Forum Post: Occupy Health Care
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 5, 2011, 11:35 a.m. EST by mfarhm
(0)
from Roswell, GA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Who feels that they are a slave to the health care system, overpaying thousands of dollars per month to receive hundreds of dollars per year worth of health treatment. We are kept in this bondage by fear of something happening to us or worse to our children. What if we broke the bonds of fear and all or at least a large percentage of people in the system opted out... stopped paying. How long until that crippled the insurance companies and hospitals and forced them to drop premiums and stop gouging us for our basic need? How can we make this happen?
Just heard that nurses are talking about a walkout due to a hospital trying to cut costs. I wonder how much the doctors make.
When one of my kids was born the doctor didn't show up until the actual birth was happening. He still charged his full rate. I was poor and couldn't afford the fees but he was good enough to hire me to work on his house as a carpenter in exchange for what I owed. Things were a lot cheaper back then but I did appreciate the doctor's willingness to barter with me.
The first most important thing we must get rid of is the multiple healthcare payors since now everyone must pay for health insurance. I cannot stress this enough right now.
I needed surgery a year ago, without insurance it would have cost over 100k, we may be overpaying for basic treatment, but when shit happens, it's good to have the insurance
We are done with health insurance, I paid $6000 for premiums this year and $5600 out of pocket for my family. We are young , in our 20's, and healthy but chose to have a baby in the US. This is sick. I made $33k gross (no pay for my brief maternity leave; forced to leave a neonate with a stranger so I can get back to work) How am I supposed to live like this? We could choose to put the $500 premium each month into an account for healthcare for my family. When we need a doctor, we negotiate at the register. We can call different clinics and compare prices before choosing a doctor. It is a gamble but I am willing to call their bluff. The odds are in my favor; even if I lose the bet and have to file bankruptcy due to a medical crisis I won't be any worse off than I am right now. They have more to lose than I. Pray that my boss doesn't read this - I might lose my job; my number one client is one of the biggest health insurance providers in the US. The way I see it, I work hard for them and can barely get by on the crumbs that fall off their table.
Oh you make me laugh so hard! I'm spitting iced tea on my keyboard! God man, ask a Mexican!
I can't even afford the co-pay amounts. I used to work with the elderly and I have heard that the highest cost of a person's medical care comes from the last two years of life. Once upon a time pneumonia used to be called "the old man's friend" and now we cure it with antibiotics so they can remain bedridden.
My personal choice is to die of an illness like pneumonia in a couple days than to linger in a bed for two years.
If you want to fix the healthcare system in the US the first thing you need to get rid of is medical lawsuits.
Medical lawsuits are legalized thievery.
Lawsuits have resulted from unethical and poor medical care by doctors who must practice according to the dictates of the insurance companies and health management organizations. In other words, your medical care is only as good as big insurance wants it to be. Most doctors today are under contract with a big corp. Secondly, lawsuits are a result of unsafe medications being prescribed due to lack of independent clinical trial oversight. Clinical trials are typically conducted by the drug maker or a laboratory funded by the drug company. Hmmmm that sounds fishy! Vioxx for example killed well over 30,000 Americans ( that's just the reported stats) and yet Merck is still alive and kicking despite all those lawsuits. But, they passed those losses onto the consumer. Americans taking ' new' medications are really guinea pigs for the drug companies and once enough complaints are filed with the FDA ( which amounts to hundreds), then the FDA will do an investigation and they may take the drug off the market. But, again, that's not until the drug has harmed or killed thousands.
We must also ban direct to consumer advertising for products that the consumer can't even purchase without a doctor's approval. Why advertise to us if we are not qualified to decide if we need the medication? Well, because it works and it works because your doctor will most likely give you what you ask for as long as there isn't an obvious conflict ( like a man asking for a birth control pill).
We are the most unhealthy nation in the industrialized world and anyone who thinks that donating toward research foundations is a good thing is wasting their money. The American Cancer Society doesn't want you to be free of cancer- after all the drug companies fund them. The American Diabetic Assoc. recommends foods that are bad for diabetics.
That's just a few things that have contributed to lawsuits. Granted there will always be someone who abuses the system and unjustly sues. But, the bad medicine being practiced in this country fuels the opportunity to do so.
works for me, how about for the people who will get sick or even die.
heart medication or whatever they need daily.
I doubt we could get many to just stop paying their insurance.
but don't stop thinking.
What do you mean? I have opted out. I just don't go. They don't care. The insurance company still takes money out of my check. They pay less and less. And if you don't pay then they take you to court and sue you or sell it to a collector who takes you to court and take it out of your check.
You can have the best health care in the world as long as you can afford it. This is ridiculous. They can either lower the health care costs or open up the borders so that the rest of us can seek treatment elsewhere. They can cut the crap on letting us acquire medication and bring it back from other countries. I'm sure that sounded much more blunt than I intended. This really angers me.
You don't need to open up the border.
Like I said. It'd be cheaper to get a flight ticket to Mexico and back, go see a doctors, stay in a resort afterwards and buy some margaritas than pay for healthcare here in the US.
I phrased that without thinking. I mean let us go across the border and get not just treatment but medication. Grandparents are no longer making choices between medication and food.
For a New medical system: The LaRouche Movement
http://www.larouchepac.org
LaRouche Movement
http://www.larouchepac.org
http://www.bilderberg.org/
"...somebody has to take governments' place, and business seems to me to be a logical entity to do it." - David Rockefeller - Newsweek International, Feb 1 1999. "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of state and corporate power" - Benito Mussolini "...the world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not themselves behind the scenes." - Benjamin Disraeli - British PM - 'Coningsby' pub. 1844 "It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit" Noel Coward "The Treaty of Rome, which brought the Common Market into being, was nurtured at Bilderberg meetings." George McGhee, former US Ambassador to West Germany "I don't think it's true to say that we want to keep it [Bilderberg] out [of the public consciousness], we never wanted to get it in. We don't encourage people to mention it in the mainstream press because we don't encourage idle speculation about what we do. ...... We forbid individual attendees from giving press meetings at our conferences, and we do that not because we're secrecy mad, but because we want to control the politicians who come." Martin Taylor - Secretary General, Bilderberg - interviewed by Jon Ronson for the UK Channel 4 TV programme 'Secret Rulers of the World' transmitted 27Jun01 "There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge'. H. M. Queen Elizabeth II (in conversation with royal butler Paul Burrell) Daily Mirror Definition of a Power Elite: 'A group of men, similar in interest and outlook, shaping events from invulnerable positions behind the scenes.' C. Wright Mills 'The Power Elite' "The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison, which alienates their possessor from the community" Carl Jung: 'Modern Man in Search of a Soul' "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." President Eisenhower - farewell address to the nation - Jan 16th 1961 "What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than a small one" Adolf Hitler: 'Mein Kampf' "Their motivation is, that the elite shall be able to act in secrecy. It is not because they are evil, but because they believe in what they are doing. International capital wants to remove all obstacles to globalisation - and all obstacles to the right of capital to act freely without constrictions such as regard for the environment, social responsibility or human rights. Demands from local democracies are such obstacles." Birger Schlaug, Swedish Green party "Globalisation is the new Totalitarianism" - Vandana Shiva, NEF Peoples' Summit, Birmingham 1998
I'm 56 years old and have used maybe $200 in my entire life for health care with a couple of doctor visits. I'm now being forced to pay $70 a week to keep my healthcare through my employer. I am seriously think about dropping because I could get help from the VA, but it's like a 50 mile drive. It all sucks.
I'd never pay for healthcare here in the US.
It'd be cheaper to go to Mexico and get a doctor there.