The story: I have friends that live in Santa Barbara, California. They are a middle-aged couple, the man(I’ll call him Tom) is a professional painter(quite successful) and the woman(let’s say July) is not working. They moved to America a few years ago and have their green cards(or whatever). They haven’t got a health insurance.
Tom and July just came back from a presentation of Tom’s works at some painting gallery in New York. Right after coming back, due to all the stress, Tom fell sick. Not the headache-and-a-runny-nose kinda sick, but literally fell on the couch that was closest to him and has been completely unable to move for the last three days. He has been practically paralised with his illness, every movement induced vomiting, and has been unable to eat or drink. He has very high blood pressure and high temperature.
Now, July tried getting an ambulance for him to take him to a hospital(he can’t even move his head without vomiting). She was told that first: they only send ambulances for the paralised or people with cancer( ), second: the hospital wouldn’t offer them any help whatsoever if they didn’t have an insurance. Actually, they did offer treatment, but said that they would later get a 4 or quite possibly 5 digit bill - something that they really can’t afford. July found a doctor who diagnosed an illness from her verbal description and gave her a prescription for some medicine. He didn’t go to see Tom, because, apparently, it’s against the law. They are now hoping for the best.
Now, could someone please explain how this system works? I’ve always lived in countries where free medical treatment is a norm and to me leaving a man to die for the reason that he doesn’t have a medical insurance seems grossly inhumane and plainly wrong. Is there, perhaps, some good reason for doing it that I’m failing to fathom? Whatever has happened to the Hippocratic Oath?
For you, more American system savvy, what options do they have now? The illness is very acute.
I have the account through my mom so some details might be slightly inaccurate, but the general idea is there.
well you see, in the USA the only thing tha spaeks is money. The hospital isnt trying to help people(well maybe they are) they are trying to make money. So no insurrance, no price cut, you pay it all and help contribte to a shitty system!!! YAY SHORTCOMINGS!!!
btw, im really sorry your friends got raped by the sysytem, in this day and age nobody should have that problem, but what can we do
Hah. that’s not right. Crooked hospital in your area.:o The “American” system will take anyone into immediate care/surgery even if you dont have the money and you are in serious need. Im sure the hospitals goal is to save lives, not just the money. Same goes for getting an ambulance. It should have came without questions. The person gets help first, works out money later. My mom is a nurse. They dont work out the money issues right off the bat, before the patient is cared for. The patient comes first, money later. Patient first, money later. Patient first, money later.
Yeah, they treat you and then slap you with a big bill. You need treatment and you don’t have time to shop around to see who is going to give you the best price. You’re better, but then you’re slapped with a huge bill that can completely devastate your future well being.
As nurse your Mom is about helping, and I’d be willing to bet she’s sees huge problems in the way patients are treated on the back end when it comes down to the money. I bet she hates seeing people refusing care because they know they won’t be able to afford it.
It can, but it doesn’t have to. Most hospitals will allow patients to negotiate their payments… they’d rather receive some cash than force a patient into bankruptcy where they’d see no cash at all.
Thank you for the links, BluntRM.
I e-mailed them to July, haven’t heard from her yet.
She said she had contacted some free hospitals before, but they refused treatment because they only take in homeless or poor people(I’m not sure) and they don’t fall in that category.
There are many non-profit hospitals that are more lenient towards the inability to pay. But these are becoming harder to make use of due to the increasing cost of health care.
So what is the solution?
Well, it seems that the mainstream opinion is that we need to put a band-aid on the problem and hope that fixes the problem. This band-aid is universal healthcare.
If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it’s free.
Instead of using a band-aid, I prefer a solution to what caused the problem to begin with. How can we solve a problem, without first knowing the cause of that problem? That problem is the current system of regulations and control our government has taken over the health care system. The medical professionals are left doing more paperwork and other compliance measures with their valuable time, instead of being able to spend that time treating more patients.
Universal healthcare will only make that aspect worse. It will also further control and limit the procedures, drugs, appointments, etc. that you can get. In other words, it’ll put a ball and chain on the health system making it harder for you to get the care you’ll need.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the constitution that says that gives congress the power to do anything regarding health care. The powers that be are pushing an agenda on us… who benefits from making health care more expensive and crippling us? Read some of my other posts to find out…
I’m said to say this, but it could be leading up to a heart attack.Here are some of the symptoms your friend has showed: vomiting is definetly one of them, as is near paralysis. If he collapsed because of severe chest pain or upper body pain, you have to get him to a clinic as soon as possible, before it gets any worse.
Hmm so the question that seems to come up is, is health care a privilege or a right. I would think that citizens should be guaranteed the right to be treated without crippling them financially. A quarter of all bankruptcies last year were from people who lost all their money from hospital bills. This could be solved with a single-payer system. Therefore, hospitals remain private yet all the citizens just bill the government. We already have this in our country called Medicare. I would like to hear from people from other industrialized nations who have a system like this.
I believe that in the UK we will be moving to a system where a patient can have treatment in a private hospital funded by the NHS. Private hospitals are pretty exspensive because there is no competition for low cost healthcare, because the NHS covers that base (because it’s free) so they’re all pretty high quality and high cost. This idea seems like a bit of a stop-gap to me, but I guess the idea is that NHS and private hospitals have different strengths so by using them in conjuction with each other you get best results. Incidentally I work for the NHS and have great pride and belief in the ward where I work, just a shame they’re not all so good.
It depends on who is paying. Should you be able to go to a doctor and demand that they treat you without paying them? Of course not. Why would any doctor want to be subjected to that? A one payer system, is also theft. That money comes from someone, the taxpayer, and it’s not any more right to steal from them. If you are paying for your healthcare, then it is your right to get the healthcare you desire and can afford. If someone else is paying for it, it is a privilege, and as with all privileges, you are subjected to rules that are made by those who granted those privileges to you.
Expensive treatment needs to be paid for by someone. Unexpected and high cost occurrences is where insurance comes in.
A one payer system will jack up the prices significantly making everyone poorer (except our money masters). Further, what’s the problem in the situation here? They got the needed healthcare. A bankruptcy as a result is a small price to pay for life and there are a lot of charities that will help out these people. Most people are generous when it comes to helping those in need. In fact we tend to be too generous, which sometimes enables the homeless to remain homeless as they can get everything they need by working the corner and in soup kitchens and shelters. A bankruptcy would only occur if they didn’t get insurance to cover the high expense situations.
For them to remain private they have to be private to begin with… unfortunately, the problem is that the government has highly regulated the health care industry and that is the source of the unaffordable health care situation we currently have.
Healthcare is a right if you are voluntarily making that arrangement between the doctor and yourself. You have unlimited right to contract. It is a privilege when someone else is paying or providing the care for you. So, since in Northern European nations who have a universal healthcare system, it is a privilege, not a right. In the USA, it is still a right, but becoming more and more less so.
Carrying a firearm is an un-a-lien-able right. Being provided with a firearm is a privilege, while buying your own is a right. Being blocked from being able to carry one is a violation of ones rights. There is a reason it’s part of the Bill of Rights.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say that free healthcare is a right, nor is there anywhere in the constitution that gives congress the power to do anything about healthcare. All the regulations and such that the government has imposed has made our healthcare expensive, which unfortunately allows the propaganda machines to convince the public we need a universal healthcare solution. Our government likes to break our legs and then offer a cast as it’s fix while taking a big cut of the money for the imperialists.
Gilby: So, you’re saying that the goverment is purposefully creating the current position of things so that they can benefit from it later on? How exactly? By introducing a new tax for the universal healthcare program? I’m not very familiar with the political system in America(or any country for that matter), so I mind be misunderstanding something.
On Tom situation: they found a doctor; he said Tom had some sort of apoplexy and his middle ear is damaged(I’m not too sure, again). Tom is getting better.
Most Americans are not aware of our real political situation. We have been in a declared state of national emergency since 1933, and that emergency has never been lifted and there is little sign of that ever being fixed since it was a deliberate crisis. This was the Great Depression. It was caused by an organization that was given a monopoly on our government’s debt in 1913. This organization now issues our money called “Federal Reserve Notes” and it’s essentially an IOU, but it’s an IOU that can not be redeemed. It only derives it’s value since we can use it to pay taxes. Our government is the only entity that can redeem it and a Federal Reserve Note that is labeled as one dollar, is good to repay one dollar in debt of the government. Anyways, this organization makes it’s money by loaning money to the government and to the banks, and they get interest on it, but they create money out of nothing. With the government being the biggest borrower, they obviously want the government to run up their debt, because they get a lot of interest from the government. The only “lawful money” are coins that have a specific amount of valuable metal in them. “Legal tender” is different than “lawful money” and legal tender is defined as anything the government accepts in payment of debts owed to them. A dollar is defined as a specific amount of silver. 1964 was the last year real money was in circulation. Since they can use a dollar bill to pay one dollar in debt, it’s worth that much in silver to them, but to the rest of us, it’s only worth less than a tenth of it.
Anyways, back to the healthcare issue. Our government is essentially controlled by the money makers, and since they want the debt to grow, they push for more expenditures. They cripple the people and then the government comes in to fix the problem to pretend to be the hero. The more and more the people need to go to the government for all their economic problems, the more power the government, and therefore the more power the money makers get. We become their slaves. They just need to provide us enough to get by and be able to still work as they take all the fruits of our labor.
We both agree the government is trying to make money from us; however I never would have thought by making something public they would gain in wealth. It seems that our government is trying to go the opposite way since that will produce the most gain- crippling our schools with the no child left behind act, privatizing voting, social security, the military and prisons. They then deem that these systems are too far-gone to fix so they hand them over to their cronies to make billions.
A one payer system, is also theft. That money comes from someone, the taxpayer, and it’s not any more right to steal from them.
In what way would paying for healthcare be stealing? Does that mean that by going to public school I am stealing from people since I didn’t pay for the education. Furthermore, under your belief you are saying that if I don’t pay for my own education then it is a privilege? Does that mean if I call the fire department to help save my house from a fire then I am stealing since I didn’t pay? A one payer system would cover everyone, just like schools educate all our childeren. Unexpected and high cost occurrences is where insurance comes in.
So how about the 45 million uninsured people, who don’t qualify for Medicare, are they S.O.L?
), second: the hospital wouldn’t offer them any help whatsoever if they didn’t have an insurance. Actually, they did offer treatment, but said that they would later get a 4 or quite possibly 5 digit bill - something that they really can’t afford. July found a doctor who diagnosed an illness from her verbal description and gave her a prescription for some medicine. He didn’t go to see Tom, because, apparently, it’s against the law. They are now hoping for the best.