Healthcare and Ignorance, Coupled with Lies

Before Obama was nominated for president---even before there was anybody actually saying they were running for office for 2008, I knew something had to be done about our healthcare system here in the USA. We were ranked 37th in the world in quality of healthcare, while spend much more than any of the countries who ranked above us. On top of that, our system excludes many people from good health care by limiting access by the uninsured, by charging exorbitant insurance rates, by denying claims, by denying health insurance because of preexisting conditions, etc.

Those thirty-six countries above us, though, the ones with better health care results included everyone in their health care system. For example, if I had gone to France on vacation and broken my leg, I would have been taken to a French Hospital nearby without charge. Then I would have had my leg cast, etc., done without charge. Finally, if rehabilitation were needed, I would also receive that without charge. I am talking about an American vacationing in France, not a permanent resident, or someone on a green card (or French equivalent).

What we have, then, is superior healthcare available to everyone without any direct charge for the services rendered in most cases versus a system that does not cover about 50 million citizens and that charges for almost everything to either the insurance company that may very well deny the charges, or to the individual who is sick.

Another advantage of our system, besides the limitations on who can get good care and with enormous costs to the individuals who are sick. In one year, with no major problems with which to deal, my wife & I spent $20,000 out of pocket for healthcare; and we had insurance!

So in the USA sick people not only get to pay enormous amounts, individually, for their healthcare coverage and/or healthcare itself. They also get to be sick. How lucky can you get? You are sick; and you have to pay for being sick. Then the real problems begin:
YOU HAVE TO FIGHT THE REJECTED CLAIMS!
YOU HAVE TO FIGHT THE RETURNED CLAIMS THAT WERE RESUBMITTED.
YOU GET TIRED FROM FIGHTING SO MANY BILLING PROBLEMS AND REJECTED CLAIMS THAT YOU FINALLY GIVE UP!

This isn't just a problem on the sick person's end of our healthcare system. It is also a problem for the providers. Your doctor's office has to have the ability to fill out several different kinds of forms for different problems and even more different forms for different insurers or providers.

In France the same form is used by all health care providers and there is only one healthcare system with the same form and the same payment. There are many other good things about the French system; but they are not directly related to this post.

Since this system of healthcare, the system France, England, Canada, Australia, and most of the other nations who rank higher than the USA works so well, you would think we would want to try to copy that system as much as we could.

We didn't, though. Instead we simply are going to force people to purchase insurance from the very insurance companies and providers who have been bilking the sick of their hard-earned money for decades.

I am surprised and happy that we are finally have a bill in the Senate of the USA that will beginning the transformation of our health system into something better. I am very unhappy that this bill will cost even more than our current system, will still not include all people, and will still have nothing in it to reduce the cost or improve the quality of healthcare.

There are some good things about the bill: elimination of preexisting conditions from consideration for insurance is an example. What it appears, though, is that there will still be no direct competition between the insurance companies whose objective isn't to provide the best healthcare possible, but to make the greatest profit possible. Anything in this bill to limit the insurance companies will simply require them to spend a little time figuring out how to continue to screw the sick out of their money without providing good healthcare.

On top of that through taxes, the American people will be picking up some of the money will go to the insurance companies, NOT directly to health care but through a profit making company!

Why? Why aren't we using a system similar to those countries who are ahead of us in quality of healthcare? It is simple. It is because it is being caused "the beginning of socialized medicine." Now even if it is totally wrong, everyone knows that socialized medicine doesn't work. You don't get to choose your doctor. You have long lines to wait in for care, etc., etc., etc. I say entirely wrong, because none of the things wrong is actually wrong, or greatly exaggerated.

My wife had to wait four months to see a neurologist in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the major health centers of our nation even though she was insured. I have spoken to a Canadian friend who waited a little longer for that for surgery; but the surgery was completely successful. She was healed; but instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars for that surgery, she walked out of the hospital with a bill of...............NOTHING!

My wife, Gay, on the other hand, had to pay a copay to see her physician, a percentage of each procedure the doctor ordered, etc. This was in addition to having already paid the total out-of-pocket costs for some parts of her policy. Likewise the medications she was required to take were costing us about $800 per month COPAY! Most of those, by the way, were generics; but the ones that were not were VERY expensive. One 30-day prescription for a 1/2 ounce bottle of eye drops had a $125/month copay on it; and she used four different drops!

I am happy we have a bill on the floors of congress that will help a little toward improving healthcare; but I shall be deeply disappointed if they do not work on this bill some more before passing it. I will be angry if there is no bill passed; but if it passes as it is, it is just not going to be as helpful nor will it save as much as it could.

I believe we, like most of the developed world, should adopt a single payer healthcare system, which the Republicans call "socialized medicine." They never call the Insterstate Highway system "socialized roads," nor the Marine Corps "socialized military." They don't call the Post Office "socialized correspondence," nor the local fire department, "socialized fire protection. Besides that, all of these things work and work well.

I don't know how much longer I shall live; but for the rest of my life I shall continue to work as hard as I can to get the United States to work toward a health system not based in profit but in care. I may not succeed; but I shall be joyful in working toward the goal.

Sarah Palin's Resignation Explained

May be your best yet.

I support

Unity and Values

The family I grew up in, with a Republican mother and a Democrat for a father was interesting. They never argued politics, at least not in front of us; but they always joked about canceling out one another's vote. There was also a notable love for one another, not in the mushy way, but in something that nothing could crush.

Now, of me and my four siblings, I am likely the only Democrat, though I have one sister who doesn't really say one way or the other. My favorite brother-in-law regularly sends me anti-Democrat and ant-Obama email; but I always send him a response from http://www.snopes.com (The Urban Legends Page) or elsewhere about the truth behind them. He may not be learning anything from my responses; but, at least, he gets a positive response to his negative email.

I must admit that some of the absolute trash going around about Obama may hurt him in the fall; and there is no doubt that racism will have its effect on white voters, especially white, low information, voters. I know there is plenty to say about Hillary; and a lot of it is lies as well. That is the way the political process is played out in this century so far. Anytime I get an email that is a false statement about either of our candidates I "reply all" and send them to Snopes, an article in a major newspaper, or elsewhere for information about the truth behind the lie. (Yes, Obama was wearing native attire; but so was George Bush.)

I found success in bringing family members to Obama, though, on one close relative. Our only son (who tells me not to argue politics with him or his wife) called me and wanted to talk about the election. He is registered Republican; but, after a very long conversation, he has decided to support Obama in the general election. (It isn't difficult to undermine McCain's supposed strengths, since they are so few.) He finally agreed with me that Obama is the best chance we've had in a long time (at least in my lifetime, I believe) to create major change in how politics "works" (or doesn't work) in the USA.

For most of my family voting Republican is seen as a "values" issue; but they don't really look at the actual values of the Republican or Democratic candidates themselves.

Hillary Clinton, for example, knows that her husband cheated on her; but they have remained married through a lot of crap and, I believe, still care for one another even with Bill's "problems." That, to me, shows they have some very good values when it comes to marital commitment overall. Obama is married to his first wife as well. McCain, OTOH, had an affair with Cindy before they ended up married. For the Bible bangers I would think this would be enough to discredit him; but he's a Republican and "Republicans are the party of values." I should also add that I know a lot about Hillary's Washington Church and Obama's Chicago Church; but I don't remember hearing anything about McCain's Church if he has one. If they're so interested in having "Christian" candidates, I would thiink they'd look at that as well. For me, though, their good deeds, their beliefs about the possibilities of the human race, their ability to make fair judgments, etc., are much more important than whether or not they claim to be Christians.

Yeah! Right! Values like hate, hypocrisy, homophobia, eliminating the rights of Americans to make choices related to reproduction, etc., always waving the flag as though they own it while dismantling the constitution. They have values that say it is a good thing for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. They apparently believe that God wants Republicans to kill a lot of innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. (It is more likely to occur, though, if there is oil under the land.) Values that believe virtually everything in the USA should be privatized so there is competition, which of course, is supposed to cause prices to get lower. (I guess you've noticed how well that's worked in the health care arena.)

They have values that relate anyone who doesn't agree with them as "evil," and not just wrong. (I got to admit that after the first four years, though, evil and Bush virtually became synonyms for me.)

Right after 9/11, when everyone started wearing flag pins, I copied the UN flag from the Internet site; and I managed to make it into a lapel pin. Most people (I mean almost no one) didn't know what it was; but I was making my statement about the fact that 9/11 wasn't just an American tragedy, but a world tragedy. To dismiss those from all the other countries working in the World Trade Center towers as though they didn't matter is a sign of the tendency of the USA to dismiss others from other parts of the world as unimportant. Some folk asked; and, after telling them, just looked at me like I was from outer space.

Right after 9/11 the world, virtually every country, was on our side. There were pro-USA rallies all around the world; but, after Iraq and other empty gestures on the part of the USA most of that world is angry with us instead of siding with us. Those of you without friends in England, Canada, Australia, Gambia, or Austria or other parts of the world may not hear about the anger; but I do. I live in a mini "UN" in my apartment community.

During the attempted and successful campaign of lies that would get us into the Iraq War, I regularly emailed my friends about what a mistake it would be for us to invade Iraq. I predicted everything that would happen; and I was only wrong because it was even worse than I imagined. I had studied that part of the world in seminary; and I knew the hostilities between the subgroups would be a problem for our troops and for building any new government in Iraq. Meanwhile we kept hearing that we were "winning." "Mission accomplished!" The lies kept coming; and eventually even the "less than mainstream" media weren't even giving us a good idea of what was really happening there. Many, perhaps most, of those friends became angry with me for being "unamerican," not being patriotic, etc. The whole "Freedom Fries" concept amused me and angered me at the same time. Just because they were smarter than we were about Iraq doesn't mean we should be hostile to our long term allies, does it?

Somehow, though, I don't see War as a positive value. Yes, there may be some wars that ought to be fought---like stopping Hitler, for example; but most of the wars we have fought in the last 100+ years were unnecessary. They weren't to protect us or even to protect our allies, but to prove our power or to prove we were right about our ideas and to keep the military industrial complex making lots of money.

Then there is the cost of the war and the way it is being fought with civilian contractors who make a lot more than the soldiers and live in more comfortable situations and who also SEEM to not have any rules. How did that happen? Oh, yes. We want to privatize everything: Medicare, Social Security, the army, the navy, building roads, building bridges, etc. "Let the people who use them pay for them." If the trend continues I'm afraid I'll live in a home where I cannot afford to pay the fire department for protection and lose my home; and I KNOW I'll never be able to afford my own police protection. In America right now millions of people cannot afford life saving ROUTINE health care because of our insurance system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.

This is what we'll get with John McCain. He may not be quite as bad as Bush; but he could also be even worse.

So I am going to the poll next week to vote for Barack Obama. In November I expect I'll be voting for Obama; but, if not, I'll be voting for Hillary Clinton because Democrats are the party of real values: equality, looking out for the little guy, support for unions, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and, best of all perhaps, FREEDOM. George and his flunkies may continue to try to take it away from us; but with a Democratic President and Democratic congress the world and America will all be singing, "Let freedom ring."

Mike

This has also been posted to uniteddems.com and bluegrassroots.org

End This War

The truth is the truth

What would you do if you were told your child was sick, but then heard "from reliable sources" that the only doctor who seemed to know what to do was "unreliable" or a "quack" or worse still dangerous?

What happens when a negative press report comes out about the current administration? Shortly afterward we're warned of a new terror alert that generally ends up being untrue.

In case anyone actually reads my blog, you should check out Olberman's 13 minute YouTube telecast on this subject. It may frighten you; but then it should. You can get to it by simply clicking at the top of this blog where it says "The truth is the truth."

Mike

revjmike's blog

http://www.yarmuthforcongress.com/" title="John Yarmuth for Congress KY's 3rd Congressional District Click Here!">http://www.yarmuthforcongress.com/res/images/yarmuth_468x60.jpg" border="0" alt="John Yarmuth for Congress! KY's 3rd Congressional District" />
revjmike's blog

revjmike's blog

http://www.yarmuthforcongress.com/" title="John Yarmuth for Congress KY's 3rd Congressional District Click Here!">http://www.yarmuthforcongress.com/res/images/yarmuth_468x60.jpg" border="0" alt="John Yarmuth for Congress! KY's 3rd Congressional District" />

Where is the anger and accountability?

There are times when I have thought Dr. Phil, of the "Dr. Phil Show," gives people totally stupid suggestions or makes statements that make no sense. I guess we all do that at times; but he seems to number up there with President Bush on this agenda.

There is one thing that Dr. Phil talks about regularly that not only makes sense, but is a requirement for healthy living: accountability. If I am going to have the best relationship with my spouse, for example, it requires me to be accountable to her and vice versa.

Those times when I refuse to be held accountable produce results that I don't enjoy. She becomes upset, moody, angry, or just sullen for a period of time. She always forgives me; but there is at least a period of time where she is quite angry and upset.

In the current clime in Washington I am totally perplexed about the lack of accountability the American people seem to be expecting of our national leaders, and particularly President Bush.

Ignore the Geneva convention? Why not?
Make up rules that defy congressional laws? Sure. You're the president.
Keep ineffective and sometimes incoherent leadership in his cabinet such as Donald Rumsfeld? People made mistakes, we'd likely hear.

I can understand the conflict people have about being FOR the so-called "war on terror" or against it. I know there are legitimate arguments for and against our unilateral attack on Iraq without direct provocation for the first time in our history. What I do not understand is why congress, our courts, but most especially the American people are not so angry they're spitting nails.

It has seemed, since 9/11, that anything that even smacks of being opposed to the way the executive branch behaves is labeled as unAmerican or unpatriotic. Is that why people don't respond in anger?

Are folk afraid that their response will bring ridicule or other negative response from their friends, neighbors, or coworkers? That's possible; but they're sure selling themselves short if they do.

Perhaps they are afraid that the CIA or other government agency will start a file on them and suddenly they'll lose their job or a family member will end up in jail.

It's difficult to know; but I continue to wonder why Bill Clinton was impeached for lieing about an affair when our current administration isn't even held accountable for the lives of the thousands of mostly kids who have been killed following the lie about Iraq.

It is time to get angry!

Mike

revjmike's blog