Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issue
 

A letter to the Editor in Jackson, MS

Dear Sirs:

During my last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ringtone. Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.

She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.

And our Congress expects me to pay for this woman's health care? Our nation's health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses.

It is a crisis of culture — a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.

A culture that thinks "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me".

Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow.

Don't you agree?

STARNER JONES, MD
Jackson , MS

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

There are so many people for which the above is not the case, who would be helped tremendously for a healthcare overhaul.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

You're breaking my heart. On my business route I have to drive by the WICK office. Sometimes it is diffecult to get around the late model Jags (I can't afford one) and the Cadillac Escalade double parked in the street with their sterios blaring, while the lazy jerk sits behind the wheel waiting for the woman (possibly not his wife) goes in to collect the coupons for the groceries I paid for. Then I stand behind someone in line while they buy junk food with food stamps. I wouldn't be afraid to guess that they have big screen TV's in their living room. Yes there are many who need help but too many take advantage of the system. That is why we are in the condition we are in. My wife spent a lot of time in the hospital before she passed away. She almost always had a nut case in the room with her. We asked why and one of the nurses said they were in there because they didn't have insurance and we did and that helped to cover the expenses of the room.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I realize there are real needs, but how do you sift through the ones that abuse it to get to those?

We needs a healer!

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

It isn't Obama!!:foottap

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

Definitely puts things in perspective, just seems like a total disregard for what is being handed to her, many times people do not respect what they get for free.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I worked in a grocery store for seven years. I could almost always tell which customers were paying with food stamps by what they bought. The exceptions were those who were only on them for a short period of time. The vast majority of those on welfare were purchasing multiple boxes of mostly sugar cereal, cookies, chips, soda, microwave dinners, etc. It is not like they don't have time to cook a real meal while they sit at home watching TV.

Then to top it off they usually had some non food items, beer and magazines and needed me to get them a carton of cigarettes.

Welfare isn't a safety net, it is a way for lazy people to live.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I too worked in a Grocery Store for a short period and was always amazed at the Clothing and purses and cars these folks drove...

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

When my wife(now deceased) was 4 years old her dad died at the age of 35 leaving seven children and one on the way. The family had help from the state or county until the two oldest girls got a job and supported the family. Seven of the eight became successful in life. The eighth child was disabled. My wife was always a little ashamed because the family needed help for a short time. These were the people that the system was meant to help not those who stay on it for generation after generation.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

Correct.

It needs a major overhauling!

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

We should simply let everyone die. This is, indeed, the easy way out.

And the most economical way, I might add.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

The percent of abusers tops the percent of deserving recipients.

Just stand in line at the grocery store and observe.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

When you compare welfare abuse with health care abuse , it will be very difficult to address the health care abuse scenarios without government becomming too intrusive.



There are far too many people, working people who simply can not afford health coverage for themselves and their families.

We need reform to address that now, and carefully crafted regulations that protect privacy and discourages abuse.



Really, it isn't fair to compare the welfare abuse problem with the health care problems. The latter has effects that are much farther reaching.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

As a single mom who has raised kids without any assistance or even child support for the last 6 years, I have difficulty standing in line with these people when I make out a detailed grocery list and stick to it. I budget and then I see such waste out of those who don't work.

With my job, I also have the pleasure of sifting through charity applications for our Health Network where people as for free healthcare. I ask for 3 months paystubs, tax returns prior year, last 2 checking acct statements in detail, proof of filing for assistance with govt, among a few other things.

I have people stand before me reeking of smoke, obvious issues, driving SUV's. The other day I went through the list with one lady... she said neither her husband or herself were employed, no paystubs to give me, no taxes, no checking acct.. yet she had a page of itemized items where her "income" was going... she had a mortgage, utilities, cell phone. I stood there and told her when she supplied me with the documentation to support her bills being paid, I would consider her application. She looked surprised that I wanted to know HOW her bills were being paid with no income. duh

The sad thing is... if you are self employed, you can get away with murder with the Foodstamp/Medicaid office. So much self employment is hidden, I know first hand as my ex was self employed. You can hide from child support and everything.

I on the other hand, work full time for 28K a year, I have supported 3 girls on the income and it has been years since I qualified for any food assistance. I went to apply once when I was struggling, they said the income that went to my $229 car pmt and $75 a month car ins should be applied to food...also, the $200 spent in tithing a month should go for food. I tithe in faith because I see a difference when I do. I have to really budget to make my income work though... so it really irks me to see people buying junk food.

I absolutely have no sympathy for all these people living off of the govt. It seems to me that our current system rewards those who don't work and it is very broken.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

So does our current health care system simply rewards those who are stricken with life threatening illnesses and sicknesses, that often require long term care?


It doesn't reward anyone-- and it shouldn't.
Neither does it help enough people-- but it should.

It's mind boggling to me that the richest country on the earth can not provide quality healthcare for all of her legal residents citizens.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

What is funny is that no one has a better solution for the people that really need assistance... You think a mass scale church program to help people would somehow avoid abuse? The real issue is that there is no good way for any program to determine who actually needs help and who is abusing that help. There needs to be an overhaul, but there is no better way known. Anything you do to weed out the people who abuse help will also weed out people who actually need it. Quite a predicament isn't it?

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

The scriptural concept to be applied here would be to let the wheat and the tares grow together, right?

I still believe, though difficult, there has to be a way of tracking and punishing fraud and abuse.


We do not need a repeat of the welfare system flaws.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

It'd cost more to crack down on fraud and abuse than just letting them on the program in the first place...

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

Well doing nothing while continuing to allow 13 year old little girls to die is immoral.

Both of her parents worked.
They and the child had health insurance.
The insurance company would not agree to do the life saving surgery for her until an hour or two before she died-- a surgery that the parents lobbied for days, trying to save their daughter's life.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

How would you avoid such a situation in the future... I hear alot of complaints about our current systems, but I never hear any real solutions.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

The source of the problem in this sad case and most others is a lack of money.

The life saving procedure was too expensive for the parents-- and the insurance company refused to cover the surgery until the very last minute (with the help of some negative press).


That is why the Public Option is SO important to me.

In situations like these, it will help save lives.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

That had nothing to do about the problem. You are blaming the insurance company, but the insurance company wasn't the problem. The problem was that such a procedure was too expensive for anyone involved in that situation to really afford, even the insurance company. I know the big bad insurance companies are just plain evil, but the thing is if they payed for everything that everyone wished they would, then there wouldn't be any insurance companies very much longer...

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

So I refer to my 2nd post on this thread:

it's cheaper to simply let them die.


In this case, it wasn't too expensive or else the insurance company would never have budged in the first place.


If it was truly impossible, then it would have stayed impossible.


Most of the time, it's not impossible.
Insurance companies and their executives make money hand over fist.

This sad case is a reflection as to why an overhaul is needed.

Misplaced values are costing innocent lives every day, unnecessarily.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

The principle is impossible. While a single case may can be changed, it is impossible to apply such things in a broad way because of the expenditure. It's not that it's cheaper to let people die. It's that it would bankrupt even the most prosperous company to try and do such procedures for everyone fairly.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

For y'all on my facebook..I'm not trying to be passive aggressive. :) If you wanna talk I'm all for that. But I don't know what to say here.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

So instead of government sponsored death panels, will let insurance companies make those crucial and deeply personal decisions.


They know more than the government does as to who should live and who should die. The government will never go out of business, but the insurance companies might.


So now the argument is that it is sensible and more ethical to allow those who could stand to lose profits to make life or death decisions for your dying loved ones.


At least, this is what the GOP rebel-rousers were trying to get Americans to see, I guess, this past fall with all of the senseless fear-mongering they did all around the country.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I don't think we ever will.
To help those that really need it and can't help themselves, we will carry a lot of others along who could do better if they would but don't because of a sense of entitlement.

I know of people who work but don't make enough to afford insurance but they make too much for Medicaid. How do we fix that? How do they get coverage?

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

Not ideal is they don't have coverage, but it's not a huge issue unless they are are denied emergency healthcare.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

They don't Sam.

They simply have faith in God and die or not have faith in God and die faster, probably suffering more too.



Same thing happens for so many would-be college kids for whom there is simply not enough financial aid for, regardless of their background (but that is for another thread). :)

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I'm not republican... probably more liberal than anything, but I guess moving more toward the middle. I'm all for social programs like public health insurance and public welfare and such. I'm more for what makes us prosperous though. Because it is by prosperity that much more good can be afforded. And maybe such programs actually improve productivity for many people by relieving stress and worry (stress can cause a great many health problems also...) And maybe they actually decrease productivity by taking away motivation. I don't know. I don't know the best answer, but right now I'm for the fairest solution that makes us the most prosperous while still helping those in need some.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

"... but right now I'm for the fairest solution that makes us the most prosperous while still helping those in need some. "



I am for a fair solution that is prosperous while helping most in need.

The costs of healthcare in America are inflated by so many different factors.

The Public Option could be the great equalizer in the whole mess.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

Jermyn, I can sympathize with the case you referenced, but again, the insurance companies 1) exist to make a profit 2) have seen the cost of care go through the roof because of litigious happy lawyers filling frivolous suits.

Someone made a point about recourse in the case of frivolous lawsuits, but failed to address how insurance companies have been forced by juries to pay out claims for people's stupidity. All because the insurance companies have deep pockets, right?

Doctors have raised their rate through the roof because of......higher insurance premiums for malpractice insurance. Do a study to see how many have gotten out of the ob/gyn field simply because of the THREAT of a future lawsuit.

We need reform, but let's start with the cause, not the symptoms. Tort reform first.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I saw a report just this afternoon about how the current disparity in cost of health insurance between younger people and seasoned citizens was around 6 or 7 to 1, with older people paying the most.

One model being proposed in the house plan would bring that ratio to 2 or 3 to 1. The average rise in cost for younger people would be around $1100 per year. Guess what? If the younger generation won't spend what it currently costs, they ain't about to spend more.

And, there is a good argument to be made for government man-dated health insurance being unconstitutional.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I agree with you, but Tort Reform should be part of a system overhaul.


I also believe that the Public option would be great the equalizer for out of control salaries that are paid by the faithful who, in many cases can't even get all of the coverage needed when the time of illness or disease comes.



When I look at what hospitals and insurance companies charge our Veterans, and then look at what we in turn pay in response to their charges, and when I note that that the same hospitals and insurance companies simply agree to what we pay, I get to see just how inflated healthcare costs really are.


Maybe you have noticed that the pockets of Insurance and Hospital executives are not suffering-- but the average American, somewhere, always gets messed over.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

Older people should pay more, they are more likely to have major health problems and long hospital stays ;)

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I am not sure I agree with the ratio being so disparate though.

In theory, younger folks are able to earn more, given the inherent benefit of youth.

Whatever I spend, if I have to spend, there had just better be someone, something there to take care of me in my golden years.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

i don't know the situation here... but at least for the doctors I work for...they would have done their part without the ins. It was probably more the hospital that was refusing the procedure. Most doctors have a heart.

I know because I write off thousands, our doctors write off a lot to people with no health care. It is a big part of my job, but I do get upset when I see people who live obviously better than I do, seems they all smoke and just don't pay for insurance. My company's healthcare is $130 bi weekly for family plan and there is a $2K yearly deductible to be met before coverage begins. My insurance cost me something... it isn't free... not many people have healthcare for free anymore.

I agree that there needs to be a reform of health insurance, but a national program is not going to be the answer. Just look at the mess of Medicaid and you will know how the govt runs things. Way too much intrusion and from a biller/Pt accts rep stand point... they pay very little and we have to see the patient who is assigned regardless of no shows or prior medical bills owed. Medicaid has its issues and we don't want another program like it.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

You've pretty fairly summed up the current state of affairs and the logic behind it.

What I find confusing is the same people who will admit that insurance companies ration care, complain about the possibility of the government rationing care?!? As a public school teacher, if my wife had insured my daughter and I on her plan it would have cost $745 a month.

Basically, we're asking people to pay $10,000 a year for rationed care under the current system right?

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

I am 71 years old, will be 72 in early December. My wife is 68. We are both on Medicare plus I have United Health Care through General Electric's benefit program and, GE provides me with a prescription plan.

Both my wife and I have $96.40 deducted from our Social Security checks each month. From what I understand, this will go up to around $104 per month in 2010, then up to $112.00 in 2011, and up to around $120 per month in 2012. Social Security will not include a COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) for the next 2 or 3 years. Medicare costs may change from what I have shown depending on what kind of Democratic Party health care is approved.

Each month I get a pension check from GE. I worked there 32 years and retired March 1, 1998. That established pension check amount will not change during my life time. Each month $202.00 is deducted from my pension check for my medical supplement to Medicare. Last year that actually went down a little but it ordinarily goes up each year.

So, my wife and I pay $394.80 per month for Medicare plus a supplement which covers some of what Medicare does not. That comes to $4737.60 per year. That is over 11 percent of our income.

As senior citizens whose income does not change while expenses continue to increase and age-related health issues loom, we are concerned about what our elected representatives (who seem to pay no attention to the desires of those who elected them and pay their salaries) will do.

Re: Wraps Up How I Feel About the Health Care Issu
 

lawsuits are a big problem too. That is why they have had to join together in Networks like my employer. We are owned by two of the largest hospitals in this area. We run in the red, the hospitals pay the difference each month. Doctors are paid a percentage of the charges they put in each day. The network takes care of the insurance and lawsuits, billing, collecting, the finances, charity care offered, everything is ran from a central administrative office... which I am apart of. The doctors can't survive on their own anymore, and we really can't survive without the hospital.

If you could see the idiots in this world.. lol that is just the best to describe some people. We had one lawsuit this year that blew my mind. The patient filed bankruptcy #7 and the court sent us the paperwork. We checked for the patient by name and by SS# The patient's name came up, and we stopped statements and wrote off her bill. However, one of the SS# were wrong and we missed a child... the patient got a collections letter from us. The patient had her attorney sue us, and we settled out of court for $3K for her mental anguish of getting a collections letter.

Now, people... just where did that $3K come from??? We also wrote off all of her and her children's medical bills to bankruptcy. This is just passed on the the next patient, because it is just like those who shoplift... go ahead and steal, but someone is paying for it.