Getting Healthcare Right

The reason I went on here today is because there was an argument where some of the people on msnbc who argued that we do pay here. Not for basic care. And here's something else. If you have no insurance for your medication, like for cancer or something, you go to the hospital here, and they give it to you. It's not great, but at least you can get the medication to keep you alive.

 

What income is proper for your doctor?

 

When's the last time you donated your time, energy and resources to helping someone in need,........fifth of never?

 

I have donated over 7 gallons of blood to the red cross, since you ask.
I can't see what that has to do with ANYTHING, but hey, I long ago gave up trying to follow some people's thoughts.

 

I've heard a few politicians talk about tort reform, but that never really goes anywhere because we are talking about Americans, and most politicians are lawyers. Two things that go together like milk and oreos.

 

Oh my God, we are all human beings and as such, should be able to expect certain basic things. I'd like you to imagine a scenario where you are the child of one of these useless members of society, we'll call them. You are sick but there's no health care. No matter how desperately sick you may be, you won't be going to a doctor or a hospital. Would you like to tell me how I'm to tell the unfortunate you, not the person you are now, why you are going to needlessly suffer and maybe even die? Should it be that the rest of us don't care about you or your problems? That some of us believe you didn't have a high enough socio-economic background to matter? That those of us who are lucky enough in birth, and not just birth status,; I mean those of us born healthy and able to work, think you are just unworthy and we shouldn't waste our money or time on you or the likes of you?

I have a daughter with Cerebral Palsy. She was lucky enough to be born when and where she was. Apart from the numerous, and sometimes long hospital stays, for which I had to take time off of work and take her between 400 and 1000 miles away, expenses were enormous. If we had to pay for hospitals or doctor visits, we'd have been living, the five of us, in someone's shed. There was special equipment, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, neurologists, pediatricians, and orthopedics. Even with insurance, we had to pay as high as twelve and thirteen hundred dollars (our share) for some of her equipment.

We were just the working poor. I say we because my husband was killed on the job a few years ago. I don't mind saying, I even had to go to the Salvation Army a few times when it was either food or a hospital stay. One time, she was having a hundred seizures a day, and there could be no choice. I don't make a lot of money, and of course, we're down to one pay.

My daughter will never be hired for a job, not one that pays. Her fine motor skills are almost non-existent. Her voice is not good, so she could not even be a receptionist. She is able to do most things for herself now. She has to rely on welfare. How embarrassing. She even has a college degree, as well as a University degree. Yet she has to collect her money ( and it's not very much) at the same place as many people who, I'm sorry, are just lazy. Remember, however, even these people have innocent children at home, whose only crime, was to be born to the wrong parents.

 

If we could all re-learn not just sympathy, but empathy, as well as a sense that we are all in this together, what societies we could create.

 

Life doesn't work like that because life isn't fair.

I know, I know... you've got a sad story and I do sympathize. I sympathize with a lot of people. Once in Cambodia, I saw some kids who were obviously homeless sniffing glue to ward off hunger pangs. They were in little more than rags, barefoot, and about as sad a spectacle as I ever want to see.

Now what was it again about expecting certain basic things because we're all human beings?

 

Nice that you got someone else to pay. I was glad I had good insurance, though I did investigate medical tourism and found that I could have had the procedure done in another country for somewhere between 6 and 12 thousand dollars, not counting travel and lodging. At that time I don't think the Surgery Center of Oklahoma was an option.

My point is that the huge cost of medical care in the US currently is demonstrably caused by the government/insurance system, as those places that choose not to be a part of that system are able to offer the same services for a tiny fraction of the cost.

As for the cardiac ablation, I don't know that our procedures can be compared effectively without getting into the details.

 

Do you live in Cambodia or what is supposed to be the greatest country in the world?
I would have thought you might have been for raising your standards a little higher than a third-world country.

 

I'm not looking for sympathy...I've already lived through it...I'm referring to a little quote I've heard all my life, and it is, "But for the grace of God, there go I" Or you, more importantly, as it already was me. Try thinking of those less fortunate than yourself. It's a great character builder.

 

Living in your country, my daughter would probably not have health care, certainly not a good policy.

 

Wow.
And how much of your own money, since you think others should give up theirs?

 

too cheap to buy her one?
Will you come shovel my driveway and cut my lawn while I subsidies her care? Is that too much for you, for the good of your daughter?

 

What happened to "we're all human beings" and as such, being able to expect certain things? Now suddenly you're all about checking nationalities to make sure only Americans are supposed to expect certain things, but some homeless starving kids on the other side of the world are supposed to suck on rocks because they can't afford eggs?

So much for sympathy.

 

Now you're just being an ass. I make 18000 big ones a year, manage to help my daughter, have helped many unfortunate people in my area, give boxes of new toys every year to local charities, and have five foster children through foster parent's plan, and that's still after losing the main breadwinner in my house (which I also run on my income). Now, do you honestly believe that I wouldn't help those children if I could? I know how lucky I am for being born where I am. Do you?

 

And I usually fill ten to fifteen of the shoeboxes for Africa every year.

 

I am 56 years old, do all renovation and maintenance in my own home, and am riddled with arthritis. No thanks, it's hard enough mowing my own lawn and shoveling my own driveway.

 

Plus I have a job, of course

 

but it's not hard for someone else to subsidize you?

 

It sounds like your daughter is lucky to have you as a mother, and you, no doubt, feel lucky to have her as a daughter. You're doing your best to help out those less fortunate than you, and not making nationality of those in need an issue.

As for the children I described earlier, they are where they are because of people who care and have sympathy for those who were not fortunate enough to have been born with a silver pacifier to suck on. That's right. It's because of charity that they are where they are. See, cambodia has public schools that do not require tuition. Unfortunately, they don't get paid to go to school. What pays? Find the place where all the gringos go (this was at the happy pizza place which is a tourist destination of sorts, and beg for money from foreigners as they are trying to walk off the effects of their pizza.

 

You like to fight and so are deliberately being a block-head. I'm familiar with that. My husband loved to debate with me like this. He was very intelligent.
Since I've been working , I have paid taxes. That has been for 42 years, as I worked at 13. As I've never been handicapped, just pregnant a few times, I was lucky enough not to have to use the health care dollars up until I was getting older, and unfortunately, my genetics caught up with me. Thank goodness, when that time came, it was there for me. Because we pay for it throughout our lives, it's there for us. It's also there for what my husband used to call "oxygen thieves". Those who deliberately do as little as possible to stay alive, and do nothing to contribute to either their own upkeep, nor to help society in any way. Notice I said deliberately. But it also means that we care for the infirm, the elderly on fixed incomes, the profoundly handicapped, people who are too sick either mentally or physically to work, all children, and the helpless.

Forget my daughter as I will always make sure she's okay, even after I'm gone. Nobody subsidizes me. It subsidizes someone who cannot do so for themselves. Empathy, remember? It should even be true for people in Cambodia.

 

Oh my God! This tells me just a little of what I don't know about the world. It is not a fair place. But we should at least try where we can.