Why people are afraid of universal health care

[Toni]

The only question is whether their wait is mandated by doctors, or by accountants.

It's always by accountants. The only question is whether they work for the insurance company or the government.

You are wrong.

Worse, you are mistaking your own personal situation for some kind of inescapable law of nature that must be universally true; And are thereby complicit in your own opression, from which you believe that not only no escape is likely, but that no escape is even possible or imaginable.

You think it's the doctor making the decision.

I can, however, assure you that decisions regarding waiting times for specific patients in both Australia and the UK are made by doctors, on medical grounds, and without consulting any accountants.

NHS medical staff don't even have routine access to information about costs. The doctors neither know nor care which treatment options cost the most.

Myopic. The doctors decide who goes on the waiting list but the doctors have no say in how long the wait is. That's the government by means of deciding how much money to allocate.

Money is always allocated by some governing bodies. The government may allocate $X towards any particular medical center or hospital or region, using whatever criteria they utilize in such decisions BUT I am certain that each hospital abd medical center has a director and a governing board who allocate various resources according to whatever budgetary constraints they have. And I’m also certain that ORs are allocated according to needs, known or anticipated. The government t dies not make those decisions— the hospital directors do.

Which seems preferable to the insurance companies doing the same thing while keeping a hefty portion of the premiums they receive for the benefit if their CEOs, board of directors and stockholders.

Except, of course, when one has a fascist regime in charge as was just elected in the US. I don’t like any of our odds here in the US.

 

[Swammerdami]

The latest free-to-view Hartmann Report is titled "Were It Not for White Supremacy, America Would Have Single-payer Healthcare." Way back in 1912 Teddy Roosevelt ran for President proposing government-paid healthcare but was stymied by the "teachings" of Frederick Ludwig Hoffman. Here are a few excerpts:

. . . The simple fact is that, were it not for slavery, white supremacy, and the legacy of “scientific racism,” America would have had a national, single-payer healthcare system in 1915, just 31 years after Germany put into place the modern world’s first such program.

At the center of the effort to prevent a national healthcare system — or any form of government assistance that may even incidentally offer benefit to African Americans — were Frederick Ludwig Hoffman and the Prudential Life Insurance Company, which promoted his “science based” racial theories to successfully fight single-payer health insurance.

. . .
In 1980, David Koch famously ran for vice president of the United States under the banner of the Libertarian Party, an organization founded a few decades earlier by big business to give an economic rationale and political patina to their simple theory that economics were more important than democracy, and the quality of life of working people should be decided in the “free marketplace” instead of by unions or through democratic processes via government regulation.

In this, Koch and his Libertarian friends were echoing Frederick Hoffman.

In his 1896 book Race Traits, Hoffman laid out his “scientific” assertion that when government steps in to help people, it invariably ends up hurting them instead. Not only should there be no government assistance given to help African Americans recover from three centuries of property theft, forced labor, and legal violence, but it is scientifically wrong to even consider the idea.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

I think terrorism is a stretch. This is likely based on his writing a manifesto (ideological goal) and the act's affect on the population. Domestic terrorism "Appears to intend to intimidate or coerce a population" by definition. So what? They are calling this coercion? "Persuading someone to do something by use of force"? More like, persuading someone to do the right thing by use of force.

Lesson learned: Never write a manifesto. Save it for closing arguments. And I hope Mangione delivers his own closing arguments.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

I can kind of agree that what was done here was unjust.

What should have happened was that the UHC CEO got shot in the pancreas with a cancer gun and have had all of his treatment claims denied -as all of his wealth diminished to bankruptcy over the next 24 months of excruciating non-covered treatment prior to his death.

Ending life permanently and immediately is a favor in the United States compared to the alternative for most of us.

aa

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The only question is whether their wait is mandated by doctors, or by accountants.

It's always by accountants. The only question is whether they work for the insurance company or the government.

You are wrong.

Worse, you are mistaking your own personal situation for some kind of inescapable law of nature that must be universally true; And are thereby complicit in your own opression, from which you believe that not only no escape is likely, but that no escape is even possible or imaginable.

You think it's the doctor making the decision.

I can, however, assure you that decisions regarding waiting times for specific patients in both Australia and the UK are made by doctors, on medical grounds, and without consulting any accountants.

NHS medical staff don't even have routine access to information about costs. The doctors neither know nor care which treatment options cost the most.

Myopic. The doctors decide who goes on the waiting list but the doctors have no say in how long the wait is. That's the government by means of deciding how much money to allocate.

Money is always allocated by some governing bodies. The government may allocate $X towards any particular medical center or hospital or region, using whatever criteria they utilize in such decisions BUT I am certain that each hospital abd medical center has a director and a governing board who allocate various resources according to whatever budgetary constraints they have. And I’m also certain that ORs are allocated according to needs, known or anticipated. The government t dies not make those decisions— the hospital directors do.

Which seems preferable to the insurance companies doing the same thing while keeping a hefty portion of the premiums they receive for the benefit if their CEOs, board of directors and stockholders.

Except, of course, when one has a fascist regime in charge as was just elected in the US. I don’t like any of our odds here in the US.

Which is completely not a rebuttal to what I'm saying. The medical center putting patients in the right priority order doesn't mean that they are being seen soon enough.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

Just because some people support a terrorist doesn't make them not a terrorist. The intent appears to be to scare the insurance companies--terrorism.

 

[Elixir]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

Just because some people support a terrorist doesn't make them not a terrorist. The intent appears to be to scare the insurance companies--terrorism.

He shoulda got a billionaire, not some schlub relegated to the working ranks by billionaires.
If you’re gonna terror, do it right!

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

Just because some people support a terrorist doesn't make them not a terrorist. The intent appears to be to scare the insurance companies--terrorism.

Really, so is it terrorism when the government "scares the insurance companies" (or any other corporation) when it passes a law that affects them, or takes legal action under current laws for some illegal action they have been found to commit? Scaring them seems a long way from terrorism. If start applying the word terrorism to anything that disturbs some individual or group, the word starts losing proper meaning. Also, maybe corporations need to start being scared, as they are doing worse to actual people.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

Just because some people support a terrorist doesn't make them not a terrorist. The intent appears to be to scare the insurance companies--terrorism.

Support? Understand or even applaud but not support. Support would require some assistance.
I don’t think the intent was to scare though it may have been a result. I think the intent was to administer justice where a criminal act is permitted by law.
To me and I think to many others, this was the necessary act of a reasonable person.

FBI Definition of Terrorism

 

[Toni]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

Just because some people support a terrorist doesn't make them not a terrorist. The intent appears to be to scare the insurance companies--terrorism.

Support? Understand or even applaud but not support. Support would require some assistance.
I don’t think the intent was to scare though it may have been a result. I think the intent was to administer justice where a criminal act is permitted by law.
To me and I think to many others, this was the necessary act of a reasonable person.

FBI Definition of Terrorism

Eh, I'm not in favor of the death penalty for anyone, no matter how much I might FEEL they deserve it and worse. I think the assassination, while understandable from a certain point of view, was neither necessary nor reasonable.

 

[Elixir]

I have no issue with someone charged with running a bigass company getting paid a million or few per year. That doesn’t mean they’re a scumbag. Even if the Company they run is a collective scumbag, they may not have the power to change that. The people who can change it are the billionaires, and this guy was MISTAKEN for one of them.

 

[bilby]

Why people are afraid of the absence of universal health care:

Marc Rogers, DEF CON's head of security, faces tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills following an accident that left him with a broken neck and temporary quadriplegia.

...

Speaking to The Register, Rogers confirmed his prognosis is good and he's now doing much better than he was three weeks ago when the incident, the nature of which he didn't detail, took place.

Whatever the incident was, it left the cyber pro with a broken neck, but he wasn't aware of this at the time. He had no symptoms other than some "manageable neck pain," and nothing out of the ordinary showed up on a routine X-ray and an MRI wasn't possible due to insurance delays.

A week later, Rogers started losing some sensation in his hands and tried to have the MRI rescheduled, but the approval from his insurance company never came. While waiting for said approval, he and his family holidayed in northern California and by the time he returned on December 30, he says he lost "about 20 percent sensation and a similar amount of mobility in both arms."

...

Rogers said it will be around four to six weeks before he returns to basic independence and is able to travel, but a full recovery will take up to six months. He begins a course of physical therapy today, but his insurance will only cover the first of three required weeks, prompting friends to set up a fundraiser to cover the difference.

My bold.

(Source)

 

[TV and credit cards]

Why people are afraid of the absence of universal health care:

Marc Rogers, DEF CON's head of security, faces tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills following an accident that left him with a broken neck and temporary quadriplegia.

...

Speaking to The Register, Rogers confirmed his prognosis is good and he's now doing much better than he was three weeks ago when the incident, the nature of which he didn't detail, took place.

Whatever the incident was, it left the cyber pro with a broken neck, but he wasn't aware of this at the time. He had no symptoms other than some "manageable neck pain," and nothing out of the ordinary showed up on a routine X-ray and an MRI wasn't possible due to insurance delays.

A week later, Rogers started losing some sensation in his hands and tried to have the MRI rescheduled, but the approval from his insurance company never came. While waiting for said approval, he and his family holidayed in northern California and by the time he returned on December 30, he says he lost "about 20 percent sensation and a similar amount of mobility in both arms."

...

Rogers said it will be around four to six weeks before he returns to basic independence and is able to travel, but a full recovery will take up to six months. He begins a course of physical therapy today, but his insurance will only cover the first of three required weeks, prompting friends to set up a fundraiser to cover the difference.

My bold.

(Source)

So is this a US citizen with crappy healthcare coverage or a British citizen trying to get covered here in the US? I'd think a guy this smart with a family dependent upon him would suffer the indignity of letting some company pay him a high six figure salary with excellent healthcare coverage for him and his. Yeah, I'm all for UHC but in the interim one must deal with the world as it presents itself.

This post is in lieu of the post I really want to write because maybe there is more to the story.

 

[ZiprHead]

Cancer surgeon has to leave surgery to talk to United Healthcare about coverage for her patient.

 

[Emily Lake]

Cancer surgeon has to leave surgery to talk to United Healthcare about coverage for her patient.

I'm going to call bullshit and say this cosmetic surgeon is hopping on the bandwagon and making shit up. There's no fucking way that a surgeon would scrub out of a surgery in process and talk to an insurance company. Surgeons almost never actually talk to the insurer in the first place - they're administrative and billing staff do. And they would NEVER stop in the middle of a surgery for that, like it would be reckless negligence on the part of the docter.

If this happened, her patient should sue the doctor's socks off for malpractice.

 

[laughing dog]

Cancer surgeon has to leave surgery to talk to United Healthcare about coverage for her patient.

I'm going to call bullshit and say this cosmetic surgeon is hopping on the bandwagon and making shit up. There's no fucking way that a surgeon would scrub out of a surgery in process and talk to an insurance company. Surgeons almost never actually talk to the insurer in the first place - they're administrative and billing staff do. And they would NEVER stop in the middle of a surgery for that, like it would be reckless negligence on the part of the docter.

If this happened, her patient should sue the doctor's socks off for malpractice.

One would hope you are right, but never say never.

 

[Emily Lake]

One would hope you are right, but never say never.

Fair. She might be stupid enough to scrub out to take a call rather than saying "I'll call them back when I don't have a human being open on a table in front of me".

 

[Jarhyn]

People scrub out of surgery all the goddamn time for all sorts of reasons.

I mean, my last job was at a company that made a surgical tool.

I imagine most idiots would be suitably shocked, though, at the kind of shit that happens with surgeons, doctors, and bureaucracy.

At any rate, I will attribute this all to someone failing to actually read the text in front of them: nothing about what the surgeon said said anything about having opened the patient. The patient was "asleep and on the table".

Note that it's still mid-surgery once the patient is asleep, even before they are cut upon, because that is part of the whole event of the surgery. The doctor is "in" the surgery as soon as they are scrubbed, and in theater.

 

[Emily Lake]

I imagine most idiots would be suitably shocked, though, at the kind of shit that happens with surgeons, doctors, and bureaucracy.

Both my mother in law and my aunt were OR nurses for decades. I've heard the stories, and at this point... very little shocks me.

I think one of the worst anecdotes came from my aunt. The surgeon had a surgical assistant who kept knocking over the tool tray. Then all of those tools have to be either thrown away or set for resterilization... but none of them can be used for the surgery currently underway. And the time delay involved in getting a new set of tools prepped and into the theater was shocking.