Obligatory Coverage For Pre-Existing Illness

[Lloyd Danforth]

"Hello, Allstate?  You've never heard of me, but my house just burned down and I'd like to buy..........."

[Lloyd Danforth]

"Hello, Geico?  You've never heard of me, but I've just run down some school kids and I'd like to buy....."

[Pat K]

You just hate America and all her little children.
Oh and puppies ,your just a hater.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Where did you ever get the idea that I hate Puppies??

[WithoutAPaddle]

Making insurance available for heretofore uninsured people with pre-existing conditions may not be viable in the long run, but it is not being done in the long run.  In the long run, everyone will have to have insurance, but in the interim, from "here to there", some people with pre-exising conditions will be getting insurance reimbursements that do exceed the value of their premiums.

In another thread, I once asked how many people here do not have insurance and what would you want done if you needed emergency treatment that you cannot afford, but got no replies.  I doubt that very many people here would be willing to carry a card in their wallet saying, "I don't have insurance and my net worth is only about $5,000, so if I am in need of any treatment that will significantly exceed that amount but am unable to state my treatment choices, please leave me to die."

I'm one of those people who might benefit from mandatory health insurance.  I have never had health insurance in my life.  Some years, I couldn't have afforded it.  Now I can, but I am reluctant to buy it because, as a self employed worker, I would not have the negotiating clout of a large employer, and while insurance available to me individually would protect me from being financially decimated by a one-shot expenditure,  like a triple bypass, the insurance company could cancel my policy or raise my rates to a level I couldn't pay if I developed a condition requiring expensive, periodic care or treatment for the rest of my life.  In other words, if I pay the market rate for coverage now, while I am healthy, I would not be guaranteeing myself the same continuity of coverage that I would be getting if I were indirectly paying the same amount but as part of group coverage through a large employer.

The United States is attempting to join the rest of the civilized world in guaranteeing health care availability to all of its citizens.  We may be half a dozen years away from making that goal a reality.  This plan that just passed in Congress isn't going to do it, but it irrevocably commits us to doing it, because as soon as the Republicans try to repeal any part of it, there will be hundred of thousands of real human beings who will come forward and say, "I now have the treatment that I could never afford.  If you vote for/against this proposed legislation, I will go without treatment that I need."  It is a lot harder, politically, to take something away from someone than to deny giving it to them when they don't already have it.

I was born in 1952, meaning that I got to see the world as it was before the Great Society came in and we declared war on poverty.  I went to a school that was laden with kids who were poor and kids who were in poverty.  My family was at the low end of middle class at the time, which made me one of the "rich kids" there, so to speak.  I ate three meals a day and they didn't.  I got three shirts and three pair of pants at the start of each school year and they didn't.  I went to the dentist twice a year and they didn't.

I honestly don't know if the household I grew up in had been a net beneficiary of government or not.  If you count just my pre-adulthood, we never got any payments from the government:  we weren't on welfare, we didn't live in subsidized housing and I didn't get meal tickets for use in the school cafeteria, though we all got to buy half pints of milk for 3 cents each, but I don't know how that was funded.  Maybe my parents paid a couple of dollars a week more in taxes after 1965 to pay for that welfare.  If we did, all I can say in that regard is, I consider it money well spent, as the poor people I went to school with became slightly less poor.  On the other hand, I can't imagine that the taxes my parents paid in those years were sufficient to pay for the education that the school system provided for me.

Over the next couple of decades, a lot of people on this forum and elsewhere are going to get a lot of benefits from the government that they won't have paid for.   I don't begrudge them that, but am troubled to continually find that so many people believe that they are net losers in our social safety net structure when they are not.

[Ogre]

To me, and I'm guessing a lot here, its not about who "wins" or gets a "net benefit."

I just want to be free.

That's all, nothing more. If YOU want to provide for someone else, I want you to be free to do so. If I don't want to buy something with money I earn, I should not be jailed for just trying to be left alone. Sadly, with the passage of this law, that is the case. Just understand, WithoutAPaddle, your position, while it may make you feel good, is the exact opposite and diametrically opposed to freedom.

[AnarcSyn]

well that settles it, Without', you're just opposed to freedom... but, perhaps you can make one slight and moral provision: a prayer..  yes, a prayer to the invisible hand asking it to lift  bodily into heaven those who fall so those who want to be free don't have to trip over the bodies... 

[Tom Sawyer]

Healthcare cost would be much lower if the government was not involved.

Near monopoly status of hospitals... Only x number of beds allowed... x number of MRI machines... that's right government controls competition.

In addition people go to the doctor for a cold when they don't have to pay for it. The government will have to ration the care.

I had socialized medicine in the military... it sucks... they almost let me die twice... I couldn't see a doctor because my fever was below some arbitrary number... so my healthcare provider was a corpsman with 6 weeks of training.

The government will end up having to control every aspect of the system before it is all over.

I ask people "What is more essential to human life than food?" So why don't we have the government run the grocery stores... Well they did that in the USSR... the result bread lines.

[MaineShark]

In another thread, I once asked how many people here do not have insurance and what would you want done if you needed emergency treatment that you cannot afford, but got no replies.  I doubt that very many people here would be willing to carry a card in their wallet saying, "I don't have insurance and my net worth is only about $5,000, so if I am in need of any treatment that will significantly exceed that amount but am unable to state my treatment choices, please leave me to die."

How about, "I'm unable to pay for treatment right now, but here's a list of thousands of charities which will help out if needed," or is that too crazy?

Oh, wait, the government has all but outlawed private charities and driven healthcare costs up, so they can point to the dearth and say that it's a lack needing to be fixed (by them, conveniently).  It's like torching houses and then offering to put out the fire, for a fee, and touting yourself as some sort of hero...

I don't have insurance.  For the record, if anyone sees me in need of immediate treatment, and doesn't want to risk absorbing the cost, please do feel free to leave me to die.  I'd far rather die than murder others to save my own life.  I'll drop a mugger without even blinking an eye, but I won't harm a hair on an innocent's head.

Joe

[Lloyd Danforth]

I can't believe that the AMA is going to approve this.


Mar 24, 7:47 PM EDT

Texas Tech offers quicker degrees to family docs

By BETSY BLANEY
Associated Press Writer

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- Texas Tech University's medical school will soon become the first in the U.S. to offer aspiring family doctors a three-year degree at half the cost of a traditional four-year path, university officials said.

The program, which begins this fall, is aimed at addressing a national shortage of family physicians. One study estimates the country will need about 39,000 more family doctors by 2020.

Texas Tech announced the plan Tuesday, the same day President Barack Obama signed health care reform legislation expected to add millions of people to doctors' patient lists by 2014, when the law's major provisions take effect.

The three years of medical school will cost about $75,000. After getting their degrees, doctors will spend three years in residency with a family practice. The school also will provide a $13,000 scholarship to each student going into family practice to cover first year tuition and fees.

The four-year program at Texas Tech currently costs students about $150,000.

Dr. Steven Berk, dean of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, said about a dozen of the 140 students who enroll each year typically go into family practice. He hopes the three-year program will double the number.

"We don't have any doubts that this is going to work," he said.

The program, called the Family Medicine Accelerated Track, was approved last month by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools. The committee is jointly sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Council on Medical Education of the American Medical Association.

"It's just that time is reorganized and the focus is on family medicine," Barbara Barzansky, a member of the AMA, said of the program.

Berk said many students become surgeons, cardiologists, psychiatrists or go into other specialized fields in order to more quickly pay off their medical school debt, which for four years at Texas Tech is about $150,000.

Paying off half of the debt could be a strong enticement to go into family practice, but Berk said the university also wanted to address the lack of practicing family doctors. A 2006 study by the American Academy of Family Physicians determined that in order for all Americans to achieve adequate access to a primary care physician, the country would need about 39,000 more family physicians by 2020.

"Our school felt some responsibility to come up with a solution to the problem of too few students going into primary care," Berk said.

[Pat McCotter]

I can't believe that the AMA is going to approve this.

Probably because the govt won't reimburse specialists as much as it has been. Also, the new law is focusing on preventive care, ie, family doctors.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Still, the main function of the AMA is limiting the number of doctors and, competition in Medicine.

[jerryswife]

Withoutapaddle, I am surprised you are on this forum as you obviously are missing a lot of knowledge and/or love for liberty and even a basic understanding of why "health Insurance" is not (it doesn't insure anyone's health) and how it is THE problem with health care costs.  Health insurance was instituted as a way to "pay" workers more when the government imposed a wage freeze.  It is a good idea to buy insurance for catastrophic illness but the idea of "insurance" for normal health care costs is ludicrous and has led to all of the mal-use we have.  I am a physician and I would dearly love to go back to patients paying for office calls out of pocket.  It would save me a ton of money and aggravation dealing with Medicare and insurance companies and I would pass that on to patients.  As it is, I can't because even if I refused to accept Medicare and only took cash, Medicare tells me what I can charge and if you don't play their game you get even less.  As of April 1st, MC will cut reimbursements by 21%, since I have a high portion of MC patients that means my INCOME will go down >40%.  I will be paid less than the cost to me of treating these people.  How long do you think doctors can do that and survive?  And why on earth would anyone want to be a doctor under those circumstances.

This bill is not about helping anyone.  No one goes with out health care in this country now.  You may not get all the bells and whistles, but you are not denied health care whether or not you can pay.  But now we will all have to pay for more Octomoms and Viagra for rapists.  Do yourself a favor and read up on economics and libertarian thought and the tragedy of the commons.  This health bill will destroy health care in America for everyone.

[MaineShark]

This health bill will destroy health care in America for everyone.

Or save it, if folks realize how corrupt the system has become, and roll things back.

Sometimes, folks just won't bother fixing a problem until it's totally and completely broken.  Since that stage is imminent, maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel...

Joe

[Raineyrocks]

This health bill will destroy health care in America for everyone.

Or save it, if folks realize how corrupt the system has become, and roll things back.

Sometimes, folks just won't bother fixing a problem until it's totally and completely broken.  Since that stage is imminent, maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel...

Joe

I sure hope so!