Government Run Healthcare

[dbasnett]

Let me say that if it were done properly I'd be first in line, but properly and the US Government is an oxymoron IMHO.

As some of you know in July of 2008 I thought I was a goner. But I have received great medical service from the VA.

However, the other side of the government showed up a couple of weeks ago. The short version is:

1. My initial coverage was free.
2. Last year I made just enough money to cross a threshold so I started having to make co-pays, and when the services started adding up they allowed me to go on the easy payment plan.
3. So far, so good.
4. Then a couple of weeks ago I received a letter saying that I had a past due amount of $67.
5. I called the 800 number provided and after an hour on hold the following discussion transpired.

VA - Let me look up your account. OK, I see that you are making payments.
ME - So why do I have a past due amount.
VA - You don't.
ME - Why the letter?
VA - We don't have a repay agreement on file.
ME - Is what I am sending every month the correct amount?
VA - Yes
ME - Send me an agreement stating that and I'll sign it and return it to you.
VA - We can't do that. We'll send you a form, you fill in the amount.
ME - Will you send me a response saying that is what we agreed to.
VA - No.
ME - So let me get this straight. You want me to send another form, that says what the last one says, and in point of fact I have been sending the agreed upon amount that you are not asking to change?
VA - That is correct.
ME - No
VA - If you don't we will turn you over to the treasury for collection.
ME - So you are going to turn me over to collections, not for not paying an amount we agreed upon, but for not filling out a form that you mis-placed?
VA - Yes
ME - Please do so.

I later spoke to a supervisor that sent me a letter stating what the agreed upon amount is, but I am contemplating letting them send me to collections and then finding me an ambulance chasing attorney and suing them for stupidity.

So, my government health care is great, except for the money people.

[homer13j]

Hold on tight... A massive blanket amnesty for all illegal aliens is coming next.

November can't get here soon enough...

[dilettante]

Amnesty? You mean like the one Reagan signed in 1986?

Of course the revisionists try hard to cover it up by fancy dancing:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1065553/posts

The terms vary only slightly from what this group proposes:

http://www.usamnesty.org/

[capsulecorpjx]

Let me say that if it were done properly I'd be first in line, but properly and the US Government is an oxymoron IMHO.

As some of you know in July of 2008 I thought I was a goner. But I have received great medical service from the VA.

However, the other side of the government showed up a couple of weeks ago. The short version is:

1. My initial coverage was free.
2. Last year I made just enough money to cross a threshold so I started having to make co-pays, and when the services started adding up they allowed me to go on the easy payment plan.
3. So far, so good.
4. Then a couple of weeks ago I received a letter saying that I had a past due amount of $67.
5. I called the 800 number provided and after an hour on hold the following discussion transpired.

VA - Let me look up your account. OK, I see that you are making payments.
ME - So why do I have a past due amount.
VA - You don't.
ME - Why the letter?
VA - We don't have a repay agreement on file.
ME - Is what I am sending every month the correct amount?
VA - Yes
ME - Send me an agreement stating that and I'll sign it and return it to you.
VA - We can't do that. We'll send you a form, you fill in the amount.
ME - Will you send me a response saying that is what we agreed to.
VA - No.
ME - So let me get this straight. You want me to send another form, that says what the last one says, and in point of fact I have been sending the agreed upon amount that you are not asking to change?
VA - That is correct.
ME - No
VA - If you don't we will turn you over to the treasury for collection.
ME - So you are going to turn me over to collections, not for not paying an amount we agreed upon, but for not filling out a form that you mis-placed?
VA - Yes
ME - Please do so.

I later spoke to a supervisor that sent me a letter stating what the agreed upon amount is, but I am contemplating letting them send me to collections and then finding me an ambulance chasing attorney and suing them for stupidity.

So, my government health care is great, except for the money people.

What Government Health Care? if you're talking about the bill passed this weekend, it requires people to buy Health Insurance or get taxed. It does subsidize the working poor who can't afford it. On a plus side, people aren't allowed to be turned down or dropped from coverage for being sick.

I'm not sure what's the policy of requiring companies to offer health insurance (so that even a minimum wage clerk gets a policy).



The cynical me thinks this is a way to funnel money into the private health insurance companies.

But maybe it is just a way to force the healthy people to buy insurance to even out the costs Companies not being able to 1) Dropping cancer patients from coverage 2) Declining people already sick.

[Shaggy Hiker]

People object to socialized medicin, but what we currently have is communistic medicin. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

If we have a medical condition, then we want it treated (now that it CAN be treated, as there was no effective treatment prior to around 1910, nor was there health insurance prior to about 1940 or so (it was a bit earlier)). However, effective medical treatment means that you will not just incurr this cost, but a future cost. One of the oddities about medical treatment is that if it doesn't work, then you won't use any more. Of course, that's kind of how I feel about lots of things I buy, but in the case of major medical issues, I probably can't afford them on my own anyways.

Still, as technology increases, even if all other waste and issues could be addressed with impossible perfection, the price of health care would still increase simply because whenever it becomes more effective, you will use more. Furthermore, it will never be cheap if for no other reason than the sheer cost of the equipment, which is becoming increasingly specialized and is never sold in especially high volumes, coupled with the extensive skill sets needed to fill various roles in the profession. At some point, we reach a situation where no person making the median income has a chance of paying for their own medical care. Heck, we may already be there, but there are still plenty of inefficiencies in the system.

So basically, at this point, or sometime in the forseeable future, it will become impossible for the median person in the country to afford their own health care costs regardless of how we slice things up. Will people voluntarily accept a cap such that once they spend X amount, then that's all the health care they get in their life? I seriously doubt it. People want health care based on their own perceived need, not based on their ability to afford it. So who will pay? The only practical answer, ultimately, is everyone.

There will come a day when the primary purpose of any first world government will be to provide health care to the citizenry. The citizens will not be able to come close to affording it on their own, and if a significant percentage of the population becomes disenfranchised....well, disenfranchisement in this case means dying, and people don't like to be told to die, so once a sufficient percentage is in that boat, then how would the government, any government, survive?

[homer13j]

Amnesty? You mean like the one Reagan signed in 1986?

Of course the revisionists try hard to cover it up by fancy dancing:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1065553/posts

That was quite a nitpicky article. The author makes it out like no aliens were ever granted citizenship at all. Call it "revisionism" if you like, but the fact is at least 2.7 million illegals were rewarded for breaking our immigration laws.

The terms vary only slightly from what this group proposes:

http://www.usamnesty.org/

Those are the exact same arguments they made in '86. Including howlers like it will "Create Secure Borders" (24 years later and our borders are more wide-open than ever) and of course, "Remove Incentives to Enter Illegally" uh, yeah... How's that working out?



http://www.cis.org/articles/2000/ins1986amnesty.html

[honeybee]

... Those are the exact same arguments they made in '86. Including howlers like it will "Create Secure Borders" (24 years later and our borders are more wide-open than ever) ...[/URL]

Well, don't forget you are "alienating" the people who are entering the US legally, by subjecting them to body searches and whatnots.

.

[Torc]

I later spoke to a supervisor that sent me a letter stating what the agreed upon amount is, but I am contemplating letting them send me to collections and then finding me an ambulance chasing attorney and suing them for stupidity.

Be careful, such a case could get thrown out on the grounds that stupidity is
the highest level of intelligence that is found in a Government, Government
run department, or Government funded organisation.