Pre-existing health conditions

• Pre-existing health conditions - Old part-timer
  • there is already some provisions in place - - Amanda
  • valid points and YES, people are buying - it.
  • How stupid? - well
    • Sour grapes. - McC's healthcare plan....sm
      • OK, I'll bite. What insurance companies and when? - Old part-timer
        • Well, duh. Of course they're for profit - sm MSMT
      • Next auto - Then LIFE insurance!
      • You have been duped...... - pie in the sky
        • This is not rocket science. If Americans have access to - the same plan that covers Congress....sm
          • Wouldn't it be great....... - if only
            • Free is your rant, not Obama's proposal. - Why should Americans vote...sm
              • By that you mean Obama is the fox....right? - nm

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I figure either one of two things will happen. Either the US will go to a single payer system, i.e., national health care covering all through federal taxes and cost control by the government, or therre will be an implosion of the private system in x number of years with something different emerging from the ashes.

With the exhorbitant cost of health insurance, mandating coverage is not an answer. Anything can be mandated. The question is how does one pay for it?Massachusetts mandated individual coverage, and already has had to exclude 20% due to the cost of a policy, anywhere from $1,200 to $1,400 a month for family coverage.  Employers cannot afford to cover employees either due to the cost of health insurance.  The current system? Well, insurance companies can charge $3,000 a month for a health insurance policy, health care providers can charge $800,000 for a 3-day hospital stay, etc.  In the end no one, businesses or otherwise, will be able to keep "feeding the beast" and the current system will implode.

I think the proposal of being able to buy into Medicare is a noble one, but president Clinton pushed that years ago, and with much opposition and to no avail at that time.

I don't mean to sound so pessiimistic. Actually I'm not. There are 300 million people in this country, they have the ability to change anything, and hopefully they will take the initial steps to do that in November.

you could tell that Joe Biden really did think she was joking because the question was so ridiculous, about Obama being a Marxist.  No wonder these things get so inflated by the right-wing media.  Ridiculous questions don't deserve to be acknowledged.  What a waste of time. Someone needs to ask SP why her own home newspaper in Anchorage is supporting Obama, because she is considered too risky to be in a position a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, and the McCain campaign aides have referred to her a rogue diva.  Ouch, that must have hurt!  Now there are some FACTS for you!!

we are all driving basically the same model and we are insuring it for what could possibly happen, not what will or actually does. 

Way back in the 1960s when I first started working, my company's health insurance did not cover single women for most 'female' issues, especially birth control and/or pregnancy-related issues, which has since been deemed discriminatory.  Now you must cover everyone equally for every contingency. 

The only way to individually ajust coverage costs would to be to exclude coverage based on genetic testing and/or family history, or maybe lifestyle issues such as alcohol or tobacco use or risky behavior like sky diving, which consumers have been fighting for years.  This would probably also be deemed discriminatory.

What do I think about H. Clinton's mandatory health insurance proposal?

Here's my situation....I'm in my mid 50's, have a few pre-existing conditions, and am an IC doing medical transcription for years. I have health insurance which will cover the pre-existing conditions, however I rarely use the policy and have not been in a hospital for over 10 years. In 1999 my premium for coverage was about $250.00 per month. That same policy now costs me $1,097.00 per month, and that is coverage for one person.

I don't know about Hillary's proposals, or that much about anyone else's for all that goes. I do know however, that health care reform is being discussed again, and from where I am sitting I am a very strong supporter of health care reform, be it mandatory coverage or any other proposals. I frankly cannot afford monthly health insurance premiums that are running over one thousand dollars a month, and if you ask me, monthly health insurance premiums as high as this are criminal, to say the least.

...of those folks you mention.  Who did you think pays for all the uninsured health care in this country?  Santa Claus?  Folks without insurance often wait until the last minute and then utilize ER services which in the end cost more than if they'd been followed in a clinic. 

It also sounds like you believe that kids of welfare abusers should be punished because their parents can't/don't/won't provide for them.  I don't agree.  All children deserve basic care regardless of who their parents are.  We are a wealthy country, after all. 

Personally, I'd be happy to pitch in on my taxes to help provide a health care program for the uninsured.  Better that than funding a war in Iraq.

When we finally have universal health care, maybe those suffering from 911 Tourette's and Clinton sex life Tourette's will seek treatment? Wishful thinking or not? I am soliciting opinons.

cost $1,000 or more a month?

Health insurance premiums, plus their refusal to insure people with preexisting conditions, are becoming prohibitive costwise for many (millions of Americans) to afford.

Though the example you gave may be true for some younger folks, I believe that's the exception and not the rule.

There is a huge crisis in healthcare in this country today.  Good for you that you can afford it and just blame everyone else who can't.  Maybe someday soon you'll be in the same boat with the 50-odd million Americans who simply can't afford it.  Who will you blame then?

Consider this post educational. This is a post, from someone who lives with a single-payer health care system in a social democracy, explaining why I believe that this is a good way to make sure that everyone can receive health care.

Health care stateside costs more than 2.8 trillion USD per year. More than HALF of that money is spent on clerical help, at the doctor's office, at the lab, at the hospital, at the insurer, by the insurer to deny coverage for whatever they can deny. The reason that 62% of bankruptcies every year are due to catastrophic medical emergencies and 78% of those emergencies are insured, including 60% who had private insurance, not medicaid.., is the profit motive and the incentive it provides to deny coverage (stats from recent Harvard study). The same study found that most of these bankruptcies were solidly middle-class people hit by an unexpected medical emergency. These are not the powerless of the world; these are the people that keep the economy running.

The US spends more per capita on health care than any other developed nation, for a lower standard of care and a poorer result.

For instance, Canada's lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 11,000; not as good as Austria and Norway, but in the top 11. The US risk is 1 in 4,800 about twice Canada's rate and close to Mauritius. (Stats from Unicef) If you look closer at rates by race, you find that white women have about the same risk as women in Canada; blacks and Hispanics make up the difference, and that was shocking to me. Another shock to me was to find that more than one woman had been denied maternity care, as it was a pre-existing condition. Oh yes, and that Viagra is covered, but birth control often is not.

As it stands now, the US government covers the elderly, infirm, disabled and the poor. The private insurers get their pick of those that remain, and insurance is tied to your employment, which means that you are liable to find yourself without insurance at the very point that you need it most. Insurance often covers a portion of prescriptions, vision care and dental, but only a portion and not always. The portion of coverage declines the more common the need is. There are no drug price caps; the US is practically the only nation in the world not to have them.

IF the government were to cover everyone via a single-payer system, the cost of insuring everyone would cost less, much less than that 2.8 trillion every year.

Single-payer is not socialized medicine. It is exactly what it says it is. The government acts as the main insurer. Doctors are mostly in private practice, although there are a few clinics, usually attached to hospitals. Hospitals tend to be run either by the province or as charitable or private entities, or a combination of both. The choice of doctor is left to the patient; truthfully, patients in Canada have a larger choice of doctors than patients in the US. One's insurer doesn't dictate one's health care provider. It is true that we do not, currently, have dental or prescription care provided by medicare. That is, as it is stateside, covered by a private insurer, if at all. On the other hand, medications here are 1/3 of the price, generally, that they are stateside.

Doctors are paid by the government, yes, but they are billed in the same way an insurer would be. They are paid for provision of services. The main difference is that the insurer is the government; that means that between 10 and 30% of the cost of providing the service is cut. The government doesn't take a profit, doesn't deny services, gives no bonuses for denying services, and has, in fact, no interest in denying services. This means that everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, is covered.

Malpractice suits are not as onerous here as there. There is a cost, of course, associated with lost wages, pain and suffering, punitive damages, lost companionship or a lost parent, but there is no cost associated with lifetime medical care, which is the biggest portion of the US awards. Since health care is taken care of by the government, there is no extra cost for this; the government won't deny coverage, which a private insurer will. It has nothing to do with the government restricting awards; it has everything to do with future health care being taken care of.

How is it paid for? At the beginning, it was paid for through a payment collected by your employer. If I recall correctly, it was $33.00 per person at the beginning. It worked, and well, but it became obvious that the cheapest way to provide healthcare was to charge everyone through taxes, which were progressive, as a flat charge was not. Taxes were charged on tobacco and alcohol to offset the social and medical costs of their use, and that's a fair way to deal with it. Are taxes higher here? Actually, not much.

That is, in part, due to a different set of priorities.

However, If you can find a trillion dollars in three or four days to keep a bloated and corrupt Wall Street afloat, and a couple of trillion dollars for the occupation of Iraq, shouldn't it be as easy to find cash to institute single payer health care in order to keep the population healthy and relieve the burden of increasing health care costs on business?

I agree with some of what you said about the state representatives being held accountable.  I did vote for Senate candidates in the last election based on their stances on healthcare.  One of them has been working tirelessly (with many others) to expand CHIP health insurance to kids to more middle-income children in the state, and he was successful!  Now that the income bracket was raised, my 6-year-old has healthcare again, and I am so grateful! (Bush is threatening to veto the legislation that expanded CHIP to more families, though, so I'm praying he does not do that).

I am relatively young (26) and so many of my friends do not vote.  I am always encouraging them to do just that (whether they vote Democrat or Republican), and I think if Senate recall (I think that's what you called it) was in place, more of them might vote.  For now, we just have to hope they keep their campaign promises in hopes of being re-elected.

I know Congress needs to pass the bills on health insurance, and I know many of the Congressmen (on both sides of the aisle) have been bought and paid for by the insurance companies, and that is very disturbing to me.  That's one of the reasons I like Obama so much - I think he is a good man who has not been "bought and paid for" by any big corporations.

I think America needs to cover all medical costs for our children and our elderly, and I hope more Republicans candidates will address that issue.  We need to take better care of our most helpless citizens.

That's fine you don't care about the fact that many families are working their fingers to the bone just to pay for necessities, including health insurance, but I do.  I care very much and am very sad that so many people in this country only seem to care about children that come from upper middle class and rich families.  I guess they deserve better health care than the middle-class kids.  I don't know how people that feel that way can go to bed with a clear conscience.

People in Congress that we took the time to elect put a lot of effort into negotiating this bill to make both parties relatively happy.  YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE TAXED FOR IT.  THE CIGARETTE TAX WOULD HAVE GONE UP.  Keep telling yourself what you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, but the fact is kids with diabetes from a lower-middle-class income family have less of a chance of surviving than a child from an upper class income family.  That is a sad, sad, fact.

reality rears its ugly head....

French healthcare is 'badly run'

Plans for spending cuts have drawn protests from health workers France must make big changes to its health system in order to cut waste and increase efficiency, a government-commissioned report is warning. The report says citizens must pay more and doctors must alter their behaviour. Failure to do so could add 66 billion euros a year to France's public budget deficit by 2020, it adds. The warning comes after thousands of health workers protested on Thursday over staff shortages and the "creeping privatisation" of the health system. 'Badly regulated' The report was written by the High Council for the Future of Health Insurance, an advisory body set up by the government as it prepares to introduce healthcare reform legislation in June. PRESCRIPTION BILL Average French GP prescribes drugs worth 260,000 euros a year The French use three times as many antibiotics as Germans They use twice as many anti-cholestorol drugs as Britons A fifth of health spending goes on pharmaceuticals It includes representatives from the health insurance industry, trade unions and medical professionals. The report was given to the Health Ministry on Friday, but details were leaked by the Reuters news agency which saw a copy. The standard of care provided by French doctors is ranked among the best in the world, but the report says the system is "badly regulated and badly governed". "The High Council believes that general confusion over who is in charge of what partly explains the excesses," it says. "Everyone - institutions, healthcare professionals and social security contributors - will have to change their behaviour." Higher insurance payments? The report says French general practitioners prescribe on average 260,000 euros' worth of drugs a year. BUDGET STRAINS Health spending nearing 9% of GDP Projected healthcare deficit this year - 10.9 billion euros Deficit in 2010 if nothing is done - 29 billion euros Healthcare deficit to account for 20% of total public deficit this year It says the French consume three times as many antibiotics as the Germans, and more than twice as many anti-cholesterol drugs as the British. The council also highlights the CSG welfare levy - a charge paid by workers, the unemployed and pensioners - as an area for possible reform. "The High Council is unanimous in its refusal to turn to massive indebtedness to cover the growth in health insurance expenditure," the report said. "The CSG, with its large base and the principle of proportionality that underpins it, could seem like a possible answer," it said. The council said even a structural shake-up of the system would not necessarily rule out the need to raise further revenues. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, which set up the council last October to advise the government on healthcare reform, said last week the government had not been planning a rise in the CSG as part of the healthcare reforms. Growing deficit The report says an ageing population and the high cost of advanced treatments will help push health spending past 9% of gross domestic product - one of the highest levels in the world. Number of doctors per 1,000 people Italy - 4.1 France - 3.3 Germany - 3.3 UK - 2.0 Japan - 1.9 Source: British Medical Association. Figures for 2000 Experts have already warned that a projected healthcare deficit of 10.9 billion euros this year could rise to 29 billion euros by 2010, unless action is taken. Looking further ahead, the report says the deficit could rise to 66 billion euros by 2020. Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei has already put forward a plan known as "Hospital 2007" proposing management reforms and a new emphasis on cost assessment. Problems in the French health system were exposed last year, when a heat wave killed around 15,000 mostly elderly people. There was also a bed shortage in hospitals in December, when a nationwide flu and bronchitis epidemic broke out.

US among worst in world for infant death