DISQUS

1970cs · 1 year ago

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/10/22/ar...

This would have been a more useful way to spend $700 billion than to give it to the banks and let them sit on it.

Indigo · 1 year ago

Yes, there are financial issues involved in health care but there's a silent factor that we ignore too easily. Personal hygiene is not well maintained in the US regardless of our self-image as neat and tidy and clean. For evidence, watch people as they go about their day . . . loud sneezing into the open air without covering their mouth and nose, coughing into other people's space, nose-picking and ear-cleaning and contstant adjusting of underwear are unconscious gestures seen everywhere. It's not obscene body language, it's bad personal hygiene. They are dirty because they do not wash. Watch more closely, see that man who didn't wash his hands before he left the restroom? MRSA is on the rampage and reaching pandemic proportions. (Staff infection to anyone out of the loop) and it's sweeping the undermisedumacated class, both rich and poor. Health care starts by washing your hands regularly, damn it!

Reason0Politics1 · 1 year ago

wholly shit, what a damn exact post. I watch my step kids..21-16...I ride them daily to shower.. they do everything in their power not to. its freakin whack. they stink, and dont even notice. the 20 yo girl has a 21 yo boy friend that stays regularly over with her; they never bathe! they both stink and go to bed together every night. everyone looks at me as being ocd because i suggest a freaking daily shower. its like wtf? i always thought grls were naturally tending towards being clean. NOT. they stink like dirty feet and ass.

I go to work, highly paid developers and project managers... many stink! its truly mind boggling to me.

seriously, great post indigo, because I see it being SPOT ON

Indigo · 1 year ago

Direct their attention to Orlando, Florida where we now have a fully realized MRSA pandemic among the teenagers and grade school kids.  The newspaper is underplaying it, the parents are panicked, and the school board is assuring everyone that everything is just fine.  Meanwhile, one high school football athlete has died, two of his team mates are in the hospital, several children are being monitored, and there's more infection on the way.
Washing your hands isn't enough but it's a start.  And they're not even doing that!

Older_Wiser · 1 year ago

My granddaughter works for a doctor, and she caught MRSA, while pregnant, even though gloved. Health care workers are constantly at risk for a variety of diseases--it's simply not enough to wash hands, but using and changing gloves, masks, etc. constantly so as to not pass things from one patient to another. She says there is a high % of their patients who are HIV positive as well--it is increasing rapidly among the AA community, both sexes.

Indigo · 1 year ago

Scary, isn't it?  And it's everywhere!

thingwarbler · 1 year ago

Soup and soda?!? can't wait to hear O'Reilly and the wingnut brain trust get their hands on that one... "those liberals and their fancy-pants single payer health care plans like they have 'em in Yurp... when all you really need is Campbell's and DIet Coke."

imjussayin · 1 year ago

I do wash my hands regularly "damn it!"

Seriously, this very topic came up at work the other day. A man came to fix one the printers. While waiting for the IT person to come and fetch him, he was looking at the headline about the financial crisis in the local paper and shaking his head.

I offhandedly said, "Funny that we can nationalise the banks but we can't have Universal Health Care, because that would be socialism"

The man is from Ireland and has a brother that still lives there. He told me about his brother having to stay in hospital for 17 weeks with septisemia (sp?). And then he told that the only bill his brother got was for the phone calls he had made.

So again I ask: If the government can nationalise the banking system, why can't we have universal health care?

JohnInTexas · 1 year ago

Because drug companies would have to negotiate bulk prices for everything instead of being able to fuck the insurance companies and patient's individually is one reason, and the big drug makers have most of the big politicians in their big pockets.

Reason0Politics1 · 1 year ago

exactly friend. I have been hammering on this point as well. We will need to pressure Obama ( LOL..we can hope..but good luck..so much for pressuring the douche bag pelosi to do her job and hold the executive Office accountable for blatant crimes ) for single payer health care. only problem is now, if we weren't before, we are now so broke, its even increasingly an impossible idea.

cab02149 · 1 year ago

I'm old enough to remember when graduated Income taxes were the rule, health care insurance and pension withdrawals were small enough to be invisible. Doctors worked from their homes and you paid them $5 or $10 cash for a visit. When you were really ill he sent you to the hospital, where insurance paid for your care. But men could work and support their families. A paycheck bought much, much more. People took a week at a "Dude Ranch" and a week around the house for their vacations. Television was not your constant companion; other people were. Eisenhower, the Kennedy were presidents, Then Johnson made Vietnam a big war and life changed and has become steadily worse until now when it means little. Why? Leadership's decisions in key parts of our government and corporations.

Reason0Politics1 · 1 year ago

Asia is now claiming its fair share of the world’s money - gold. If the US tries to devalue de dollar in terms of gold, Asia threatens not to lend the US any more dollars- one billion a day is what the US needs. So it is the Asians that are forcing the dollar’s to strengthen in terms of gold, this way they can acquire more of the precious metal. They have plenty of dollars to buy gold. This gold buying by the Asians will come to an end when they have enough gold and then the US dollar will plummet like a rock in water. It will not take long for the stocks of bullion are not that big.

AdrianBrowne · 1 year ago

Think of the opportunity costs associated with people who keep jobs only for the (crappy) health care. People could be free to move to other parts of the country where their skills would be put to use or to take a job more suited to their abilities or to start their own businesses, and on and on.

How in the world could Universal Health Care NOT pay for itself? Mind boggling.

Older_Wiser · 1 year ago

I do have sympathy for people who can't get health care--my own son has no coverage and I'm on Medicare, but like many others, I had no coverage from age 60 to 65 and during other periods of my life, and have had to stop dental and eyecare since I have no insurance for those.

However, taking your kids to the doctor for every sniffle is really stretching it. And how many people without insurance are having to use emergency rooms for common illnesses? How many older people do you know who got through childhood without ever seeing a doctor except for vaccinations and were healthy most of their lives? Life is never going to be perfect, but we should sort out those conditions that really require a doctor's care and those we can take care of ourselves.

I"ve had a really bad cold since Sunday (and I never get them--this is a particularly nasty strain we haven't seen around here) and so have several of my friends, and none of us have been to the doctor. Any doctor who tells you to come in for a cold is just making you pay through the nose for a consultation, nothing more. There is nothing he can prescribe--nothing--that you can't get OTC.

If people would use more sense in monitoring their own health, perhaps there would be more resources for those who truly cannot afford treatment for real problems. And how many resources, for instance, are used for plastic surgery procedures, breast implants, etc.--absolutely unncessary and in many instances, doctors can find ways to get around the insurance. One woman I know got an eyelift because her surgeon said "drooping eyelids" which "obscured her vision" were medically necessary, which was bullshit--she simply wanted her insurance co. to pay for it when she could easily have afforded it herself.

lilybart · 1 year ago

I just posted the same. Also, people need to get off the couch and eat real food instead of junk. The obesity epidemic is going to make it very hard to afford to cover everyone with health care when so many conditions are lifestyle related, choices really.

lynchie · 1 year ago

Here is an article which should scare the crap out of you.

http://www.betterthangreens.com/Catalog_167.html

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month estimated that infections caught in U.S. hospitals kill 90,000 people annually and urged hospitals to do more to track and prevent the infections.

That is 250 people a die from catching an infection while in the hospital. It does make sense since that is where all the sick people are but the number is frightening.

loona_c · 1 year ago

Nothing new. I and many people I know have put off Dr. exams for a while. Unfortunately I herniated a disk last November which necessitated an ER visit and many other Dr. visits--culminating in back surgery this year. I have sooooo many medical bills, I'm not sure how or when I'm gonna be able to pay them off!

lynchie · 1 year ago

Don't. Pay them $5 a month. tell them that is all you can afford.

loona_c · 1 year ago

That's about all I can do!

lynchie · 1 year ago

I don't see a huge push by doctors to get Universal Health Care. It is about money. Anyone who has been to a doctor knows that when you arrive for your 10 am appointment there are already 20 people ahead of you. If you are lucky you might see the doctor for 5 minutes so he never gets to know you, doesn't know your fears or real symptoms he gives you a prescription and a few samples and bases his diagnosis and cure on what some pharma rep told him to be true. A lot of times you only get to see the nurse on PA. You have a battery of tests that are not necessarily related to your symptoms and everyone walks away. You poorer cause the doctor really hasn't devoted any time to your problem and he richer since he can charge for the tests, his nurse and PA. What a system. Treating a headache without really knowing what might be causing it is foolish.

lilybart · 1 year ago

One contrarian point: if you have a cold and a sore throat, you don't need a doctor. Or cold medicine.

Hardy_Haberman · 1 year ago

OK how about a nice real-life story? I don't have health insurance. As a self-employed American, insurance would run me over $1400 a month because of the state I live in, Texas, and a pre-existing condition. That means when I visit my doctor I pay cash. Now when I had insurance I know he got paid around $50 to $60 by the insurance company for an office visit plus my $15 copay. Today I have to plunk down $175. Where is the logic in that? The answer is I am looking for a less expensive doctor and visiting only when I absolutely have to.

No yearly physicals, exams etc. Not a good health plan but it's what I have to deal with. I am just glad I don't have kids to worry about as well. So tell me, just why would National Health Insurance be a bad idea? Canada is looking more and more attractive!

loona_c · 1 year ago

I'm in TX too. Recently had surgery. I was AMAZED to access my insurance site to see the status of bills paid. With insurance bills that would have been like $15,000 were $3-4,000 instead because of rates negotiated by the insurance company. So if I'd had no insurance not only would I have been stuck with paying for it myself--the amount owed would have been doubled or tripled. THAT MAKES NO SENSE!

Webster · 1 year ago

Out of work for three years. No doctor visits for any reasons--I banged my knee pretty bad about six weeks ago (ironically when I was on a job interview out of town--and the job was given to a younger applicant far less qualified), and its still swollen and I'm still in pain and limp now. A year and 1/2 ago I had to pull one of my own teeth with pliers. Without an income, a doctor or a dentist is something I simply can't afford. Period. And there is no other choice in our society as it's structured. Every morning I wake up and just hope against hope my health holds.

The sad thing is that no one cares. It's hell out here.