My ex was treated for a heart attack in Oakland Ca and the hospital didn't even bother to bill us. They just sent the bill to the Italian consulate who paid it, no questions asked. Nice system   I doubt Danny Williams will be out of pocket for long.

Off topic replies have been moved to This Thread

Just heard a piece on NPR this morning. Placebos are twice as effective as they were 20 years ago!  
 
M

Quote: "“Of course,” she replied calmly. “In Australia, we all pay for it. And those who’ve got more, pay more.”
 
Now there’s an idea. Can somebody please cc the Republicans?"
                                                  ***********
We're doing exactly that now and here are some of the results.
 
Miami Board Looks to Close Two Hospitals
By CATHARINE SKIPP
Published: March 5, 2010
 
MIAMI — At risk of running out of money in May, Miami’s public health care system is considering closing two of its five hospitals and laying off 4,487 employees — a third of its work force, the chief executive said Friday.  
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/06/us/06miami.html
                                               **************
The Mt. story:
Quote: "This mobile service offers free mammograms, no appointment necessary. It wasn’t until I saw that van that I realized a mammogram was one of the things I’d forgotten to do. I was a year overdue, according to the guidelines for women my age, so I stepped into the van,"
                                                           
Now just why am I merely a tad resistant in being lectured on health care by this "Expert" --in her own words.. No doubt a "Dual" Citizen able to cherry pick the care she wants.
 
It is not "Her" whom I have issues with, but "Yolanda", one of the millions of Tijuana "fence hoppers", who come to visit "Auntie" in Miami--(use your own big City)-and by sheer coincidence and clean air, check in to avail themselves of that free health care that I,-one of those "got mores",--pony up for.  
 
And what comes out of the Hospital??, a wonderful, little bundle of joy, clutching a U.S. Passport in one chubby little fist, and in the other, a lifetime worth of free coupons for her, Mom, and Jesus, who's on his way. Good not only for free health care but, housing, food, clothes, entertainment and other assorted "necessities" of a subsistence American lifestyle!.  
 
Now I'll grant you, this is not the way of life in my dreams. But I will go "All In" with my chips, that it beats the Livin' dog$hit out of Tijuana.
 
Now if all you homesick ex-pats will please desist from extolling the merits of your assorted homelands you willingly left, and laying guilt trips on me as to how I should Pony up and improve America, I have some tax forms to fill out. Just do well in your OTB jobs!, which will put you in the upper classes--Back home!.  
 
                                                          ***************
 
As far as our notorious "Health Care Bill"--
In front of my face I witness our representatives collaborating with Big Pharma to Price Fix American produced drugs to their own American Constituents, so they are paying double and triple the costs-(which Pharma still makes a profit on)-paid in adjoining Foreign Country's!!.
 
Now-!!-??--What's wrong with this picture??--Then,-- like I'm too stupid to have noticed. I'm told--after -( I've seen what the grifters have done with the wine list!!)-"We know what's really best--Let Us handle the whole Banquet Menu, and we'll show you how to have a real feast and--SAVE MONEY!!!".
 
Thanks!!--But No Thanks!!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Alan Grayson introduces Public Option Act
By karoli Wednesday Mar 10, 2010 10:00am
 
Alan Grayson came to the House Floor today to introduce the Public Option Act, which would allow all Americans to buy into Medicare at cost. The bill is 4 pages long, and calls for an unsubsidized option for any American to choose Medicare over private insurers.
 
The bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish enrollment periods, coverage guidelines, and premiums for the program. Because premiums would be equal to cost, the program would pay for itself.
 
“The government spent billions of dollars creating a Medicare network of providers that is only open to one-eighth of the population. That’s like saying, ‘Only people 65 and over can use federal highways.’ It is a waste of a very valuable resource and it is not fair. This idea is simple, it makes sense, and it deserves an up-or-down vote,” Congressman Grayson said.
 
I have doubts that this bill will get to a vote anytime soon, but it gives me hope that we'll move in the direction of a Medicare expansion, and it certainly offers a solid goal for progressives to embrace going forward. I have always believed this is the right public option, rather than creating a brand new bureaucracy. However, the Medicare infrastructure needs some work before the doors can be thrown open to everyone. Those remodels are already in the Senate bill, in the form of innovation, streamlining, electronic health records and outcomes-based medicine. The Medicare reforms are robust, meaningful, and will make Medicare the most viable public option of all.
 
More significantly, Grayson's introduction of this bill right now invites Dennis Kucinich to stand down on his opposition to the Senate bill. Grayson isn't introducing this bill as a symbolic gesture. There's no question that the public option, as debated over the past year, has traction and is popular, especially when framed as a Medicare buy-in. By making it a separate initiative, Grayson unbundles it from the Senate bill and gives both an opportunity to pass.
 
Whether it passes this year or not, it's a magnificent and savvy political move on Grayson's part. Let's hope Kucinich picks up the cue, moves the ball down the field instead of picking up the goalposts and heading home.
 
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/alan-grayson-introduces-public-option-act

The key to Medicare is to have a secondary coverage -(as I have)-to make up the balance. This would put it within reach of a large portion of marginal incomes, which should be the primary goal of this exercise.  
 
This will still leave a portion uncovered, at bottom income levels. Will leave caregivers shorted--as you rightly point out--due to Politicians setting parameters, plus a stripped fund covering from day to day as they "Borrow" funds meant to build a reserve and replace them with worthless treasuries. The new premiums paid by the expanded membership will no doubt meet the same fate. Now when did I last hear the term "Lock-box".
 
At the very least everyone knows what we're dealing with! Not a "Pass it now get bit later"!.
 
The Canadian system is no Panacea either as I have known several who have come here for care as the Line/wait there is great enough to qualify for "Malpractice".

Quote from drbob on Mar 11^th, 2010, 9:44am:

 
I'm taking Susan (she's home from the hospital again) to the doctor today. Susan has Medicare and her Doc doesn't seem to be hurting for money but one easy solutions is to increase the payments to doctors and pay for the increase by charging more for Medicare. Pretty simple solution and still would be a huge savings over the current system.
 
EVEN today, March 11, 2010 - the chamber of commerce spending heavy to DEFEAT healthcare reform .........
 
Chamber Ads Divide Small Biz
 
 
 
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it's fighting for small businesses
, but not all small-business owners appreciate the effort.
 
After the chamber's launched its $4 million ad campaign against the health care bill Tuesday, the progressive Main Street Alliance pushed back, saying their members were being misrepresented and left without voice in the reform debate. Chamber Ready to Launch Ads [ http://undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com/2010/03/chamber-poised-to-launch-ad s.php ] [ http://mainstreetalliance.org/wordpress/ ]
 
Representing about 10,000 small-business owners, the Main Street Alliance is taking an aggressive stance against the chamber's ads and sent a handful of its members to protest an insurance industry convention this week. Illinois small-business owner Dan Sherry, who sits on the group's national board, said he was "at the front lines" of the protest because the alliance "wants Congress to listen to small-business owners, not the chamber." After the protests, Sherry met with a number of Illinois legislative aides to discuss his coalition's outlook.
 
"The U.S Chamber claims they talk for us when the truth is they're a fully-owned subsidiary in the pockets of the insurance companies," Sherry said. "They represent strictly large businesses. To me it's an absolute tragedy that most Americans think that whatever the chamber says is the voice of small business when it's not."
 
The Mail Street Alliance supports the Senate health care bill because it "provides subsidies, helps small businesses provide for their employees and levels the playing field," Sherry said.
 
Employers for a Healthy Economy, a group that supports the chamber's ad campaign, countered that the bill is "unaffordable" and will end up costing small businesses more in state penalties.
 
Not outright supporters of the chamber, but "in line" with their position on small businesses, the 350,000-member-strong National Federation of Independent Business called the bill "devastating" due to the employer mandates it will impose. NFIB spokesperson Stephanie Cathcart said costs "will be passed on to us, the little guys."
 
Molly Brogan, vice president of public affairs for the National Small Business Association, characterized her group's position as "somewhere between the two" extremes in an e-mail to National Journal.
 
"We've been calling for broad reform of the health care system since 2004, but it's got to be the right reform, and it's got to be affordable --which I think is the underlying issue [the chamber's] ads are trying to point out," she said.
 
Brogan said her organization agrees with the chamber that the costs of employer mandates are "unaffordable," but supports "long-term reductions in premium cost -- not just short-term tax credits."
 
"This debate is too important to walk away from or scrap entirely," Brogan continued, "but it's also too important not to get it done right."
 
http://undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com/2010/03/us-chamber-ads-divide-small -bi.php#more
 

Ok, time to read Ann Coulter on the controversy.  She offers an approach ignored by both parties, each for their own reasons, which strangely enough feels as if it might work.   Not only that, it has some gentle humor,  too...
 
 
 
My Healthcare Plan
by  Ann Coulter
03/17/2010
 
 
Liberals keep complaining that Republicans don't have a plan for reforming health care in America. I have a plan!
 
It's a one-page bill creating a free market in health insurance. Let's all pause here for a moment so liberals can Google the term "free market."
 
Nearly every problem with health care in this country -- apart from trial lawyers and out-of-date magazines in doctors' waiting rooms -- would be solved by my plan.
 
 
In the first sentence, Congress will amend the McCarran-Ferguson Act to allow interstate competition in health insurance.
 
We can't have a free market in health insurance until Congress eliminates the antitrust exemption protecting health insurance companies from competition. If Democrats really wanted to punish insurance companies, which they manifestly do not, they'd make insurers compete.
 
The very next sentence of my bill provides that the exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company's home office is. Every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates, just as most corporations are based in Delaware today.
 
That's the only way to bypass idiotic state mandates, requiring all insurance plans offered in the state to cover, for example, the Zone Diet, sex-change operations, and whatever it is that poor Heidi Montag has done to herself this week.
 
President Obama says we need national health care because Natoma Canfield of Ohio had to drop her insurance when she couldn't afford the $6,700 premiums, and now she's got cancer.
 
Much as I admire Obama's use of terminally ill human beings as political props, let me point out here that perhaps Natoma could have afforded insurance had she not been required by Ohio's state insurance mandates to purchase a plan that covers infertility treatments and unlimited OB/GYN visits, among other things.
 
It sounds like Natoma could have used a plan that covered only the basics -- you know, things like cancer.
 
The third sentence of my bill would prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies, except for normal laws and regulations that apply to all companies.
 
Freed from onerous state and federal mandates turning insurance companies into public utilities, insurers would be allowed to offer a whole smorgasbord of insurance plans, finally giving consumers a choice.
 
Instead of Harry Reid deciding whether your insurance plan covers Viagra, this decision would be made by you, the consumer. (I apologize for using the terms "Harry Reid" and "Viagra" in the same sentence. I promise that won't happen again.)
 
Instead of insurance companies jumping to the tune of politicians bought by health-care lobbyists, they would jump to tune of hundreds of millions of Americans buying health insurance on the free market.
 
Hypochondriac liberals could still buy the aromatherapy plan and normal people would be able to buy plans that only cover things such as major illness, accidents and disease. (Again -- things like Natoma Canfield's cancer.)
 
This would, in effect, transform medical insurance into ... a form of insurance!
 
My bill will solve nearly every problem allegedly addressed by ObamaCare -- and mine entails zero cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, a free market in health insurance would produce major tax savings as layers of government bureaucrats, unnecessary to medical service in America, get fired.
 
For example, in a free market, the government wouldn't need to prohibit insurance companies from excluding "pre-existing conditions."
 
Of course, an insurance company has to be able to refuse NEW customers with "pre-existing conditions." Otherwise, everyone would just wait to get sick to buy insurance. It's the same reason you can't buy fire insurance on a house that's already on fire.
 
That isn't an "insurance company"; it's what's known as a "Christian charity."
 
What Democrats are insinuating when they denounce exclusions of "pre-existing conditions" is an insurance company using the "pre-existing condition" ruse to deny coverage to a current policy holder -- someone who's been paying into the plan, year after year.
 
Any insurance company operating in the free market that pulled that trick wouldn't stay in business long.
 
If hotels were as heavily regulated as health insurance is, right now I'd be explaining to you why the government doesn't need to mandate that hotels offer rooms with beds. If they didn't, they'd go out of business.
 
I'm sure people who lived in the old Soviet Union thought it was crazy to leave groceries to the free market. ("But what if they don't stock the food we want?")
 
The market is a more powerful enforcement mechanism than indolent government bureaucrats. If you don't believe me, ask Toyota about six months from now.
 
Right now, insurance companies are protected by government regulations from having to honor their contracts. Violating contracts isn't so easy when competitors are lurking, ready to steal your customers.
 
In addition to saving taxpayer money and providing better health insurance, my plan also saves trees by being 2,199 pages shorter than the Democrats' plan.
 
Feel free to steal it, Republicans!