Specializes in Flight Nurse, Pedi CICU, IR, Adult CTICU.
honnête et sérieux -
unfortunately, i can't cut much from my transit expenses, since they are mostly limited to new tubes for my bike when one goes flat. i share a small apartment in a not-so-posh neighborhood. i eat a lot of rice and beans. trust me, i'd love to have comprehensive health insurance like you, health care is a huge priority for me too - that's why i want to be a nurse :) but on what could i cut back? my weekly spa appointment? (just kidding!) more like my tuition. but anyway...
sounds just like me when i was in college...except even though i have some $$ now, i still eat a lot of rice and beans because i'm just a frugal kind of guy.
i remember needing my wisdom teeth pulled when i was in college (the first time), and opted out of insurance that was offered through the school. i called a couple of dentists, and negotiated a price and a payment plan...and got my teeth pulled. worked a few extra shifts and paid him off in six months. did the same thing for lenses, and i stayed in the military reserves so i could get an annual physical. i know people can make excuses about why this wouldn't work for them, but i'm just showing that where there is a will, there is a way. btw, nursing is a second career for me, and they required insurance. i'm surprised they aren't requiring you to have it.
private plans make just as many absurd choices, if not more, than medicare and medicaid about what they will cover. from how few days one may spend in the hospital, or in which hospital, after surgery, to what drugs we can take for all of our conditions, private insurance execs are making these decisions for us ("we'll pay for your kidney transplant but not the drugs you need to take after" a friend of mine just heard).
medicare drives reimbursement policy, especially for providers who accept both medicare and private insurance. you can't blame that on the private insurers. and your friend needs a new social worker;
most private health insurance policies cover many expenses associated with kidney transplants, including medications. in addition, most kidney transplant candidates are eligible for medicare, which will cover 80 percent of the cost of the transplant surgery. after transplantation, you will need to take medications to prevent rejection of your new kidney. medicare part b will cover 80 percent of the cost of these anti-rejection medications, but not the cost of other medications you may need. for most patients, this medicare coverage will stop after 36 months. however, if you are eligible for medicare coverage based on age or disability, the cost of your anti-rejection medications may be covered for as long as you are on medicare. the social worker or financial counselor at your transplant center should be available to answer questions about your coverage options.
didja read that? people with kidney disease who are covered under medicare can't get full coverage...and there's a three year limit.
every finger pointed at private insurance points at equally glaring problems in the socialized systems we already use...which is why i don't want to put the gov't in charge of all of it.
it's great that your plan covers your orthodontics, but do you really think they'd be eager to cover you at all if you were not an employment based consumer and had an expensive pre-existing condition?
no, they wouldn't. and chrysler wouldn't provide me with a free vehicle, gables wouldn't let me live here rent free, the gov't wouldn't pay for my auto insurance or utilities or food, etc. it's a benefit i have because i work...even when i don't want to. and the times i went without insurance, it was my choice; i could choose to move immediately from one job to another so as to ensure continued insurance, or i could take a six week break (like i did) and not be insured...but i hardly think it's fair that i ask someone else to insure me while i goof off and relax.
while it would be great to think that they were doing the best job possible because they are regulated by our free market choices, anthem, aetna, wellpoint... etc have become so big, and work so well together, that they are able to impose their choices upon us. in how many towns in this country is there just one company who insures at least half the residents? the hmo that i grew up in was just gobbled up by one of those big guys. there are too few players who have too much power to call this a free health care market.
you do realize this is a terrible argument to support making the gov't the monopoly insurance provider, dontcha?
anthem, in my case, could in a position to make some of the most important decisions of my life for me, but i don't get to vote for their execs. at least in a national health care plan the regulators would be accountable to us and our votes
.
in uhc countries, elections come and go, and the programs still function at the lowest common denominator.
health care is such an important part of our lives, the decisions about how its regulated should be made out in the open by people we elect, not behind closed doors by people we don't know.
the people we elect make terrible decisions, especially when it comes to our money. that's why i don't want to give them the keys to my health insurance.
Unemployment isn't always a choice. It usually isn't, especially today. Companies shut down and you can't get COBRA. Jobs today don't all offer health insurance, many many do not - and we still need people to do these jobs. People who work hard for companies that shut down, or work hard but are self employed, or work hard but don't get employer based coverage, they get sick, like everyone, and it isn't always their fault. Ultimately, when people aren't covered we don't let people bleed to death on the street, and we all end up paying for their treatment with higher medical bills for a lower quality of care at cash strapped hospitals. I'd rather everyone be required to pay into the system so health care is there for everyone when we need it. Right now, we have a lot of people who go without, and we have a lot of freeloaders. We shouldn't need to have either.
Prescription drug coverage and medical coverage often don't line up in health insurance plans that employers provide, that's what happened to my young friend with the bad kidney.
In case you were worried about me, my school doesn't require us to be covered, but I buy it anyway because I don't want to worry about bleeding to death on the street. After two years of paying premiums for my BCBS plan, they've given me gotten 7 dollars in coverage. I'm their best customer! I'm paying into this system, I'd rather pay into one that I'm confident will be there for me when I need it.
I'll be honest, I like the concept of a national healthcare plan, but what people are forgetting is the tax rate that these countries pay that have socialized medicine.
It's anywhere from over 30% to 60% per DOLLAR of earnings.
I don't think anyone has forgotten that. However - we would also not be having these ridiculous amounts of money taken from our paychecks every pay period for insurance, nor would our employers have to fork anything over to subsidize the cost.
When I can have a year's worth of maternity leave (or more, in some countries) I certainly won't be griping about my tax dollars going to cover that, and I will certainly not be complaining about higher taxes if I know my family's health care needs are going to be met. I have friends from the UK, Canada, Germany, Finland, and Australia, and they are ALL happy with their countries' health systems. None of them want to switch theirs for that of the US. And yes, some of them do have special needs children, or catastrophic illness, or emergent health situations, and NONE of them have been denied care or had to wait.
Specializes in Flight Nurse, Pedi CICU, IR, Adult CTICU.
I don't think anyone has forgotten that. However - we would also not be having these ridiculous amounts of money taken from our paychecks every pay period for insurance, nor would our employers have to fork anything over to subsidize the cost.
My health insurance, as a percentage of my paycheck, is smaller than most of my other essential expenses.
And I don't know how you can be sure that our employers wouldn't have to supplement the cost; as it stands, they theoretically "supplement" half of our SS benefits which are still dwindling every year. The evidence does not support a lack of dependence on the employer. Additionally, some leading UHC advocates what to mandage employer-funded insurance.
When I can have a year's worth of maternity leave (or more, in some countries) I certainly won't be griping about my tax dollars going to cover that, and I will certainly not be complaining about higher taxes if I know my family's health care needs are going to be met. I have friends from the UK, Canada, Germany, Finland, and Australia, and they are ALL happy with their countries' health systems. None of them want to switch theirs for that of the US. And yes, some of them do have special needs children, or catastrophic illness, or emergent health situations, and NONE of them have been denied care or had to wait.
Maternity leave is not a function of the healthcare system.
And anecdotal 'friendships' in foreign countries don't validate health systems. As an American, I don't want the UK, Canadian, German, Finland, or Australian system implemented here. And one thing I find disingenuous is the claim that none of them have had to wait for care, because wait times are very specifically identified by those countries as being problems.
And anecdotal 'friendships' in foreign countries don't validate health systems.
Yes but those of us who live with these systems and have experienced them first hand aren't just "inventing" our experiences so you can't brush our stories off as rubbish.
You keep stating that the governmnet chooses my care. They do not. My care is between my doctor and me.
Specializes in Flight Nurse, Pedi CICU, IR, Adult CTICU.
Yes but those of us who live with these systems and have experienced them first hand aren't just "inventing" our experiences so you can't brush our stories off as rubbish.
You keep stating that the governmnet chooses my care. They do not. My care is between my doctor and me.
Your physician cannot provide any care which the gov't won't pay for.
And policy or positions cannot be based on anecdotal experiences; the statistics and programs say something different. I didn't say they were rubbish, but if you notice, you don't see me introducing anecdotal horror stories about UHC systems, and there are a lot of them.
It's because they don't make for functional debate.
The government pays for anything medically neccessary that is provided by a licenced health professional or health facility. I did get this from the ohip website.
Wading through pages of stats don't change our experiences. But you are right. personal experiences don't make for a functional debate. I was expressing ny feelings about and experiences with our system.
Actually, my insurance is pretty good...I spend a little extra for it, but like I said, it's because it's important to me, and I still spend less than I do on transportation, and far less than I spend on leisure and shelter, and on some unessentials.
But what you can't assume is that those things would automatically be covered under a UHC plan.
it's important to me too. i pay $535.25 a month, which is a quarter of my monthly pay. that's the best COBRA coverage i could get being a brittle asthmatic and being pregnant, and my previous employer actually gave me a break on the price. thats still more than my car payment, my car insurance payment and my cell phone bill combined for a month, and more than half of a month's rent.
what i CAN assume is that my quality of life might be a little bit better if i wasn't stressed out all the time about having to figure out how i can pay for health care coverage and still be able to eat, and that i would be happy to fork over extra in taxes so that myself and my unborn child had access to health care we deserve. i pay taxes towards medicare every 2 weeks, but i don't qualify for it.... so why not pay a little extra in those taxes so we all can benefit from it?
Hospitals/providers should compete for patients on a quality of care metric.....
We need to shift towards a primary care model with medical homes and our primary care providers acting as "gatekeepers to specialty care." (IOW you need a referral from your primary care doctor to see a specialist.)
However the US ranks 5/6 amongst our peers in the OECD for same day provider appointment availability.
loriangel14, RN
6,933 Posts
Testing and hospital stays are covered under UHC.