Forum Post: Death Panels Do Exist! They Are The Insurance Companies
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 9, 2011, 11:18 p.m. EST by JohnsonJaimes
(260)
from Sanibel, FL
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Don't Let a bureaucrat get between you and your doctor! You've heard it before, you'll hear it again, but guess what? The bureaucrat is already there in the form of an insurance rep patently denying services, procedures, or tests. Don't believe this mantra from the (far) right side. Profit should not be part of health. Health care should be a right. People shouldn't have to choose between food and overinflated drugs from legal pushers. I myself have put off going to doctors because I couldn't afford to.
You have hit the nail on the head of this issue. Health insurance companies have always been FOR PROFIT DEATH PANELS. If keeping you healthy is not profitable you die.
It really pisses me off to see millions of dollars in advertising on TV right now inducing older Americans to join one Medicare funded private plan or another. Those are tax dollars being spent by insurance companies to get people to give them more tax dollars that they will then give to their executives in huge year end bonuses.
Quality of US medical is ranked low by World Health Organization compared to other industrial nations, with the cost being the highest.
Retail cost of US medical is ridiculously high (exclusive to many). When insurers do pay, they really only have to pay a small fraction of retail. But the cost of medical insurance is based on the retail price (exclusive to many). An uninsured individual is usually expected to pay the retail (impossible). A crime against humanity is being committed every day, while medical insurance CEOs getting millions (highest $102,000,000/year).
It is not about the pay to the medical workers, or the cost of research (false old argument). It is about the billions & billions of dollars stolen by the rotten corporate system. Big corporations bought medical, sold shares, and they don't care if you die.
Thank you for making sense, and supporting your opinion with a couple of facts. What you say is true. While being uninsured i have had to pay full price for hospital services. How does a $9800 bill for acute sinusitis sound. How about $2800 for a case of flu/bronchitis. I am still paying these down after years! I now have insurance, but I wouldn't call it "healthcare". Last year went in the hospital for two weeks, total bill 180,000 without surgery. They want me to pay 10%. They insurance only had to pay about half. Why can't regular people get that break. Why can't our government negotiate the price of drugs like other countries do? Oh wait, is it because politicians roll over for big business to rub their bellies with wads of cash?
Hi Johnson, Sorry to hear about your illness, and the ripoff by insurance/medical complex. Agree, politicians are paid for their propagation of this crime against humanity. Big corporations destroy everything they touch (medical, housing, education, dealing food futures, assimilating water rights worldwide). I need surgery on both shoulders, and am planning to get it done overseas. This OWC campaign is the best thing we have going, as it is spreading awareness. Best Regards, Nevada
"Profit should not be part of health". AGREE!!!
"A pre-existing condition is a risk with extant causes that is not readily compensated by standard, affordable insurance premiums. Pre-existing condition exclusions by the insurance industry are meant to cope with adverse selection by potential customers. Such exclusions have become a topic in the health care reform debate in the United States in 2009 and 2010. Several surveys over that period have shown a very strong opposition to the exclusions and support for banning them."
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 : Can a plan deny benefits for chronic illnesses or injuries, like carpal tunnel syndrome, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer using a preexisting condition exclusion?
It depends on whether you received medical advice, care, diagnosis, or treatment within the 6 months prior to enrolling in a new employer’s plan. If you did, you can be subject to a preexisting condition exclusion.
I respectfully disagree about the "six months prior". They dig much deeper than that when faced with having to pay out large for something major. I was denied by services, tests, and a biopsy when I was diagnosed with possible lymphoma by my primary. Luckily for me (but not really) the economy tanked, and I qualified EVENTUALLY for assistance. I am a self-employed carpenter. I had to be less than broke before I was "granted" a biopsy. It's pretty hard to get the fair treatment you need when the big companies with their lobbyists and super-pacs write their own rules for no ones benefit but their s and the shareholders. thank you for your comment. J.J.
My mother was diagnosed with leukemia in her early 20s. So I know all about how insurance companies deal with cancer patients. Being a single mother can be hard enough, when you add in cancer and how insurance companies operate it can make raising a family on your own hell. We where perpetually stuck in debit, constantly worried about losing every thing. Things got so bad when I started middle school I volunteered to get a job at the age of 13 and I worked at a steel rod warehouse for three summers. My mother was not sitting around collecting food stamps and welfare. I can honestly say for about 65% of my childhood my mother worked a full time job and a part time or full time second job. To this day I'm pissed off about that. My mother should have NEVER, EVER had to work two jobs because insurance companies are allowed to write off cancer as a pre-existing condition.
If more people only knew how screwed up everything is these protests would grow by leaps and bounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLc_iNw-6Gw What I think of America's health care system.
Sorry to say but even traditional research (and hence medical training) isn't incorruptible to monetary influence in the healthcare industry.
So even a 'right' to healthcare doesn't guarantee you'll receive the best treatment.
Become informed on the therapies advised as well as alternative treatments available. And more importantly seek multiple opinions.
So true. So true. For those who don't have health care coverage they have already been to the death panel they just didn't realize it.
It's tragedy that our country does not have Universal Health when it spends 16% of it's GDP on health care MORE than countries that have universalized health care. Tragedy !!!
So a doctor, after 4 years of college, 3 years of medical school, 2 years residency, 2 years of specialty, hundred of thousands of dollars of education debt, working for I don't know how many years of working for almost nothing to become established Doctors shouldn't charge for their services? or;
after spending millions of dollars, years of development and testing, employing I don't know how many people who are able to provide for their families, drug companies shouldn't be able to make money, pay the stockholders who put their money at risk should not be able to make a profit.
doesn't sound reasonable to me
In Canada advanced education is free. No huge loans to make a wage slave out of you. Also doctors are paid incentives to better their patients health (lose weight, quit smoking, etc.) on top of their base pay. Doctors in these socialized medical systems make a very good living, and i have worked on their vacation homes here in Florida. They can afford their taxes, and own 2nd. or 3rd. homes, and travel. What is unreasonable???
Wow Canada sounds great. That is why when the world 1% get sick go to Canada for treatment. Wait a minute, they come here that's weird, if Canadian doctors are so good?
I've been there, and it is great
You ever been sick there and have to wait months to be seen by, not a doctor but a PA. There is a reason traffic for medical care is one way, South!
I've got news for you, it's like that here if you don't have "Cadillac" insurance, OR pay an extra fee to your doctor to become a "preferred" patient and by-pass the regular schmucks. What you said is BS. You only wait that long for elective services. When i went there anyone can see a Dr. (even tourists like me) without a wait, and without going broke.
No it is not BS, actually do some research. If you have cancer in Canada you are more likely to die than you are in the US due to lack of care. Please stop spreading false information.
I used to live near the Canadian border and I watched others and actually went myself a few times across that border to procure medical care and medications.
Research is good, but experience is better. The likelihood of dying of cancer, depending on the type is actually about the same in the US as it is in Canada. The treatment and results all depend on the same things.
As for the arguments about investors 'risking' funds, I present that investing is a gamble which the investor enters with full knowledge of the possibility of failure.
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I know. I have a prescription that would be $1500 a month if it were not for "insurance". I have to take it for the rest of my life. The profit is not in any cure, but in the "treatment" of the symptoms. What happened to doctors like Jonas Salk?
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