"Free" health care!
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"Free" health care!
| 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!
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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Agreed. I just think our system needs some major tweaking & fine tuning in some fashion rather than using the Canadian System. Yes, I'm an American. A Yankee! ;-) Born in Buffalo, NY. I live in KS now. (Boy, I miss Toronto, but that's well over a 1000 mi. drive.) Losing a family member is tough anywhere, anytime, but I wish, at least, much, much more had been done to at least try to save him. Long delays & then it WAS too late for treatment to help him.
And I agree as well for our system. It needs some reorgainzing and tweaking rather than doing away with it and using a more American system.
I'm sorry to hear about your family member. I know of no one who has had to wait once a cancer diagnosis has been made. In both countries I think that a person has to take responsibility to demand competant medical care. My understanding of your case was the delay in making the right diagnosis that contributed to not being able to get the right treatment in time. Misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis happen in both systems. I've certainly not liked all the doctors I have seen nor have I felt that all of them listened to me with the same care and attention that I felt I deserved. This has more to do with personalities and the individual competance of each doctor and not the system. I was quick to change doctors if I wasn't satisfied.
<<But the reality is that american health insurance companies also make decision about what they 'cover'. I'm heard on TV a lot of stories about people being denied benefits because the treatments were deemed 'experimental' . >>
It's the FDA that determines if a treatment is experimental or not. Canadians seem to have some funny notions about American healthcare. Every insurance carrier I've ever had, including my first when I was working for a small, family owned business for $5.00/hour, provided excellent coverage;
Renee ~~~
I suppose the loathing is just a hop skip and a jump away from believing we are evil, and then, watch out. Maybe we are though.
My dad gave me the sarcasm, which I need to tone down, because it does not always come through in a post. :)
thanks though.
thanks. I like stuff I dont know.
as far as discounting your experince, I would never try that, but my point is that you phrase things as if they are fact, when I ask why you say it is due to your experience, and there simply must be more to it that one persons life. But, at the same time, one cannot live outside his or her own life, and our environment shapes us.
I do NOT know all of the liberals. But I do not make statements that generalize like you do. when you say something like, "Liberals would love to see John Kerry win" it means to me that you are saying all liberals feel one way.
I am simply trying to point out that you cannot generalize that way.
Not all liberals want free healthcare, or the canadian system. I don't. I DO want however to get rid of our current situation. I think being under the power of an insurance company is horrid. and here is one example that is my own. When I was pregnant with my second child my company changed insurance, and they had not yet found an OB-GYN for our Providers choice list, and I would be penalized for switiching halfway through my pregnancy for switching when they did have one, and have to pay 100% of all my previous pregnancy bills. So I had to go to a regular doctor who did not have time to notice that I was having a lot of terrible illnesses during my pregnancy. It could have turned out worse, but I have some residual effects. My current doctor tells me that they are from the last pregnancy and if they had been taken care of... It would not be a problem now.
Some Liberals have great experiences with their insurance. But not me.
;)
Cleary, our respective experiences and those of people are around us with our own system are good. This being said, unlike in the US, in Canada everybody gets access to that 'system'. In all fairness, the examples you provide are those of people who actually have medical insurance.
By the way, my understanding was that not all health care companies start to accept new treatements at the same time, so I don't understand how that fits in with the government establishing the standard for what is deemed "experimental". Am I mistaken that even when you are covered by insurance, you still pay a portion (as I do for dental insurance..) and not all services are referred, and people are restricted as to which doctors they can go see? I did get this information from the american media, so I am very puzzled here. Or are these limitations only with HMO's?
Bear in mind if we asked americans what do they think of the French, a large percentage would likely say they hate them or 'loath them'. All for what "good" reason? because they didn't agree with the US government. Freedom Fries? Come on! Isn't the freedom to disagree a fundamental value in America? My point is that clearly, it doesn't take much for americans to 'hate' french people, so why is it so difficult to understand that americans with their clearly not-supported-by-the-whole-world foreign policy would be 'loathed', especially considering that the US has the power to ignore those that didn't agree with it given its sheer size and financial power and just do what it wants anyway. Think about it...
Edited 7/30/2004 11:34 am ET ET by nicecanadianlady
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