA for three or so years - so before then, no Medicare, yes?

How would I pay for it all? And if I couldn't pay, what happens then? Do I just die, as you said you would if you were sick?

 

[kellyb]

But I've only had the RA for a three or so years - so before then, no Medicare, yes?

How would I pay for it all? And if I couldn't pay, what happens then? Do I just die, as you said you would if you were sick?

In the actual US right now, we do provide medical care and supplemental income to the disabled who are extremely poor.
You'd have to share housing with a lot of roommates/family to survive, probably, but you'd survive.

 

[Agatha]

Me and my children sharing, that sounds like fun! We might miss our 5 bed detached, though.

 

[Darat]

Singapore isn't a dictatorship. But even if it was, I'm willing to learn from dictatorships as well as monarchies.

I think you need to do some research. (Psst - the UK is not a monarchy.)

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

.
Equal opportunity to purchase health care (i.e., laws to assure that you can't discriminate based on race, color, creed, handicap, prior sickness etc.).

That is PRECISELY the problem with a For Profit based Health Care system which is run by Anti-Trust Exempt Consortiums.

There is no equal opportunity to purchase health care in the US.

If you're poor (minimum wage jobs have no benefits and Health Insurance is unaffordable), unemployed, or even Middle Class with High Copays, you're basically SCREWED.

And if you're between jobs and lose your health coverage before your new job's benefits kick in you are screwed. Just like this guy:

A Maryland Republican elected this month on a fervent anti-Obamacare platform had the audacity to complain in a freshman orientation when he discovered his government health care wouldn't kick in until February. Andy Harris won election after repeatedly slamming his opponent, Democrat Frank Kratovil, for voting against Obamacare but refusing to commit to repealing it. After "surprising" his colleagues with his reaction in the orientation, he then asked if he could buy health care from the government to cover the gap, which, as a Congressional aide pointed out, is pretty much exactly the right he'd like to deny everybody else in America. Harris' spokeswoman said Harris's message was consistent: he was just pointing out the inefficiency of government health care.

The Audacity of Nope!!!!

GB

 

[Darat]

Define "access" and "good level of healthcare."


...snip...

Good level of healthcare - something comparable to the UHC in countries such as Germany, France and the UK.

Access - healthcare available when medically required.

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

I think you need to do some research. (Psst - the UK is not a monarchy.)

Well technically speaking the UK is a Constitutional Monarchy, i.e. the Monarchy is Head of State (a Figurehead), but the Government is Parliamentary.

GB

 

[Ducky]

In the actual US right now, we do provide medical care and supplemental income to the disabled who are extremely poor.
You'd have to share housing with a lot of roommates/family to survive, probably, but you'd survive.

As I posted last page, those programs in my case screwed me along with the Private Insurance companies.

 

[Rolfe]

What I find extremely strange is that while xjx388 agrees that the US system is irretrievably broken and needs to be completely re-thought, he can't see beyond his own ideology for a solution.

Nobody living with a universal healthcare system is saying their system is broken - in contrast, everyone is pretty well content even though some tweaking round the edges might be advocated. But basically, you will prise our NHS or equivalent from our cold dead hands.

xjx388's system, though, is broke.

Now, he agrees it needs to be re-thought. He has all these many and varied systems around the world to look at and observe the advantages, and any disadvantages. But does he so this? No, instead he spends all his energies rubbishing an entirely imaginary strawman version of the NHS. Jealous, much?

The thing is, the one feature all these varied systems of working effective universal healthcare have in common is a high degree of government involvement, either by taxing to fund healthcare directly or by mandating insurance coverage and subsidising as necessary. There is no example of any country where the "free market", without government intervention, has succeeded in delivering affordable healthcare to an entire population. For the very simple reason that any rational assessment of the suggestion demonstrates that it is quite self-evidently impossible.

But does xjx388 want to look at what actually works? No, because that would be socialism, and that's evil. Even if it works immeasurably better than what's going on in the USA.

He just wants to fantasise about this alternate universe where the laws of supply and demand work quite differently from Earth, defend the indefensible (even while agreeing it doesn't work), and rubbish the systems that actually deliver healthcare security to real people.

Rolfe.

 

[Agatha]

I'm still not really any the wiser as to what would happen to me under the current system before I developed the RA. ETA Unless you are counting the Crohn's as a disability?

 

[kellyb]

As I posted last page, those programs in my case screwed me along with the Private Insurance companies.

I know. I'm not saying our pathetic excuse for a safety net doesn't leave the unfortunate destitute - it does. I'm just saying it's not (yet) quite as bad as the libertopia conservatives yearn for, where you'd be dead instead of "just" destitute.

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

In the actual US right now, we do provide medical care and supplemental income to the disabled who are extremely poor.
You'd have to share housing with a lot of roommates/family to survive, probably, but you'd survive.

Only if you "qualify." you have to jump through a lot of hoops to qualify.

The Economy killed my small business, now I'm unemployed. Yet somehow I still don't qualify for Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid programme). I was only able to finally qualify for a County based Medical programme which still has copays I have to borrow money for. And I was only able to do so by claiming (truthfully) that I had a medical need (in my case depression and severe back pain due to Sherman's Disease).

When I owned my small business I couldn't afford health coverage for myself, let alone my two part time employees, as I only made just enough after costs to pay the mortgage, car payments, the bills, and buy food for myself and my Mum whose Disability payments are miniscule.

Why? Because of "pre-existing conditions." Most Health Insurers refused outright to cover me. And those that were willing had insanely high rates and high copays that were completely out of my reach.

So go ahead xjx388 and preach the Wonders of the US Profit Based Health Care system.

Wendall Potter (an insurance insider turned Whistle-blower) recently publicly apologized to Michael Moore for slandering and libeling Michael Moore's documentary Sicko. Potter confessed that he was part of an orchestrated campaign to smear Moore and the film. He admitted that Moore's film was in fact truthful, and that the Insurance Companies' Propaganda Machine flat out lied.

GB

 

[Tatyana]

One by one, let me share my experience with these:



Absolutely accurate for me. While I have not yet been told I hit a lifetime cap/maximum, when this happens (and I assume it will until something drastically changes) I'll be even deeper in than I am now.



Yes. When I was starting my business I had a day job for the insurance. When I was diagnosed I had begun full time to work on my business and was between coverage. Due to this, I faced a host of problems being covered and getting care I could afford.



Absolutely true. Were I to get my own policy now it would be completely unaffordable. I should point out I make well above the poverty line, and it is still unaffordable.



100% accurate. I don't have a lot to add, that's pretty specific and self-explanatory.



One better: I turned to MinnCare, a public service for those without insurance who need it. I was told to qualify for coverage to get the surgery to fix my spine I had to make less than 500 dollars a month. That doesn't even cover rent, but I shut down my business and under advice from the social worker did not file for unemployment in order to qualify. When I did that, and was forced to rely on credit for the qualifying period and I found myself in massive debt from it. 6 months later when that coverage was changed (based on need of cost, emergency operation v. continued care) MinnCare has a program worked out with private insurance companies. When I was handed over to a major Private insurer in Minnesota, that insurer promptly dropped any payments on any services because several years prior I had been covered with them under another primary care physician. Because of this, 100% of my radiation treatments and PT recovery regimen was not covered. My debt has spiraled well into six figures since then, even after getting on insurance through my work's group policy.

But hey, I should have gone without because I couldn't afford it, right xjx388? Obviously I'm one of those welfare cheats you describe.

ETA: Side note: at the time this happened I was called a welfare cheat by someone whose views mirrored xjx388. Apparently I am somehow a welfare cheat for needed gov't assistance for health care and yet NOT filing for unemployment.

That is sickening.

 

[Uncayimmy]

The premiums must be offered at the same rate as healthy people, with variations for age, region and family size. But doing this will result in premiums going up for all, theoretically.

That seems to be the case with the high risk pool, which doesn't affect insurance companies.

Apparently in 2014 you can't be charged a higher rate for a pre-existing condition. However, I have no clue if they can jack up your rates once you fall ill.

 

[kellyb]

I'm still not really any the wiser as to what would happen to me under the current system before I developed the RA.

You can get disability benefits (to pay some of the rent/electric bill) for Crohn's when it's bad enough.
If you have little or no income, you can get on Medicaid to pay for your health care. You have to live in real poverty, though.

 

[jimbob]

Meanwhile people like Ducky and bookitty demonstrate how they get let down by the system, and there is little outcry, because it is not news.

EDIT: because, further to Rolfe's post, the system is so utterly broken.

The posters from the rest of the OECD have taken collective responsibility for tehir healthcare, buy ensuring that their governments supply it.

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

I know. I'm not saying our pathetic excuse for a safety net doesn't leave the unfortunate destitute - it does. I'm just saying it's not (yet) quite as bad as the libertopia conservatives yearn for, where you'd be dead instead of "just" destitute.

Unless you live in Arizona.

And last time I checked, roughly 40,000 people a year were estimated to die due to lack of health coverage.

GB

 

[kellyb]

Unless you live in Arizona.

And last time I checked, roughly 40,000 people a year were estimated to die due to lack of health coverage. GB

To be fair, in the interests of skepticism and intellectual honesty, the study actually said it was 40,000 deaths "associated with" lack of insurance. There are a few confounding factors there, more likely than not.

That said, people definitely do die from lack of insurance in the US. The actual number is unknown.

 

[Rolfe]

How are you?

No, dammit, I'm quoting the whole post. Winner of the 2009 Language Award.

I'm fine thanks for asking.

OK, that's a lie. I wasn't fine when I first started losing feeling in my legs. I wasn't fine when I first saw my spine crumbling into a tumor. I wasn't fine when I first was told what my operation and subsequent treatment would involve and I was decidedly not fine when I was told my odds for 5 year survival. I wasn't fine when they told me what the progression of my treatments would be or that there isn't even a guarantee of curative measures with stem cell transplantation.

The problem through all of that wasn't a fear of death. It was the fear of the next news or the next physical therapy appointment, the next time my pain medication wore off or the next bone marrow biopsy. I never got a chance to think ahead far enough to worry about death. I never gave myself that chance. When things began to turn around, when I was walking and jogging again, I began to feel some youth again. I was feeling that youthful indestructible arrogance that allowed me to avoid having to deal with death. Then I got the moniker of “Titanium Superhero.” I bought the hype. I was a champion, and cancer survivors were superheroes.

When I saw recursions in bone marrow it was another step. It wasn't death. I was beating the averages for mortality at 5 years even if I was average for recursion. I was told this is a management disease. They manage Multiple Myeloma for life. I didn't think that they were not referring to an average healthy lifespan. So I took my medication and I went to the cancer center for tests and poking and prodding and I didn't lose much hair and I got through it to a manageable point. I didn't, however, think that recursion could move from plasmacytoma of bone to plasmacytoma of tissue. They told me it could. I looked up the numbers and it is rare.

I have tissue cloning out of control. This time it isn't bone marrow. It isn't the rotting of bone and it isn't the same as before. Like before I held steadfastly to my immortality and youth. I waited until next test, until next poke, until next prod and next imaging session. I made glib comments and gallows-humor jokes to nurses. I was the Titanium Superhero and I would endure. I reacted with disdain at sympathy while realizing that 90% of my time is making everyone else feel better about what is happening and secretly loathing that I had to do that when I was fine. Really, I was fine, thanks for asking. As I sit here out of pain medication and unable to refill a prescription I have the type of rage that could boil each cell in my body into vapor.

I don't want this anymore. I don't want nights of frantic distractions in music or coding. I am sick of the bash shell being my escape or tweaking the perfect tone from a Paul Reed Smith. Let's face facts here, VIM blows and you don't need to tweak a PRS. Anything further is delving into madness for the sake of escape. Even if I were to leave behind my code or my music I would only then have sleepless nights of staring at nothing trying to erase the thoughts from my brain. I have had enough of that for 5 years. I have had enough of deciding what to do for my wife when I die. I have had enough of pretending I am strong enough to counsel everyone else who can't handle what isn't happening to them. I am sick to death of the ******** that is dying slowly. I'm tired.

I'm exhausted, actually. I have spent so much rage at the universe and my own cellular biology that I have nothing left. This teapot has long since cooled and the screams no longer echo. There is nothing left to be angry about. There is no more rage to be had. There is only what is going to happen next. I'd love to say there's some great new treatment that changes the face of cancer, but I don't have it. Science hasn't progressed so far as to cure all forms of cancer. There is pain, there is metastasis and then there is a very slow, horrific and lonely death.

In truth the rage dissipated long ago. I saw myself not caring anymore. I don't go out. I am irritated beyond words with social interactions. I don't relate to shiny people. I have no social life anymore, beyond what is absolutely necessary and I've let that cloud engulf my wife as well. There was a dinner the Saturday before my first surgery that all my friends at the time attended. We took up half of the restaurant. I'd be hard pressed to fill a 4 top now. I am too tired to keep niceties with people who either avoid the subject that shadows my life or can't understand that their hope is fruitless. I don't care to see people because I see in life what I see on-line: inflexibility, anger at what is different and varying levels of plateau in regards to bothering to read or learn. I see this in me as well. I see so much needless bickering and resentment over the stupidest of small points in an argument or the most trivial of differences between people as the very core of everything that I am sick of about myself and others.

I work, I go to the oncology ward, I go home and I do it wondering exactly what becoming nothingness is. I realize all of the things that should be fixed or finished or done that will never be. I realize the pointlessness of worrying about any leftover memories of me. I marvel at all the stupid ******** we need to feel about ourselves just to feed our fragile ego and how much cognitive dissonance there is from our self image to the appearance of that to others. The most amazing night can be spent in a franticness only to be broken by the epiphany that not one mystical or mythical being I could think to beg or bargain with will ever answer. Add to that bite of clarity a true understanding of how others perceive me and I finally understand what meaning I am to put to this pointlessness.

Time is squandered. Life is wasted. Too much time is spent with pettiness and bickering. I took quite a bit of time off from this forum and I came back to the same games, the same needling, the same trolling and the same ****** treatments of each other. There's pointless needling of small points in some vain hope to win non-existent points in an argument. There's harassment of the mods for little more than what amounts to soapboxing over how someone thinks the world should be. There is needling the JREF proper over procedures or finances that are public to those who ask politely. There is the harassment or taunting of other people because of a differing of beliefs often couched in the appearance of trying to get someone to change those beliefs for the better but ending up to be a flame war redesigned to be just within the rules of this forum. There is such pointless anger stemming from wounds blown so out of proportion by stubbornness, pride and time that it physically pains to see the continued rift. Newsflash folks, the world, the Internet, this site, the JREF and the universe need not bother aligning itself to your ego. You're simply wasting time. This isn't the friendly discussion or meaningful discourse it's portrayed as. This isn't asking uncomfortable questions, this is playing out some sort of game and I'm sick of it.

But then, I am also guilty of being so presumptuous as to believe the universe should bend to my will, that this site should be something other than it is. This site can be for good, honest discourse without bickering of flame-baiting. This site is also home to some of the most ridiculous, ego-driven drivel couched as intelligent discourse I've seen, but that's not new to the Internet. I remember USENET. It's common. It's drivel and it's something beneath you. It was beneath me, as well. This isn't about the moniker of skeptic or believer. This is about whether you really want to waste your time in a bickering contest, a flame war or scoring some mythical points in an argument that has repeated itself over the Internet countless times. If you want to change something stop typing and do it.

The catharsis from a good self-righteous diatribe has tired me out. I'm done spending my time trying to bring the thoughts in my head to some understanding to others in line with what my ego wants from the universe. I'm done posting to useless and oft-repeated debates on the Internet. I am done trying to change what I cannot. I can no more stop the bickering and flames on this or any other forum than I can change the broken cells cloning out of control in my bones and in my tissue. I am done vomiting from medication and I am done trying to convince doctors and nurses of pain I have when the nature of US health care is to assume back pain is equal to junkie scams. I have no idea what to do next but I do know that not any ounce of my will can change the simple fact that I will die of cancer eventually. Not any rage against the dying of the light will ever change that light's dimming to black. Even if I manage to survive another round of this hell nothing changes the fact that I will die someday, and at times that fills me with the same dread that I felt as a child when I lay awake at night trying to imagine what death is like. Not any trauma I've ever done to myself or that has been done to me could compare to that moment as a child when you realize that eventually everyone dies and trying to imagine what it is to not breathe or think is the same as becoming absolutely nothing.

Other nights it just makes me sad that I haven't done more. I would love to have the strength to finish all that I wanted to up until now. Some nights I cry for no apparent reason, lying to my wife that the musical episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer really does touch me that deeply however I'm pretty sure she's on to that yarn.

Tonight it just makes me tired. It makes me tired to wonder how long I actually have. It makes me tired to wonder how I can help my wife be taken care of for my funeral or help her afford rent when I am gone. I am tired worrying if I taught my wife enough about *nix to be able to use and troubleshoot the media server running the TV. I am tired of crying for myself. I am tired of crying for my wife. I am tired by other people crying for me. I am tired telling other people comforting things so they can feel better about my cancer. I am tired and have no energy left for rage or happiness or depression or any other emotion. Emotions take energy and there is none to be had. I have to squirrel energy away for things like walking and oncologists and comforting others. I have become like a robot, and that's all I know to get through this.

Before anyone asks, I don't have a prognosis yet for you. I don't know what is coming treatment-wise. I don't know what odds I can be given, or a time-frame. I only know how much pain there is and the alarming blood work. I only know that there are masses growing and I can touch and feel some of them. I only know that metastasis is very real. I only know that I am done wasting my time on ******** arguments on forums on the Internet. I only know that it feels bad. I only know the look I was given by the oncologists and nurses isn't the look I got from them last time around. I only know that in the end death always wins. I only know that no matter how much longer I have, be it years or decades or weeks, it is never going to be enough so I am going to do everything I can will my body to do for as long as I can and the Internet is among the lowest of my priorities. I wish you all well. I'll be around, I guess. As much as I rage against wasting time, I'm only human and eventually I will find myself back on the Internet reading forums or poking at my servers. My hypocrisy knows no bounds, it seems.

Good night and good luck.

Rolfe.