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In regard to Emergency Rooms, the lack of requirement for insurance has just about saved my wife's life recently (we don't qualify for insurance according to the state's reckoning). They do send a bill later through a collection agency, but when you need help you get it. That is a lot better than moping around a waiting room to be told that the bureaucrats in an insurance office haven't decided whether or not we'd have been covered.

Everything needs anti-trust regulation.

And I'm very aware of Ma Bell's resurgence as a duopoly...though, really, it's hard for that to not occur with a service like that.

Pepsico, Coke, and TacoLongKentuckyHut are problematic, though.

It did somewhat improve matters I think. We got some healthcare reform passed, even if it was watered down sellout to the inn-sewer-ants companies, still it's better then nothing. Some of the New Deal safeguard regulations that the conservatives fought so hard to disassemble have been reinstated, though there remains a lot of work to be done there. And it looks like those god-awful tax cuts are going to expire, so all in all, I have to say that while the first two years have been rought, Obama is doing an ok job, and I still see him the same way that I did when I voted for him.

One thing I will state that I did not see coming when I voted for Obama was the fact that every g*ddamn republican in the senate would filibuster everything brought to the table. For crying out loud, what does he have to do to get you crazy conservatives to negotiate with him? Never at any point has a party (especially a minority party) forced everyone to suffer for the sake of a cheap political trick! Do you seriously believe that this ret*d stalemate in the senate will change even if the Teabaggers succeed at getting enough people elected on their (non existent, oppositional) platform? No it won't, sure Obama's popularity may suffer more, but it's not like you will ever have enough seats to repeal the healthcare bill (because let's face it, the democratics only had their brief 60 seats due to luck)!

the pat robertson types have professed to believe that if a person is in persistant lousy life circumstances, that is proof positive that they are not in god's favor and probably are doomed to hell in the first place, IOW only bad people suffer, and if somebody is suffering it must be because they are evil souls and god knows it. thus they turn the biblical phrase "the poor ye shall always have" into justification for malignant neglect of the unfortunates of society rather than being their brother's keeper. an army chaplain i used to know, told me this was his observation on the views of the lion's share of right-wing christians.

and this bill usually is sufficient to ruin one's finances for the rest of one's life. my late father got a bill for a 30-day stay at a convalescent facility for a spider bite that gave him necrotising fascitis, and it was for 80,000 smackers, already handled by a 3rd party collection agency. he'd have never been able to pay that off if the VA didn't help out.

I think those same right wing so-called Christians have to ask: just how rich was Jesus?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

First they treat. Then they bill. Why is that so hard to grasp?

ruveyn

But they can't MAKE you pay the bill.

Of course. Should the medical people work for nothing? Are they the slaves of the sick and injured. A medical person has to undergo years of schooling and training. You expect his/her labor for free?

ruveyn

No, and neither did I say that it was right. That's why I said my family is in a bad situation that keeps us (for now) unable to pay all our medical expenses. It's not that we don't try, though. Which is why I complain so often that there are people who refuse to work who somehow end up with welfare and Medicaid who go to the emergency room at midnight complaining of headaches for which there is a cheap, OTC solution. Insurance for us and our needs is prohibitively expensive and not really an option. Yet we have sought help in every way we could and found none. For that I say the doctors may not blame us, who really do TRY to pay for our medical needs on our own, but rather the status quo.

That status quo is this: It's no secret that doctors and lawyers live extravagantly. And I suppose to a degree they deserve to. The nurses who work for doctors don't have it so bad, either. Medmal insurance is hideously expensive, which also drives up the cost of a doctor's care. Yet if doctors are setting their fees so high to keep medmal insurance+staff+maintaining their own lifestyles, why not make sacrifices to lower the cost of care while retaining the quality of care? I mean, if you keep rates low and still maintain a large number of patients, work hard and manage money sensibly, you can STILL afford that spacious 5-bedroom number, 2-acre lot on the lake, complete with dock and boat. But I know of doctors who simply cannot live without that lifestyle, take out extravagant loans to pay for their property, and end up in bankruptcy court with the rest of the low-lifes, further complicated by their wives divorcing them when they can't keep them in new pairs of Kenneth Cole shoes every week.

I'm not advocating for "socialized medicine." When you have to live like we do (myself and family), you get to be intimately familiar with the local health department. If you have young children, take them down to the health department one day for vaccines instead of going to your regular pediatrician. Just do it ONE time, that's all, and remember everything you see there. If you have a job, make sure you take the whole day off just in case. You're going to be there a long time. I believe that socialized medicine will make the emergency rooms look a lot like the health department, and from what I've seen the emergency rooms look bad enough as it is!

I also think that the only thing that insurance mandates REALLY accomplish is making the insurance companies rich. Costs must be lowered somehow, everyone has to be able to AFFORD insurance, and insurance companies have to actually DO their jobs in paying out money for claims and end unfair practices.

Maybe there ARE some doctors and hospitals who don't DESERVE to get paid by patients, but that's really beside the point. The way the system is set up, the DO have to see you and slap you with an exorbitant bill. But they can't FORCE you to pay it. We've been there, and we've fallen for collector's schemes before. We fell for the trap of financing through a special credit card through the hospital when our son was born. We ended up paying $20,000 out of savings for that. Every last penny of money we ever had to spend has been squeezed out of us, and there's nothing left. The hospital-related credit companies know better than to lend to us.

There HAS been one collection agency that's actually been wonderful to work with. They act more like "credit counselors" than "creditors" and we have no problem getting money to them. We'd like for them to buy the rest of our medical debt if they're willing and able to do it. But I think if doctors want their money from people like us, they will have to work more proactively at making the medical system more fair and equitable for a larger number of people.

Actually, in Minnesota at least, there are laws that if you are delinquent on paying for too long that you will be summoned to court in order to determine how much you can pay the debt for which you owe the state. It's usually about a year and a half before they start sending summons out though, so you have that long to make some form of payments in order to show that you are willing to pay rather than merely treat it as a free service.

I don't know, why was it?
You didn't seem to know that before.

Perhaps because it is the opposite of what you said previously, namely "You will receive care at public expense." That is not true.

It is true. If one can't pay the hospital will be compensated by the state.

ruveyn

I wanted to see American troops pull out of Iraq, to avoid a war with Iran, and for relations with Russia to improve. I'm pretty satisfied with Obama so far in these three departments and it's why I supported him over McCain.

Obama's campaign platform was always pretty clear from the primaries onwards. I really did not see any difference between him and Hillary Clinton, except perhaps that Clinton seemed less electable.

I agree. I hate this war.