Quote:
Originally Posted by surferguy
I met a women last year while traveling. Mid forties and was suffering hard times after the financial meltdown of 2008. She was faced with the reality of having to cancel her health insurance for a few months. Before she did she went and got a check up and a full health stamp of approval.
Insurance cancelled.
Two months later she had an anuerism. She spent a fair amount of time in the hospital. While she was recovering she was having to make decisions about accepting an aspirin/Tylenol while in the hospital bed because she knew she couldn't afford to pay for the treatment. Meanwhile the staff was just telling her not to worry about it the cost of the Tylenol it's your health - you can sort it all out later. In the end it was a 250k bill.
The only reason she didn't go bankrupt was due to the fact that she had a friend who was a lawyer who went to bat for her to negotiate with the private hospital.
He basically said to them - you either get this amount of nothing.
I was floored when I was told this story. As a Canadian I take our system a human right. I couldn't even imagine having to make a decision about going to see a Dr because of how much this is going to cost me. Refusing a Tylenol in care because each one was 12 bucks. Imagine the kind of stress that puts on a recovery. I find it absurd because I was lucky enough to grow up somewhere that has this available to its citizens.
In my opinion there is so much wrong with America and number on on that list is health care.
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Health care arguments get so illogical that I don't how it could ever get to a good place. There were significant amount of people in her same place who voted against Hillary because they hated that Obamacare forced them to buy health insurance.
The big problem is that 75% of American's have decent enough health insurance (either through their employer, Medicare or Medicaid), where they could end up with a couple thousand in medical bills as a worst case scenario. There's the 25-30% who have to fend for themselves for insurance that are in the crappiest spot. Obamacare helped a lot of those people out, but it also alienated a lot of those people. Most of those people were people who (foolishly, IMO) thought that it was worth the risk to either go with no insurance or very high deductible insurance and now health insurance cost them more.
The political challenge is how do you sell the public on helping the 25% of people who negotiate their own insurance, when that 25% of people even is split on how they should be helped. The contingency plan for a lot of people (whether they consciously recognize it or not) is if something happens, they go to the ER who can't refuse them, and bankrupt their bills. And apparently a lot of people want that right to continue to be able to do that.
I don't know how you'd say it in a politically correct way, but someone needs to stand up and say if you don't agree with an individual mandate, and you have the means to insurance, and you don't have cash to put up front, then you don't get to go to the ER when something bad happens.
If republicans were true to what they believed in, they would agree that having a free ER safety net is not taking personal responsibility.