It doesn't, and its not free...its taxpayer funded. In this day and age though I believe every American should have access to quality healthcare. It is wrong for us to deny care to people who cannot pay. We're talking about life saving care here.

I'm not saying I should determine doctors incomes. I said if I had to choose between doctors making more money and patients getting care they can afford and that won't bankrupt them, I would choose the patients.

Thats a strawman's argument. For one the vast majority of airline captains do not make $400-500k a year. Airline travel isn't a requirement for people to remain healthy and alive, its a luxury. Consumers also have choice of a wide variety of airlines with varying prices and the crews of those airlines are paid in accordance with what those airlines bring in as revenue.

Doctors have a moral imperative to render care to people in need irrespective of how it impacts their pay. Thats part of the commitment you make when you become a doctor.

We're talking about healthcare here...not everything else in society. I believe that every American should have access to basic quality healthcare and that people in this country should not be bankrupted because they became ill.

How about you use some other democratic capitalist societies to compare lol. Easy to find one because every country has this but us.

The producers pay for the freeloaders already, because we don't turn people away at hospitals we treat them for free. The cost of that gets wrapped into the costs you and I pay. In any event, the freeloaders as you put it have Medicaid. Its the people between Medicaid and middle class that are the challenge. The majority of people in this country ARE covered.

Again, the issue is not doctors its for profit insurance companies that are trying to stiff doctors, and collect as much from patients as possible while limiting their care...all to pad their bottom line.

 

It is wrong for us to deny life saving care? You know this is a falsehood. No one in this country is denied life saving care. The law requires emergency rooms to provide treatment. Medicare covers other healthcare for those who cannot pay. Unless you are an able bodied freeloader who refuses to work.

Where does it say that Doctors have a moral imperative to work for free if required? Is this some federal law that I am not aware of? Doctors are no different than any other professional.

You used doctors that make 800k per year as your example. Most doctors do not make anywhere near that amount. If you are making 800K, you are in a specialty that required years of extra education and deserve every penny.

I said major airlines, not regionals. At my airline (Southwest), minimum guarantee at 12 years (The vast majority of SWA captain are on 12 year pay) would earn you 400K, then add in profit sharing. The same goes for American, United, Delta.

All is not well in your so called democratic capitalist (socialist) societies The Europeans built their national health systems on the backs of the American taxpayer. While we paid for their defense, they built a massive welfare system. The British national health system is in crisis, and other European systems are soon to follow. The German system has a critical shortage of Doctors and other healthcare specialists.

The US is still the number one destination for foreigners seeking advanced healthcare. We must be doing something right.

 

Based on your posts, it sounded as though you were in denial.
I was merely reminding you of reality.
Hoping might enter into that world. AKA this world, the (much envied) US healthcare system, and quit arguing about an alternative reality.
Just kidding. Not hoping....

The thread:

Astronaut Space Pen. Mine's black.

 

I'm well aware, the reality is that we are paying for those people anyways, so why not simply extend Medicaid and cover them?

Medicare does not cover people who cannot pay, Medicaid does. Different programs. The issue is there is a gap between Medicaid and middle class jobs that include healthcare, and self employed people have a big problem getting good coverage at affordable rates.

Its not in the law, its a moral imperative. Ask some doctors you know...good doctors will agree.

More doctors make $800k+ than you realize. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, my point is I don't feel a lot of pain for doctors feeling underpaid. Doctors in the US are very well paid, the average for all doctors is nearly $400k. Thats the average.

I have zero problem with that. I have no problem with what anybody makes. I can buy a plane ticket for a reasonable cost is all I care about. Many many people can't afford to go to the doctor and they avoid medical care when they are sick and I personally know people who have died for that reason. I think thats just wrong in this country and in this day and age.

Nothing is perfect, but you're a fool if you believe we do everything better than everybody else. Just talk to someone from Canada or the UK or France etc about the financial concern people here have over paying for healthcare and the whole concept is totally foreign to them.

You feel like things are great here because you have high income and good healthcare, if you didn't like many Americans you would feel differently.

 

@SW20S trust me my friend, there is nothing about the cost of health care that you can teach me. Greater than 30 years experience from executive level at level one Trauma Centers to dealing with small independent doctors both while absorbing them into Health Systems and while they spin out of the health systems to make it go at it on their own.

more and more we are having issues recruiting doctors from the United States because anybody smart enough to make it through the schooling is also smart enough to not waste their time going through the schooling. If you want a good doctor soon enough you will learn need to learn how to speak fluent Farsi.. and very seldom do I meet an Indian Doctor Who has the skill set of even a terrible us trained doctor.

 

There are a great many reasons why people don't want to go into medicine, but the lack of ability to make a living isn't one of those reasons.

 

Unfortunately all too true. In another life a focus for me was saving health care in Rural communities in the lower Arkansas Valley.

The Doc leaves, we subsidize NPs & PAs. Residents travel to the next town with a Doc,

Medicaid transports patients much farther for specialties.
The clinic closes. People move to the next town with medical.
Schools close, consolidate, bus kids. Teachers leave.
Businesses close. Property values plummet.
Houses bought by slumlords. Drugs prevail.

Then that Next Clinic loses its Doc, we subsidize PAs, etc. etc.

Medicaid, Medicare Reimbursements, private insurance don't pay the Docs enough to hire staff. They become part time and join a Physicians Group, further reducing their income.

State insurance pools (ACA) only have the highest risk individuals and require additional subsidies which were already gone when they were formed - but it Sounded like a wonderful idea until the (usually) unasked questions landed: who's going to do it and who's going to pay for it? Reality.

The best we could do was hope that we can find a retired physician/Dentist/therapist to work part time. Then they die.
Everybody moves to the (unaffordable) big city.

It's a problem, but with Pharmacy companies writing "universal coverage" legislation, it will not improve.
Dilemma.

 

How do you figure having universal coverage wouldn’t improve the rural situations you are describing? No self pay patients there.

 

It won't if Pharmaceutical companies write the legislation and buy politicians. And offer golden parachutes to the Bureaucrats who implement policy.
No answer from me, but universal coverage as envisioned by many is frightening.

 

How is everybody having healthcare coverage frightening?

 

Reposting previous post. Bold for clarification.

 

How about being constantly sued by strangers for strange reasons? How about being questioned by minimum wage earners who are working in the Philippines for an insurance company? How about no longer being able to care for a whole patient and not dissect a person organ by organ? Having no life for greater than 20 years? Working every holiday?

The issues here, as stated by more than just myself is that the insurance companies are writing legislation. To that - ANY PERSON who is under the age of 55 who is paying for a private (non-employer based) plan is a freaking fool. Being as there is no longer a pre-existing condition clause to enroll folks are stupid to enroll until they are sick (I sure dont pay monthly). Even for women, in general a yearly PAP/MAM costs less than one months premium. On our side, we will take a cash pay PT far sooner than we will someone with Aetna plans and some of the lower value BCBS plans. More over, if you are Medicaid our first appt's are easily 6-8 weeks out (tastes a bit like Canada where your appt is just past the expected survival dates).

The easiest solutions? Simple, create more FULL TIME jobs in the US that offer insurance from the employers. The Govt counting on the plebians to pay for insurance before they pay for their drugs and alcohol is a joke. As mentioned, we get the same frequent fliers in the ED day after day after day wasting time and money. Oh, the fix there? Add some HOUSED (with locks on the doors) mental health care centers (see One Flew Over the Coocoo's Nest).

Meh...I suppose I need to go to work. BUT, my new driveway toy will be here today!!!!!!! The lower one (dark grey) should be here by 9am....

 

All this healthcare talk is triggering a sympathetic nervous system response localized to my frontal lobe, compounded by a severe case of caffeine deficiency. It's terminal... unless treated with Turkish 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine within the next few minutes.

@OldManAndHisCar, those sea cans are great for storage. May I ask what you paid for it? After the whole tariff thing, they seem to have almost doubled in price, for no good reason. Looked at getting a couple of 40' containers last year, but these brokers seem to shut down as soon as you tell them you'd like to go pick up the container yourself, so you can inspect it before driving it away. That's when they tell you they're actually brokers, and they don't own the containers, and have to get back to you with whether you can go pick out your container.

 

Put what you are saying into practical application for me. How do the “Pharmaceutical companies writing the legislation and buying politicians. And offering golden parachutes to the Bureaucrats who implement policy.” impact boots on the ground medical coverage and payment for doctors? Because in those rural places (where I am also from) people don’t have insurance if they don’t have Medicaid, by and large. So a lot of doctors are seeing patients and not getting paid at all. If you’re concerned as you stated that doctors are unable to make a living in those places for that reason how would having coverage that pays for all those patients be bad for them?

Those are perfectly valid reasons. It’s also really hard to become a doctor and people today don’t like hard.

Plenty of other doctors than you. I have family members on Medicaid and have never had any issues getting them seen by doctors.

As for not paying for insurance until you’re sick, the law tried to address that by creating insurance mandates and Republicans struck that from the law. So you have them to thank for that.

Thats not an easy thing to do. How are you going to do about creating jobs for those people? What about self employed people and entrepreneurs? Small businesspeople? Many of us don’t make our way in the world working for employers and the economy needs that. Insurance costs are out of control for employers too.

 

You are one big heap of dung.
I never said that, posted that, or anything that could be construed as having said that. (The little underlined vignette, "as you stated"
in your post.)

Throughout this thread, and several others, you have attributed phrases to me and others that are inaccurate at best; more accurately hateful and incendiary.
Your "turn of phrase" by picking a word or two and constructing your own dialogue, then arguing with it, are disgusting and despicable.

This is a minor example, but it's destructive to the thread, the forum, and to the credibility of those whose posts you have manipulated.

It's a Land of Lies that you manufacture.
I used to give you the benefit of the doubt by thinking you have conceptual or vision problems, but you continue to prove otherwise.

Just stop.

 

I'm starting to think a few of us in this thread might be labeled as the "Thread Derailment Crew"...

 

I asked you a simple question...how does having people in rural areas covered by insurance that pays providers in those areas not help providers in those areas? If you can't answer it thats totally fine.

I recommend Xanax, BTW lol. Sheesh, what a drama queen.

 

Answered already in post #286, which you misquoted, and again in #288, IN BOLD.
Are Ye Daft?

 

And I asked you to describe to me how that is an issue for doctors and patients on the ground. I understand the overall negatives to society of having insurance companies lobbying for the language of the law so that it benefits them and for paying for payouts and pork for those involved in legislating. If I'm a patient and I have no insurance now, and I would have insurance with a universal system. How do those things hurt me? Likewise if I am a doctor, many of my patients now have no coverage and I don't get paid...if they were covered I would get paid. How does that hurt me? "insurance companies wrote it" is not an answer to that question. If it benefits me I don't care if Santa Claus wrote it.

I respect that you think you are answering my question but you aren't. I want to know your thoughts on practical ways someone who would be covered who has no coverage now is better off now than they would be if they were covered. Also I want to know your thoughts on how a rural provider who has many patients they cannot collect any fees from is better off now than they would be if those patients were all covered and they could collect fees from all of them. You say its frightening, why is it frightening? In practical terms.

 

Try this: read the first five words in the second sentence of what I've now posted twice.
So I don't have to post it again.
Just stop.

 

 

"And offer golden parachutes to" Those are the first 5 word in the second sentence

 

I want golden parachute...AND a golden goose and I WANT IT NOW!!!!

Did I mention that I once stayed in a Holiday Inn Express? .

 

I want a golden parachute too lol. Its my retirement plan!

I just don't see how people with no insurance are better off having no insurance than they are having insurance even if some people get golden parachutes.

 

One night, or two?