Comments on: That helpless feeling.

By: Why I do what I do, and where I get my moral code « Lousy Canuck

Why I do what I do, and where I get my moral code « Lousy Canuck — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:02:26 +0000

[…] that example about cancer did strike a nerve. If I thought I could somehow affect the outcome of DanJ’s potential lymphoma, I’d do it, freely, and often. It doesn’t cost me anything to pray, right? It’s […]

By: khan

khan — Mon, 17 May 2010 23:57:18 +0000

I have very good health insurance and even I have hoops to jump through concerning amounts and pre-approvals and PPOs.

I have paid for people’s dental work.

It is disgusting that people have to endure tooth problems.

By: jthibeault

jthibeault — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:06:06 +0000

In reply to Mike Haubrich. I honestly can't fathom how the richest nation on the planet can, with a straight face, justify spending more than the entire rest of the planet combined on military, and let its people die of rotten fucking teeth. Among other things.

By: Mike Haubrich

Mike Haubrich — Mon, 17 May 2010 02:28:48 +0000

We can’t afford public health care because we have to fight the terrorists in Iraq instead, so we don’t have to fight them here.

Friends of friends, as Dan is, are the reason that I give blood.

By: CyberLizard

CyberLizard — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:57:40 +0000

I was caught completely flat-footed. I have no idea what to feel. I can’t even seem to summon up the anger that I know I should feel at the disgusting hoax that is “the greatest health care system in the world”. I’m mostly just sad and hoping against hope that it’s not what they think it is. My friends are not supposed to get sick, dammit! I selfishly want it to happen to someone I don’t know. I know that sounds shitty, but there it is.

By: sbh

sbh — Sun, 16 May 2010 08:32:34 +0000

Damn.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:31:43 +0000

It’s true – I wish most of my countrymen would die in a vomit fire over the way health care is handled in this nation. Every last mouthbreathing Teabagger. Every last “Party of FAIL” GOP member. Every Gollum-like Libertarian. As Dara O’Briain would say, “Get in the fucking sack.”

The US is a great country, a wealthy industrialized well-educated country, but one that is headed straight for the Third World due to plutocracy, craven politicians, and the thrall of anti-intellectualism.

A few weeks ago, the podcast “Philosophy Bites” covered John Rawls and his notion of social justice; my understanding of it was that essentially the just policy is the one most people would choose if they did not know the circumstances they’d be born into, what Rawls called the veil of ignorance. Effectively, taking care of the least is the most just policy. Better to read Wikipedia than to trust my interpretation.

The episode gave me pause because Rawls’ theory was new to me and it is so far removed from the public discourse as to put one in a deep depression.

I’m about to go on some immunosuppressant drugs to treat the arthritis that restricts my mobility and keeps me in pain for most of the day. Diet, exercise, and clean living don’t ward off arthritis so there was fuck-all I could do to prevent this.

I’m 44.

I have insurance.

Without insurance, the drugs cost about US$1200/month.

I have no idea what the drugs will cost with insurance.

The pharmacy is talking to the insurance company and will get back to me.

You show me any other common consumer good or service that is sold in this nation where the person selling it to you cannot tell you the price. Find one as important as health care.

My solution to the problem is to give insurers the choice of running as non-profits or be nationalized. Profit pulled out of the medical system is blood money, pure and simple. Any exec who wants to bitch about it can have his head put on a pike as a warning to others.

Draconian? Hell yes. Pure merciless greed has put us where we are now; I see no reason to offer quarter to those who’ve offered none in this battle. Fuck ’em.

By: dartigen

dartigen — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:24:00 +0000

I can barely understand all of this, living in Australia. In Australia, our version of Medicare offers better subsidies than most insurance companies, plus you get low-price prescriptions if needed. I’ve yet to hear of a hospital refusing to treat someone – at the worst, they might transfer you interstate to a hospital that has the specialist you need. Specialist consultations are expensive, but again – it’s all subsidized. Surgery and some vaccinations aren’t, so you have to pay up-front – but then all you have to do is present the paperwork to a Medicare office, and if it’s all correct and in order, you get the money back.
Granted, Australia’s population is tiny compared to the United States – but so is our government’s budget, and (until recently, and the deficit is for totally unrelated reasons) they seem to do just fine on the money they have.

America cannot call itself a first-world nation when it has people dying from easily-treated problems like pneumonia, appendicitis, gut blockages and even rotten teeth!
IMO, the tea-baggers need to spend a year trying to live uninsured. Then they can come back and talk. Let’s see what tune they sing after spending a year frantically avoiding getting sick or injured, or having to choose between going bankrupt or suffering with painful, debilitating and potentially deadly health problems.