Frances
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Posts posted by Frances
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The uninsured I'm talking about that received treatment couldn't have afforded insurance. I'm not against a lot of the UHC that will be taking place, but I don't think it's going to fix anything. Those I know would still be treated and still be unable to contribute. Costs are too high for everything and I don't think the existing plan will fix it.
I agree that the existing plan is definitely not the perfect fix and it is not UHC. I'm arguing for UHC like they have in Canada, Australia, and other industrialized countries. We don't need a patchwork of fixes, we need all out reform in the US. And this may be too political, but I see a better chance of that from the left than from the right, although I doubt it will ever actually happen in the US. And that makes me very sad.
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I'm not really disagreeing, but I've never known anyone who was flat out refused. I've known several without insurance and they received care. I read about it happening and think it's horrible, but when someone in my real life has had this problem they have always received care. I honestly wonder if every single person in Canada (or any place with UHC) receives the care they think they should 100% of the time. Again, there are many reasons I am for UHC, but I get why some don't understand the bigger problem. I've never faced it, and I've never known anyone (with or without insurance) to face it.
But caring for the uninsured and passing the costs on to the insured is one of the reasons health care costs are spiraling out of control for everyone in the US and consuming a larger portion of our GDP than any other industrialized nation.
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Actually that's the case here too. I can name people very close to me who have had their lives saved in world-class hospitals despite being indigent, uninsured, and too young for Medicare. And because they were indigent, they did not have to pay one penny.
But under the current system, health care costs increase for all of us when the indigent and uninsured get that world class treatment. Under UHC, everyone still has access to high quality care, and health care costs are lower for everyone.
By contrast, I know nobody who died because treatment was denied or unavailable in the USA.While I don't know anyone who was turned away at a hospital when they were dying or in need of care and were not insured, I know several people who have declared bankruptcy due to health care bills, are not able to change jobs or become self-employed due to pre-existing conditions, or who have suffered life threatening complications due to not getting preventive care while uninsured.
Not to say we are perfect either. We have room for improvement. But it's not like we kick people into the street like road kill. People who aren't in favor of a single payor aren't heartless jerks, we just have other ideas of how to make targeted improvements. You know, not throw out the baby with the bathwater. It's hard to have an intelligent discussion when every disagreement is equated to heartlessness.But I guess I just don't understand when we have empirical proof that UHC works in numerous other industrialized nations by both lowering health care costs and improving health care delivery, why we just don't adopt that proven system in the US? Why do patchwork experimentation?
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Interesting. My dh's company was told that they will need to foot the health insurance bill for all employees working thirty hours per week or more. All those employees have now had their hours cut to twenty five per week.
But that's because Obamacare is not UHC. The democrats wanted UHC, but had to compromise with Obamacare to get any change to the current broken system.
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Well, obviously I can only speak for myself. Our health insurance is excellent, and I've been very happy with our coverage. I am not interested in a mandatory government health plan.
You don't say whether you have private insurance or you are covered through an employer. But in the first case, what if you or someone in your family developed a very serious medical condition or was in a terrible accident and therefore your rates increased to the point where you could no longer afford them? Perhaps the illness or accident even affects your families ability to pay for any insurance. Then what?
In the second case, what if you lose that job and can't find another one for an extended period of time, find another one that provides health insurance, or have a family member with a serious and expensive pre-existing condition that isn't covered under your new employer-provided insurance?
These are the situations that millions of Americans face everyday. You are very blessed to have excellent health insurance, but many others, through no fault of their own, are not. What are they supposed to do?
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But taxpayers are paying for those already. Paying for additional care for additional people - that will mean still more taxes, no? How can it not?
It's true that at first some of us may have to pay higher taxes in order to get UHC going. But no one will have to pay for private insurance or part of the costs of their employer-provided insurance. And employers will not have to pay for coverage for their employees and so may choose to instead shift that part of their compensation packages to higher wages. So those of who currently have good insurance will see higher wages and/or lower insurance costs to off-set the possible higher taxes.
And in the long run, for all of the reasons already discussed, and proven by empirical evidence in numerous industrialized nations, health care costs under UHC will decrease for everyone and therefore take fewer tax dollars.
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I know that's the argument for UHC... I just don't understand how that's going to work. It's already hard to find a doctor that accepts Medicare. Why? Because Medicare reimbursement rates are too low and there's too much paperwork involved. How is that going to work when all the patients have that same reimbursement rate?
Because under universal health care, virtually all of a doctor's business will come from the government. The doctors will have to accept patients to stay in practice and the government will have to set reasonable reimbursement rates to keep doctors practicing. Right now doctors make far more money from privately insured patients than medicare and medicaid patients, so they have no financial incentive to take medicare/medicaid patients. Of course there will always be the wealthy minority who can go outside the system and pay for whatever they want, including the private hospital room and the top-of-the-line experimental treatments.
Patients are still going to sue. They will still want the top-of-the-line experimental treatments that are super expensive. They will still want private rooms in the hospital, etc. We're entitled Americans, after all. :tongue_smilie:
Most countries with UHC have vastly different medical malpractice laws from the US and malpractice reform is always part of the discussion when UHC is considered.
So while I really, really hope that the new healthcare law (and potentially UHC, should we ever go there) helps make things better for everyone, I just can't see how that is possible. UHC works great in other countries, I see that. I just don't believe it would work here the same way.
And except for having a segment of the population that believes UHC is socialistic and therefore bad and that access to affordable and quality healthcare is not a basic human right, I really don't see how the US is so different from other industrialized nations with UHC. Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel when we already know what works?
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I'm just saying I don't see the cost of health care going down if we go to a single-payer system. :(
UHC would lower costs because the costs of the insurance companies would be removed, profit-incentives would be removed (reimbursement rates would be fixed), and everyone would have access to preventive care, instead of the current system we have where the insured pay higher costs to compensate for the uninsured accessing care. It's a fact that in countries with UHC, health care costs are significantly lower, and in the long run the same thing would happen in the US.
Of course the economic transition would not be easy and the costs would probably be higher up-front and many insurance company employees would lose their jobs, as someone mentioned. But under the current system, healthcare costs continue to spiral out of control and many people can't move, change jobs, or even start their own business because they are chained to their current health coverage and can't risk losing it.
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That was the same theory that founded Social Security - someday you will be old and unable to work, wouldn't you rather pay now and be guaranteed SS payments later? But now that system is going bankrupt and people of my generation are already viewing SS as a benefit we may not receive.
And you're right that the same thing will likely happen to medicaid if we can't bring the costs of health care down in this country. But there is no incentive in the current system to do so. Too many people are profiting from it. In countries with UHC, the greed portion of the equation has been removed and health care costs are lower for everyone.
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I've got a few questions about how UHC deals with system abusers.
Many people are on medicaid in America, and use it responsibly. But there are a few who abuse it. They don't care how much they're costing the government because they don't pay for it. They are the diabetics who make no effort to take care of themselves and go to the ER on a regular basis. Or the folks who don't have anything really wrong with them but like the attention and free food they get from the hospital. There are thousands of ways to abuse free health care.
Again - the vast majority of folks on medicaid don't do this - but those who do really rack up the bill. They don't take any responsibility because there is no cost to them. How does UHC handle this sort of situation? This is one argument I've heard against UHC, and I'm curious how it is solved.
Also - one of many things driving up the cost of health care is litigation. Doctors run all sorts of unnecessary tests because they're afraid of being sued. Is there some way countries with UHC deal with this?
(Because tone is hard to interpret on the internet - I am genuinely curious, and in no way trying to argue.)
I know that in at least one country with UHC (Japan) they deal with this at least in part by not paying for some things. For example, I had a co-worker here in the US that got very drunk on his birthday and climbed a high chain link fence and fell off of it, resulting in extensive head, neck, and dental injuries. It was all covered by our employer-provided health insurance, although he did have some co-pay costs. According to my sister who was living in Japan at the time, this would have not been covered at all by the government insurance. He would have been treated at the hospital, but billed for the costs because the accident was due to his inebriated state.
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But some day when you are old and retired you will benefit from it. Would you rather not pay now and risk not having any affordable coverage later when you might need it?
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Until recently with all the changes being rammed down - er - implemented, 90% of Americans had insurance, and most of the rest were in groups who hardly ever need expensive care (such as young, single adults) - and that is usually a temporary situation per individual. So no, it isn't the same as half of the people paying for the other half, and the ones paying the most having to pay still more since their own care isn't included in the deal.
It simply isn't true that 90% of Americans had coverage previously. I'm an economist that works with lots of health and medical related data and that is not the reality. My training is in statistics and as we all know, you can always find statistics somewhere to support your claims.
Also, simply because you have insurance in the US does not mean that you can afford to use or access the care you need or that pre-existing conditions will be covered when you need it. Here's an example from my own life. Good friends of ours spent three years in Australia and when they returned to the US, the husband immediately starting working for his old company and signed up and started paying for the group health insurance offered by his employer. One month later he was diagnosed with liver cancer and immediately started treatment. Unfortunately, he died three months later, leaving a wife and three young children. The insurance company did not pay a dime. Why? Because they said it was a pre-existing condition, and he had not been insured for the one year required to cover that particular pre-existing condition. Even though he didn't know he had liver cancer when he started his job, they determined it must have existed prior to his diagnosis given the advanced stage of the disease.
Someone mentioned they don't trust the government running the health insurance program and believe in free markets. But insurance companies have every incentive to insure healthy people and not insurance sick people in order to keep profits up. What happens when you lose your job (and insurance) when pregnant with a child who turns out to have multiple medical needs. Now try buying health insurance in the open market. Why would any insurance company sell it to you for a reasonable price? Your only hope is to find another job with health insurance that will at some point cover your child's pre-existing conditions. Or if you start running through all of your savings and assets, eventually you will probably be poor enough to qualify for government insurance.
All of us with insurance and paying for both that and cop-pays and non-covered care are already paying for those that don't have insurance and that is one of the reasons the cost is so high. My husband works in a hospital and EVERY SINGLE DAY treats uninsured patients. Someone has to pay, the hospital can only absorb so many lost $$$. So they pass the costs on to those with insurance and the insured all pay more. And when people don't have access to free or affordable primary care, the consequences of long neglected conditions costs a lot more than good preventive care.
Also, part of our health care expense comes from the insurance companies. Removing them from the equations removes part of the cost. Finally, if we had true universal health care, the costs would go down because just like for medicaid and medicare, reimbursement rates would be set by the government. The profit incentive in medicine would be removed. Health care workers would still be paid reasonable salaries to compensate for their training and work, but they wouldn't be compensated for doing things like ordering unnecessary procedures to improve their bottom line or ordering numerous diagnostic tests because they are afraid of being sued.
Health care costs less in countries with universal health care and that is why the government can afford to pay for it while still charging less in taxes. I wish we had universal health care instead of the new system, but the democrats had to compromise or we would have been where we ended up when Clinton tried to reform healthcare - right where we started.
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My son heard from his last school yesterday - accepted at Reed College. He also had good news in the mail from Grinnell - a $22K scholarship and air fare for him to attend one of the accepted student days in April. One of his grandmas in IA has offered to transport him between Grinnell and St. Paul if he wants to visit Macalester at the same time. He's been to both campuses, but it was during Spring Break last year, so he's only done tours and info sessions.
Best of luck to anyone still waiting!
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Lisa - Double congratulations to your son on acceptance to Oberlin AND the scholarship! It must feel great knowing his top choice is affordable.
Gretchen - Congratulations to your son on the CA state school acceptances. I hope you hear good news soon regarding scholarships.
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Catherine,
I'm sorry to hear about the wait list. Here's hoping he receives great news soon from the other two schools!
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Here's the link to the yahoo group for Village Home:
villagehome-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
I would also recommend watching the video on the front page of the Village Home website. I think it gives a great overview of the special place that is Village.
We travelled from Salem for four years and some people thought we were crazy. Although depending on where you live in the Portland metro area, the drive can be even longer. We knew people traveling further than we did, including from Hood River.
We still live in Salem, but my son stopped taking classes there when he was accepted into a special program for high school students at our local LAC (Village teachers wrote his letters of recommendation!). Many of the older teens at Village take CC classes, but with traveling from Salem and regular college classes, my son reluctantly gave up Village last year. He's still in touch with many of his teachers and friends, and we occasionally attend Village events. His private math teacher in Salem also teaches at Village, so he keeps up with all of the news and happenings.
Let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck!
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Congratulations to everyone who heard good news this week-end!
lisabees - Those are some amazing acceptances and I hope your son hears good news from Oberlin on Monday and gets a great FA package. My niece is a freshman at Haverford and absolutely loves it.
My son is only waiting on one more school. This week-end he had good news from Grinnell, Whitman, Lewis & Clark, and the honors college at the state U (full tuition scholarship!).
Good luck to everyone still waiting to hear about acceptances and FA packages. The finish line is in sight!
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We commuted an hour to Beaverton for four years so my child could take classes at Village Home. It is an absolutely wonderful place and I highly recommend it. I know several families there have students involved with dance, so if you join the Village Home yahoo group, you could ask for studio recommendations.
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So far my son has heard from four of his schools and is still waiting for word from the remaining four. He's been accepted to the state U, Willamette, University of Puget Sound, and Macelester, with merit scholarships at all of them. We received Macelester's FA package today and were very pleasantly surprised. They promise to meet the full need of all accepted students and award primarily need-based aid. But because our EFC from the FAFSA is fairly close to the COA, we weren't expecting much. However, he received two scholarships (including their top one), a grant (!), and work study (so no need to worry about personal spending $ if he doesn't find a summer job or gets an unpaid research position like last summer!).
Congratulations to everyone who has heard good news so far and good luck to all of those still waiting on acceptances and final aid packages!
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We used Analytical Grammar in middle school, but nothing formal in high school. We've never used a vocabulary program, but he did go through the "Direct Hits" books by Krieger the summer before the PSAT. He's always been a voracious reader, and I think that's what helped the most for the Reading and Writing sections of the PSAT and SAT.
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We're trying to finish up the school and student portions of the NM application this week-end, so we can pass it to the endorser/recommender to finish. For the student portion, if your child takes some college classes as a non-matriculated, non-degree seeking student, did you select not enrolled in college or enrolled part-time?
Also, for the grade level part of the extracurricular activities section, did your child only use grades 9-12, or did they include earlier grades if the activity started before high school?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
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It sounds like your daughter really enjoys the class and has a good instructor. Our YMCA has a similar class and I don't think there is anything wrong with mixing styles unless you or your daughter desires to learn only style.
My son has done karate for almost ten years and will be testing for his black belt at the end of the year. In his style, it is not at all unusual for children to wait a year or more for their first promotion, even though all students are at least seven years old. All classes are mixed ages, there are no children or adult classes, and the expectations for testing are exactly the same for adults and children. If my son is successful, he will be the first teen black belt in the 20+ year history of his dojo, so slow promotion is definitely the norm for his style. One-third of his test will be done entirely in Japanese and for another portion he will spar ten adult male black belts consecutively. So there are good reasons it took him so long to reach black belt level.
Although students know what is necessary for promotion, that is not the primary focus of the training. When taught correctly, there is so much more to martial arts than testing for the next level. Also, students are taught not to ask about promotion, rather the sensei will tell them when they are ready. For higher belts, he will often send them to another dojo in the association to be evaluated before testing. Training time and good attendance in no way guarantee that you will be allowed to test. You have to be absolutely solid on the test requirements and I have never been to a promotion where everyone passed.
If your daughter is enjoying class and learning and you are happy with the teacher otherwise, I wouldn't let the belt/stripe issue keep her from continuing.
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Is anyone familiar with either the SAT Spanish Subject test or the CLEP test for
Spanish? My senior ds did Spanish his first two years of high school, including a one month summer exchange program. Last year he simply didn't have time with everything else on his plate. However, he just added two schools to his college list that require test results or college credits equivalent to two years of high school foreign language for homeschooled students. He would need either a 500 on the SAT or a 40 on the CLEP. Obviously he will have to review and study before the test, but if anyone knows which score might be easier to obtain, that would be very useful. He has strong scores in all of the other required tests, so we're really just looking to meet this requirement, and are not worried about scoring high.
Thank you!
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I think you should do what works best for you. One of the beauties of homeschooling is flexibility. Several of my son's friends waited until 19 to go to college and were accepted everywhere they applied. Many homeschoolers do transcripts by subject rather by year and like public schools, award credit for classes done prior to high school. So it wouldn't even have to be obvious that you took an extra year. Take your time, pursue both your academic and extracurricular interests, and apply when you feel ready.
s/o Why is your universal healthcare a love?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
:iagree::iagree: