Come on Obama, get the healthcare bill through!

It's just getting sad, the longer it takes, the more articles like this there will be.

If it helps to put pressure onto the anti-human view (those who oppose universal healthcare) to swing it round in their favour. You never seem to hear these stories from Europe or Canada

If the chance is so low why give them the medicine in the first place? Obviously to play it safe. It is smart to take less risks when one's life is at stake.

I can understand why the insurance company would be averse to what the doctors feel is risky enough to give expensive medications for.

What I don't understand is why they say no insurance at all. Why don't they write insurance with a disclaimer that anything aids-related that occurs over the next 'x' years would not be covered. This seems like it would be a perfect compromise between sound business practices and humane treatment. The compromise would even increase their bottom line as they would receive her money and it would be less damaging PR wise.

Seems like the compromise would be a no-brainer.

If you have a dog that bit someone you won't be denied home insurance but you will likely have a disclaimer that any claims because of the dog won't be covered.

I'm surprised too that they didn't write in HIV related illness as an exclusion to a policy.

I'm surprised that you think that's a humane treatment for a rape victim.

In my country, everyone has to be accepted to the basic health care plans of every insurance company. The government decided what should be in that basic health care plan, no exceptions.
I don't ever pay any bill from a hospital, that's all covered.
In my country, women who get raped are not forced to worry about sh*t like this.

? You don't understand what I said.
The insurance company has to make a profit in order to pay for the medical claims.

Insuring someone with aids isn't a very safe investment.

Assuming that she might contract aids because her doctor thought it was possible is understandable.

Instead of denying coverage to her for anything, cover her except for aids.

That is far more humane than telling her she gets no insurance at all.

Comparing your country to ours makes no sense. One has nothing to do with the other. One is a business that has to make a profit to pay the claims, the other is a company with help from a government which doesn't have to make a profit and can go deep in the red. Even when the government can go in debt, raise taxes, or just print up more money there are medical cases where rationing causes people to die so it isn't perfect either.

Also out of curiosity does your basic insurance cover aids?

Thanks for taking the time to write that down, it's very interesting to try and understand why people are against that American health care bill.

I do understand what you meant with humane now ...cutting her off from any help with aids meds in case she actually did get aids from being raped, opposed to not insuring her at all.

I guess my ideas of humane are slightly different.

btw, over here, people pay taxes, and the price we pay for health care insurance is very high. People with low income or no job at all will get some help from the government, as EVERYONE is insured. This raises the price for the people who can pay it. How is that bad?
The government doesn't go in debt for it, and they don't interfere with doctors descisions any more than they do in your country.

Yes, but it doesn't cure aids.

some examples of what isn't covered by the basic plan:
unlimited physiotherapy
midwifes (but you can go to hospital for a delivery)
stupid stuff like homeopathy and other "alternative medicine"
most dentist stuff (except when there's surgery, as that is covered)
single room in hospital
etc

The extra costs for extra coverage on the above examples are only a fraction of the costs of the basic plan.

I agree--she didn't engage in risky behavior to be exposed, she was assaulted. Denying her coverage or including an exclusion like that is insulting. I don't DESERVE coverage because someone raped me? Oh...I don't think so!

This is the game of US healthcare. People in the know play the game and work around it. If you are unfortuante and don't have someone to provide you that information, bad things happen.

I have paid for genetic testing out of my own pocket because having those test results "on my record" with BC/BS would be ... bad.

I subsequently had "elective" surgery under an incorrectly spelled name and paid for it myself (with some professional courtesy write offs) to the tune of 15k.




The healthcare game WILL NEVER CHANGE as long as it is a for profit industry.

Bulls**t.

People have been posting them on here like gangbusters lately.

Like this one:



Or this one:



Another:



More:

I understand that people don't think a insurance company should take into account the likelihood of her contracting AIDS in their decision whether to agree to make the bet that she won't get AIDS.

Do you also think that they shouldn't base their rates on the likelihood of getting sick? Do you think that a 20 year old in perfect shape should pay the same rates as a 50 year old obese person whose idea of exercise is getting up to find the remote and who smokes 3 packs a day?

Would you think it would be fair that they covered her for AIDS but they charged her more than a person who was less at risk?

What about charging a male homosexual hooker who was a heroin addict and spent 1/2 the year in Haiti? Would you charge him a different rate than the mother superior of some church?

As a general rule, and I know this is idealistic and unlikely to ever be resolved in this country, I have a hard time swallowing the fact that a person's health care is tied to someone else's profit margin. It strikes me, on a basic level, as immoral. Especially with the size of those profits being raked in.

I get your arguments, but on my personal scale of what's right and wrong- making crazy profits off denying care and coverage is wrong.

Charging higher rates is not the same thing as denying coverage out right. I DO think those who make unhealthy life style choices should pay a higher cost. But I do not think something out of your control--like being raped, or have a genetic predilection to cancer--should count. And I think insurance companies need to wake up and realize that paying for preventative health care is far cheaper than the alternative.

True, but you have to take into account that "denying care and coverage" due to profit reasons has the fact that medical costs are insane as one of its root causes.

Solving insurance is solving the symptom. It is putting a bandage over the real problem.

I do believe that affordable health care should be a basic human right. How we get there and how we define "affordable" is the problem.

One thing that is true is "free" health care is the most expensive. There is no price controls, not even by the consumer. He don't pay so he doesn't care what the actual cost is as long as someone else is paying.

That is why I think that medical costs should be subsidized and controlled but the consumer should be able to see what it cost.

As I've said before:
1. Enact tort reform. Reduce the cost of providing medical care by reducing malpractice rates. Reduce the rates by limiting lawsuits to reasonable amounts. No more 10million dollar lawsuits for a hangnail

2. Subsidize doctors from med school to full on doctor provided they agree to limit their rates to reasonable amounts based on the cost of living, average wages, etc. Doctors shouldn't have to get a part time job to pay the rent, but they don't need enough to be able to purchase their daughter a BMW for her 16th, 17th, and 18th birthday.

Make the subsidy an option. If someone wants to pay their own way, great. Let them charge as much as they want but they'll have to compete with people charging rates that are affordable to the average joe.

Probably and most cost effectively would be to put most of the subsidies in general practitioners. That is a medical care which could be greatly lowered in price while still being highly profitable. It would also draw more people to that field. Currently specialists make far more than GPs so fewer choose that route. If we made becoming a GP more in reach than we would all benefit.

3. Increase competition by allowing insurance across state lines. I still don't understand why it is legal to purchase home insurance across state lines but not health insurance. Allowing this would greatly increase competition. This one rule change would have a immediate effect of lowering insurance rates and increasing coverages

Insurance companies are partly to blame. They have too high administrative costs compared to government. Ironic isn't it?

95% of these infamous tort cases happen at the state level. The federal government can't really do much about this.

This sounds like a good idea. But I don't know enough about the numbers involved in this to really judge.

I think this is a bad idea. Here's something that sums up why:


And I think that if a state wants to have different regulations on its health care insurance industry, then that is its right as a state. Look at what would happen if insurers which can duck out of their responsibility in conservative states was able to compete with insurers in Vermont. The societal evils that Vermont's reforms were enacted against would come back because more people would buy the cheaper but less useful insurance from the conservative states rather than the reformed insurance in Vermont. And the people would get screwed by their shortsightedness, but by the time they realized this, it would be too late.

Wow, three "rape" articles on the front page.

I guess we know what gets peoples' attention here at Plime.