"Free" health care!

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
"Free" health care!
250
Thu, 07-22-2004 - 7:15pm
I wonder how many of you have had to live without health insurance? You say that health care is not a right? NO WONDER! You have always had a place for the bills to go other then your mailbox! How many of you have ever asked what the actual cost of your prescriptions are? Do the math! Do you have any idea what it is like to call around from doctor to doctor trying to find one who would see you WITHOUT insurance? Have you ever stood at your doctor office and humbly asked for samples instead of a prescription because u know that your $360 check wont stretch enough to cover your $280 med bill AND the doctor appt. Don't even mention medicaid! If you make enough money to buy food and scrape by...you do not qualify.

Go ahead and be technical but if you ever run into some bad luck you will see things in an entirely different light!

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Thu, 07-22-2004 - 7:34pm

<<I wonder how many of you have had to live without health insurance?>> You can mark me down as 1. My parents were always self employed and insurance was too expensive.


<<

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Thu, 07-22-2004 - 7:45pm
"I wonder how many of you have had to live without health insurance?"

I have, for about 10 years or so.

"You say that health care is not a right?"

Correct. Good of you to notice.

"You have always had a place for the bills to go other then your mailbox!"

You appear to be making assumptions here. For that period between being employed by an employer who offered insurance and those who didn't neither my wife nor I had insurance, and we dealt with the bills ourselves.

"Do you have any idea what it is like to call around from doctor to doctor trying to find one who would see you WITHOUT insurance?"

Yep, had no difficulty. We just went in with the knowledge that we were solely responsible for our bills.

"Have you ever stood at your doctor office and humbly asked for samples instead of a prescription because u know that your $360 check wont stretch enough to cover your $280 med bill AND the doctor appt."

Asked for samples? Sure, didn't have a second thought about it.

"Go ahead and be technical but if you ever run into some bad luck you will see things in an entirely different light!"

Been there, done that, the view is the same. So you can dispense with the histrionics, in my case at least.

~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-12-2004
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 2:07am
Right on e agent,

I have been there, and NO, I was not on welfare, and yes, I did have a job, a full time AND a part time in fact. At my job, the health care offered was only 50% coverage. the cost was 200 dollars each pay period, now that's just crap. I remember feeling so embarassed because I had to ask for samples, and when my doc would try to treat me, we had to sit down with a calculator, and figure out the most cost effective way, never the best,or necessarily the right treatment, just what I could afford. It was never abotu my health, it was always about scraping by.

Some people feel that if a person wants it enough, they can just get wealthy. But they have never had to try goign to school while supporting kids, and working a full or part time job on top of not having insurance.

Insurance is such a joke anyway. They cut you off for pre-existing conditions, they limit what type of medical care you can have, they push thier favorite drugs on your doctor and pharmacy. they refuse to cover if you have a brand name drug, and hardly ever covers preventative medicine, (birth control, immuizations) It is just nuts how much we spend tryign not to get sick. and avoid using our insurance anyway.

*sigh* I could go on all night.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-12-2004
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 2:14am
"You appear to be making assumptions here. For that period between being employed by an employer who offered insurance and those who didn't neither my wife nor I had insurance, and we dealt with the bills ourselves. "

well, lets just guess that the time period was not a few years all at once? I am guessing that if that were the case then you would feel differently.

My Uncle had a similar situation to yours, but had a heart attack. eh was between, as you were, and now is in debt eighty thousand dollars. ouch. he was going to retire, but not now.

Also, it sounds like you had a light at the end of your tunnel, you refer it as a period of time, and that makes me think it was short, a few months, up to a year.

If you go into it realizing that you have to pay, and that does not bother you, then it makes it sound like you had a pretty good amount of cash for that type of thing.


Edited 7/23/2004 2:16 am ET ET by missmaryjennifer

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2004
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 7:11am
You know, perhaps more people should join the military (or marry GI's)? That way, they will have their universal health care, and a

Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 8:54am
Guessing doesn't appear to be your strong suit. Yes, that 10-year stretch was uninterrupted, and no, I don't feel differently at all.

"Also, it sounds like you had a light at the end of your tunnel, you refer it as a period of time, and that makes me think it was short, a few months, up to a year."

Try 10 years or so, from 1983 to 1993.

"If you go into it realizing that you have to pay, and that does not bother you, then it makes it sound like you had a pretty good amount of cash for that type of thing."

Not a question of it "bothering" me, it's just a fact of life. I didn't have any insurance, and I didn't for any reason feel like it was owed to me by the government. When medical needs arose I saw a doctor and paid for the visit and whatever medication was needed. And no, I didn't have a "pretty good amount of case" just laying around for such things.

So, it looks like both you and E_agent appear to be operating under a number of erroneous assumptions.

~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 9:53am
The Bush lovers doctrine on Health Insurance:

Give it to the Iraqi people, it's bringing them Democracy.

Give it to the American people, it's bringing them socialism.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 9:55am
Oh yes, The Bush lovers want the RIGHT to deny Gays equal rights and proection under the law.

But covering our nation's children, a privledge.

Glad to see as a nation, our priorities are well set.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 10:48am
Well I am glad you were lucky enough to not end up with piles of debt from sudden sickness. I wouldn't wish that on anyone...but obviously you don't understand what all that debt can do to another person. I was hospitalized for 7 days and ended up with a 20000 bill. I was lucky because it was a Catholic hospital I only had to pay about 3 grand and they wrote off the rest. I am so grateful for that...

But I find it hard to believe that someone can die in the richest country of the world because they can't get health care. And yes, it happens. I have a friend who had cancer...not health insurance...no help. No chemo...no surgery...nothing. She had issues w/excessive bleeding and had to go to the er for transfusions. Can she get medicaid yeah...after she is too sick...after it is too late. But hey it is a free country right? She eventually had to leave school because of the er bills and because of sickness.
Avatar for schifferle
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 11:56am
My mother's nephew lived (past tense) in Canada. His medical appointments/tests to see what his problem was were delayed so long until it ended up too late to even try treating, they felt, the cancer they finally discovered. All is not exactly perfect in Canada's system either.

And, I won't go into the whole socialized medicine thing given the military. It is great as far as the care of injured soldiers, but, throughout the rest of the spectrum of care...many flaws.

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