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47007. judithathome - 3/27/2017 10:31:42 PM It's EXACTLY like that!! 47008. Trillium - 3/28/2017 12:15:48 AM Bernie Sanders is asking for single payer, but it will need to be different from what happened in Vermont when he advocated for single-payer there. (Basically, it didn't turn into single-payer; there were all sorts of complications).
People need to be discussing what has to happen to make an expansion of Medicare workable.
2014/Politico: Why Single Payer Died in Vermont
l2015 Boston Globe: Costs Derail Vermont Single Payer Health Plan
2016 Daily Beast: Bernie Sanders' Single Payer Health Plan Failed in Vermont
I was enormously relieved when my spouse finally got into Medicare, but it requires supplemental insurance to actually cover all his issues.
Medicare for All won't be a panacea. There will be holes. But people should discuss where those holes are going to exist, and agree to disagree on the imperfections.
Both Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Humana have withdrawn from the major metropolitan areas of Tennessee and are no longer available. Also, ACA would cost me more than I earn in a month, right now. Every year enormous amounts of time and effort are wasted in trying to figure out the latest changes in medical insurance.
I'd prefer my insurance were "portable", individual, not tied to any workplace -- but that costs a fortune. 47009. Ms. No - 3/28/2017 2:05:24 AM Yes -- but it shouldn't. It doesn't in other countries with less than a 5th of our wealth. We already pay more as a percentage of our GDP than any other industrialized nation and we get less.
I think if we stopped having insurance tied to employment we'd get a lot more movement on this.
I also think that if the folks on capitol hill had to make due with the smallest/cheapest plan available for themselves and their families, we'd see quicker and better action on healthcare reform.
There's no excuse for not having universal coverage. We're going to pay for it one way or another -- whether it's through exorbitant costs for emergency medicine for the indigent, or the toll of having a sicker population overall. People need to check their ideological high-horses at the door and quit acting like healthcare is something you ought to earn the privilege to. 47010. arkymalarky - 3/28/2017 2:33:37 AM Amen! The determination of the richest people in the world to Target our country to monetize, privatize and corporatize is killing us and quickly reducing us to the least successful industrialized country on the planet. Medicare works if it's paid for based on ability to pay and fair taxes. 47011. judithathome - 3/28/2017 3:33:01 AM We have Medicare and TriCare, the retired military health care...we don't even have to pay co-pays. And we never mention to anyone how little it costs us because we're embarrassed to...of course, after over 30+ years in the military, I think Keoni earned it.
Plus we stay very healthy...he sees the doc once a year for a checkup and the doc says he's healthier than most 30 year olds. Me, I go more often but I had many CT scans this past year and never paid a cent in co-pays and have never received a bill of any sort. Not saying I won't eventually but haven't yet. 47012. iiibbb - 3/30/2017 4:42:17 AM Politics is still driving me crazy... hi 47013. Ms. No - 3/30/2017 5:13:11 AM Yeah -- me too, and I hate that I just. can't. quit. watching.
I had to delete the news feed on my phone because I was like a rat with a heroin dripper with the damn thing.
I've been trying to do more art -- taking a painting class. Drawing in a bullet journal. Unfortunately, I have constant access to a computer screen and I spend way too much time following down the rabbit-hole of lunacy. 47014. judithathome - 3/31/2017 4:57:02 PM Anyone listen to that guy who testified yesterday in the Senate Committee hearing on Russian involvement in our country's politics? His name is Clint Watt and what he had to say was chilling....Testimony 47015. robertjayb - 3/31/2017 8:01:09 PM I'm no fan of Charles Krauthammer but his current column concerning prospects for single-payer health care is encouraging.
He writes that a broad national consensus is developing that health care is a right and that we might be heading inexorably to a government run single-payer system.
Wow! 47016. judithathome - 4/3/2017 10:33:02 PM Is this the column you were referring to? Link 47017. robertjayb - 4/4/2017 4:43:06 AM Thanks, Judith.
This is a column about Krauthammer's column and it has the main points of the original, including my too-often repeated assertion that Obama's effort is at least an important baby step toward a sensible system. We seem fated to bear out Churchill's observation on Americans doing the right thing after first trying everything else. 47018. judithathome - 4/4/2017 7:45:50 PM fated to bear out Churchill's observation on Americans doing the right thing after first trying everything else.
Well, he certainly was prophetic about THIS President...can you imagine if Trump had to meet and match wits with Churchill...???
I don't think it's a stretch to know which would be the umarmed opponent.
47019. judithathome - 4/5/2017 8:11:31 PM Duh....UNarmed ;-( 47020. Trillium - 4/5/2017 11:41:14 PM If healthcare is a right, it is also a responsibility. Makes me think again about the LPN program in high school that Arky described. It is impossible to have too many LPNs or EMTs in a community, whether rural or urban.
One of the problems of healthcare is that it is a messy, infectious business. Nurses in training are warned that they will be asked to look after people with AIDS, hepatitis, and more. This is not a problem when you are armed with appropriate protective gear AND the patient is sane.
But what about situations where nurses and front-line medical staff are getting attacked (which has happened with increasing frequency in the last decade).
47021. Trillium - 4/5/2017 11:41:24 PM It can only help to make healthcare training more accessible, and to ask people to learn more. Teen girls, for one small example, are likely to play with bulimia without understanding that this can cause fatal imbalances. More basic medical training for all ages -- for teens, for community religious and social groups -- and more participation in the healthcare system will bring up awareness of what we ask of medical care. 47022. Trillium - 4/5/2017 11:48:52 PM I haven't taken LPN training, but I've been reading one of the standard textbooks that I found at the used bookstore for a dollar. The actual training runs about $7000 including books.
Many of the people who do the training are low income and not yet college educated; many of them already have families and financial responsibilities (rent, insurance, car payments and repairs, children), and qualify for financial aid.
A recent graduate (African immigrant) told me that about half the class dropped out before they were through. They could not assimilate the material quickly enough, possibly because of reading problems? (He did fine, but I'm sure he worked his tail off)
The more training that can be done through computer training modules available at public libraries or through the internet, at their own pace, the more people would pass the training and be able to help care for others in the community. There are leaders who think that we can simply import cheap labor to do the "dirty work" of healthcare -- and it a lot of work in healthcare is very physically demanding, intimate work, cleaning up vomit, feces, food, blood, changing clothing, showering people who have limited mobility or dementia. I don't agree with open borders or cheapened labor; people who actually get the job done need to be paid just as much as people who sit in offices scrutinizing rules, forms, and making demands of the front line staff. Yet people who sit behind desks are likely to get more respect and higher pay for simply inspecting instead of doing. This doesn't get the job done. All types of work are needed, from paper pushers to diaper changers to room cleaners to surgeons -- but all need respect and decent pay, and this will break the bank if corruption runs rampant in addition to normal costs. 47023. Trillium - 4/5/2017 11:53:49 PM I'd like for a local church group that is highly active politically, to tackle a standard medical ethics textbook as a reading and discussion project. Kidney dialysis costs a fortune. Transplants often fail. What are the choices of OB/GYNs working with other doctors when a pregnancy may cause heart or kidney failure.
And what about schools that allow kids to batter each other in ways that cause permanent brain damage. I'm aware of at least two people who have needed 24/7 care for decades because of damage inflicted by other kids early in their lives. That costs a fortune. Same with soldiers sent off to dubious wars.
Communities shouldn't look away; somebody has to do the daily care of people who have been brain injured, and somebody has to be paid for doing this. 47024. judithathome - 4/6/2017 5:35:02 AM You make good points, Trill...but don't expect anything to happen in this regard for at least the next 4 years. 47025. judithathome - 4/6/2017 7:59:13 PM This is a great montage...Sean Spicer As Kindergarten Teacher 47026. robertjayb - 4/7/2017 2:49:57 AM Now what?
"The U.S. launched a cruise missile attack against Syria after Bashar al-Assad's regime used poison gas to kill scores of civilians. The early morning attack targeted hangars, planes and fuel tanks at one Syrian military airfield. Bloomberg's Haidi Lun reports on "Bloomberg Markets." (Source: Bloomberg)"
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