Health care reform: what it means

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:nurse:Am I dreaming or didn't we go through a similiar experience when healthcare reform was talked about in the 90's? Yep...when the Clinton's were in the White House. Don't get me wrong I am a...or was a Democrat but what is happening?

North Carolina economy is really struggling! I moved here from Montana in March, 2010 and there are few, good nursing jobs. By some mistake, I went from a hospital in Montana to LTC nursing in North Carolina, thinking it would be more personable. I'm working as fast as I can as a Wound care nurse and the DON has just cut my hours down to 32 and continues to expect me to do everything I was doing while working overtime. Health care reform just gives business the go ahead to tighten the belt and work everyone to death. I don't know if it is just the conservative church related LTC that I am working for or?:uhoh3: Anyone perspectives please!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

I can only relate my personal perspective and I hope that others will do the same.

Thanks to the new healthcare regulations, my disabled husband's private insurer will not be able to cut him off due to his expenses meeting a lifetime maximum clause. He will now be able to continue on with his health care insurance for his lung transplant.

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Specializes in LTC, Acute Care.

It'll be darned nice that with the general paucity of jobs available for the picking, the holder of the health insurance for the family will not be limited to only jobs that already provide health insurance. Not terribly long ago when my hubby was in the midst of searching for a new job, he was pretty limited in where he could choose to work because of this. We have preexisting conditions that are no fault of our own and insurance won't cover the conditions if we were to buy the policy ourselves.

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Specializes in Psychiatry, corrections, long-term care..

The recession has more to do with it than the healthcare "reform", IMO. And certainly don't pin it solely on the President; the Congress that passed it was elected by the American people. ;)

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Specializes in ER, Trauma.

Hillary Clinton championed health-care reform, but was unable to accomplish much due to the "for profit" people afraid of losing their monopoly.

After a long career, about 10 years to retirement, I became disabled this year. Obama care made it possible to continue my insurance for $350/month for 15 months, or $1000/month for 24 months. Since I had no income, I chose the 15 month plan and put all my expenses on credit cards. My insurance is an HMO plan which really sucks. More than 1/3 my gross income for the year has gone to medical expenses, and I can't afford any more health-care until next year some time.

I don't care if it's called universal care, single pay-or care, socialized medicine, or a Chili cheese dog with extra onions! With the proper health-care I can return to work full time, but my HMO wont pay for it. Instead I'm stuck with symptomatic care until my COBRA insurance runs out, several months later I qualify for Medicare, meanwhile bankruptcy gets closer on the horizon. If anybody has read all this and wants to argue that for profit health-care is a good system, come to papa!

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Universal healthcare works just fine as long as the public are okay with someone besides yourself deciding what care you will receive. In Europe this has been the system for so long that when a 70 year old is diagnosed with cancer and is told they will have to wait a year for treatment they just accept it. We in America would be appalled by this, but that is the reality of socialized medicine. I'm not judging it, I'm just stating the reality of the system just as the reality of our current system is that if you are in that "between place" where you are too sick to work but haven't been given disability status it is nearly impossible to find a way to have insurance. That is the reality of our current system. Neither way is perfect and in either one someone gets left out of the party.

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Specializes in Psychiatry, corrections, long-term care..

Try not to confuse socialized medicine with single-payer health care systems. Too many people demonize (especially Canadian) healthcare because they claim it's "socialized".

The thing is, it's not. Socialized healthcare is when health practitioners are employees (directly) of the government (such as the NHS in the UK). Canada's government happens to pay for healthcare but as far as I understand it, employees are not directly employed by the government. Please, Canadians and UK folks, correct me if I'm wrong.

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Specializes in ER/Ortho.

My son who was in college, and had aged out of my health care plan recently became very ill with severe Crohn's disease. One day he was fine, and the next he was bleeding, his intestines were inflamed and infected, and he was hospitalized. I am a new nurse who just graduated, and was pretty broke from school expenses, and basic living and raising a family. I didn't have a lot stockpiled. Without insurance the regular Dr was $120 a visit without tests, the specialist was more, and he needed surgery, blood tests, CT scans, a colonoscopy etc. We got him into a sliding scale clinic situation, but the care was so bad he went from 150 lbs to 108 in a couple of months. He was unable to work, go to school, and was almost blacking out walking to the bathroom. Yes, you can take a person to the the hospital or call 911, and they will keep them for a day or two, pump them full of fluids, and then release you and tell you to see a specialist for expensive tests which you cannot afford. Anyway, now my son is able to stay on my insurance until he is 26 (but I am sure he will be able to get his own by then). He has since been able to see real Dr's, real specialists, have a ton of blood work, his CT, colonoscopy, and has gained back to 120lbs. The total medical bills to date a little over $24,000 in the last 2 months. My cost is around $2000. Thank you Obama for saving my son.

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Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.

I live on the NY/Canada border and there are many Canadians who come here for the quicker care and for specialized care.

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Universal healthcare works just fine as long as the public are okay with someone besides yourself deciding what care you will receive. In Europe this has been the system for so long that when a 70 year old is diagnosed with cancer and is told they will have to wait a year for treatment they just accept it. We in America would be appalled by this, but that is the reality of socialized medicine. I'm not judging it, I'm just stating the reality of the system just as the reality of our current system is that if you are in that "between place" where you are too sick to work but haven't been given disability status it is nearly impossible to find a way to have insurance. That is the reality of our current system. Neither way is perfect and in either one someone gets left out of the party.

I am from Germany and when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, she immediately went through surgery. I also worked for the health insurance business overseas for many years and I know that there are many misconceptions about our healthcare system thanks to the U.S. media.

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You are correct that I really don't know anything about the system in Germany and I should not have generalized "Europe". What I should have said is "England". My comments were based on anecdotal comments from a variety of friends who have relatives and friends living in England. My main point, however, was that no matter what you do there will be pros and cons and someone will be disadvantaged by whatever system is in place.

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There are some very good aspects of the bill, unfortunately IMO the bad outwieghs the good. First off the bill was passed with blantant bribes and vote buying (Lousiana deal 300 mil, Nebraska 200 mil, etc etc) something Obama said would change, yes congress did it but did Obama condemn it? Where is the tort reform for healthcare providers and workers, trial lawyers were one of his biggest contributors.

Review the posts here, which one of them addresses the COST of healthcare vs who pays for it. The economy, and more paticularly jobs are the most threatening issue our country faces. If the economy was sailing along we would create jobs and many of those jobs would have insurance. If the GDP was increasing we would increase tax revenue that could be directed to healthcare without increasing tax rates or adding costs to businesses, both of which kill jobs.

Does anyone here really think this bill will do what it was sold as, to reduce medical costs? or is it more of a redistribution of wealth. Not that that is completely wrong, but be honest about it. To me the best thing this did was force congress to deal with the issue, something they had been avoiding. But this bill fails to do what it was supposed to..reduce the cost, and in its current form will cut jobs in the country which will only reduce the money for healthcare while forcing more people to be reliant on the governement for healthcare since they are not working. 14.5 million Americans are unemployed..they can't pay for healthcare in any form, public funding can not solve the issue

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