National Healthcare for the USA

by sammielee24 348 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  LittleToe

  Lisa:

  I was in my early twenties with a child as a single parent making less than $20K full time many years ago and I STILL had enough money to put her on my employer's health plan.There were bills I always paid. Rent. Food. Gas. Utilities. Car Note. Insurance.Everything else was frequently "rob Peter to pay Paul." The $85 a month to insure my daughter was the least of my problems.

  Poverty isn't just going to bed with nothing in your stomach and a dripping roof.

  Were you paying a mortgage at the time? If it was "many moons ago", what was the threshold then? Further, did you feed your child quality food or the kind of mush that will provide long-term health problems and potentially create issues for yourself later on, as well?

  Inquiring minds want to know.
• 

  hemp lover

  LDH, you're right. It is about priorities. (Although if it were only $85 to add my daughter to my insurance, I would have done it long ago.) I choose not to eat beans and rice. I choose to pay cash for my daughter's (infrequent) doctor visits/prescriptions and gamble that nothing catastrophic will happen before she's old enough to get a job that will hopefully enable her to afford her own insurance.
  
  I guess it just bothers me that given how few extras I allow myself (no [very rare] vacations, no new clothes until something falls apart and then just a replacement, no college fund for my kid, 10-year-old car, [I even gave up diet Coke!]), I still can't insure my child without causing severe strain to my pocketbook. And I'm in a really good place compared to a lot of people I know.
• 

  FlyingHighNow

  Hemp Lover, I understand.
• 

  LDH

  Were you paying a mortgage at the time? If it was "many moons ago", what was the threshold then? Further, did you feed your child quality food or the kind of mush that will provide long-term health problems and potentially create issues for yourself later on, as well?

  a. no I was paying rent

  b. Whatever the 'threshold' was, I was close enough figuring my salary

  c. Of course I don't feed my children garbage then or now. You were more likely to find me in Mike's Discount Natural foods (Syracuse NY) than McDonalds.
• 

  sammielee24

  If the government forces me to go on NHS they have taken away my options and therefore eliminated planning.

  I'm still waiting for the answer as to why a policy change to healthcare would eliminate your options and planning for your future? Financially, there would be no change. Services wouldn't change - sooooo what could it be? You'd still have your house, your family and your health. You could still vacation if you so choose - jobs are a dime a dozen so I hear....so what could it be? Are you contemplating going back to med school and thats why you insist on a guarantee of a job for graduates? A guaranteed and substantial income? Just wondering...swife.
• 

  sammielee24

  I was in my early twenties with a child as a single parent making less than $20K full time many years ago and I STILL had enough money to put her on my employer's health plan

  Those must have been trying times...kudo's for you in getting past all of that. Hopefully you had some assistance from the child's father? Did anyone help out at all with the babysitting and stuff? I recognize how difficult a position that is to be in. swife
• 

  LDH

  Those must have been trying times...kudo's for you in getting past all of that. Hopefully you had some assistance from the child's father? Did anyone help out at all with the babysitting and stuff? I recognize how difficult a position that is to be in. swife

  You have *NO* idea, or maybe you do. Luckily the lack of support and 'love' from Jehovah's people started opening my eyes. After I spent 20 years doing just what SWalker talks about. Pioneering for three years, cleaning houses and factories, and still giving the poor in the congregation cash money....and then when I needed the support it was GONE...... Thank DOG I figured it out....because I guess what it boils down to. There will always be fighters. And there will always be victims. And never the two shall meet.

  As far as the question about planning it's simple. If we don't guarantee that there will be enough future doctors, health care will be rationed. And we will all be getting 'scrapes' every three years.

  Lisa
• 

  LDH

  I choose to pay cash for my daughter's (infrequent) doctor visits/prescriptions and gamble that nothing catastrophic will happen before she's old enough to get a job that will hopefully enable her to afford her own insurance.

  Hemp lover I don't know how old your daughter is, but the schools out here offer health insurance for the kids for about $250 for six months of coverage.

  I prefer beans, rice, and any other 'whole food' to processed crap. I find you eat much less of it, actually.
• 

  hemp lover

  "I prefer beans, rice, and any other 'whole food' to processed crap. I find you eat much less of it, actually."
  
  Same here. I just prefer not to eat beans and rice at EVERY meal, if you know what I'm sayin'. Processed crap costs less than the way we do eat. My daughter is a vegan (and home-schooled, yet another expense) and we only buy organic fruits and vegetables (when they're not too outrageously priced).
  
  You must have had a helluva tight budget when you were a single mom. Personally I can't handle the stress of spending my paychecks down to the penny which is what I'd be doing if I insured my child. For my own peace of mind, I need to have that small cash cushion left after the bills are paid. I'm a dice roller, I guess. And it's easier to put the noninsured issue out of my mind when I actually have that surplus on the 14th and the 29th.
• 

  sammielee24

  The Best Care Anywhere

  Ten years ago, veterans hospitals were dangerous, dirty, and scandal-ridden. Today, they're producing the highest quality care in the country. Their turnaround points the way toward solving America's health-care crisis.

  And so it goes today. If the debate is over health-care reform, it won't be long before some free-market conservative will jump up and say that the sorry shape of the nation's veterans hospitals just proves what happens when government gets into the health-care business. And if he's a true believer, he'll then probably go on to suggest, quoting William Safire and other free marketers, that the government should just shut down the whole miserable system and provide veterans with health-care vouchers.

  Yet here's a curious fact that few conservatives or liberals know. Who do you think receives higher-quality health care. Medicare patients who are free to pick their own doctors and specialists? Or aging veterans stuck in those presumably filthy VA hospitals with their antiquated equipment, uncaring administrators, and incompetent staff? An answer came in 2003, when the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that compared veterans health facilities on 11 measures of quality with fee-for-service Medicare. On all 11 measures, the quality of care in veterans facilities proved to be “significantly better.”

  Here's another curious fact. The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a study that compared veterans health facilities with commercial managed-care systems in their treatment of diabetes patients. In seven out of seven measures of quality, the VA provided better care. It gets stranger. Pushed by large employers who are eager to know what they are buying when they purchase health care for their employees, an outfit called the National Committee for Quality Assurance today ranks health-care plans on 17 different performance measures. These include how well the plans manage high blood pressure or how precisely they adhere to standard protocols of evidence-based medicine such as prescribing beta blockers for patients recovering from a heart attack. Winning NCQA's seal of approval is the gold standard in the health-care industry. And who do you suppose this year's winner is: Johns Hopkins? Mayo Clinic? Massachusetts General? Nope. In every single category, the VHA system outperforms the highest rated non-VHA hospitals.