Please try to avoid partisan politics in the forum discussions... 🙂
Matt Day Medical Care GoFundMe
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Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Bob,
So are defence, police and roads and we don't have to pay for them individually according to usage. Most rich countries regard health as falling into the same category, also recognizing the principle of community and indeed insurance. Some are lucky and need very little care. Others are unlucky and need a lot. The US system is a tax on bad luck.
Cuba infant/child mortality (below age 5) and life expectancy as compared with the US? See here.
Cheers,
R.
Bob Michaels
nobody special
Roger, you are in favor of socialized medical care. Many are. But the US voters speak at the ballot box and the majority opinion differs from yours. BTW, I am frequently in the minority opinion these days.
I am quite knowledgeable about those statistics and the underlying factors. Both from an academic / statistical level as well as personal experience. One must realize the child mortality stats in Cuba are influenced by the propensity to simply abort any pregnancy with indications of future problems. The life expectancy stats are substantially influenced by the presence / absence of lifestyle diseases such as substance abuse, obesity and lack of exercise. This is an area where the Cuban economic problems have real health benefits.
Those factors overcome much of the problems with the Cuban medical system. Sadly, I am too aware of these problems through the cancer death of an ex- girlfriend and death from cardiac problems with the 5 year old nephew of my Cubana significant other. I am confident both would be alive and well today with US medical care.
Sumarongi
Registered Vaudevillain
I guess, the *Maternal mortality ratio (modeled estimate, per 100,000 live births)* has some more significance:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT?locations=FI-VE&year_high_desc=false
If I'm reading correctly, the USA are ... well, behind *all* Western European countries, and even behind several Central European countries (former Eastern bloc countries) ...
Mjd-djm
Established
Hang on... so someone spends all of their cash on everything but health insurance, then gets sick and can’t pay. So he starts a go fund me, comes out of hospital and still has all the great stuff he bought before. Doesn’t seem right to me. I remember a while back a photographer on Flickr, who owned Nikon DSLR gear including pro primes etc, had their gear stolen from their house, but didn’t have home insurance. So they started a gofundme page for $10k and hit the target. Really bothered me that I couldn’t ever imagine affording that gear at the time and this person was getting $10k worth of free gear despite having done something ridiculously dumb. Am I just being a grump here? But I wouldn’t expect anyone to bail me out... I make sure I look after my family so no one else has to.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Interesting figures: thanks. Raises two questions:
First, why are the figures not only high but increasing?
Second, why is the USA pretty much alone among rich countries in rejecting some form of national health service?
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
You're in the UK, where there's a national health service. Are you saying it should be privatized?
Only the extreme right in the UK believes that, and even they pay lip service to the NHS.
Cheers,
R.
valdas
Veteran
Not "several Central European countries", but most of them... From new EU members only Hungary, Romania and Latvia are below US"...
Bob Michaels
nobody special
Let me give a real life recent US example. My youngest sister, age 64 has a nice house, reasonably new car, lives frugally, and works part time for a small town dentist who does not provide an opportunity to purchase medical insurance. She pays about $5,000 for a private lowest cost medical insurance policy. It is lowest cost because it has a $5,000 deductible, meaning she pays 100% of her everyday medical costs and has coverage only for a disaster.
Sister has a co-worker in a similar situation who decided she did not want to pay for medical insurance because of the cost. Co-worker has just been diagnosed with cancer and is looking at out of pocket medical cost exceeding $100,000.
Sister has called me seeking my opinion about her dilemma about being asked to contribute to help pay her co-worker's uninsured medical cost. Sister has a real problem giving her limited hard earned money to help out someone who lived better because she would not sacrifice to buy insurance, as sister did, to avoid this problem.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Bob,
So your younger sister is paying, in effect, $10,000 a year: $5000 premiums + $5000 in everyday medical bills. As you well know, $5000 in medical bills doesn't take long to accumulate: some 25-30 years ago I ran up a $1400 bill in a few hours for diagnosis of a kidney stone.
There are plenty of people who simply can't afford $10,000 a year for medical insurance, and who don't have a "nice house and a reasonably new car". What should they do? Slope off quietly and die? Presumably, given the statistics, quite a few have no other choice.
Another case study: a friend of my wife's, in California, maybe 35 years ago. She was dying of cancer. Advice from the doctor to Frances's friend: "Bring her home to die. Otherwise the end of life care in hospital will cost you your house." Do you believe it would be better now?
A decent National Health Service would remove the problem for everyone. Refusing to admit the existence of society -- of our collective responsibility for one another -- means, for example, that someone should be able to say, "I don't have children, so I'm not going to pay for schools" or "I've got my own gun so I'm not going to pay for the armed forces."
Cheers,
R.
Paul T.
Veteran
I'm kind of sorry I raised this issue. It's a political one; but it's a human one.
It's bloody awful. I think of my friends that Ive sent money to, how humiliating it is to ask for money merely to survive. In the cases I know of, they were all creatives - it's actually not that easy to get any kind of coverage if that's your line of work.
Maybe I'm old fashioned. when it comes to health I'm a herd animal. We should be looking after the collective. It makes way more sense.As an american once said, we must all hang together, otherwise we will most assuredly hang separately.
Sumarongi
Registered Vaudevillain
Dear Roger,
well, in developed countries, I can imagine two reasons that are probably the most important:
1. Due to economic insecurity, many women -- particularly those who have an academic degree -- delay their first pregnancy until it's, well, very very late, and it's a not just a so called risk pregnancy, it *is* a risk pregnancy.
2. Independently what kind of health insurance system prevails: The persons who make the expenditure decisions, are there young fertile women among them? Nope, most of them are evil old (predominantly white) MEN. Men who find it much more important that health insurance covers these certain blue or yellow pills for said evil old men, y'know, these certain pills are much more important than say ultra-sound examinations for pregnant women...
Bob Michaels
nobody special
She does pay less than that because the $5,000 is a maximum she would ever have to pay out of pocket and her actual out of pocket are less. The reality is that modern day health care is expensive and someone has to pay it one way or another. There ain't no free lunch or fairy godmother to pay. Citizens pay one way or the other.
That is why the US has programs such as Medicaid to pay medical costs for those unable to pay. Of course there is a difference between being unable to pay and those unwilling to use their assets to pay.
Roger, we totally understand you are in favor of socialized medicine. You must understand the citizens of the US have rejected such at the ballot box.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
No, Bob, they won't. The government doesn't provide a damned thing to the poor here. In most states, only single mothers and children can get medicaid. The single moms only get it during their pregnancy and are dropped when they give birth, and the children are dropped when they turn 18 unless they're severely physically or mentally disabled. For the non-Americans here, Medicaid is the free healthcare for the poor.
The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) suggested, but did not require, that the states should expand Medicaid coverage to poor adults, but many, including mine, refused.
I have tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills I will never, ever be able to pay. Even after a stroke, I didn't qualify for any government help. I don't have, and never will have, insurance. It would cost me over $1000 a month, which is more than I earn. The ACA doesn't actually require everyone to have insurance; it exempts those too poor to pay for it, like me.
ForestCap
Well-known
What makes me feel sad is that if the same thing happened to a less famous person, then he or she probably can't raise such a big amount of money by online donation. However being less famous does not mean making less contributions to the Internet/world, and I'm sure a lot of people who contributed a lot to Internet/world just died quietly in similar situations.
I would sell any expensive gears that are not essential(in this case of life and death they are all not!) in the first place to support me and my families if such crisis happened. Asking donations online is the last resort, I guess for all less famous people like most of us.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Bob,
Para 1: Until anything remotely serious happens. I never spent a day in hospital between 1953 and 2009. In 2009 I needed my appendix out.
Para 2: What, all of them? They voted for third world maternal mortality rates? It was on the ballot? According to this source, 60% of Americans think that it IS the responsibility of government to ensure health care for all Americans. This source says that "a slim majority" supports single-payer. And here are some Trump voters who support universal healthcare.
Let's be more accurate. US voters have historically supported parties which are against universal health care, or which are in thrall to rich donors including insurance companies, but this opposition is a small part of a package which includes immigration control, the old pin-up girl Laura Norder, and much else. This is not a party political issue.
Elsewhere in the rich world, it isn't a party political issue either. Nationalized health care (I accept that some Americans use "socialized" as a synonym for "the work of the devil") is taken for granted by all but the far right. Why are Americans different? Are they in fact different? The links above suggest not. So do posts here from Chris Crawford and Sumarongi.
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Paul,
But yeah, you know, he's so out of date. Never mind the fact that he was a genius in multiple fields.
Cheers,
R.
BLKRCAT
75% Film
So this is kind of what I was getting at. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't making assumptions about the US healthcare system.
I don't mean any bad wishes towards Matt. I hope he makes a speedy recovery but personally I think that having some insurance coverage, even like the one that Bob mentions would be on my priority list.
I'm less than 30, I own a detatched house in Toronto, 2 cars, I have my life insurance set up to keep my family covered in case of an emergency, financial plan set up for retirement etc. I didn't come from a rich family and I worked for everything I have, I pay my bills and have no debt other than the house and a car loan. I like to think that I have my ducks in a row.
For someone roughly the same age as me living what seems like a similar life be faced with such a daunting financial hurdle doesn't make sense to me. Especially when it comes down insurance for something that could destroy everything you've worked for your entire life in the case of an emergency.
If he didn't have any notoriety or online presence he would be boned and I'm sure this situation is a common occurrence in the US. I can only try to sympathize because the financial toll is almost incomprehensible to me.
sjones
Established
One’s life is not a frivolous commodity or even a vital utility to be sold and traded. Life transcends the material dynamic, and to treat it like pig bellies or a new television is repugnant.
But even more repugnant is when people living in the one of the world’s wealthiest countries are forced to choose between adequate nutrition or healthcare for their children, because access to effective insurance is handled like access to a Mercedes Benz.
Worse yet is the crass commodification of life itself amidst growing income disparities, ensuring that one’s worth as a human becomes increasingly dependent on their bank account and nothing much else.
And while Obamacare was highly flawed in some respects (hard to hold constructive debate and implement needed revisions when the main detractors are screaming “worse than slavery”, “Armageddon”, and “death of freedom”), it at least eliminated certain inhumane deficiencies such as coverage limits and denial of coverage due to preexisting conditions. Still, bankruptcies occur frequently even for people WITH insurance, while unnecessary deaths continue based on nothing more than personal finance.
If one wants to blame someone for not buying insurance, that they somehow deserve to die because of this, go ahead with this Darwinistic reasoning, but whatever credibility this argument might possibly possess quickly falls flat when dealing with children who suffer inadequate health coverage.
And by the way, for those just concerned about profit (i.e., the corporate plutocracy that shapes much of the country’s polity), a healthy public is good for productivity, meaning that there is, in terms of capitalistic interests, a lucrative benefit to ensuring that labor is healthy.
If one can defend sizable expenditures on defense but treat life like a nonessential product (which ironically undermines the relevance of security itself), then one might want to reevaluate their ethical priorities. But the horrors of socialism! Yeah, about this, the quintessential socialist country North Korea spends more money on which, the military or healthcare? See how that works. One person’s socialism is another person’s great investment potential in defense contractors.
Our previous system was inarguably immoral, and despite needed reforms under Obamacare, the overall system still remains inexcusably unjust.
Good day, y’all. I’m out to make some wet prints…
But even more repugnant is when people living in the one of the world’s wealthiest countries are forced to choose between adequate nutrition or healthcare for their children, because access to effective insurance is handled like access to a Mercedes Benz.
Worse yet is the crass commodification of life itself amidst growing income disparities, ensuring that one’s worth as a human becomes increasingly dependent on their bank account and nothing much else.
And while Obamacare was highly flawed in some respects (hard to hold constructive debate and implement needed revisions when the main detractors are screaming “worse than slavery”, “Armageddon”, and “death of freedom”), it at least eliminated certain inhumane deficiencies such as coverage limits and denial of coverage due to preexisting conditions. Still, bankruptcies occur frequently even for people WITH insurance, while unnecessary deaths continue based on nothing more than personal finance.
If one wants to blame someone for not buying insurance, that they somehow deserve to die because of this, go ahead with this Darwinistic reasoning, but whatever credibility this argument might possibly possess quickly falls flat when dealing with children who suffer inadequate health coverage.
And by the way, for those just concerned about profit (i.e., the corporate plutocracy that shapes much of the country’s polity), a healthy public is good for productivity, meaning that there is, in terms of capitalistic interests, a lucrative benefit to ensuring that labor is healthy.
If one can defend sizable expenditures on defense but treat life like a nonessential product (which ironically undermines the relevance of security itself), then one might want to reevaluate their ethical priorities. But the horrors of socialism! Yeah, about this, the quintessential socialist country North Korea spends more money on which, the military or healthcare? See how that works. One person’s socialism is another person’s great investment potential in defense contractors.
Our previous system was inarguably immoral, and despite needed reforms under Obamacare, the overall system still remains inexcusably unjust.
Good day, y’all. I’m out to make some wet prints…
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Or to borrow Frances's variation on the Red Flag, instead of
The People's Flag is deepest red,
Stained with blood our fathers shed
she suggested
The People's Flag is deepest red,
Stained with blood our mothers shed
Cheers,
R.
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