Journal mcgrew's Journal: A broken health care system 16
Worker's comp 1, Blue Cross 1, injured worker zero.
Here's another reason in favor of a single-payer health care syetem -- who's going to pay?
A nurse's assistant at Huntington Hospital in Los Angeles was attacked by a violent patient at work, sustaining injuries and anxiety from the attack causing high blood pressure. She had an appointment with Worker's Comp and "for some unknown reason" was turned away.
That night at a restaraunt with her husband, she had a stoke. She's now in a persistant vegetative state, and her husband must now care for her around the clock.
Blue cross refuses to pay, saying it was a work-related injury, and and worker's comp refuses to pay saying it wasn't work related. Meanwhile the couple have no income.
A doctor quoted by the AP says it's work related.
An April 20 note in Mendoza's medical records says she was "in her usual state of health until about a week ago when she was bitten at work and had increased anxiety about her work injury."
The records also note that Mendoza had become hypertensive since the incidents.
Dr. Arthur E. Lipper, who was hired by Glauber, has examined Mendoza's medical records and said he believes the stroke was a result of Mendoza's workplace injury.
"Whatever conspired to cause her to have her stroke, clearly at least in part transpired after and because she was bitten, hit in the head and neck," Lipper said. "She was agitated because of it, and then she stroked.
"When somebody who has no known previous history of high blood pressure gets attacked on several occasions and it becomes high, the assumption is it's caused by the attacks," he said.
If we had a single payer plan like civilized countries do, this type of thing couldn't happen. The Obama plan is not going to fix this, as we'll still have private insurance, medicare, medicaid, workman's comp, and all the other entities who will all fight to get the other insurer to pay.
Now, if you're pissed at Blue Cross about this and you have Blue Cross as your insurer (iinm they're the biggest health insurance company), and want to change insurance companies because of it, what are you going to do?
Nothing. You have no choice. Your insurance coverage is determined by your employer. The US seems to have returned to a form of corporate fuedalism where we serfs are at the mercy of the nobility, who are seldom very merciful.
The corporate nobility run things here. Take workman's comp, for example -- it's completely stacked in the employer's favor and is damned hard to collect. There are also rules limiting what you can get, which is far less than if you sustain an injury off the job.
For example, if you're in your privately owned vehicle on your way to work and someone runs a stop sign and t-bones you, his insurance will pay for 100% of lost wages, repair to the vehicle, plus three times the medical bills to account for "pain and suffering".
If you make it to work without that accident and sustain the same injuries at work through your employer's negligence, you get your medical bills paid; no pain and suffering awarded. You don't get 100% of your lost wages, either.
How did we ever "progress" to this point?
And why are the people in favor of this travesty called "conservatives"?
Not quite (Score:2)
Nothing. You have no choice. Your insurance coverage is determined by your employer.
With all due respect, this is blatantly false. People can and do obtain coverage outside of their employer all the time. While it's true that you pay more, it's not impossible. Ideally (as far as variations on the current system go, anyway), what we'd see is employers reimbursing their employees for their insurance coverage, and the employee pays for it, rather than picking an insurer and silently subsidizing it like they do now. Then it would be easier to choose your insurance, but let's not pretend that i
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let's not pretend that it's impossible now.
You're right, it's not impossible*.
*: Excluding nearly everyone over 50, pregnant women, anyone who has ever had a serious illness, been bitten at work, etc. In the end you think you have a chance, you get halfway through, but then you find the corpse of the winner on the TV commercials stuffed in a locker. Schwarzenegger managed to beat Dynamo, but your policy is rescinded due to adolescent zits.
what we'd see is employers reimbursing their employees for their in
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If you're making >100K$ per year, sure, no problem. But most of us don't; the median income is about half that. You might as well say that buying a Lamborgini isn't impossible. Maybe not for you, but it is for most people.
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Buying insurance is "easy". Collecting is a different story. It's like, I can have credit... as long as I can prove I don't need it. If you don't believe the government should get in between you and your doctor, why is it okay for private insurance to do it?
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Hmmm.... "were" and "30k/year" for a dairy farm? There is little but farmland between here and St Louis, and I have yet to see a farm without a giant house with at least three brand new giant pickup trucks parked there.
Sorry, but I'm extremely skeptical.
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Based on the farmers where I live (near Green Bay, WI), those farmers are either a) running big-ass farms, not a small family affair like ours was; or b) spending money they don't have. There were farmers in our area that had brand new giant pickup trucks, too... but they were the people who were in so much debt they'd never get out. Maybe it's just in this part of the country, but I assure you that farmers here are not filthy rich bastards.
It's your choice, call me a liar if you must... but I really have b
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Not calling you a liar, just that it seems improbable. How big was the farm?
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Some friends of mine had such crappy employer-provided insurance that they decided they were better off buying their own insurance policy. It can be done, but it was not easy.
The real problem goes far beyond the insurance industry, and nothing that the Democrats are proposing will fix the problem. I hate to say this, but the McCain plan, while only half-baked, was a step in the right direction. It would have changed the rules of the game and severed the relationship between employment and health care, so
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Too bad McCain would have died after 6 months in office and then the world would be ruled by Dick Cheney and his friends, through their pretty puppet Sarah. For great evulz!
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Too bad McCain would have died after 6 months in office and then the world would be ruled by Dick Cheney and his friends, through their pretty puppet Sarah. For great evulz!
Ummm... President Obama was sworn in in January. It is currently October. Senator McCain is, as far as I am aware, still alive. So I'm pretty sure he would have made it 6 months.
I certainly understand your premise, however. "President Palin" are not two words anybody wants to see uttered together! Scary!
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I was making a joke, but in all seriousness, I doubt McCain's circulatory and nervous systems have had the same stresses in the past months as they would have if he had been elected...
"Conservatives" (Score:2)
And why are the people in favor of this travesty called "conservatives"?
Quite simple, really. There are two things they want to conserve:
As in, they want to conserve the lack of socio-economic mobility in this country. They of course thinly veil this goal under the guise of "keeping your taxes low", but make no mistake about it. They want the have-nots to continue to have nothing. It is how they maintain their status as well.
Particularly, their own. See the previous explanation.
And as long as multimillionares are in charge of (for-profit) health ca
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I'll call BS. That last bullet point is caused by the Stonecutters.