http://www.seiu.org/2009/09/domestic-violence-victims-have-a-pre-existing-condition.php
This is just awesome. In 8 states: Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming (9 until Arkansas passed a law) as well as DC, women who have been the victims of domestic violence cannot get health insurance because it is considered a preexisting condition. What do all you conservatives who criticize Islams treatment of women say now? How much rape and battery goes unreported because women are afraid of being unable to receive coverage later?
Also, what other legal factors are considered preexisting conditions? Child abuse? Rape victim?
Whelp, Max "The Senator from United Health And Jack Abramoff" Baucus released the finance committee's version of the health bill which he cowrote with members of the insurance industry and which he trimmed all things objectionable to republicans. And guess what? Everyone hates it except the industry. The douchebag didn't get one republican vote.
How do you even form a senate committee on health care with the 6 people highest paid by the industry? Do they expect us to believe that taking bribes from someone makes you more knowledgeable in their field of expertise?
Max Baucus belongs to what I like to call the Diane Feinstein school of politics. It also includes Bill Ritter, Nancy Pelosi, Ken Salazar, Michael Bennet, Jared Polis, and many, many others. It's basically a philosophy where you get elected by a very narrow margin, you get into office and proceed to literally do everything you can to piss off every single voter as much as possible whether they are in your base or not and yet for some reason they keep reelecting you either because the local party bosses rig primaries and your other choices are Jack Corporate from the Republican party and Freddy Hitler from the Constitution party. eccch!!!
Obama should just make the case that for-profit healthcare is a national emergency that should be defined as part of the commons (and it is) and should pass single payer with a non-profit private insurer component (a la the netherlands) via executive order and just bypass congress altogether. I know it's undemocratic and perhaps unamerican but what could be more so than letting the corrupt retards who get elected and don't represent anyone other than corporate and religious interests design and pass reform themselves.
Oooh, and apart from individual insurance not covering pregnancy since it's "optional" in most states, having a caesarian section is also considered a preexisting condition which makes you uninsurable.
EDIT: correction, the policy of blue cross/blue shield is that if you are over 40 or choose to be sterilized, then it's not a preexisting condition.
The Cultural Context of Health Care
So, health care has been a big topic on the forums recently. With the whole world watching America to see where it goes with health reform, some issues, which contribute heavily to the efficiency of a health system, are routinely ignored for more cliche rhetoric or talking points.
My thoughts on health reform have been fairly consistent. By focusing on the state vs market aspect, both the left and the right in America have essentially doomed whatever reform to the same problems that exist today. Studies routinely show that rather than comprehensive understandings of the healthcare debate, people break along partisan lines, leaving little room for pragmatism or compromise, and showing that the ideology of how a government should provide health care seems to be more important to the public than the actual merits of a particular system.
Enter: A recent LiveScience article:
Why Healthcare Will Always Cost a Fortune
Americans get sick more. Why? Some argue that rather than an effective healthcare system, the United States has a "disease care" system, whereby far too many people are sedentary and eat poorly, leading to obesity and other health issues (obesity, in turn, raises the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, and other diseases). Add smoking into the mix — the elimination of it would cause U.S. life expectancy to rise significantly.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would agree. The agency says these bad and avoidable habits are the underlying cause of half of the country's deaths.
The key data to support this: While the U.S. life expectancy is 78, it is 80 in the UK, 81 in Canada, and 83 in Japan, according to the World Health Organization. We're even behind Cuba. Preston says this longevity gap, as it's known, is due mostly to higher rates of heart disease and cancer among middle-age Americans.
...
Regardless of Washington can break from business as usual and pass meaningful and effective healthcare reform, my money is on Americans continuing to abuse their bodies, and those of their children who'll tend to eat what's put in front of them, with highly processed foods, soft drinks by the big gulp, and a host of other hard-to-break bad habits. Until the people rise up, literally off the couch and figuratively to take care of themselves — health care vs. disease care — we can all expect healthcare to cost a fortune.
http://www.livescience.com/health/090922-healthcare-costs.html
So, the issue and the costs of healthcare are not a byproduct, necessarily, of the American system, but rather of the American lifestyle.
Full disclosure, I do support public health for some social safety net reasons that are outside of cost concerns, but ultimately, I don't feel it is important whether or not the government runs things or corporations (everyone is corrupt, lol), but rather, people need affordable and accessible care. If it is a way of life that is preventing this, that is the issue that needs to be tackled.
(I get there is some overlap between this, the soda tax, and other healthcare threads. Feel free to merge them [as if you cared of my opinion on that], I was just looking to get some views by getting the title on the top of the page)
Originally posted by RocasAtollAlso, they basically have no way to determine value.
In a free market system, they most definitely do since it will cost them business if they gain a reputation for being dicks.Government doesn't have a competitive need to be efficient, or to be entirely accountable for their actions.
Originally posted by RocasAtoll
In a free market system, they most definitely do since it will cost them business if they gain a reputation for being dicks.
Originally posted by RocasAtoll
Government doesn't have a competitive need to be efficient, or to be entirely accountable for their actions.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Only if there are good alternatives. If all companies are dicks, and they prevent new companies from succeeding, then people will have no choice.
Originally posted by King Kandy
If the system isn't working, politicians reform it or else they are voted out of office.
Originally posted by King Kandy
On top of that, the idea that the government won't do it's job well is just plain contradicted by the fact that most European government plans are doing just fine.
There's also the fact taxes are exorbitant in those countries.
Originally posted by RocasAtoll
Except Denmark, which is about collapse, except England, which has lines of people waiting for care and hardly any accountability for doctors, etc. Look at Canada, which is the closest to us, now want to switch to a both private and public option since their government run healthcare is so inadequate.There's also the fact taxes are exorbitant in those countries.
Do you have any proof the British system is that messed up? I have seen it said many times that it is terrible but every actual British person I have met has been fine with it. Recently 92% in a survey said they were quite satisfied with the service.
Canada is switching to a system that is commonly used in almost all Euro countries. How this is some kind of failure baffles me.