In Scotland, Parents Unsure They Can Photograph Their Own Kids

wolves3012 said:
Isn't that exactly what most bible-bashers and christian fanatics do? I notice some people on here insist on random biblical quotes in their signatures, which I think is inappropriate and might offend some.
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User CP > Edit Options > Scroll down > Switch "Show Signatures" off

I use this in every forum because it makes the posts a lot more readable.
 
paulfish4570 said:
hey bill: my health insurance is a benefit of my job, and my wife's job; it is part of our pay, in effect. we chose to accept the benefit. no one made us do so. i do not understand your health-care rant.
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So is my insurance. I just think that people who avoid health insurance, now that it's mandated, shouldn't receive the benefits of any other tax-funded support. I.e., if they want to break the law and stay off the health grid, then we ought to make sure they are completely off the grid. That means no care from any provider that receives any funding or support if any kind.
 
jke said:
Inciting fear and paranoia is the best way to get an otherwise apathetic electorate in to the polling places on voting day to vote in stalemated democracies. Otherwise a politician has to take a position on actual issues. Most of the actual issues have to do with problems requiring systemic reforms (economy, health costs, education, employment) that will only yield positive results in the long term and are inherently disruptive in the short term, thus creating a number of dissatisfied people one way or another no matter how successful the solution actually is. Since most elections will occur way before any positive evidence appears, taking a real stance on a real issue just doesn't pay political dividends.
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That's one of the most insightful and realistic political statements made here in a very long time.
 
dfoo said:
Sure there is when it starts to impact your personal freedoms. Personally, I think while people have the right to complain to me, I also have the right to tell them where to go. Rights go both ways 😉
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Sometimes your personal freedoms step on other personal freedoms, that is where respect and politeness plays it's part.... not that I am very polite or respectful, but if somebody asks me not to use my camera I will stop

E.g. your partner have a heart attack on the street (of the public type, where my freedom is to take photos), you ask me to stop taking pictures. Well why should I, it will ruin my freedoms, instead I should probably tell you where to go.....🙄 (OK in that situation I would probably try to help, not to annoy you)
 
wolves3012 said:
Isn't the whole point of insurance (ignoring the profits of the insurance company), in general and indeed in healthcare, that the majority pays for the misfortune of the minority? There were mutterings in the UK a while back about trying to deny smokers healthcare for smoking-related illnesses. Tip of the iceberg, had it got further. What next, drinkers? Sportsmen and women? Drivers accept risk of collision, do we deny them care because they had a mishap on the roads (their choice to be there, after all)? You could find grounds to deny almost anyone healthcare if you tried.
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The point of insurance is to spread the costs of dealing with misfortune among a pool of insured people. The larger the pool, the less the insurance costs each insured, in theory.

The purpose of the new health insurance mandate in the U.S. is to create as large a pool as possible.

I'm not advocating denying care to anyone who has insurance. I'm advocating denying care at any facility receiving any form of tax funding or compensation to any person who breaks the law by not buying health insurance. I'm not advocating denying them coverage at any facility that is completely privately financed.

Think of it as an incentive to get health insurance.

Many people who oppose health care reform in the U.S. typically go silent when asked how for-profit insurance corporations and for-profit care providers can deliver coverage and care to the entire population when it is a fact that a significant fraction of that care will not and cannot be profitable. Yet, if someone suggests that people who deliberately remain uninsured should not be eligible for tax-funded care, they assert that we can't deny coverage to anyone. Ironic, eh?
 
wgerrard said:
So is my insurance. I just think that people who avoid health insurance, now that it's mandated, shouldn't receive the benefits of any other tax-funded support. I.e., if they want to break the law and stay off the health grid, then we ought to make sure they are completely off the grid. That means no care from any provider that receives any funding or support if any kind.
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Sounds elegant, but among the people off the compulsory insurance system here in Germany, people with psychotic disorders are prominent. You don't really want to cut them off support - it is in our mutual interest to have any afflicted relations or neighbours treated, stabilized and medicated, or care of them will fall back upon us!

Sevo
 
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Agreed, Sevo. And denial of actual emergency treatment would be problematic.

But, I'd have little patience with someone who is comfortably employed refusing to buy insurance and then expecting other taxpayers to cover his costs.

How does Germany handle people who do not acquire insurance?
 
Just for the record: my religious views are sane and rational. ;-)

More seriously, one thing I like about internet forums is that I can get into great conversations with people whose political or religious views (e.g., maniacs who think Velvia is the greatest film ever) are vastly different than my own.

No need to hide your signatures, folks!
 
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bill, i'm liking some of your ideas now that i understand them. the pool idea is a good, but i fear it will be used as something more by the obama administration ...

as for those who find my signature offensive, let me say i do not find your insults directed at it offensive at all. they are expected. quote dawkins or stalin or mao or einstein or m.m. o'hare, or anyone else you like. it could not possibly bother me ... 🙂
 
wgerrard said:
Agreed, Sevo. And denial of actual emergency treatment would be problematic.

But, I'd have little patience with someone who is comfortably employed refusing to buy insurance and then expecting other taxpayers to cover his costs.

How does Germany handle people who do not acquire insurance?
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Essentially someone without insurance has to pay any healthcare bills out of his own pocket - at special , higher rates than those who are insured in a government plan.

If in an emergency, you cannot prove you have an insurance, you will only get the most basic treatment which only covers something like first aid. If you need further treatment and you aren't insured and have no funds, you first have to get clearing from a welfare authority. This process is so painful and stigmatizing that most people prefer to buy an insurance and get regular treatment.

The system has been working well here in Germany for decades. From our perspective, the discussion in the US about this topic looks somewhat absurd. The benefits are more than obvious.

OTOH, the German system is by no means perfect: Our healthcare system essentially is divided into two service quality classes - the "public" insurances which provide a reasonably good, but basic coverage when it comes to more complicated health problems, and "private" insurances with a better coverage and better care at higher prices, and with sometimes intransparent decisions about what will be covered and what will be refused. Common to both classes are ever-rising costs and a perpetual discussion whether we will be able to finance our system for the generations to come.
 
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not surprising. it is very expensive for out-of-country media to really get on the ground and dig deeply.
here's a tidbit: in alabama's public high schools, major medical insurance is required for any child who participates in sports, in case of injury. if a family has solid insurance, that's good. if a child's family is on medicaid, he can purchase insurance for the year for $10. the money goes into a state-supported pool. most families - no matter their insurance status - go ahead and buy the $10 policy anyway just to be sure. repair and therapy for an ACL tear - or a broken neck - can get very, very, very expensive.
a medical exam also is required pre-season annually for any sports participant. exams are offered for $10 at major medical facilities, and free if need be.
 
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paulfish4570 said:
bill, i'm liking some of your ideas now that i understand them. the pool idea is a good, but i fear it will be used as something more by the obama administration ...
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Paul, the concept of a pool of insureds has always been the underlying principle of insurance. That's the way your insurance works today. Each member of the pool pays an amount that is miniscule compared to the loss they would suffer when, say, their house burns down. Instead, the insurance company pays a claim with money drawn from everyone's premium payments and the return from investments of that money. More people in the pool means reduced costs to each member of the pool.

The new law only requires people to have health insurance, not that they buy some particular brand of insurance. The potential pool of insureds is now every American, i.e., as large as it can be. That's a good thing.

I wouldn't worry about this administration doing anything nefarious to members of this pool. There's not going to be some gargantuan list of every person with health insurance, no more than there is today. The requirement to buy insurance will be policed much like the current requirement to report interest income to the IRS. Today, banks, etc., tell the IRS how much interest you earn. If you don't report that income on your tax forms, you risk getting caught by the IRS. Tomorrow, insurance companies will provide the IRS with a list of their insureds, and will send each insured a form documenting their insured status that we all will attach to our tax forms. That's the only interaction with the government that the law creates for you and me.

Meanwhile, here's how it impacts me: I've had cancer. If I tried to change, or needed to change, insurance companies in the past, they wouldn't have accepted me because of the previous, and cured, cancer. Now, I can. I have younger relatives who are out of school and marginally employed and lack health insurance. Now, they can be placed on their parent's policies. Finally, I won't have to worry that if I ever again generate a large health insurance claim that the company will cancel my policy rather than pay.
 
paulfish4570 said:
there is no stigma of welfare here. anybody who wanted treatment could get it, as things stood before obama care ...
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That's not accurate, I'm afraid. People can get emergency care at hospital emergency rooms because, by law, those hospitals are required to provide it regardless of the patient's ability to pay. Those costs are recovered by hospitals by charging higher prices to other patients.

For example, if you are taken to an emergency room after an auto accident, you will be treated, whether or not have insurance or can pay out of pocket. Then you will be discharged.

If, however, you break a leg in that auto accident, and need long-term rehabilitation and physical therapy, no requirement exists -- even with the new law -- that someone who can't pay for it and who lacks health insurance must get that treatment. They're on their own.

Another example: Someone suffers a stroke at home. He's rushed to the emergency room. He's got no insurance. No matter, he will receive emergency treatment for the stroke. Then he will be discharged. No more freebie care will be forthcoming, which means he's on the hook for all the follow-on care and treatment that happens after a stroke. It also means the hospital will not be required to admit him if he cannot provide evidence (insurance) that he can pay for it.

Ditto for someone who goes to an emergency room complaining of intense headaches. If the emergency room diagnosis is a brain tumor, he's on the hook to pay for the treatment.

Bottom line: If you can't show ability to pay, your treatment ends when the ER discharges you.

The important question to ask about any insurance policy, whether it costs $10 in Alabama or $10,000 a year elsewhere, is what is covered and when and why the insurance company doesn't have to pay a claim.

There's nothing in the new law that means those Alabama parents can't buy that $10 policy for their kids. Those Alabamans who already have health insurance won't do anything different. And anyone who can't afford to buy health insurance will be provided subsidies so they can.
 
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Interesting - are you informed about European media's research budgets? Some of them are surprisingly powerful.

Your description for a child in Alabama sounds rather complicated. How about the parents - do they get insurance w/ reasonable coverage at similar rates?

Comparison with Germany: On public insurance, kids are insured automatically with their parents from day one at no extra cost. When they enter college, they have their own insurance at special, affordable youth rates w/o medical exams and stay in that tariff until they leave school/university and enter their first regular job. No exams, but regular (including proactive) health care with all risks covered (of course excluding aesthetic surgery). Special insurances are only needed for professional competitive sports and high-risk activities.

In Germany, the insurance pools are not controlled by political parties - only by the boards of the private and semi-public insurances themselves. The scope of what is being financed by the pool is decided in regular reviews by mixed boards of insurances, doctors' associations, the pharmaceutic industry and patients' boards. The pool is not a political maneuvering mass.
 
I took my primary aged daughter to an evening for talented athletes tonight and at the end asked the organising teacher if she minded if I bring my camera along next time. She was quite happy that I could - they have consent for pictures as part of the form - and delighted that I would share the pictures with them to share with parents.

On the other hand, there is a whipping up of paranoia from press and politicians alike.

MIke
 
Krosya said:
It seems that most of these stories come from US, UK and Australia. I wonder how things are in other/non-english speaking countries? Having traveled to Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Holland, Germany, etc. I have never had a problem with me having a camera while visiting there. Maybe I look too much like a tourist and people have different attitude toward tourists. So I wonder how things are there?
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Living in The Netherlands I can answer that. We (The Dutch) are very easy going concerning picture taking in the streets. In general people don't object as long as common sense prevails. Meaning ....don't aim you camera at someone else's kids without asking permission. Respect people as you like to be respected yourself.We are still in the luxury position of having security guards who actually know and respect the rights of photographers. No tripod police here also. But....I am the first to admit things are probably changing. More and more restrictions are forced upon us, but the great diversity of political parties in our government makes it almost impossible to slide away on the slippery path the UK and USA are walking right now. There is simply no majority found for to excessive rules, from which side of the political spectrum they may come.

On a personal note:
Of course we as a country didn't have to suffer the horrible and disgusting terror of 9/11 or the attacks on the London underground. In other words......we haven't lost our innocence, yet.
 
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