A Hard Lesson(s) Learned

Lou Holtman said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

On Thu, 17 May 2007 11:52:48 +0200, Lou Holtman
<[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

No insurance at all? What would happen if one of your family members
needed, and I mean really needed (car accident or something), a $50000
surgery?

Quoted message said:

They'd either pas the cost to someone else by ignoring bills, go
bankrupt trying to pay or suffer w/improper car for being unable to
pay. I'm probably forgetting other unpleasant "options."

Quoted message said:

There are tens of millions of people in a similar situation right now
in the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Yes that's what I thought. I had they impression that Joseph preferred
this situation to that in Norway. It's easy to come up with an example
where this is true, but you have to look at overall picture. Here in the
Netherlands health insurance is mandatory for everybody older than 18
years and there is a lot of complaining, but I think overall this is a
better situation than you have in the USA.

Lou

I wasn't thinking so much of which system I prefer, but rather that a
potential solution is much more complicated that people think. Norway
and the Scandinavian coutries are often touted as models of how to do
social services, but I have first hand experience showing that these
services are FAR from satisfactory. This only shows that it is a
difficult problem and that blaming people who oppose that sort of
thing politically isn't the answer. People who support nationalized
health (or some similar scheme) in the US are generally left leaning.
They genreally think that the reason the US does not have a
nationalized health system is because of their political adversaries,
and if they would only get with the program and vote for a
nationalized health system everything would be just fine. They are
mistaken. The system would still suck (potentially worse) but in a
different way. Norway has a healthy, homgeneous population, bags of
money, a high standard of living without extremes of income
differences, and more or less across the board political support for
government run social programs, but the health system still is
unsatisfactory. Why would anyone think that the US would be able to
implement a superior system? I belive that most opponents of
nationalized health in the US (like me) are opposed not because we
don't want poor people to get health care, but because we think that
implementing such a system will never work, and will just become a
huge money pit that will be impossible to get rid of or fix in the
future.

Joseph

email hidden said:

The cost doesn't sound totally outrageous to me. It would be nice if
it were cheaper, but just think about how much even car reapirs can
be!

Who have the a similiar problem: the outrageous costs of supplies
(parts). When I say the cost of health plans, it is not merely the
hospitals and doctors grossly overcharging but also the suppliers and
pharmaceutical companies.

Nonetheless, would you like your auto insurance company to agree to a
$3,000 bill afther which some $260 already came out of your pocket and
of which you will still be billed some 20% for essentially having
taken a picture of an obviously broken car part, say, "yes the part
(as you already know) is broken", "it will (as you already know) fix
itself, "here's a rag" and "no I can not instruct you in how to use
the rag"?

That is essentially what happened.

People have been breaking collar-bones at least since they lived in
caves. I'm sure someone, somewhere, even painted a picture of a broken-
collar bone on a cave wall to show someone who else must have had
something so even visually obvious as a broken collar bone.

And even then they knew all they could do was use either of two kinds
of vines (slings and drink lots of milk).

Is it really fair to apply the same rates to someone who has suffered,
say, only a bad scrape to his arm that is charged for someone who is
having to resew a lost arm back in place?

A broken-collar bone isn't rocket science!

Say the orthopedist did spend some "$1,000,000" not to learn how to
strap even a sling. At the rate he was charging $225/minute, and the
numbers of people sent by insurance companies lining up to be received
in any and all of his six treatment rooms all day long and simply
walking from one room to to another: how much money do you think he
was grossing?

There are 480 minutes in a working day and $225/minute is only one of
his rates. It goes up if there were actually a cast involved!

email hidden said:

While I don't dispute that, the figures of the uninsured also include
people only temporarily uninsured (a potentially bad situation of
course), and those that chose not to be insured. The problem of people
who want insurance but don't have it is I think overestimated in terms
of numbers. This of course means nothing if you happen to be one of
those people, but nonetheless I think the crisis is overblown.

Choose not to be insured? Overblown? Wow.

--
JT
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Bill Sornson said:

ROTFL You do a stupid thing (and apparently can't afford health insurance?)
and it's Bush's fault. Classic.

Affording "health insurance" nowadays is grossly taking food out of
the mouths of even children.

As far as Bush's "fault"?

While he tells the American people that they have to get their own
health plans, do you see him trust busting or throwing any of the
highway robbers in jail?

To the contrary, its been all over the news lately that his federal
prosecutor (and after his Federal Drug and Food Administration
approved the drug) of one pharmaceutical company, whose people
deliberately lied about their highly addictive pain-killer, had less
than 1% of the six-billion dollars they've made off of addicting
people so far.

Not one of the person from the corporation spent even one day in jail
even while thousands of addicts are now in jail having bought the
addictive drug at even much lowwer street prices!!!

And how much do you think that corporation paid into Bush's campaign
funds?

Do you recall when Carter, beginning his campaign for Presidency, even
whispered he would go after the AMA! You guys went after his head with
a hatchet!

don Gabacho said:

On May 17, 4:47 am, "[email hidden]"

Quoted message said:

The cost doesn't sound totally outrageous to me. It would be nice if
it were cheaper, but just think about how much even car reapirs can
be!

Who have the a similiar problem: the outrageous costs of supplies
(parts). When I say the cost of health plans, it is not merely the
hospitals and doctors grossly overcharging but also the suppliers and
pharmaceutical companies.

Nonetheless, would you like your auto insurance company to agree to a
$3,000 bill afther which some $260 already came out of your pocket and
of which you will still be billed some 20% for essentially having
taken a picture of an obviously broken car part, say, "yes the part
(as you already know) is broken", "it will (as you already know) fix
itself, "here's a rag" and "no I can not instruct you in how to use
the rag"?

That is essentially what happened.

That is more or less what happened to my wife too, but with more
beuracratic run-around thrown in. The immediate out of pocket was less
than yours but it comes at the expense of much higher taxes and fees.
I pay way more in these taxes that if I paid for my own private
insurance. I can afford insurance, while some people cannot, and this
is the main problem. The difficult thing is to find some way to get
coverage to those who lack it without ruining it for everyone else in
the process.

Quoted message said:

People have been breaking collar-bones at least since they lived in
caves. I'm sure someone, somewhere, even painted a picture of a broken-
collar bone on a cave wall to show someone who else must have had
something so even visually obvious as a broken collar bone.

And even then they knew all they could do was use either of two kinds
of vines (slings and drink lots of milk).

Is it really fair to apply the same rates to someone who has suffered,
say, only a bad scrape to his arm that is charged for someone who is
having to resew a lost arm back in place?

A broken-collar bone isn't rocket science!

Say the orthopedist did spend some "$1,000,000" not to learn how to
strap even a sling. At the rate he was charging $225/minute, and the
numbers of people sent by insurance companies lining up to be received
in any and all of his six treatment rooms all day long and simply
walking from one room to to another: how much money do you think he
was grossing?

There are 480 minutes in a working day and $225/minute is only one of
his rates. It goes up if there were actually a cast involved!

Indeed. I do not dispute that some doctors and I assume others in the
mediacl business are raking it in. I think this has a lot to do with
the fact that so many people have insurance and don't really care
about the actual cost of the care. So people are not cost conscious
when they chose medical services, but they are when they chose mediacl
insurance. This has the unfortunate side effect of driving up the
costs of medical services, and driving down the willingness of
insurers to pay for them.

Joseph

On May 17, 9:27 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

On 17 May 2007 11:38:06 -0700, "[email hidden]"

Quoted message said:

While I don't dispute that, the figures of the uninsured also include
people only temporarily uninsured (a potentially bad situation of
course), and those that chose not to be insured. The problem of people
who want insurance but don't have it is I think overestimated in terms
of numbers. This of course means nothing if you happen to be one of
those people, but nonetheless I think the crisis is overblown.

Choose not to be insured? Overblown? Wow.

No, really. I'm not saying there aren't a large number of people who
want insurance yet do not have it. Just that the number isn't as high
as people assume. There are lots of people who have no insurance who
don't want it either. Wether that is wise is a different discussion.
This has major implications in how you go about addressing the
problem. If close to 50% of the people are in a situation that is not
good, it perhaps makes sense to think about scrapping the whole system
and putting something in place that works better, but if the number is
closer to 5% it makes more sense to figure out some way to help that
5% without mucking it up for everyone else. I think the numbers thrown
around tend to be alarmist with the intent of making people think more
along the lines of the first scenario.

Joseph

Tim McNamara said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Bill Westphal said:

don Gabacho <[email hidden]> writes:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yup: "A hard lesson(s) learned.

Isn't Bush's health care plan wonderful?

Sorry for your wake-up call. You know the crooks charge double if
[snip]

Quoted message said:

Training a doctor, from the start of medical school to the point of
being able to practice independently, takes 10 years. Several years ago

Quoted message said:

[snip]

Great post, and researched links too. I'd nominate it for "most
thoughtful and best presented post of the month" but it fails the
"topicality" requirement (not more than 20% about bicycles). A little
objective information goes a long way. Thanks. Charlie Rose (google
video available online, or at charlierose.com) had a bunch of
stem-cell researchers as part of a medical research series he has
going, complaining about US policy restricting their work, and the
repercusions to ill people, so I've temporarily shifted my rage from
from midguided health-care management government policy, and insurance
companies and other overhead to medical care, not to mention
expectations of large profit for investors, to government policy
vis-a-vis medical ethics. Tomorrow it will be something else.
Probably the environment when I come across the next clear-cutting
operation on my MTB or hike. Those tend to really [censored] me off. What
a pain being [censored] all the time. But if I get the HR up around
80-90% for a few hours that all goes away for awhile. Maybe I'll get
Alzheimers (which they won't be able to cure for lack of stem-cell
research) and I'll be gleefully ignorant. One can only hope.

Bill Westphal

Lou Holtman said:

Yes that's what I thought. I had they impression that Joseph preferred
this situation to that in Norway. It's easy to come up with an example
where this is true, but you have to look at overall picture. Here in the
Netherlands health insurance is mandatory for everybody older than 18
years and there is a lot of complaining, but I think overall this is a
better situation than you have in the USA.

Likewise in France. Getting sick or having an accident is just a
nuisance, not something that people are terrified of because they
don't have access to proper medical care.

email hidden said:

Indeed. I do not dispute that some doctors and I assume others in the
mediacl business are raking it in. I think this has a lot to do with
the fact that so many people have insurance and don't really care
about the actual cost of the care.

Uhhh, you try and find out:

When I received a (supposedly non) statement from the insurance
companying lauding itself on the money it saved me after the first
referral visit to the orthopedist, it itemized "830.00."

I took that (supposedly non) statement with me to the orthopedist on
the second visit and asked them why they had charged "$830.00" for the
four minutes. The woman said that she didn't know; their accountant
was out to lunch and she couldn't find out, the rates were negotiated
between the clinic and the insurance company and that the "830.00" was
a "code"!

"A code"? "The insurance company was bragging how much 'code' they had
saved me"?

She didn't respond.

"Surely I have a right to know what expenses are being incurred!, I
said" "How often a day do you have people coming in here asking about
the charge for you to answer the figure is actually a "code"?

She responded "all the time."

"And," I asked, "it still hasn't occurred to your accountants not to
have your 'codes' appear as a monied price"? "Throw in a letter or
two"?

She laughed.

I then asked her "How much will this second visit would cost, that,
surely I have a right to know before incurring anymore while surely
your clinic must know?"

She responded saying that "It is between you and your insurance
company."

As it turned out, it was no "code" and it was the price.

I have yet to learn what the cost of the second visit is or will be.

While verifying, with the insurance company, that the 830.00 for the
first do-nothing visit, was indeed the price, I wasn't such an idiot
not to sense that the insurance company would drop me altogether if I
pursued just what prices they are paying with my premium payments.

Isn't this secret negotiating and so-called "code" just the old
'rigamarole'?

email hidden said:

I'm not saying there aren't a large number of people who
want insurance yet do not have it. Just that the number isn't as high
as people assume.

So what. So it's only 20 million instead of 25 million and getting
worse. What's your point? That it's not a crisis? Wow.

I think your real point is you dont' believe in government
intervention in much at all.

Quoted message said:

If close to 50% of the people are in a situation that is not
good, it perhaps makes sense to think about scrapping the whole system
and putting something in place that works better, but if the number is
closer to 5% it makes more sense to figure out some way to help that
5% without mucking it up for everyone else.

Mucking it up for everyone else? Perhaps 20-60% of the US population
has OK health insurance at the moment, but the way things are going is
not sustainable. And for a large number of people holding on to that
health insurance is becoming a major decision in where they live and
the work they do. And they have little control over it.

So not mucking it up for everyone else is nonsense -- even if most
Americans aren't screwed at the moment they are in a precarious
situation.
--
JT
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yeah try it its fun!

when you come upon someone whose just torn himself to shreds and lies
bleeding to death on the pavement
DON'T PANIC!
lean over the corpse and say: 'holy cow! its a good thing you didn't
hurt yourself"

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

don Gabacho said:

With the weight of the bike itself plus the groceries pushing and the
weight of the component pulling, I was slapped down so hard on the
pavement to break my collar-bone.
Lesson 2: The medical costs! Nearly $3,000 including one charge equal
to over $225/minute by an orthepedist who had not only done nothing
(not even x-rays) but, when asked to instruct on just how to fasten
the second strap of a simple sling, responded "I don't know."
Yup: "A hard lesson(s) learned.
Isn't Bush's health care plan wonderful?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Sorry to hear you were injured, and I hope your recovery is speedy.
The cost doesn't sound totally outrageous to me. It would be nice if
it were cheaper, but just think about how much even car reapirs can
be!
I lived in LA for a while without insurance for me or my family. When
we would take our infant son to the doctor, when they learned we had
no insurance they often gave us a (significantly) discounted rate, so
these rates are not cut in stone.

-snip experiences in socialism-

Lou Holtman said:

No insurance at all? What would happen if one of your family members
needed, and I mean really needed (car accident or something), a $50000
surgery?

That's by definition a catastrophic event - possible, but for most
people, annual health care expense stays well under $100. Which is of
course much less than any third party scheme to pay it.

In our company, we bought a major medical plan with a $5000 annual per
person deductible, company self insured $500 to $5000, and employees
picked up the first $500 annually. When a new series of state-mandated
coverage areas raised our premiums by $450 per person per month, we
simply quit.
The other aspect that's changed is that now fewer doctors are self
employed or in small SCs. The incredible overhead of all the
non-revenue-producing staff and infrastructure ratchets costs up
inexorably.

There are no simple solutions to this very complex problem in which
many varied interests vie.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

brush your teeth, bathe, use iodine, read nutrition and medical care,
check your shock cord, don't eat fat, don't drink a lot of CHO or
coffee, inhale smoke, drink water, excercise, wear a hat in the sun,
don't speed in town, associate with loose women.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

No insurance at all? What would happen if one of your family members
needed, and I mean really needed (car accident or something), a $50000
surgery?

They'd either pas the cost to someone else by ignoring bills, go
bankrupt trying to pay or suffer w/improper car for being unable to
pay. I'm probably forgetting other unpleasant "options."

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

On Thu, 17 May 2007 11:52:48 +0200, Lou Holtman

Exactly. In a way the high prices paid by insured people subsidise the
ignored bills of those without insurance and without the means to pay.
The problem is figuring out a "system" that adresses this without
falling into the pitfalls of indifferent care, long waiting lists, etc
that seem to plauge all the nationalized health services I've heard
of.

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

There are tens of millions of people in a similar situation right now
in the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Quoted message said:

While I don't dispute that, the figures of the uninsured also include
people only temporarily uninsured (a potentially bad situation of
course), and those that chose not to be insured. The problem of people
who want insurance but don't have it is I think overestimated in terms
of numbers. This of course means nothing if you happen to be one of
those people, but nonetheless I think the crisis is overblown. In
other words it's a complicated problem.

Exactly. In Wisconsin, a state medical care program for the indigent,
touted as a solution for up to 100,000 people, garnered a whopping 135
enrollees after 2 years. In Illinois, similar numbers.

There are no snappy magic-wand solutions and many who proffer same do
not allow for the broad spectrum of interests involved in the problem.
hint: "health care consumers" is not a homogeneous group.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Quoted message said:

yeah try it its fun!

when you come upon someone whose just torn himself to shreds and lies
bleeding to death on the pavement
DON'T PANIC!
lean over the corpse and say: 'holy cow! its a good thing you didn't
hurt yourself"

take a pill, gene

Quoted post said:

yeah try it its fun!

when you come upon someone whose just torn himself to shreds and lies
bleeding to death on the pavement
DON'T PANIC!
lean over the corpse and say: 'holy cow! its a good thing you didn't
hurt yourself"

Uhhh. After sitting up and shaking my aching noggin, I waited, and
waited, to wave down a police car.

Finally a police car came in sight only for its driver to give me a
good glance as he passed by and went on.

Then, after about ten minutes, yet another one---while all along some
really belligerent #&@)(*$ is yelling at me from across the parking
lot to come over and give him a cigarette.

I finally managed to borrow a cell phone from a walking passerby.

I wouldn't stop or call a taxi and leave by bike---BICYCLE---and
instead called a friend with a van.

I'm signing off on this thread.

Thanks for all the well-wishers, but I'll be back on my---BICYCLE---in
only a couple of more weeks with, let's see now: How many lessons
under in my noggin?

and bring a sheet!

so you lean over and whisper "Bill (bill's ok he's just hurting), Bill
can you hear me? (Bill thinks now what?) BIll starts yelling for you
to *&^^%%!!@@, ignore this and whisper "Bill, don't move your skull is
craked and your brains are oozing out"

or get the sheet, throw it over your buddy Bill then shout "yo Lloyd,
cancel the ambulance and call the cornor."

or the guy whose in incredible pain caws he broke his leg in three
places, do the nurse : "BILL. DOES THAT HURT??"

Quoted message said:

brush your teeth, bathe, use iodine, read nutrition and medical care,
check your shock cord, don't eat fat, don't drink a lot of CHO or
coffee, inhale smoke, drink water, excercise, wear a hat in the sun,
don't speed in town, associate with loose women.

If that's your life, why live?

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On May 18, 1:28 am, John Forrest Tomlinson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

On 17 May 2007 12:52:12 -0700, "[email hidden]"

Quoted message said:

I'm not saying there aren't a large number of people who
want insurance yet do not have it. Just that the number isn't as high
as people assume.

So what. So it's only 20 million instead of 25 million and getting
worse. What's your point? That it's not a crisis? Wow.

20 or 25? 10 or 50? I don't know, but the number makes a big
difference in how the problem is adressed.

Quoted message said:

I think your real point is you dont' believe in government
intervention in much at all.

This is true to a large extent. Not so much because I don't feel it is
the place of goverment to do so, but more from a fear that on the
whole it will be worse, and undoable. This doesn't mean I don't think
something should be done to help the people who need help. It's just a
question of how.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

If close to 50% of the people are in a situation that is not
good, it perhaps makes sense to think about scrapping the whole system
and putting something in place that works better, but if the number is
closer to 5% it makes more sense to figure out some way to help that
5% without mucking it up for everyone else.

Mucking it up for everyone else? Perhaps 20-60% of the US population
has OK health insurance at the moment, but the way things are going is
not sustainable. And for a large number of people holding on to that
health insurance is becoming a major decision in where they live and
the work they do. And they have little control over it.

So not mucking it up for everyone else is nonsense -- even if most
Americans aren't screwed at the moment they are in a precarious
situation.

That it is a huge crisis with most people in a precarious situation is
just it. Are they really? This makes a huge difference in deciding
what to do. I beilive the numbers are not as bad as people think, and
that these non-accurate numbers are leading us down the path of a huge
unnecessary intervention of some sort, when a minor tweaking is more
what is required.

Joseph

email hidden said:

On May 18, 1:28 am, John Forrest Tomlinson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

On 17 May 2007 12:52:12 -0700, "[email hidden]"

Quoted message said:

I'm not saying there aren't a large number of people who
want insurance yet do not have it. Just that the number isn't as high
as people assume.

So what. So it's only 20 million instead of 25 million and getting
worse. What's your point? That it's not a crisis? Wow.

20 or 25? 10 or 50? I don't know, but the number makes a big
difference in how the problem is adressed.

It doesn't make a difference in saying it's a crisis and something
must be done. It makes a difference in the form of action taken.

Quoted message said:

Not so much because I don't feel it is
the place of goverment to do so, but more from a fear that on the
whole it will be worse, and undoable.

I don't believe you really make that distinction.
--
JT
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