Extreme Mixing wrote on Sun, 23 January 2011 04:16 |
Good points William.
Health care in America should really be a right. In many ways, it is. You don't see poor migrant worker's children being born on the street outside the hospital, do you? And if they are born with a defective heart they get medical attention. Right?
With rights come responsibility. That's why I think everyone should pay in, even if you're young and healthy, because you never know what life will bring your way. I don't know Roger's situation. Maybe he had a pre-existing condition that made it impossible for him to get coverage. Or maybe he just didn't think he would ever need medical services. Either way, $10 donations from a few friends online surely won't be enough to fight this type of cancer. He won't get much public aid until he has used all of his money and left his family destitute. That's no way to live and it's certainly not a good way to die.
If you don't think the medical system in this country needs an overhaul then you just haven't been sick enough yet. I've spent some time in the hospital, and I've seen the bills. They are astounding! But at least I got better.
Steve
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We have to be careful to not confuse having medical insurance with having medical care. Insurance doesn't guarantee care, and it doesn't guarantee that our bills will be paid. A quick google search brings up this statistic:
Sixty-two percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy in 2007, nearly 80 percent had health insurance.
I don't know Roger's situation either, but I know that having insurance does NOT in any way mean that a person's finances won't be wiped out by medical bills.
As for the fact that emergency rooms can't turn away emergency cases, that does not equal health care. Emergency rooms only have to treat emergency cases, and they are only obligated to stabilize the patient. That's it. No preventative care. No ongoing or long term care. No treating of small problems before they become big problems. It's an incredibly expensive & inefficient system, both in terms of monetary cost and human suffering.