June 13, 2008 - 11:41pm | dougbrown47

I agree

It is a sad story but I'm surprised there are so few examples posted here. Medical co-pays are getting absurd and will impact everyone, just wait till you get sick and end up in a hospital.

Medical bankruptcy is a fast growing specialty in the practice of law today, just ask any lawyer.

Then, if you're older, you won't believe what nursing homes costs! We just put a family member into Horizon House (owned by Providence) and it starts out at $4600.00 a month! Try and squeeze that out of your Social Security check! Or out of your pension check and Roth IRA funds!

It's great to be young but most young people and even some middle-aged people don't seem to have a clue what's happening with medical care and the elderly today. It's totally intolerable but most legislators are rich and/or don't care...

Compared to my WW2-era parents who retired with generous monthly benefits, fantastic health care, including mail-order prescription drugs that cost them nothing, retirees today are having a very hard time... and the really bad part is that Boomers will have it 100 times better than the generations behind us!

Good luck!

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  June 14, 2008 - 9:22am | akgen

I want to see free medical for 18 and under.

Just the basics. Like shots, physicals/check ups and teeth cleaning/sealing.

I understand some folks don't think it is fair if they get a hike in taxes because of free underage medical benefits. Like when they have only two kids and another has five. "Why is the two kid family paying the same as a five kid family?", is what I heard. It is a valid question for the struggling two kid family.

However the two kid family and the five kid family is already paying for someones medical expenses.

Think about the Papa Pilgrim situation (as a example with no negative reflection on his family members). Here is a guy, that was in jail and was getting medical benefits. But are his kids? Or are they paying some money? Papa P. sure wasn't 'forking out the bucks'. In a sense, here in Alaska, the general public is footing the bill. But I think about how his kids are fairing with any medical expenses.

I think about my long gone neibors and their efforts to feed and clothe their 3 kids, with all the basic morals a family should have.

Something has got to bust in the USA. It is getting gross.

Then lets look at Alaska. We have no HMO up here. All the doctors or the anestheisists have to complain about is the trials and tribulations of mediaide (sp?). Nor do we have the $99 dental competitions (teeth cleaning), I saw in the lower 48, several years ago.

I no longer have the wonderful cat inherited via my long gone neibors. A bird of prey came along one day and did some major damage to him. While traveling for work, another neibor saw the bird attack and appropriately took him to the vet afterwards. It cost $407, which I paid in installments. Now that is a totally weird feeling considering the situation my cats previous owners have experienced with health care.

At the end of the day, I ask: What the heck is wrong with this American health care situation? And the only answer I can drum up is my title of this blog response. I figure this solution might wean some of those grossly dependent on the rising and HUGE costs of medical insurance and those practicing medicine.

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  August 27, 2008 - 10:15pm | bj875910

Free Medical for 18 and under

Please, get a life! 999,999.99 out of a million kids under 18 could give a "Rat's Butt" about health insurance. I really don't remember what I was doing exactly ( I was in the Army at that time), I think |I was getting drunk and thinking about going to Vietnam, but I think when I was about 18 I wasn't thinking about health insurance

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  June 15, 2008 - 2:19am | dougbrown47

Why Just Under 18?

AKGEN, nice post... but I wonder why you would limit medical care to only those under 18. We remain one of the only advanced, industrial societies in the world that does not offer universal health care. We are (were) one of the richest, too. Seems odd... (to put it mildly!).

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  June 15, 2008 - 1:33pm | akgen

Some professions in American's health care system

need to be weaned from getting rich. Kinda like of opposite of a long term welfare individual and making the steps to go out and find a job.

My suggestions of the under 18 crowd getting free medical is kinda like a first step to wean those who are making the big salaries. Do it slowly, so why not start with the youth.

Small communities in AK have a hard time keeping their hospitals afloat. A total shame since we are one of the most afluent countries around.

Back when I wanted to be a nurse, I studied the health care system in Europe. How did it come about? Via the war. They were bombed, damaged and horribly wounded and the once private doctors and hospitals opened their doors to care for the 'damaged from war'. Thats how it began.

So is that is what it is going to take to get universal health care for US citizens? A invasion on our soil? That would be sad.

Anyway, the free medical for the under 18 crowd is just a suggestion and a potiental place to start.

I've a small business and last year, we dropped the health care insurance. Just couldn't afford it. And I lost a really good employee because he needed medical insurance coverage. Makes me sick to think he moved over to the competition, but I figure he'll be back, cause they won't be offering medical coverage for too much longer.

Something has got to bust in American's healthcare system.

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  June 24, 2008 - 9:05am | Julietx1

Universal Healthcare

Oh, I hate to start in on this subject, but I can't keep my fingers still. I have worked in the medical field my entire adult life and have lived through many of the changes in healthcare "management." IMHO, while universal health care sounds great, it really isn't. Just look at the number of people in countries with socialized medicine (universal health care most certainly is at least a form of socialized medicine, if not totally), and when these people are unable to get the health care they need, where do they go? To the US. Why are they unable to get the healthcare they need? Simply because the incentive to be a healthcare professional, i.e. doctor, is not there. Ideally, to be a doctor, one has to embrace the notion that he/she wants to help people. They have to be nurtuing, selfless people. In reality, this is only partially true. The prospect of making a decent, if not affluent living is surely a motivator in determining if one wants to spend so much of their youth in school, struggling for excellent grades, and later the grueling rigors of medical school, internship, residency, etc. These are the years of paying dues with low pay, little sleep, and little or no social life to the later reward of an earned comfortable living. If a plumber (no offense intended to plumbers) can make as much or more money than a doctor, what is the incentive? There is none. The docs in socialized medicine countries are overworked and underpaid for sure. There are not enough doctors in these countries to meet the demand for competent health care. I have a couple of examples that I know of first-hand. One of my former employers is a surgeon originally from Canada. He was practicing in Canada when his wife was pregnant with their 2nd child. She went into labor and was taken to the hospital. My boss was with her in the labor room when complications arose. Mind you, he was a doctor at that very hospital. He went to find the OB and was told he was too busy to check her. He went to find anybody to help. Here is a doctor, well aware of a medical emergency, in need of medical care. No one was available. The baby died with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. That was the last straw for him. He threw his hands up at socialized medicine in Canada and moved to the US. How many Canadian doctors moved to the US in the 1970s? A lot. The other example is a fellow I met on vacation. He and his wife were from New Zealand and he was in his 30s. He had a congenital heart defect which was now requiring quintuple bypass surgery in order for him to survive. He was told this by his New Zealand doctor and in the same breath, he was informed that he would have to be put on a 3-year waiting list and that he could not possibly survive that long. It was recommended he go to the US for the surgery. He did. Do you know there are certain medical procedures denied to patients in the UK and other countries with socialized medicine, because of their age? It is not cost effective to provide certain surgeries or other care to these patients, even though such care would increase lifespan or decrease pain and suffering. Is this what we want? To have no option of what health care we receive? To be at the mercy of our government deciding matters of our personal health care? Do you realize that under socialized medicine, you give up your right to manage your own healthcare? Medicine is a business, just like a grocery store, gas station, and electricity. All are necessary. None are free. Thank you for indulging me on the soapbox.

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  June 13, 2008 - 4:11pm | editorial_views

Medical debt

What a sad story.
-- Rosemary

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  July 29, 2008 - 7:56pm | TLM

Same boat

Between two heart attacks and a battle with cancer. True social security Medicare covers some. I have even applied for state assistance. Denied because i make to much with my social security benefits. ( $20.00 over )
So i try to get insurance. Can not because of Pre existing conditions. No one will hire me because of health reasons. All i can do is set home a get all of the nasty phone calls from bill collectors.

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  August 16, 2008 - 5:08pm | rfn

Check with AARP.

As well as some other insurers who advertise through the mail around this time each year. I'm not sure of details but have read that during some specific "open season" which occurs around October or November, no supplemental insurer can turn you down or charge you extra for pre-existing conditions. If you can get through the busy signals and then wait and wait and wait long enough the Social Security 800 number can provide assistance.

I'm wondering it it only applies the first time you become eligible for Medicare...as within so many months before or after your 65th birthday....but costs nothing to ask.

If you're on Medicare and tell the provider that...and are then treated...they cannot charge you more than Medicare authorizes. Of course you'll pay the deductibles but some supplement plans even cover those. If a "provider" tries to charge more than the official rate and you contact Medicare they'll first do what they call "vendor education" and, if that doesn't work, will prosecute.

Don't give up too easily.

login or register to post comments | flag this »

  August 28, 2008 - 9:23pm | adn192

Insurance is legal thievry.

And they are allowed to continue to insure whom they want and cover what they want, at will.

login or register to post comments | flag this »