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Never mind.
Yeah, funny how things seem to be as expensive with insurance nowadays as they were without it 30 years ago. What we have is not working at all. Kudos to France
medicine is a right (sort of).
I had the same flu back in February and didn't even bother going to the doctor just because of the hassle of dealing with the insurance company.
We don't have (read, can't afford) health insurance. Mid-kid a few years ago got really, really sick and I thought perhaps she had meningitis. Took her to an Urgent Care clinic. Thankfully, it was just a UTI, but here's one charge on our bill:
"Hydration therapy" $56.00 (Can't remember the CPT code now.)
That hydration therapy was ONE can of Gatorade which they made her drink, then wait to pee out before they'd let her go home.
This is "health" care?
How do you know they were taking REAL X-Rays
and not just naked pictures??
You gotta' watch those French.
Ooh La La!!
And while you're at it, tell your Dutch friends they're weasels for putting up with so much shit themselves. If you have any sense, you know what I'm talking about, but here are a few clues:
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Privatization of Health Care
- Violations of privacy records
- Aiding illegal CIA's extraordinary rendition flights
- need I go on?
Open your eyes. Stop drinking the CoolAid.
really, tell us something we don't know. You're preaching to the choir. And it is annoying. You should have read up on this blog before posting this obnoxious self-righteous banter.
And while you're at it, tell your Dutch friends they're weasels for putting up with so much shit themselves. If you have any sense, you know what I'm talking about, but here are a few clues:
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Privatization of Health Care
- Violations of privacy records
- Aiding illegal CIA's extraordinary rendition flights
- need I go on?
Open your eyes. Stop drinking the CoolAid.
I'm not the one drinking the cool-aid, search for a mirror and you'll see who is.
P.S I bet your a Clinton supporter . Am I right , am I right??
"You know CUBA ?? WELL GUESS WHAT THEY DO TO!! It's just a facade created by the US Government so that they can shove the American people with high cost prices for Healthcare, American people have been told to believe that they have it far much better then others ."
If you REALLY know this blog, you'd know this is preaching the obvious, hence my pointy remark. But I understand where you're coming from, being a Dutch native myself. A little too proud of your country('s achievements), a little to eager to express yourself in platitudes.
"This misconception is what made them put up with these high prices and lack of coverage these last few decades, because in their minds there isn't/wasn't any better. There was a BBC report about this a few months ago. America is being run by the Elite a.k.a mass murderers."
If this is your sense of addressing the issue? You think your Dutch masters are not Elite and really care about you? Hence the Kool-Aid. (yeah, I misspelled). I'm happy to share my opml file of reliable (political) sources with you.
When I look in the mirror, I know who I am. I've been around the block longer than you can imagine (at this point). I've never heard of you or seen you before. Where's your www.iliveinademocracy.org website, where can I follow your diatribes and insights, where you address the issues? Really, just an honest questions. I'm very sorry for you if you address that as an attack as well.
Please enlighten me how you've come to the conclusion I'm a pawn of the Puppet Masters. Really. Please tell me.
PS: your sense of political affiliation couldn't be more off. But hey, I don't blame you, you don't know me.
get all defensive. I was making a point that a huge portion of the U.S
Government is CORRUPT AND DARE I SAY MURDERERS by robbing The American people from quality , affordable Healthcare and brainwashing them into thinking that the current system is solid and the best there is while doing so.
I'm not saying that the Dutch GOV hasn't had it's own hiccups. No one can name any Political Administration that didn't have it's own faults.
But we don't end up dead just because we can't afford to go to doctor if were unfortunate enough to get Cancer, some type of heart disease, leukemia, and sometimes even minor thing as the need for antibiotics. Some things shouldn't even be debatable. It's a right not a privilege. Especially for such a rich country. Were people are working 60-70 hours a week. I should know I have relatives in Miami, New York and Seattle, that complain about this vigourisly.
You ask: Please enlighten me how you've come to the conclusion I'm a pawn of the Puppet Masters.
1. this obnoxious self-righteous banter
2. Dutch friends they're weasels for putting up with so much shit themselves
3. Stop drinking the CoolAid.
4. Either your eyes fogged up
5. you’re brain malfunctioned
6. you’re dyslectic.
7. A little too proud of your country('s achievements), a little to eager to express yourself in platitudes.
Possibility of you being a pawn of a Puppet master??
Hey they always try to make a point by attacking/insulting someone personally. Meanwhile they still can't point out their own opinion/POV when it comes down to whatever topic is being discussed at the moment.
What do you think about Socialized Healthcare this is your third post and you still haven't made any statement in regards to this medical system that seems to work in several other countries while you are being told that this is not the case.
Pawn - Puppet - Master??? You be the judge of that.
I could go on, but I as I stated before I don’t think it would make any difference.
If you can't establish any correlations between my points and what my views would be, than I have no reason to continue 'debating' you.
Hint: If you could, you would have been able to deduct that I'm not FOR bleeding people with US style healthcare and I'm NOT against socialized healthcare.
PS: repeating things over and over, and reiterating my points, a) doesn't answer my questions, b) doesn't help making solid arguments.
PS2: from your second to last paragraph I take it you missed (also) that I'm Dutch myself?
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She had undergone chemo for cancer some time back.....she said all she ever had to pay for was parking.
A really great post about Jeremiah Wright.....Obama's pastor:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily...
Have you seen this article?
Video Disputes "Black Separatist" Tag On Obama's Church
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/26/video-...
Hannity, Hillary and the rest of the them trying to smear him should be ashamed.
Time: 'Cheery, unapologetic' Clinton vows to push on
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Time_Cheery_unapo...
Doctor visit -- $456.00. Ultrasound of lower leg: $824.00.
Ka-ching!
I lived in New Zealand for a bit. My son broke his foot. $12. He broke it again. $12. They sent him to a specialist. No charge. Medicines cost a buck per month per prescription. Never had to wait more than a day to see a doctor. For basic health care, it was fine.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7310000...
http://thecurrent.theatlantic.com/archives/2008...
---
bottom line? Insurance companies don't seem to have the money to cover you for medical expenses (hence, huge deductibles), but they have TONS of money to lobby against socialized medicine.
What a system!
BBC News Player - Clinton's Bosnia claim row
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7310000...
---
turns out... hillary was telling the truth about her Bosnia visit!
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily...
LOL!
Scroll down to 'Total Spending on Healthcare'
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/cartograms/
The US spend more...but get less.
John, get better before you fly home. A long airplane flight can only exacerbate your flu symptoms!
As a former flight attendant...I know. You can change your return ticket for 'illness reasons'.
Your experience with the health care system in France is not surprising -- according to the World Health Organization, France is ranked at No. 1 in the world:
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
You would receive very good care in Greece, too, since the WHO ranks Greece at No. 14.
When you return to Washington D.C., not so much....the WHO ranks the United States of America at No. 37.
The Top Twenty:
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
37 United States of America
R.I.P, U.S.A.
Feel better soon, John -- and do try to get well before returning to D.C. -- because recuperating in France is safer, better, and much less costly to the patient.
:)
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The little frustrations with Disqus continue -- it's like death by a thousand cuts.
You can click on the tiny "Options +" button just below the "Post as" button and open that link, and then go to the little "Sort thread by" menu and select "Newest first" in the drop-down menu -- at least, that way, the comments appear in a chronological flow with the most recent comment(s) appearing at the top of the page.
Plus,I miss the way that HaloScan noted the number of "Visitors Online" at any given moment so that you could see if you had entered a wasteland devoid of human presence or if you still enjoyed the prospect of a back-and-forth discussion with your fellow Abloggers because you could tell how many people were logged on.
Also, I find that every once in awhile Disqus forgets that I have selected "Newest first"...and I will enter a thread to find that the Disqus nazi has selected "Hot comments" instead -- without asking me -- and everything appears all topsy-turvy and disoriented.
Besides, I think that I'm the best judge of what, in my view, constitutes a "Hot comment" or a "Best comment" -- and I resent the Disqus nazi trying to appropriate such critical judgments from me. So, then I have to go into the "Options +" zone to reset my "Sort by thread" function back to "Newest first" -- it's all so complicated.
Finally, the "Hot comments" and "Best comments" designations are as fundamentally silly as the BFF “My Friends’ comments” feature and the senseless “Following” feature and patently ridiculous "Clout" points system to create a new class of kewl kids online.
It's all just a little too much Facebook and too little straight-forward political blog with real back-and-forth discourse for my taste. I wouldn’t participate in Facebook if you paid me -- it's stupid!
:)
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Good to see you too bud. Sure , and its the same harp as yesterday. If it was good enough for Brian Boru, its good enough for me : P
I said this yesterday and will again today. I liked the old system better. If was far from perfect...but lots simpler..
Is easy to provide decent health care when you take over half the individuals income in taxes.
Simple. France has higher corporate tax, personal income tax, and VAT (19%!).
Is easy to provide decent health care when you take over half the individuals income in taxes.
>>>>>
Nice to see a country where they're honest about it. Here they nickel and dime you a thousand different ways -- and come up with a thousandsdifferent names than "taxes." At the end of the year, you end up with the same amount of money in your pocket as the French do, maybe less, but without the benefits they get.
I spent six years living in NH, which prides itself on being anti-tax. Prior to that, I lived in Massachusetts, which New Hampshirites scoff at as being "Taxachusetts."
By the time I was nickled and dimed to death in NH -- paying out of my pocket for things that were provided as public services in Mass. -- I paid more than I ever did in Massachusetts taxes. Financially, I made out better in Massachusetts than I did in NH.
The working class idiots who fall for the "you can have a good life without paying anything in taxes" scam are the cause of this country becoming Third World country.
The insurance companies here in America are robbing us blind. John, what you paid over there was cheap compared to what you would have had to pay here.
I miss the counter on the main page
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I am glad to seer that people are not using the reply buttons
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It is still a pain in the ass to be reading down and have to post up.
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I have no idea where my last post went.
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It wasn't a reply.
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Here post, post post...
Hmmmmmmm.
.
Is easy to provide decent health care when you take over half the individuals income in taxes."
Not so simple...The US spends significantly more per capita on healthcare than France, either measured in pure cash or as a percentage of GDP. Whether it's paid for by taxes or not is not as big an issue as how much is spent in total and what that buys. France simply gets much better value for their money than the US does. France does have higher taxes, but there's lots of non-healthcare items that those taxes pay for, like childcare, fully-funded university education, public assistance, much better public transit infrastructure, etc. I think they go overboard on a lot of things in France, but healthcare is not one of them.
My uncle was in France and broke his ankle. He tried to pay and they giggled at him.
Hope you are feeling better soon. Chest infections are a bear; drink lots of fluids, rest up and no smoking!
Here's hoping!
The reason I was moved to comment was that after living here in England for so long, I really don't see that the horror stories we hear in the American press about socialised medicine in Europe are justified by the reality. If you look, can you find people who've had bad experiences? Sure. More often than you could find them in America? I honestly don't think so.
Take this example, on Monday my partner needed to go to the hospital for an x-ray on his hand. We went to the emergency room at about 11am, it took about 45 minutes for my partner to be taken in to see the doctor. He was sent through for his x-rays and then we had another consultation with the doctor immediately afterwards. In all, we were back out the door in about 90 minutes. And it didn't cost us anything.
As my partner is an insulin-dependent diabetic, we make regular use of both the socialised National Health Service as well as the private health care system here in the UK, and I honestly would put it on a par with the quality of care I've received in America. And the value of not having to worry about the cost when you or a loved one needs medical attention is something I can't put a pricetag on.
Now of course, coming from the USA with a sub-standard health care system, I can understand how ours might seem great... until you see how much is being cut from your payslip to pay for that, and the amount of taxes you pay for it as well.
I filed a complaint with Cigna, and they repeatedly ignored my claim, and said that I would have to get my money back from the dentist, after asking the dentist repeatedly, and she refused to pay me my money. Cigna, stated it was not there problem, and since the dentist filed an electronic claim, I was authorizing them to receive the compensation allocation. I didn't authorize anything.
I ended up having to file a complaint with my state's wonderful insurance fraud investigative authority. In 3 months I finally got a letter from them stating that the insurance company requested that the dentist pay me the $646. I still have to wait, and now that $646 is worth nothing, since I've waited almost 4 months for it. The American Healthcare system is just as much a scam as any other business in America. It's what happens when the people put money before everything else in life.
You can NOT sue your doctor in France! Now compare this to millionaire lawyers like John Edwards who have established palatial estates on the money that those doctors will now be forced to recover from sick people or their insurance companies.
I think the French medical system is a great model, but if we want to borrow its usefulness we have to understand what makes it so cost-effective. ;)
http://oneminute.rationalmind.net/socialized%20...
It's not 100% free, most surgical procedures are but sometimes you have to pay a part of the meds... It's still a lot of times cheaper than the US system anyway.
Total bill? 40 Euro. $77.
Fuck it. If I ever get ill, I'm moving to France.
You paid 67 bucks, and the rest of the French population picked up the remainder.
When you get home, hie yourself over to the University of Chicago bookstore and pick up Milton Friedman's book, "Free Lunch, There Ain't No Such Thing"
You're right in the "ain't no free lunch" assertion. You're dead wrong if you think we're not already paying for it. Over $1000 per american-made car pays for health insurance. Medicare / medicaid taxes paid by all taxpaying Americans. Most urban centers spend tax money on caring for the uninsured. And healthcare prices in general are inflated to cover the costs of those who can't / won't / don't pay.
At least with Socialized medicine, the money would go to pay a bevy of government drones rather than line the pockets of the executives of health insurance companies - that's a net benefit, if nothing else.
Socialized medicine can be done well or badly... looking at how well our government does everything else... I think we're more in for the do-it-yourself enema, rather than the $45 x-ray variety
On our European vacation after we were married, my wife spent a night in an Austrian hospital with severe abdominal pain. Again, total cost was something like $600. This we submitted, I think, after we returned home but the hassle in getting any kind of reimbursement was not worth the effort.
Finally, we spent about 9 months in Amsterdam, again on work assignment, and this time we had one child with us (18 months old). She had a pretty good flu once and the doctor *actually made a house call*, if you can believe it and on a Sunday no less!!! She also had some childhood vaccinations while we were over. Total cost for health care for the 9 month span was under $250.
I think most of the rest of the world has health-care right. It's we in the US who are completely screwed.
I was in a car accident with an uninsured illegal alien. He couldn't read the yield sign because it wasn't in spanish, so he coasted his 18 wheeler right though the intersection in front of me. He continued right though the intersection, over the median and totaled another woman's brand new SUV.
When I got out of the hospital, he was long gone and I found the hospital had padded by bill with all kinds of things they never did. My insurance company kept pretending they didn't get the paperwork and then when I sent it with a signature required, they wouldn't sign. By the time I got a lawyer, they claimed the time limit had passed and wouldn't pay.
The hospital got a lien on my house and wouldn't release it until I paid everything out of pocket.
Months later, I find out the hospital had been convicted over overbilling Medicare for hundreds of millions of dollars. Even though they were convicted and fined, the guy in charge did not go to prison and did not have to give his $20M bonus back.
The US system is disgustingly crooked.
Just look at what happened in Vegas where doctors were reusing $0.50 needles and other equipment!
Smaller profits for those at the top.
I got kidney stones while I was in NYC 4 years ago. Single visit to the doctor costed me $250, one single antibiotic costed me $110 and the X-Ray was $275 : grand total way over $600, I was pissed as hell.
Now I leave in France with my American wife. She flipped out when she had to renew her birth controlled pills because at this time we didn't get her Vital Card yet. So she had to pay a full price of... €2,30. With the vital card you just pay nothing, and nothing for the medic, and nothing for the x-rays.
Last year I had pneumonia. I ended up at the hospital without complementary covering. It could have costed me (only) €1800 for 10 days in a single room in hospital. I called a complementary insurance and said "Hi, I'm in the hospital for 2 days now, can you cover it ?" The answer was "Yes mister, of course, we will start the contract.. last month" ! And I had to pay €0,0 (zero point zero). The cost of the complementary insurance is now, for both my Wife and me, a total of €59,00 a month, and with this we have all dental care for free, all eye doctors visites for free, total covering for glasses or contacts once a year/ people for free, hospital for free with all comfort, etc, etc. AND they're covering me for the next time I am sick in USA, they will take everything in charge, which means I won't have to pay in advance, like, nothing.
What should be bad about our health care system ? Does people think we have a bad one ? Does people realize that french faculty hospital are top of the edge in many many topics such as evything related whith pee and kidneys, transplant, heart, skin, cancers, knees, hands and fingers surgery ? That your most famous professional sportsmen and women come to us for specific surgery ? ... and that here no doctor, surgeon or hospital will never fear a dramatic trial while they're reearching, operating, practicing, which is a real brake problem in the USA system.
American citizens, you pay a high price for a weak coverage. Fight for your rights! Who said medics should be millionaires in just a few years?
With a lot of respect for all of you and for a country, USA, I love, a lot.
To answer your question "how European socialized medicine is so bad?" The answer can be found in the attitude of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt. I saw him on C-SPAN a few months back. He kept referring to our health care system as 'the marketplace" as if anyone want to shop around for their next bypass surgery. So the answer to your question is the European system is bad because there are not CEOs, executives and shareholders getting rich, profiting from the health problems of others, sometimes determining who will get health coverage and keeping health care prices high so that it unfordable to many. It would cause harm to those profiteers if we were to 'pull-out' of our current broken model. Kind of sounds like the justification to stay in Iraq, no?
Slightly OT, make sure to watch the 4 part series Unnatural Causes on PBS, starting tomorrow night. It is an 'eye opener.' It can often be predicted how long you will live just based upon where you live.
One more OT: Anyone other than me think it is a security issue to outsource the printing of US passports to a country in Southeast Asia?