Empathy & Sympathy -Things of the Past
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| Fri, 09-25-2009 - 9:24am |
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
At the Richmond Times-Dispatch “public square†forum yesterday, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) took questions from his constituents on the health reform debate for the first time this summer. One such constituent, Patricia Churchill, spoke about a close family member, now unemployed and thus uninsured, who is dying of tumors. Cantor suggested that Churchill’s relative seek “existing government programs†or find charity.
This is all interesting, because Cantor is against a public option, yet he wants Churchill to find a government program (or charity). Yeah, we know how easy that is.
CHURCHILL: I have a very close relative, a woman in her early forties, who did have a wonderful, high-paying job, owns her own home and was a real contributing member of society. She lost her job. Just a couple of weeks ago, she found out that she has tumors in her belly and that she needs an operation. Her doctors told her that they are growing and that she needs to get this operation quickly. She has no insurance. I am just wondering gentlemen, we can talk about high-flown ideas and we can talk theory all we want to. But this person is a very close member of my family, she's ill, and she has no way to get this operation. So I'm asking you, what would you do if this were your close relative
CANTOR: First of all, I guess I would ask what the situation is in terms of income eligibility and the existing programs that are out there. Because if we look at the uninsured that are out there right now, there is probably 23, 24% of the uninsured that is already eligible for an existing government program Beyond that, I know that there are programs, there are charitable organizations, there are hospitals here who do provide charity care that if there’s an instance of indigency and the individual is not eligible for existing programs that there can be some cooperative effort. No one in this country, given who we are, should be sitting without an option to go be addressed.
What? Cantor is saying no one in this country should not have an option? That would be the public option, or universal health care, that all other industrialized nations have, in one form or another.
But, truly, why would Representative Cantor CARE about anyone else? He HAS gold standard healthcare for himself and his loved ones. Everyone else can just go DIE.


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"Paying for COBRA insurance definately would put families over the financial edge. It is too darned expensive!"
Who will pay for this insurance if all these families can not pay?
Have you looked into the government assistance with COBRA?
~when you don't pay that you'll be in jail~
Prove it.
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No. The bête noire of our current health care system is its utter stupidity and asininity. If you have a chronic condition and need insurance, you CAN'T get coverage precisely because of that chronic, "pre-existing" condition. COBRA is a hoot. Unemployed workers, in order to hold onto their insurance plan, must pay the full price of their insurance premiums precisely at a time when they're least likely to feel able to afford those premiums.
There is NO Obamacare at the moment. Legislation is in flux and therefore nobody could rationally argue that being uninsured would be better than what has yet to be determined.
And for the exact same reason, nobody could argue that a lack of insurance would mean that one winds up in jail.
Jabberwocka
Up until the stimulus plan (which has met with so much conservative opprobrium), there was NO government assistance for COBRA. Even now the implementation for help is not keeping up with need:
Passed by Congress in 1986, the Consolidated Omnibus Benefits Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, guarantees employees can keep their health insurance with previous employers for up to 18 months, provided the ex-employees pay the premiums. It’s a great bridging mechanism for workers moving between jobs because they generally can afford to continue coverage.
But it’s a recipe for financial disaster for people who have been laid off because the premiums typically cost hundreds of dollars per month for individuals and more than $1,000 per month for families.
The federal stimulus plan includes $25 billion to help pay 65 percent of the COBRA coverage for laid-off workers. President Obama supported this part of the plan to help those workers maintain their insurance coverage.
But it isn’t clear to employers how to make the program work, so thousands of people may have to wait months to get help paying for health insurance previously funded by their employers.
For many laid-off workers, COBRA is too expensive of an option, period. People with working spouses sometimes can join their spouses’ health plans, but COBRA is the best option for those with serious medical conditions or difficulty buying private health insurance.
Some workers would agree to the higher premiums if they were optimistic about quickly finding other jobs. Months of job hunting could deplete their savings.
The stimulus money to help offset the COBRA costs is aimed at helping these workers, but it may come much too slowly to rescue them.
While companies keep waiting for more guidance from the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service, these former workers simply will find themselves unable to keep carrying the full COBRA costs.
Those who are able will go to their spouse’s health plans. Others will become eligible for Medicaid, our country’s safety net for the poor. Many others will join the ranks of the uninsured, until they get sick and go to emergency rooms where their costs are passed to all of us.
http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/opinion/editorials/article/cobra_help_could_come_much_too_late/21128/
Jabberwocka
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Let's say hypothetically, that if you cannot pay for health insurance, for whatever reason, and you wind up in jail. Who's paying for the upkeep (jails, food, corrections officers, etc.) of all these jailed people? Why, the taxpayers, of course.
As all us taxpayers are well aware, prisoners or those housed in jails get healthcare provided by the state or federal government. So maybe this is one way of getting around the uninsured or those unable to afford healthcare to get it when they need it.
Isn't that just ridiculous? That those who are law-abiding and cannot afford health insurance must go without, while those who have broken the law get free healthcare provided to them through the government.
" If you have a chronic condition and need insurance, you CAN'T get coverage precisely because of that chronic, "pre-existing" condition."
What were you doing about your insurance need prior to developing your chronic condition?
Too many people will not not buy insurance when they are healthy. They then get sick, then expect the same care at the same rate that those of us who've been paying for insurance for years get. Not fair to us.
**prisoners or those housed in jails get healthcare provided by the state or federal government. So maybe this is one way of getting around the uninsured or those unable to afford healthcare to get it when they need it.**
It is crazy, but my sister and I were discussing my mom and dad yesterday. We are concerned that our mom doesen't know when it is appropriate to call in extra assistance for our dad, and since we don't live close enough to monitor the situation ourselves, we are concerned it will turn into one of those scenarios where Dad languishes, where he has fallen on the floor, while Mom brings him stuff until he dies, because he won't let her call for help. I told my sister that my concern was, that the authorities were pressing charges, and jailing the surviving spouse when these incidences happened. My sister said, "well, maybe there would be an upside to that. At least we would know that Mom was getting three hot meals a day, had a roof over her head, and wasn't worrying about how to pay for
If one moves between states or jobs, insurance coverage does not convey. Heck, it's easier to move a cell phone number complete with area code across state lines than it is to move insurance coverage! That's another one of the truly idiotic aspects of health insurance in a nation where people are mobile both in the work place and in geographic moves. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
My DH owns a small business. He pays 50% of the premium for his employees to have access to Alliance Choice, a BlueCross/BlueShield PPO plan. When premium rates started skyrocketing at far, far, more than the rate of inflation, he looked into coverage from another company which claimed it could provide equal coverage and better rates regardless of pre-existing conditions. Turned out not to be the case.
With limited choices in companies serving state markets and no numerically significant negotiating power, he and other small business owners are being held hostage, choking on the continually rising rates of insurance premiums. Knowing the predicament of some of his employees/families whose health care needs have become significant due to "pre-existing conditions", he's locked into paying exorbitant, extortionate premiums to BC/BS.
Here's the crowning irony. The health care insurance industry is NOT free-market capitalism. It IS monopolistic in nature. Health care costs have become divorced from consumer restraint. And howls from conservatives about "socialism", "fascism", "communism", "Nazism" in regards to health care reform show a dismaying lack of intelligence or ability to reason. Emote? Yeah, they do that--a lot!
I'll tell you what's not fair. To be unable to afford to pay out-of-pocket for basic health care services. To develop a condition which causes one's company to drop coverage and render one unable to get coverage from anybody else--remember Maggie Yount? To have a whole industry which provides nothing at all in terms of health care services (insurance). DH and I have paid premiums for decades, hundreds of thousands in dollars. Would I mind seeing a change even after such major expense? NOT AT ALL!
Jabberwocka
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