Thursday, July 12, 2007

Elitist Perk or a Medical Model That Could Work for the Rest of Us?

Here's a quick Quiz....Who in this country gets unlimited doctor visits to the physician of their choice, unlimited hospital stays, FULL prescription coverage, free physical therapy, eye care, dental, lab & x-ray coverage, with NO DEDUCTIBLE and NO CO-PAYS, for themselves and their ENTIRE family, for LIFE, for only $35/month?

Is it our military veterans?....nope

Is it our country's most vulnerable, the young and the elderly?....wrong again

How about civil servants like firemen and police?....no way...

It's the 535 members of the U.S. Congress, and a select few in the upper levels of the executive and judicial branches of government!!

In America, where almost 20% of the children live below the poverty line and thousands of people die each year because of lack of affordable health insurance, is Congress's medical coverage a fair, warranted perk or a feasible model that we should ask Congress to extend to the rest of us?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's funny how insurance companies always complain about increasing costs and doctors fees as the reason to increase premiums while their profits soar through the roof.

One insurance company stated that 10%-30% of their costs is administrative, but insurance companies include profit in this number. That's a lot of profit at the expense of the uninsured!

Medicare's admin costs run at about 1%!! hmmmm...and their doctors get paid pretty well...so I find it hard to blame the doctors.

Anonymous said...

Ultimately, the crux of the problem lies in the conflict of interest. You can't have a system that serves two masters equally. Right now, the health insurance companies claim to serve those covered by their plan. But since they are publicly traded stocks, the system will always serve the CEOs and shareholders first. Always.

We need to end this business of publicly traded insurance companies.

Anonymous said...

What is up with you liberals always being against the poor guy who is trying to make a profit?

kestrel9000 said...

So what, then, did SurgeBobSquareHead mean when he told his audience in Staunton, "I don't have better health coverage than you?"

Anonymous said...

Shamoo..your arguement is such a tired, outdated and disproven one.

Here's the point and I hope it gets through to you but alas, I'm afraid it won't....

No Progressive, Democrat or Liberal (what ever name you choose to call them), that I know opposes the concept of profit. (contrary to what your handlers want you to believe).

In fact, many of them, myself included, are successful business folks who probably understand and accept the concept of profit better than you do.

Our arguement is this, and it stems from the fact that progessives in general care about the COMMON GOOD of the people and this country.
Unlike your crew and their corporate cronies, who are notoriously greedy and selfish.

These people, and their corporate puppetmasters, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars using lobbyists and other means to slowly eroded a domestic policy that was supposed to be "for the people, to a poicy that is more and more "for the corporaion."
(can anyone say Abramov, Delay or "K" Street Project?).

don't miss this now...here it comes....
We believe in profit, but NOT in EXCESSIVE profit to the detriment of the health of this nation and of the common good of its people.

Finnegan hit the nail on the head when he mentioned the conflict of interest. Most businesses and industries can be run efficiently by the bean counters.

But not healthcare where lives and quality of life are taking a backseat to shareholder profits in this country.

Does my father, who has lung cancer, not deserve a surgery that will extend his life maybe an extra couple of years, because the insurance company deemed it too expensive for a procedure that won't save his life?

That's two more years with his kids and grandkids..

Should the elderly on fixed incomes have to choose between paying for their medications or paying the electric bill? (medications that the could buy from online pharmacies in Canada for pennies on the dollar until big pharma forced Congress to stop that.)

Does the CEO of ANTHEM deserve a multimillion dollar bonus for "showing a strong profit" that was achieved by increasing premiums, denying payouts and procedures and dropping high-risk patients?

That is not just "making a profit" as you say, it's insatiable greed, to feed a shareholder monster. Greed that sometimes destroys the lives of others.

No wonder EVERY OTHER developed nation has dropped this style of health care delivery system!!!

Do you think no one is making a profit in the other developed nations that have comprehensive, universal coverage?

Do you think that the pharmaceutical company that sells zocor for $5 in Canada and Mexico versus $75 here, is not making a profit?

If so,you need to head back to Sea World and I hope you never, ever get sick. I can't imagine what the surgical and drug bill would be for a 1 ton beast!!

Unknown said...

Let's go back to non-profit hospitals, grandma's homemade remedies, and rubbing a little dirt on it. Besides the excessive profit taking of the health care industry there is another big problem in health care. People go to the doctor too much. Every little ache or pain that crosses their cereberal cortex, they run to the emergency room or doctor's office. Don't get me wrong serious medical conditions should be attended to immediately, but we need to put a system in place that penalizes people who take advantage of it.

Anonymous said...

Why don't you write a novel rapanui? In effect what you said in your "liberal" pile of words is, that you don't have a quick and easy answer. See, when people ask, do you like socialized medicine,... I say no. You write a freaking book.