Health Care- Condemned to Die

[The_Lillard_King]

Since I know you mean no disrespect with your first comment, I wanted to tell you I take no offense. That said, you are 100% wrong. I would feel the exact same way I do about it now. For the Canadian federal government to pass judgment as Lord God and say, "this year, those 20,000 people from age 2 to 80 that suffer from the following illnesses are to be denied life sustaining medicine and die" is as wrong and evil as there could possibly be. I would never condemn people who still have the ability to live life without assistance save medicine to die- mothers, fathers, children... You might be able to, but I cannot. I believe in life and living.

So what is your position on people who are here illegally with that condition. More so, they are here illegally but have young kids who are here legally. Send them home to die or give them treatment here?

BTW-I'm sorry for your daughter and am glad she lives in a country where the gov't will give her proper treatment. I support the gov't footing the bill for situations like your daughter.

 

[mook]

I'm sorry too to hear about your daughter, BP. Sounds terrible.

I can't help but wonder why it costs so much to treat this illness. Obviously, I know absolutely nothing about it. But it just seems to me there has to be some way to re-organize the health care system to more cost-effectively treat this.

Anyway, if there isn't, I'd feel proud of my country if it were willing to cover the costs for treatment. I firmly believe that we can afford to pay for the things we truly choose to. If we can find the money to win WWII and defeat the Soviet Union and put a man on the moon, we can figure out a way to afford to keep people like your daughter alive.

 

[The_Lillard_King]

I'm sorry too to hear about your daughter, BP. Sounds terrible.

I can't help but wonder why it costs so much to treat this illness. Obviously, I know absolutely nothing about it. But it just seems to me there has to be some way to re-organize the health care system to more cost-effectively treat this.

Anyway, if there isn't, I'd feel proud of my country if it were willing to cover the costs for treatment. I firmly believe that we can afford to pay for the things we truly choose to. If we can find the money to win WWII and defeat the Soviet Union and put a man on the moon, we can figure out a way to afford to keep people like your daughter alive.

I don't know about BP's daughters situation . . . but if you get a bill for 300K from a hospital, the insurance company pays a fraction of this to settle the bill.

Funny, the people without insurance pay so much more than if you were insured and the insurance company pays.

 

[MARIS61]

So what is your position on people who are here illegally with that condition. More so, they are here illegally but have young kids who are here legally. Send them home to die or give them treatment here?

BTW-I'm sorry for your daughter and am glad she lives in a country where the gov't will give her proper treatment. I support the gov't footing the bill for situations like your daughter.

Then you support Obama's vision of Healthcare for all Americans.

Some people on this board think his daughter should be sentenced to die simply because she isn't part of the financially elite minority.

 

[MARIS61]

I don't know about BP's daughters situation . . . but if you get a bill for 300K from a hospital, the insurance company pays a fraction of this to settle the bill.

Funny, the people without insurance pay so much more than if you were insured and the insurance company pays.

That's because the "costs" of healthcare are all smoke and mirrors.

They are billed at an astronomical markup (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) then actually settled at different levels of cost depending solely on who is paying. It's a way to hide what is actually deliberate discrimination by economic class, something that could and should be prosecuted under our current laws if anyone had the balls.

It's a major intended result of Reaganomics, and a big reason why our country is near financial and moral collapse.

 

[maxiep]

Funny, the people without insurance pay so much more than if you were insured and the insurance company pays.

Actually, if you pay in cash, you can get a better deal from the hospital. If you're middle class or below, the hospital will work out a payment plan with you and again you'll pay less. The key is that the prices are negotiable.

 

[barfo]

Yes, she is. The feds pay for her Flolan. However, this could change when our health care is 100% under the control of the Feds. We hope not, but I think it is a distinct possibility.

So let me get this straight. You oppose the government 'takeover' of health care because you are afraid it will take away your government funded health care?

Hmm.

barfo

 

[bluefrog]

Actually, if you pay in cash, you can get a better deal from the hospital. If you're middle class or below, the hospital will work out a payment plan with you and again you'll pay less. The key is that the prices are negotiable.

This is contrary to what I've heard. I know a person who works at billing at a hospital here and she says insurance companies negotiate for cheaper rates and the hospital charges more for uninsured patients, especially if the billing people think they can't afford the bill.

The hospital can then write off the unpaid bills.

It may be a policy only practiced at that hospital or only in this region but it's what I've heard.

 

[maxiep]

This is contrary to what I've heard. I know a person who works at billing at a hospital here and she says insurance companies negotiate for cheaper rates and the hospital charges more for uninsured patients, especially if the billing people think they can't afford the bill.

The hospital can then write off the unpaid bills.

It may be a policy only practiced at that hospital or only in this region but it's what I've heard.

Insurance companies do negotiate. However, so do individuals without insurance. To quote Kramer, "Retail is for suckers". Hospitals like cash in their hand. You can often get 30-50% off what they're charging. I know this because my mother was a hosptial administrator at three Portland-area hospitals over the past 27 years (she's now retired).

 

[The_Lillard_King]

This is why I never trust numbers thrown out about health care. Why make a system and that you increase the bill by 100% to people who can't afford the normal rate anyways? Why make these people learn (probably the hard way) that the dollar amount on a hospital bill is really a fictitious number?

Doctors are held to ethic standards, but I question the ethics in hospital bills. And I never trust numbers being thrown around at congress when it talks about the cost for uninsured and for insurance companies. I can see a scenario that the hospitals inflate their billings (by an unconscionable amount) and then parade around how much they are losing in write offs . . . I hope they don't get some tax break for that.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

So what is your position on people who are here illegally with that condition. More so, they are here illegally but have young kids who are here legally. Send them home to die or give them treatment here?

BTW-I'm sorry for your daughter and am glad she lives in a country where the gov't will give her proper treatment. I support the gov't footing the bill for situations like your daughter.

Ya know, I have to admit I struggle with that question a lot. One the one hand, if "illegals" are here and working and paying taxes (I used to work with migrant farm workers in Hood River), then they are entitled to the benefits without question. If they snuck across the border mostly for the purposes of trying to obtain a lifetime of expensive medical assistance, then my thinking is that those benefits belong to the citizens of this country first, and then secondarily to people here illegally and not contributing to the country. Otherwise, why not just pay for people all around the world.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

So let me get this straight. You oppose the government 'takeover' of health care because you are afraid it will take away your government funded health care?

Hmm.

barfo

No. I would oppose it anyway. Mostly because of the proposed cost, lack of freedoms within the system, and layers upon layers of partisan bureauracy making life & death determinations based on lobbying from unions, pharmicuticals......

All I am mentioning is that Canada is cutting people off from certain drugs that are fully life sustaining due to budget cuts and an overly bloated system, and what if this happens here once we have socialized medicine. I think it's a valild concern.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

I can't help but wonder why it costs so much to treat this illness. Obviously, I know absolutely nothing about it. But it just seems to me there has to be some way to re-organize the health care system to more cost-effectively treat this.

Here's something real interesting. I had the exact same question. So I had a chance to sit with a rep from the company that makes Flolan. He tells me the illnesses like PH are called "boutique" diseases within the industry. Since so few people have them there is never a chance of a generic form of the drug being made, so the pharmicutical companies that make these drugs can charge almost whatever they darn well please. Literally. Especially if they are in the ultimate class of "life sustaining" like Flolan. He further went on to say those types of drugs make so much money that they get more attention internally than aides or cancer as if they make a medicine for those types of things, a generic comes along soon and sweeps away their profit for continuing to make it. So more money goes into these small illnesses than the major ones. Money gets redirected... anyway, intersting stuff.