Minutus

Not to be a pessimist, but I am involved with the healthcare reform ie. patient centered family homes, ACOs are reimbursed by outcomes. However prescription drug management plays a role within the quality measures. It drives me crazy. These people dont get it. Another way for the pharmaceutical industry to control and make money, regardless of the damage these drugs end up doing.

One scary thing about that idiot insurance, is that if you… oh, say slip on the ice in a rutted driveway and snap your leg like a chicken bone, it is just STUNNING what the cost would be, without insurance.

With insurance it's still a pretty penny, but a far, far smaller and prettier penny.

Recently I had a weird episode with (I thought) something stuck in my throat. Was sent to ER for an Ear Nose Throat guy to stick a tiny flashlight down my throat and take a look. He groused as he was getting ready, that in his *old* practice (how long ago and far far away I do not recall), it would have cost about $40 for his five-minute trip down my throat. But now?

Well…….. The price had I been uninsured, would have been (time to choke) over $800 dollars.

My "share" of the insured cost, was something resembling, yep, $40. Actually I might have been less, I forget.

The deck is certainly stacked!

Time-and-then-some for socialized medicine, IMHO!

Shannon
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socialized medicine is the only way to go!!!!!
if people in this country hadn’t been brainwashed to fear anything socialized,
the public would have been up in arms yrs ago on this issue—and probably many others
as well.
as for costs, if you were not insured, they would have charge you more than their reimbursement
from the insurance companies. another way to penalize people for not buying corporate product.
ran into a woman today who works in a hospital. she reported trying to tell people that we have
no health care, just a medical industry that uses the public for profit. found it interesting to hear
her tell this. so we have many people in all sorts of places who are learning to speak truth to
power.
t
From: Shannon Nelson
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2013 9:01 PM
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

One scary thing about that idiot insurance, is that if you… oh, say slip on the ice in a rutted driveway and snap your leg like a chicken bone, it is just STUNNING what the cost would be, without insurance.
With insurance it's still a pretty penny, but a far, far smaller and prettier penny.
Recently I had a weird episode with (I thought) something stuck in my throat. Was sent to ER for an Ear Nose Throat guy to stick a tiny flashlight down my throat and take a look. He groused as he was getting ready, that in his *old* practice (how long ago and far far away I do not recall), it would have cost about $40 for his five-minute trip down my throat. But now?
Well…….. The price had I been uninsured, would have been (time to choke) over $800 dollars.
My "share" of the insured cost, was something resembling, yep, $40. Actually I might have been less, I forget.
The deck is certainly stacked!
Time-and-then-some for socialized medicine, IMHO!
Shannon
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But Shannon, we already have socialized medicine. And Obamacare will be bureaucratized socialized medicine, the very vomit of all cluster phucks. I am hoping for a single payer system which I hope will be a streamlined, simplified socialized medicine.

Roger
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To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
From: shannonnelson@tds.net
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2013 20:01:01 -0500
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

One scary thing about that idiot insurance, is that if you… oh, say slip on the ice in a rutted driveway and snap your leg like a chicken bone, it is just STUNNING what the cost would be, without insurance.
With insurance it's still a pretty penny, but a far, far smaller and prettier penny.

Recently I had a weird episode with (I thought) something stuck in my throat. Was sent to ER for an Ear Nose Throat guy to stick a tiny flashlight down my throat and take a look. He groused as he was getting ready, that in his *old* practice (how long ago and far far away I do not recall), it would have cost about $40 for his five-minute trip down my throat. But now?

Well…….. The price had I been uninsured, would have been (time to choke) over $800 dollars.

My "share" of the insured cost, was something resembling, yep, $40. Actually I might have been less, I forget.

The deck is certainly stacked!

Time-and-then-some for socialized medicine, IMHO!

Shannon
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no, we already have a bureaucratized socialized medical industry that is heavily
controlled by big pharma and insurance industry. 60% of the public has govt
paid medical care. but it is not a monolithic system and different segments of
the population get different benefits. Congress and uppermucks get a cadillac
version where veterans are still fighting for care from Viet Nam’s agent orange
and other toxic exposures. Vets from Iraq I have a very high rate of death from
all sorts of serious ailments as well as suicide and other mental issues. Medicaid
people get the most minimal care for any issue with lots of negative attitudes from
the practitioners. So this is not a real socialized health system
t
From: Roger B
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2013 9:15 PM
To: mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

But Shannon, we already have socialized medicine. And Obamacare will be bureaucratized socialized medicine, the very vomit of all cluster phucks. I am hoping for a single payer system which I hope will be a streamlined, simplified socialized medicine.

Roger
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To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
From: shannonnelson@tds.net
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2013 20:01:01 -0500
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

One scary thing about that idiot insurance, is that if you… oh, say slip on the ice in a rutted driveway and snap your leg like a chicken bone, it is just STUNNING what the cost would be, without insurance.

With insurance it's still a pretty penny, but a far, far smaller and prettier penny.
Recently I had a weird episode with (I thought) something stuck in my throat. Was sent to ER for an Ear Nose Throat guy to stick a tiny flashlight down my throat and take a look. He groused as he was getting ready, that in his *old* practice (how long ago and far far away I do not recall), it would have cost about $40 for his five-minute trip down my throat. But now?
Well…….. The price had I been uninsured, would have been (time to choke) over $800 dollars.
My "share" of the insured cost, was something resembling, yep, $40. Actually I might have been less, I forget.
The deck is certainly stacked!
Time-and-then-some for socialized medicine, IMHO!
Shannon
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Roger --

Why do you say we have socialized medicine? It is being run by insurance companies -- who determine what is covered and what it is worth (tho ObamaCare does put some IMO welcome strictures on that), and by the pharmaceutical companies (who make and supply its major tools; they decide what is offered -- what to "treat"; what risks are acceptable; what goals are being pursued).

The driving factors behind treatment -- at least, in too-large part -- has to do not with effectiveness, or "cure" or "health" or public good, but rather is about profits.

ObamaCare makes some *minor* (but IMO still useful) inroads, e.g. with positive changes regarding "preexisting conditions" and cost (minor) and availability (incomplete) of insurance. It doesn't loosen the grip of either pharmaceutical or insurance industries.

While IMO useful under the circumstances, this is not socialized medicine.
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It does seem that single payer would be a far more rational and efficient approach, tho certainly not the end to all difficulties. Recall that Obama said at the start, that his clear *choice* would have been single payer, but he did not believe it to be an achievable goal at that time (or this, I would say), so he was going to opt instead for lesser but still useful goals that he could actually *achieve*.

At the time I agreed with his assessment; and I still do, unfortunately. We've got a long way to go!
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Look, Obama was chosen by the ruling elite after he assured them he would support their agendas.
That is what his being vetted by the Bilderberg group was about.
Given that, and the fact that he had much to worry about being a person of color in such a racist society,
he needs to walk a tight line.
However, recall his statement when first elected: if you want change you, the public, will need to keep
my toes to the fire. Not an exact quote but the essence of his comment. That was a keynote statement
that the public ignored in the glory of voting out the neo—cons—or so people thought, forgetting the
figure head nature of the presidency and misreading the real support or lack thereof for this man in office.
When Obama sold single payer under the bus, his party organization took control of all the liberals supporting
him by literally telling them how to organize and what positions to take. And these people followed like
good lemmings off the health care cliff. They supported the public option as spineless creatures. What we
got was enforced purchase of private insurance and more drugging without constraints.
If people took all that energy and organized around single payer with the force necessary, we would have
gotten a lot closer to what we need/want.
It is a basic law of organizing or lobbying that you do not censor yourself before sitting down at the negotiating
table. You may be prepared to ‘give’ something up in your platform, but you don’t give it all up before making
the demands. That is what Obama did with big pharma and insurance. And the public went along for the most
part. That is why we always wind up going backwards these days in every issue of consequence to health
and other social issues.
t
From: Shannon Nelson
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2013 7:45 AM
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

It does seem that single payer would be a far more rational and efficient approach, tho certainly not the end to all difficulties. Recall that Obama said at the start, that his clear *choice* would have been single payer, but he did not believe it to be an achievable goal at that time (or this, I would say), so he was going to opt instead for lesser but still useful goals that he could actually *achieve*.
At the time I agreed with his assessment; and I still do, unfortunately. We've got a long way to go!
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Hi,

My gut feeling is probably irrelevant to this arguement, but I always wonder what would happen if all social insurance refused to pay for fancy medical procedures and drugs. If basic care were the public responsiblity. Things like childcare, child birth, help with in home care for the sick, basic check ups and dental care. Alternative medicine is so cheap relatively speaking that it could be covered too. Then you would have to talk about what suffering is allowed and how people were allowed to die. Is it ok to die from cancer for example. Is it ok to live "dangerously" with fatal conditions? Is it ok to die before medical necessity dictates?

What an unpopular discussion. This discussion is irrelevant because it has no popular or economic base. But i think about this.

IMO, If people are totally covered, or covered very well, they treat good health as an economic barter chip. For example they wait until they are sick enough to get medical coverage before they take care of problems. Homeopathy is only popular and known in the US because medical insurance gives so little coverage to such a large part of the population. Most of us take care of ourselves because we know the economic burden of ignoring our health. Bad thinking, but probably better for our attitude toward wellbeing.

Best,
Ellen
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Your comments disturb me Ellen. They are not irrelevant as they resonate with many American attitudes about not creating social support programs.
I have to agree with your about how people do nothing till ill and then count on medical insurance. They also like to brag on all they get ‘free’ of charge
with insurance. An acquaintance says with pride that he got $50,000.00 of cancer treatment because he has insurance. As an independent, self-employed
person, I wonder how much personal income he has spent on the insurance over the years. I bet it was way more than $50,000.00 and those payments
were invested by the insurance companies to increase the payments many times over. It is a position that wears blinders on several levels. What got
me in this man’s case was how the medical industry told him NOT to take even Vit C or anything else.
Socialized medicine, free from control of the corporate interests would/should be able to make more independent decisions. That is where you would
find support for the holistic forms of nutrition and healing. The simplest argument, which is fiduciary, is that without insurance companies involvement
or giveaways to big pharma, administrative costs would drop significantly. This is shown by looking at all of the developed countries programs which
run much more cheaply for this reason alone. Being able to negotiate for drug costs or to really invest in independent research would lead to use of
homeopathy and nutrition and other holistic protocols. The Swiss govt report a couple years ago clearly showed the cost efficiency and healing success
of homeopathy but we hear virtually nothing about this long term study/report.
Under such an independent system, preventive care would/could/should take precedence over symptom manipulation and suppression. This type of system would
change its focus and priorities. Education for real health should be part of any socialized health care program. Schools would be feeding healthier
food. Govt food programs would provide for only healthy foods, not just cheap, HFCS, aspartame, drug laden products that cause disease. There is
no reason for people to think the government free of responsibility for providing for the well-being of the nation other than that position supports all
the sinister motives of the corporate moghuls who see the public only as economic frontiers for their increasing rates of profit.
If countries move away from the military/industrial neo-con model, there is more than enough money to fund all kinds of support programs as well as
decent education for ALL people.
t
From: Ellen Madono
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2013 9:09 AM
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Pipe dreams

Hi,
My gut feeling is probably irrelevant to this arguement, but I always wonder what would happen if all social insurance refused to pay for fancy medical procedures and drugs. If basic care were the public responsiblity. Things like childcare, child birth, help with in home care for the sick, basic check ups and dental care. Alternative medicine is so cheap relatively speaking that it could be covered too. Then you would have to talk about what suffering is allowed and how people were allowed to die. Is it ok to die from cancer for example. Is it ok to live "dangerously" with fatal conditions? Is it ok to die before medical necessity dictates?
What an unpopular discussion. This discussion is irrelevant because it has no popular or economic base. But i think about this.
IMO, If people are totally covered, or covered very well, they treat good health as an economic barter chip. For example they wait until they are sick enough to get medical coverage before they take care of problems. Homeopathy is only popular and known in the US because medical insurance gives so little coverage to such a large part of the population. Most of us take care of ourselves because we know the economic burden of ignoring our health. Bad thinking, but probably better for our attitude toward wellbeing.
Best,
Ellen
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