I keep forgetting...who is it again exactly that benefits from preventing people from having medical coverage and sick people from getting medical care?

by RosieGHM Jetpacker on November 20th, 2009

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Answers. 12 helpful answers below.

deadcalm Nov 20th, 2009 That would mostly be insurance companies, & those who feel that having a house too big for them, more cars than they need, & every gadget spewed out of Japan is more important than the health & wellbeing of those less fortunate..... so mostly the middle classes.
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Blessed has a COAT of many colors Nov 20th, 2009 Rosie, I don't think there is anyone alive in this country, Republican or Democrat, who thinks the health care and insurance industries don't need reform. But I think there are many of us who have long experience dealing with Medicare and/or Medicaid with a serious illness who are very leery of the idea of the Government taking over everything. Both programs pay so little that most doctors won't accept them. Those that do are more likely running some kind of fraud or scam to get millions from the government and aren't very good doctors. Some may even do more harm that leaving you alone would.

My child has both insurance and Medicaid (cancer is expensive). I've far rather deal with the insurance company, even though they keep raising our rates. At least with insurance I can get her to good doctors and hospitals and she is still alive and well. Many of her friends who did not have insurance are dead, blind or otherwise in much worse shape, probably because they couldn't get to the good doctors or the good drugs. When my mother retired in the middle of chemotherapy, suddenly whole classes of chemo drugs were off-limits to her. I also know that my father-in-law, who lived in England, couldn't get treatment on National Health for more months than his life-expectancy for his disease, because of a "waiting list," but when his doctors found out he had private insurance through his old company, that "waiting list" went away and he got treatment.

I think there are many things we could do first that would have a big impact on health care and wouldn't involve a government takeover. Just starting with torte reform would be a big start. My doctor has a less that one percent complication rate, despite the fact that he trains for and takes the most difficult cases that other doctors won't touch. Even so, he had to pay a quarter of a million dollars up front every year for malpractice insurance. That gets passed down to every patient that comes through the door. It is also a large pot of gold for any patient that isn't honest, and someone did eventually try for it. She sued my doctor, dragged him on the national news, drove him to a heart attack and dragged it through the court system for six years before finally losing the case because he hadn't done anything wrong. Nevertheless, she ruined his good name, ruined his health, caused him to have to drop the part of his practice that he loved because he no longer has the health for it and caused his malpractice insurance to go up. That needs to stop. If a doctor is negligent enough to sue, it should be a criminal matter with no "reward" to the person who brings charges. Other than that, we need to understand that doctors are human and everyone makes mistakes or has bad days. You pray you aren't the one who catches him on that bad day, but asking a doctor to never make a mistake is an impossible standard that only drives doctors out of the profession, and we aren't better off without doctors.

If we rein in that one area of tort reform, that may save enough that almost everyone would have access to care. But there are other things we could do too, like allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines. If we did those few things it might be enough to get care to everyone and even get some off Medicaid.
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mymoonq Nov 20th, 2009 That would be the insurance companies Rosie. You cant blame them for fighting it, they are barely making a profit as it is ;)
http://www.healthreformwatch.com/2009/05/20/health-insurance-ceos-total-compensation-in-2008/
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- RosieGHM Jetpacker Right...the billions they net are chump change I guess. Thank you for your answer mymoonq and also for providing us with that link. Happy Sunday to you m'dear! :)
  
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  Nov 22nd, 2009
- RosieGHM Jetpacker I don't know how those guys survive on those puny wages, do you? Wonder if they're on food stamps?
  
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  Nov 22nd, 2009
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Self Consuming Cannibal Nov 20th, 2009 The US government. If they actually gave us medical coverage and helped us pay for health care, some Senators might have to be reduced to living in $750,000 dollars homes, instead of one-million dollar ones.

How sad! (SCC says with sarcasm)
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- Rollie Please take a look at the health insurance industry and the amounts they pay their upper management and money they make for their investors.
  
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scotty Nov 20th, 2009 that´ll be the insurence companies and there share holders
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Halliburton Shill Nov 20th, 2009 Reviewing the records, it's not the children of people who are killed or the uninsured who get ER care:
http://digg.com/politics/AFLAC_Denies_Benefits_After_Daughter_Murdered
http://digg.com/health/Uninsured_ER_patients_twice_as_likely_to_die_2
Who does that leave?
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- Bob i was going to say you, but, some folks might not laugh. +6
  
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  Nov 20th, 2009
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Rollie Nov 20th, 2009 Well, the taxpayer could benefit but the insurance industry has always made it's profit from those factors.
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Anonymous Nov 20th, 2009 Absolutely no one is preventing them from receiving medical care. All they have to do is pay for it, just as I pay for my medical care.
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- cheerio What if you cannot afford to pay, working only 40-50 hours a week at minimum wage like hundreds of thousands of other who work at your hotels, restaurants, laundromats, daycares, nursing homes.
  
  Do not ask for that which you cannot take.
  
  I hope a lot of other people are getting as tired of asking as I am...
  
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  Nov 20th, 2009
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vinc3nt Nov 20th, 2009 I don't know. Those people who are denied Medicaid coverage usually earn too much money to meet the legal requirements and don't have enough money to buy private insurance. Or in cases of a pre-existing conditions, private insurance will make premiums too expensive or make the condition an exclusion from coverage. It is the nature of insurance that you must get it before you have the need. No insurance company will write a life insurance policy for someone who is on their death bed. That company would be broke in a few days. If private insurance companies wrote health policies for chronically sick people at the same cost as the health then the premiums for all would go through the roof or the care for all will go down to the minimum. The movie "Logan's Run" had a solution for paradise on a limited budget, a limited stay.
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Moongrim Nov 20th, 2009 After the stockholders, CEO's, and bonuses paid out from the Insurance companies and HMO's:

Funeral Homes and Cemetaries.
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- RosieGHM Jetpacker Of course...why didn't I think of that? Great answer my friend, though not a very cheery one. Thank you for your response Moongrim! :)
  
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  Nov 22nd, 2009
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Bob Nov 20th, 2009 insurance companies benefit from our not making them cover everyone and health care providers benefit from only having to provide cursory care for the uninsured. see my health care reform plan - 10 times sounder than the crap being sold as reform in washington!!!
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Sharona Life is a Tale Told by an Idiot Nov 20th, 2009 I was going to answer this question with lookout you may have the first signs of dementia and then I saw it was you. LOL.
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