This Time, We Won’t Scare By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Perhaps you’ve seen those television commercials denouncing health care reform as a plot to create a Canadian-style totalitarian nightmare, and you feel a wee bit scared.
Back in the election campaign, some people spread rumors that Barack Obama might be a secret Muslim conspiring to impose Sharia law on us. That seems unlikely now, but what if he’s a covert Canadian plotting to impose … health care?
Rick Scott, a former hospital company chief executive, leads a group called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights. He was forced to resign as C.E.O. after his company defrauded the government through overbilling and is now spending his time trying to block meaningful health care reform by terrifying us with commercials of “real-life stories of the victims of government-run health care.”
So here’s a far more representative “real-life story.”
Diane Tucker, 59, is an American lawyer who moved to Vancouver, Canada, in 2006. Like everyone else there, she now pays the equivalent of just $49 a month for health care. continued….
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/opinion/11kristof.html?th&emc=th
Now that I am temporarily unemployed, I have a razor’s edge to walk. First of all, I need to collect unemployment and accept any work I find, even though it probably will not provide insurance or health care. My wife has been disabled for years, and the daughter barely qualified for state health benefits. The delimma is that I could be required by the state to look for and accept work, with or without insurance.
If I accept work, as required by law, and accidently make enough money to feed my family, my daughter will be disqualified for state health benefits. That will cause her to have pre-existing conditions, and we will never be able to afford insurance.
The article from the NY Times is enlightening about government healthcare and the insanity of the ‘anti-healthcare’ groups from the right. ~sekanblogger
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
When I was diagnosed with colon cancer two years ago, the social worker at the Catholic hospital advised me to quit my job, get a divorce and get on Medicaid. Her direct words were ‘then you will never have to worry again about your medical bills’. I’m assuming she thought I would be on Medicaid the rest of my life or maybe she assumed I would not survive my cancer?
This is nothing new. When my son was 5 (23yrs ago) , he was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. We had just been transferred to Michigan and the social worker at that hospital also told me to divorce my husband (I was not working outside the home at that time), then both my children and I would be covered on Medicaid until both children were legal age.
Health care has been a problem for a long time and we have seen politicians promise reform for a long time.
Is this the year we hold their feet to the fire? Or will health care reform, once again fall prey to the special interests?
I’ve discovered that “quit your job” is the only answer they have. Of course they don’t bother to tell you how you’re supposed to provide a home, pay bills, and buy food with no job. If you quit your job, there’s no unemployment.
Just where will they send those Medicaid cards if you’re living under a bridge?
And they wonder why people lie on applications for assistance.
Sekan, I feel your pain. I’ve felt it, too, and am watching my daughter and her hubby go through it right now. My ADHD grandson was off meds for a little over a month. That’s the ADHD grandson the psychiatrist said should NEVER be without meds. The one who set the house on fire. My daughter is pregnant. They make $200 a month too much to get help. They have house payments, two car payments, COBRA payments (for her and hubby finally), utilities, and food to buy. It won’t stretch that far. ComCare finally forced Healthwave to cover the ADHD grandson, but they won’t cover the other two grandkids (not quite 2 years old and a 6-year-old) because when on Healthwave several years ago, Healthwave failed to drop coverage when told to and continued to (silently) bill for several months. They want $300 before they’ll start coverage.
Whining isn’t helping. Worrying isn’t either, and now it’s all affecting my health. All I can say is what healthcare?
BTW – I never did go on Medicaid – my husband and I are still married – poorer but still married. We struggled with the medical bills but we managed to get through the tough time.
One thing that really angers me is that my son has never been able to get health insurance on his own since his diagnosis at age 5 (he has never been in the hospital for any diabetes-related diagnosis). With my cancer diagnosis, what do you think my chances are of getting health insurance on my own?
The current health care insurance system works best if you are never sick and God forbid if you are struck with a catastrophic illness.
I think we all have our own horror stories and we know of countless people in the same boat, don’t we?
So, if we know these things to be true then why are most Republicans and some Democrats still opposed to changing the current health care system?
Too many special interests’ profits at stake? Lack of concern for fellow Americans? Or do they just not care because they have theirs and to hell with the rest of us?
I would like to see the politicians’ health care plan be exactly like Medicaid and then do you think they would do something about it?
Too many special interests’ profits at stake? Lack of concern for fellow Americans? Or do they just not care because they have theirs and to hell with the rest of us?
All of the above.
Or better yet, when politicians lose their jobs – their taxpayer-fundeded health care plan goes bye-bye.
I would like to see health care insurance not be tied to our employment. That step alone would help tremendously. Private insurance companies should be made to compete for the business. There could be a public health care option that will take any and all persons. If the private insurance companies want to be available to any and all people, then that is their choice but their price will have to be competitive.
I know, this is a pipe dream – a little fantasy I like to indulge in from time to time. But once you have been hit by an illness that health insurance companies won’t touch – it makes you think.
I’m still on Bush’s health care plan: DGS (Don’t Get Sick)
I am on the same plan. My dear mother payed for my ‘after market’ teeth.
wicked – good luck to your family and I’m hoping for the best. when is your daughter due?
I worked with a woman who was pregnant with her second child. She is married, drives a new SUV, bought a new $250,000 house. She got on WIC during her pregnancy and she is still on it (I think). When I asked her how she qualified because she was married and they both work and make good money- she said that nobody asked her if she was married, so she never volunteered that information.
I found that answer a little suspicious. When applying for any government assistance, isn’t the total household income a question being asked?
There was a time, prior to the seventies, when most hospitals were not for profit, and bills were reasonable. Since that time, it became fashionable for every entity connected to health care to take a bite, for profit, out of every bill. Health insurance is the biggest winner out of the whole mess, raising health care costs to unaffordable levels.
I have no problem with someone making a buck, but when it’s on the backs of the sick, to the exclusion of many because “it costs too much”, Then I have a serious problem. Pre-existing conditions should never enter into the picture in any way, shape or form. The only reason for them to be involved is to keep profits high. I’m afraid I find that alone to be in contempt of the Constitution.
Profits are fine, but when piggybacked on the sick, they become something else entirely. There’s something not right about that.
I remember during my childhood that we all were able to go to the doctor. I don’t recall anybody from my town that did without health care and we were not all rich people.
Some businesses should not be just for profit and healthcare is one of them, in my opinion.
Lilac,
She’s due 9/11. Or 9/10, depending on which criteria is being used. But the first is easier to remember. She just learned the week before last after a trip to the hospital that her BP is low. (It was 90/60) Nothing can be done, except bed rest, and they sure can’t afford her not working. Or can they? ::rolling eyes::
She had a WIC appt. last week. Pretty much everything she’s tried has been denied, so I don’t know how that turned out. Even help with milk, cereal, cheese, etc. would be welcome. If I could help, I would, but I’m not exactly “flush” right now.
As far as I know, yes, total household income is used.
I hear so many stories like the one about your son and Sekan’s daughter. Prior conditions keep them from being insured.
What you listed, health insurance not tied to employment and making insurance companies vie for the best prices, is part of what I’ve heard this Admin is trying to do. In fact, I think it’s one of the major reasons most Republicans (and some Democrats) aren’t in favor of it. It would force big insurance to drop their rates to compete.
They’ve pretty much done away with single payer. I know they’re trying to get the best they can passed, so we the people are going to get the shaft, one way or another.
Profits are fine, but when piggybacked on the sick, they become something else entirely.
Yeah. Totally unChristian and inhumane. Pets get better treatment.
My kids (daughter, son-in-law, grandkids) had to drop their medical coverage when my daughter’s husband’s company increased the monthly premium for health insurance and increased the deductible. Basically, they put company provided health insurance out of reach for a good portion of their employees.
My grandkids are now covered by Healthwave – that was the only option that they had.
Unfortunately, the above mentioned scenario is more the norm than the exception these days.
Healthwave is only for kids, isn’t it? So what is your daughter and her husband doing for health care insurance? If you don’t mind me asking?
Healthwave will cover pregnant women, but there’s that income level again. Older people, too, but I don’t know what the bottom number is on that. I had HW for 6 months or so, but I don’t know how that happened. When I applied for my youngest daughter, I was told to add SELF and did. I never had it after that first 6 months, and now that she’s 19 and NOT pregnant, she’s no longer covered.
Lilac, I’m really wondering why divorce is the answer. Just the cost of a divorce is out of the reach of many people who can’t afford health insurance.
increased the monthly premium for health insurance and increased the deductible.
Which is why I have to laugh each time someone on BTSNBN crow about their great insurance. I often wonder how often they can be heard ranting in the solitude of their own home when the price of that “great insurance” goes up and the coverage goes down.
“So what is your daughter and her husband doing for health care insurance?”
My daughter’s (unplanned) pregnancy was covered by Healthwave – the rest is the Bush Plan.
Her husband’s company provides coverage for him only at a reasonable cost – it’s the dependents that lose out.
Wow…comments!
I was awake early worrying about job prospects when I wrote this. I didn’t think it would draw any attention, so I was going to update it with some stuff from the linked article.
No need.
Well, or course there are comments, sekan! As I sit here trying to draw a clear breath and debating whether to give Walgreen’s little clinic a try, health care is uppermost in my mind. See, I’ve determined that the continuation of this asthma is stress-induced. I got up this morning making a mental list of the stress that’s hit lately, and I know my body. It reacts to stress in 3 different ways. Okay, that’s 4 different ways now. LOL I need to find a way to deal with it, because the situations are not going to go away.
I’m thinking meditation to start with. Bought a CD of meditation music at Wal-Mart yesterday and played it when I went to bed. Just the soothing music had me breathing easier. Each time I woke up during the night, I hit the play button and was able to go back to sleep quickly. I think I’m onto something.
Now if I could just find a way to keep the biggest stressor (grandson) within bounds, I’d be a winner. (New psych says ADHD and ODD, no doubt.)
Lilac,
Just heard from my daughter, whose WIC appt is today. I’m not holding my breath.