Health Care is not as bad as some may think

L8BloomR · July 20, 2007

BJean,

I make it a point to extricate myself from a "debate" when it deteriorates into black and white thinking (the your-side-is-all-wrong-in-every-way type of thinking), because there can be no understanding at that point. You just painted Republicans, Christians and right wingers as all the same--- all have evil intentions, selfish and wicked. No one I know in those catagories fits those stereotypes at all. I am sorry you can't see that all sides in any issue in this country share responsibility in the problems and successes. Health care has so many thorny and complicated issues .... such as horrendously high lawsuit payouts that have driven doctors out of their practices and have driven up the cost of insurance. But when anyone proposes capping those payouts, other people scream "foul" and so nothing gets done. I don't know why it is so hard to see that there is no easy fix, but even saying THAT will get one slammed for "insensitivity" so I give up. I was hoping we could debate various ways we could remedy the healthcare mess, but anything other than a total capitualation to your side seems to be the only way to keep the discussion civil.

Have a nice rant!

BJean · July 20, 2007

L8Bloom: You're wrong about me. You're just as quick to paint me with a brush as you accuse me of painting ALL Republicans, Right Wingers and Christians. If you're serious about wanting to understand others, you should read my post more closely without all the presumptions you've heaped on it and me.

One of the primary points that I attempted to make was that the Clintons were only proposing a study to see what options and plans were possible, practical and feasible for Americans. The Republicans responsible for the backlash presented a case that the Clintons were going to try to push through a plan for socialized medicine. That was way, way, jumping the gun. But they succeeded in getting it quashed and obviously succeeded in convincing many people that socialized medicine is horrible and unfair and exactly what the Clintons were trying to do. And probably most importantly they intimidated the Clintons into making a hasty retreat.

The practical reason for not putting a cap on payouts to victims of malpractice is that then victims would have little recourse when they have been maimed or killed by really bad people. It is just not the fair thing to do. Yes, high awards in malpractice suits have pushed insurance prices so high that doctors have to be concerned with making and managing money, instead of just raking it in like many of them used to. But there need to be ways to throw out frivilous lawsuits, not put a restriction on how much a person who is found to be guilty of malpractice is punished monetarily.

If it weren't certain Republicans, certain Christians (I am one, by the way), and some Right Wingers who have done the things that I mentioned, I wouldn't have used those terms. I didn't say that ALL Republicans or ALL Christians are responsible. You said that.

The fact that you don't know any of Republicans, Right Wingers or Christians who do those things is very nice for you. I wish I were as fortunate.

gadgetlady · July 20, 2007

I'm with you there, L8BloomR.

As far as health insurance goes, there's a very interesting model of Christians sharing health care costs that has reportedly been very successful. Go to Medi-Share® is the Biblical Healthcare Solution to the rising cost of health insurance. or Welcome to Samaritan Ministries International for more information.

As a Christian, I prefer to assist people on a one-on-one (or small group) basis, rather than trusting the government to effectively distribute my charitable contributions as they see fit -- and after their bureaucracy takes a bite out of them. Painting Christians as greedy and evil because they don't necessarily believe the government should be involved in the administration of health care is inaccurate, uninformed, and demonstrates the bias of the opinion-holder much more than any presuppsed bias of the target.

BJean · July 20, 2007

gadget it would be a beautiful world indeed if all Americans were moved to help others, like you and the people who participate in "sharing health costs" that you sent a link to. Unfortunately that is not the case.

But please understand that it is you and LRBloom8 who are tossing out terms like "evil" - not me. That's just spin that you're using to try to discount the points I'm making. I haven't accused anyone of being wicked or evil. Greedy... well on the other hand, I'm guilty of believing some Americans are very, very greedy. You're right about that.

In America we have a good number of beliefs, needs and choices open to us. I'm thankful for that. Bit there's absolutely no way that we're all ever going to agree on all the important issues that affect us every day. You should continue to do the work you do for the greater good and I will too. I doubt seriously if anything I do affects you personally, or anything that you do affects me either - except perhaps on this forum. We definitely can hurt each other here if we choose to.

I don't think that a discussion here needs to get so personal and accusatory just because one doesn't agree with another. But if that's your thing, have at it.

Marimaru · July 20, 2007

The movie Sicko aside, there was a case here in Los Angeles not too far back about a woman who went to an emergency room, who was seriously ill and they wouldn't help her. Someone called 911 to call an ambulance, and 911 responded that any ambulance in the areas would take her to that hospital, so there was no sense moving her. The woman died in the ER reception area because they refused to help her. Fortunately, this particular hospital is now in danger of being shut down, but unfortunately, it's evidently not as rare a thing as it should be.

However it ends up, I believe that the healthcare system in this country is going to break down. I also believe that is going to be VERY ugly for the middle class citizen, as we wont be able to afford insurance, we wont be able to afford healthcare, we'll be 'too wealthy' for gov't assistance, and we're basically going to be screwed while whatever transition takes place, is taking place. I think the same thing for the gov't in general as well, but that's probably for another thread.

Universal Healthcare may not be the right answer... but it's sounding a lot better to me right now than what we currently have. I pay high premiums on insurance, that only gets me 60% coverage on the things they decide to cover. It's demoralizing.

L8BloomR · July 20, 2007

BJean,

I hate jumping back into this, but I just have to straighten out a couple of things:

#1 The Clintons presented their health care plan in 1993, with a Democrat-controlled congress. So many people hated it, including most Democrats, that it failed to pass. Sen. Moynihan wrote a scathing critique of it, and so did many other Democrats. Most of my family are liberal Democrats and they hated it too! The plan was 1000 pages and had so many confusing and unworkable aspects to it that the Clintons had to abandon it soon after. So for you or anyone to blame Republicans for the failure is just plain silly and uninformed.

#2 If you think that universal health care would be a breeze to implement and run, check out the Canadian LBT threads.... problems there, also! And who on earth needs a $500 million settlement for a botched surgery or anything else? Why must if be all or nothing regarding caps? A reasonable settlement would be punishment for the wrongdoer, compensation for the injured, and keep payouts from affecting the rest of us in our premiums. But again, just saying that makes people scream that it won't be punishment enough. For whom? That is why we can't settle these issues because no one wants to compromise, on both sides.

#3 I never said you said the words "evil" or "wicked", it is just that you imply that with every post in which you bring up Republicans. It must be a comfort to be able to blame so many of the country's problems on Bush or the Republican party but I wish for once that you and others could realize that there is 1/2 of this country that doesn't agree with you or how you view many things, so therefore we need to stop speaking as if "our side" is the only one who understands or "feels for" the issues before us. I have never "painted" you with anything and I don't call anyone names. I just called you on your quickness to dismiss an entire political party as uncaring. You speak in generalities and stereotypes when complaining about them and since I am a Republican, I feel included in your stereotypes.

I think this is an interesting topic if we can discuss the various problems and ways to compromise on them without playing the blame game. We might actually learn something from each other, and wouldn't that be nice? :rolleyes:

L8BloomR · July 20, 2007

I'm with you there, L8BloomR.
As far as health insurance goes, there's a very interesting model of Christians sharing health care costs that has reportedly been very successful. Go to Medi-Share® is the Biblical Healthcare Solution to the rising cost of health insurance. or Welcome to Samaritan Ministries International for more information.As a Christian, I prefer to assist people on a one-on-one (or small group) basis, rather than trusting the government to effectively distribute my charitable contributions as they see fit -- and after their bureaucracy takes a bite out of them. Painting Christians as greedy and evil because they don't necessarily believe the government should be involved in the administration of health care is inaccurate, uninformed, and demonstrates the bias of the opinion-holder much more than any presuppsed bias of the target.

Great post, GadgetLady!! And thanks for this link.... I much prefer giving in this way and do so with other organizations, but this sounds like an even better way. I'm glad you are there! :clap2:

BJean · July 21, 2007

L8BloomR: I was referring to events just after Bill Clinton took office. The eventual bill that was presented to the then Democratic controlled congress was definitely complicated, but one of the reasons there was no possible way for elected officials, from either side, to seriously consider working with it at all was because of the uproar in 1992 created by the spin doctors. To spend any time on it seriously would not have been politic. So yes, I do believe that it was a bipartisan issue at that point and it shouldn't have been. But that's giving too much credit to the men and women in Congress and in the White House. Heavy-handed politics is how they get there and also how they manage to stay there. That is not unique to either party.

One reason that I feel so qualified to speak my piece about both parties' actions is because I have voted for both. I am very embarrassed to say that I voted for G.W. Bush the first go 'round. Contrary to your assessment of my comments, he and his kind are not, "ALL" Republicans. And extremists from the right are not "ALL" Christians. Thank the good Lord for that!

And just because I used Bill Clinton's name in my post does not make me a Bill Clinton lover. I was talking about issues, causes and events. You and gadget and others do not like the way I've described them and I certainly understand that. But that's the way I see them. It isn't fair for you to attatch meanings to my words that I do not mean, and accuse me of using verbage that I have not used.

Where did I say or infer or suggest that universal health care "would be a breeze to implement and run..." I don't believe that at all. I don't know if I could even support a bill for universal health care. Right now it looks like out of necessity that is where we're headed, and if we are, we better think about it, talk about it and get better informed. The time is way past for us to be declaring that it will never work. It does work in some countries. There's a good chance it could work here. But we shouldn't fight it so hard that we wind up getting ourselves in such a desperate situation that we settle for a plan that is bad because we quickly made some knee-jerk response.

I take issue with your statement about a '$500 million settlement" for a "botched" surgery. I think people's lives are worth a lot more than that. When it is proven that a medical professional caused a death or causing someone to be disfigured or to become a vegetable, I am very happy that we have such extreme measures to punish them.

I have had a family member whose death was as a result of an imcompetent doctor. Although we had grounds and we had the support of other medical personnel who were involved, we did not sue because it would not have brought my mother back and we were way too deep in our own sorrow to put ourselves through a lawsuit. That was our choice. Probably not a good choice, but the one that we made. I believe people have a right to go into a court of law if they have grounds for a lawsuit and ask for whatever compensation they deem necessary to shut that medical professional down so that he/she cannot continue to do harm to other people.

If the medical profession policed its' own, we would not have to have those kinds of lawsuits. But that's like asking the Bishops and Pope to police their priests who are known pedophiles. And no, I do not think that the California settlement of over $600 million dollars is too high a price for the Catholic Church to pay for doing what they did in those cases of abusing priests. Do you?

Marimaru: Your post is thoughtful and inciteful and I agree!

BJean · July 21, 2007

P.S. I feel I must add that I do not believe that ALL priests are pedophiles! And I should also add that not all lawsuits against medical professionals should end in astronomical settlements. Let's see... where else did I say something that I need to qualify so I can make my point without being accused of speaking in absolutes. Oh yeah, ALL Republicans and ALL Christians are not bad. Some of my best friends are Republicans... Oh and we even have a priest as well as a nun in my DH's family. They can't all be bad either. In fact, some of my best friends are Catholic. Carlene notwithstanding.

Marimaru · July 21, 2007

I take issue with your statement about a '$500 million settlement" for a "botched" surgery. I think people's lives are worth a lot more than that. When it is proven that a medical professional caused a death or causing someone to be disfigured or to become a vegetable, I am very happy that we have such extreme measures to punish them.
I have had a family member whose death was as a result of an imcompetent doctor. Although we had grounds and we had the support of other medical personnel who were involved, we did not sue because it would not have brought my mother back and we were way too deep in our own sorrow to put ourselves through a lawsuit. That was our choice. Probably not a good choice, but the one that we made. I believe people have a right to go into a court of law if they have grounds for a lawsuit and ask for whatever compensation they deem necessary to shut that medical professional down so that he/she cannot continue to do harm to other people.

If the medical profession policed its' own, we would not have to have those kinds of lawsuits. But that's like asking the Bishops and Pope to police their priests who are known pedophiles. And no, I do not think that the California settlement of over $600 million dollars is too high a price for the Catholic Church to pay for doing what they did in those cases of abusing priests. Do you?

Marimaru: Your post is thoughtful and inciteful and I agree!

BJean, I'm sorry to hear about your mom... I imagine that was a terrible ordeal.

The Catholic church aside (since their settlement has many beneficiaries), I think there does need to be a cap on settlements. I don't think it's an all or nothing type of thing, but you do see families getting millions for something that happened to them or a family member, and they are then living VERY well, off of this... I think possibly something like covering the person's medical care for the rest of their life, or something like that (like counceling for "mental distress") would be better than cash.

Number 1, this cuts down on frivolous law suits where people were certainly wronged, but not to the degree of the money they were asking for and

Number 2, I think that doctors should be responsible for their own malpractice payouts. The biggest 'reason' that I hear that our healthcare costs are so high, is the cost of malpractice insurance... it seems VERY odd to me that we insure our DOCTORS against MALPRACTICE. My husband brought up a point to me that with *some* of the settlements, people would never see anything because the doc would go bankrupt, but still... it's like big cycle; judges don't throwout frivolous law suits, or don't insist on a reasonable settlement, so malpractice insurance is created, frivolous law suits increase, since they are being paid out, and people have dollar signs in their eyes, insurance costs go up, healthcare goes up, and on and on and on.

Plus on top of that you have hospitals and insurance companies bouncing off eachother; insurance starts covering things, so hospitals charge insurance more than they charge Joe Shmoe, so insurance rates go up, but they still pay the hospitals the insane amounts, again, and on and on and on.

I don't claim to know what is "reasonable" or what should be done about any of this, but I still believe that someone needs to figure it out, lol. I do agree that it would all be much better if the medical community would have some pride and police their own.

BJean · July 21, 2007

You make some very good points Marimaru. I know that the whole system has gotten way out of hand. On the positive side of that, we the people are much more aware of what the possible consequences are of awarding huge settlements. Judges and juries are not as ignorant of the whole story as they were when this cycle started.

My fear is that if we take away more of the rights of individuals in this country, we will be "handled" even more than we already are by the insurance companies. They're all for setting limits, you know. They'd like for us to believe that these huge settlements are making us pay more for insurance.

No, bad doctoring and malpractice insurance is what is causing rates to go up. Not the settlements. If doctors were practicing good medicine, there would be no huge settlements. Juries and Judges don't go for big settlements when there is an unanswered question about whether a doctor was at fault or not.

Insurance companies just keep getting richer, and richer and more and more powerful. Most individuals who have been harmed by someone's negligence only have that tool to help keep the medical profession in check. It makes me very nervous for the insurance companies to be able to effectively put pressure on us to ensure that they continue to amass the huge fortunes that they enjoy today.

You're right about some negligent doctors being put out of business if it weren't for malpractice insurance. But isn't that probably for the best?

Yes, losing your mom is hard enough, but to think that she could have lived another 30 years or more is utterly earth shattering to those of us who loved her so dearly.

BJean · July 21, 2007

BTW, the portrayal of the families of victims of malpractice living the high life off these settlements is very distasteful. That's like talking about the families of the victims of 9/11 living well on their settlement money.

It is more distasteful to me to think about the doctor who goes on his merry way after practicing really bad medicine and continues having unsuspecting patients putting their lives in his hands and paying him good money for it.

green · July 21, 2007

I am truly horrified by some of the notions which I have been reading about universal/socialised health care in the past few pages of this thread. As you all know I live in Canada, one of those countries where we have universal health care. We still do have the right to choose our doctors. I have tried out and rejected a number of individuals before choosing my doc. We do have clean sheets in our hospitals. We do have modern medical techniques. We do have medical accountability. We do have a booming economy. We are an affluent country. Our economy is globally connected and is based on the capitalist model.

Oh, and as to the weirdest objection to universal medicare, the one about lawsuits - this lawsuit culture is one which is specific to the United States. It is simply impossible in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and inside industrialised Europe to levy dollar damages of an American scale. In fact my brother's one hesitation about moving stateside in order to practice medicine was the enormous insurance malpractice liability payments which each and every American doctor must pay in order to cover his/her arse.

While medical lawsuits do happen in Canada, these depend on the tragic results of specific misbehaviour. An individual who has suffered a heart attack in a Walmart's parking lot after having ignored a lot of general good advice cannot expect to sue and win anything in most countries. And indeed why should they?

green · July 21, 2007

I'm with you there, L8BloomR.
As far as health insurance goes, there's a very interesting model of Christians sharing health care costs that has reportedly been very successful. Go to Medi-Share® is the Biblical Healthcare Solution to the rising cost of health insurance. or Welcome to Samaritan Ministries International for more information.

As a Christian, I prefer to assist people on a one-on-one (or small group) basis, rather than trusting the government to effectively distribute my charitable contributions as they see fit -- and after their bureaucracy takes a bite out of them. Painting Christians as greedy and evil because they don't necessarily believe the government should be involved in the administration of health care is inaccurate, uninformed, and demonstrates the bias of the opinion-holder much more than any presuppsed bias of the target.

So sorry, Gadget, for much as I respect you and enjoy many of our communications I must insist that the glory of your great country was that it was created as a haven from religious specificity. The folks who framed your Constitution were careful. They wanted to make this document both an open and a closed one; that is to say that they were anxious to ensure that all Americans would find themselves welcome in their home and at the same time they wished to ensure that their Constitution - and thus the freedom of all American citizens - would remain impregnable from any attack.

To hinge the health of your citizens upon such private and religiously based charities as those which you list in your post isn't right. Universal is universal and this is the profound, indeed revolutionary power of your American Constitution. Your Constitution is the first state document ever which formally guarantees the same protection for all citizens residing in its territory. I am fully aware that America did undergo a war in order to obtain its independence. Indeed I share your birthdate, 4th of July.

What I guess I wish to emphasize is that your birth was, apart from the war of Independence, extremely interesting. Those who framed your Constitution were very anxious to make sure that everyone who chose to come to America would be made welcome and would be regarded as being of equal value and as having equal voice. This is why I find myself getting antsy over the notion of health care being made available to those who are in distress under a religious or partisan banner. Inclusive is better, I think.

gadgetlady · July 21, 2007

To hinge the health of your citizens upon such private and religiously based charities as those which you list in your post isn't right. Universal is universal and this is the profound, indeed revolutionary power of your American Constitution. Your Constitution is the first state document ever which formally guarantees the same protection for all citizens residing in its territory.

The discussion about the inception of our country is one for another discussion, I believe. My question for you is, what is wrong with a religious charity voluntarily providing for peoples' health care? I don't believe in universal health care, and I don't believe health care is guaranteed by the Constitution. So your post really makes no sense to me.