Uh... What? (American Healthcare!)

[KimbaFoxNatsume]

Monday I contacted my Medicaid plan and was told the MMR vaccine was covered. As a baby of a few months old, I had a reaction to a vaccine and didn't receive any more on a routine basis. As measles is making its rounds again, I decided to get protected.

I went to Walgreens and was told my insurance would only pay for it at my primary-care doctor. So I call the shithole of an office (where one of the doctors got kicked out for prescribing too many pain pills) only to be told some confusing story that "the insurance companies" (all of them?) told them they are not covering the vaccine. I'm not willing to fight with them because I've done it too much in the past, and I can't afford the $100 shot, so I guess I'll just get measles.

 

[Cottontail]

Sounds like a case of "We don't want to go to the trouble of billing Medicaid, so no."

 

[KimbaFoxNatsume]

Sounds like a case of "We don't want to go to the trouble of billing Medicaid, so no."

I dunno. Walgreens takes Medicaid. They give me my pills and flu shots no problem. My doctor's office obviously takes Medicaid, and didn't ask me for any personally-identifiable information, only asking if I had been in contact with someone with measles. I told them my plan just told me it was covered, but apparently they weren't convinced.

 

[ShippoFox]

the american healthcare system is a total embarrassment

 

[Cottontail]

the american healthcare system is a total embarrassment

Fortunately, we've got a governing party with an embarrassment fetish. :-/

 

[caitianx]

the american healthcare system is a total embarrassment

Yes.
The American Health Care System is "Shit".
I am just about out of my Lisinopril high blood pressure medication, and my doctor's office did not relay the "refill" order to the pharmacy I go to to purchase my medications and my incontinence supplies.
Tomorrow morning I have to call my doctor's office and haggle to get my Lisinopril.
The same bullshit is what my 57 year-old younger brother goes through just to keep getting his necessary HUMALOG Insulin for his Diabetes.
Republicans constantly piss all over socialized medicine, but in reality, compared to the shit my brother and I go through here in Derry, New Hampshire, socialized medicine "works", and everyone is covered.

 

[Calico]

And I will never understand why people here will continue to be against universal healthcare. I get it, they grew up with capitalism so they are fine with having to pay for their own health insurance and seem to find it acceptable to go bankrupt or in debt when you get into an accident and have a $100,000 medical bill after deductible. Even my own mother thinks this is okay and says you just have to sell your house then and that's life. Then there are people who fall in between, they make too much to get "free" health insurance but make too little to even afford it.

 

[Sheepies]

I think there's so many people against universal health care because of a universal hatred of taxation.

Also there's an alarmingly common thought process of "I'm covered and don't care if so and so isn't. Why should I have to pay for their healthcare?" Or because of a minority that abuses the government for free services.

Health insurance is a MASSIVE scam with a ton of sway over the government because of their money.

A lot of people get insurance through their jobs and don't care about those that don't.

I got royally screwed when I had a major accident at 19 when I had recently lost Medicaid coverage. No one would cover me. Not even now I can get help for that because of my "preexisting condition". I'm still paying off those bills from 5 years ago. I could get health insurance separately, but it'd cost a third of my paycheck and still not completely cover my medical costs.

I'm lucky as hell I live next to Mexico. I could have lost my hand to an animal bite and my boyfriend would have been hospitalized for not being able to afford his insulin if it weren't for being able to cross for medical assistance.

Get this: Novolog costs $900 a vial uninsured in the US and requires a prescription. In Mexico it's $39 over the counter for the exact same stuff in the same amount. Same manufacturer. Insulin is made by modified e coli with a gene to produce insulin inserted. Then it's allowed to grow and continually harvested. It shouldn't cost $900 that's bat sh*t insane for a medicine some people literally need to live.

F*ck US healthcare.

 

[Traemo]

I think the real issue is the perception that with universal healthcare two things will happen: taxes will have to skyrocket to cover it (likely based on what it currently costs for most medical stuff with the overly inflated prices that can be charged) and that the quality of care will plummet (the lack of competition, don't you know).
Realistically, if the US could transition to a single-payer, universal system AND get a handle on the frankly absurd and extortionist pricing schemes currently in effect (maybe revoke the law that make Healthcare a For Profit industry?) it should have minimal impact on taxes. As much as it offends many people, most government service programs are actually more cost-effective then their commercial counterparts. The other step, and frankly the harder one, is going to be determining what is a necessary and/or appropriate procedure and what should be classified as optional, uncovered procedures: reconstruction after a major accident, yeah; bigger tits to seduce the boss, no.
Quality and innovation are a different problem - there are some demonstrable issues with current universal systems - but overall, they don't tend to be any worse than the mess we've got here. In many ways they're better: don't have the cash for that preventative check? No worries, it's covered and what do you know, we found something and now we can treat it (also covered) before it becomes a major threat and expense and emergency.

 

[Calico]

I think there's so many people against universal health care because of a universal hatred of taxation.

Also there's an alarmingly common thought process of "I'm covered and don't care if so and so isn't. Why should I have to pay for their healthcare?" Or because of a minority that abuses the government for free services.

Health insurance is a MASSIVE scam with a ton of sway over the government because of their money.

A lot of people get insurance through their jobs and don't care about those that don't.

I got royally screwed when I had a major accident at 19 when I had recently lost Medicaid coverage. No one would cover me. Not even now I can get help for that because of my "preexisting condition". I'm still paying off those bills from 5 years ago. I could get health insurance separately, but it'd cost a third of my paycheck and still not completely cover my medical costs.

I'm lucky as hell I live next to Mexico. I could have lost my hand to an animal bite and my boyfriend would have been hospitalized for not being able to afford his insulin if it weren't for being able to cross for medical assistance.

Get this: Novolog costs $900 a vial uninsured in the US and requires a prescription. In Mexico it's $39 over the counter for the exact same stuff in the same amount. Same manufacturer. Insulin is made by modified e coli with a gene to produce insulin inserted. Then it's allowed to grow and continually harvested. It shouldn't cost $900 that's bat sh*t insane for a medicine some people literally need to live.

F*ck US healthcare.

Living close to the Mexican border is sure a privilege. Maybe everyone should live close to there and the rest of the US would be all empty while the near Mexican borders would be very populated. We would have a lot of vacant buildings and a lot more ghost towns.

 

[Calico]

I have heard of stories of people abusing "free" healthcare because they have a mental illness and they need their medicine to live a normal life to be a normal functional human being. If they lost their free healthcare, they would lose their job and be unemployed and homeless because they couldn't afford their medicine. These are the people that would slip in between the cracks. So they have to purposely quit their jobs when they start making too much or purposely work less hours and working part time to keep their free healthcare. These are the people that also continue living on welfare or disability whatever you want to call it. I doubt this is what they really want but they have no choice or else they won't be a functional human being without their pills. Heck some people will even die without their medicine if they have asthma or seizures or blood clot disease, diabetes so if they don't make enough to afford their meds, they are forced to abuse free healthcare.

 

[PCPilot]

I really think that banking the money I spend on insurance premiums would work far better.

That's called self-insurance, and costs a lot more than you think.

 

[SpankyUnicorn]

Most Americans support a single-payer healthcare system. Unfortunately, the Wall Street oligarchy that owns the country sees things very differently. Furthermore, having insurance in the United States under the for-profit doesn't necessarily mean affordable coverage:

Does anyone remember when the simple fact of having insurance meant medical care was actually covered? I've paid insurance premiums for years only to pay out of pocket for 85% or more of my healthcare costs. Its seems to be more like a pyramid scheme than anything else.

Indeed. I know some people whose deductibles are so high that they will pay for most of their healthcare costs out of pocket unless they are dealing with something serious like cancer. They may as well call it "disaster insurance" while they are at it. Furthermore, when it comes to people like myself with outstanding coverage, such coverage could be lost if we ended up losing our jobs for some reason. The superiority of some sort of universal healthcare has been proven in other countries, and the "arguments" we hear and read against it are propaganda from the private insurance industry that would have something to lose if the majority of us had our way.