high medical bill leading to bankruptcy

[Sasha]

An article posted in the Chicago Tribune yesterday stated that half of all the bankrupties filed in 2001 were attributed to high medical costs. A study coming out of Harvard University to be published in the journal "Health Affairs" found that when they examined filings in 5 federal court districts, including Illinoise, that most people filing were middle class, home owners who had health insurance at the onset of their illness, but eventually lost their health isurance due to losing their jobs because of the illness. Also that the coverage had extremely high co-pays and uncovered services and for that reason it wiped out many middle class families. Imagine what those co-pays and uncovered services are doing to the less fortunate. I think Americans need to get off their ass and start demanding some sort of National Health Care plan. 45 million people in this country don't even have any type of health insurance what so ever and insurance companies dictate what is a covered service and what is not, denying services that many people even with insurance need but still can't afford.

[sunni]

that is really messed up! our insurance copayment goes up this year by quite alot. as mad as that makes me i cant imagine not having it at all.

[Uranium]

i'm one of the 45million without

[1$ikbITCH]

Ask most Canadians; National Health Care sucks.

The doctors are paid by the government. Go ask a teacher in the public school system what they make.

A lot of the best doctors leave for countries where they can become become millionaires instead of surviving on a pittance.

I recently had a hernea fixed. From the time I first picked up the phone to schedule an appointment to see the very first doctor, until I had my operation, was less than a month. That's a Dr visit, then a Surgeon visit, then another Dr visit to do bloodwork, then the surgery. From the horror stories I have read in Canada, that might have taken a year because nobody's in a hurry. They all get paid by the hour, and not much. And then there's the fact that everyone can run to the doctor for every little ache and pain because it's FREE!

Money is the deciding factor.

I agree something needs to change, but you can't just make it free for all. When it comes down to it, the country that pays the most will get the best doctors.

[Sasha]

Yes, we have the best medical care here, than anywhere else, but only for those who can afford it. We don't have to impliment a plan like Canadas and because we have never had any national health care plan implemeted it isn't likely we would follow the Canadian model anyway. People with health care already aren't really likely to care about this issue much. When we have an infant mortality rate much higher than many 3rd world countries, we have a problem that needs to be addressed. When a baby boy born in china has a 3x survival rate than a little boy born in Harlem we should take notice.

[1$ikbITCH]

I disagree. At the rate human beings are destroying the planet, the less of us there are, the better. People are living too long and too many are surviving when they should have died. If the world wasn't so overpopulated, disasters like the tsunami wouldn't have such high death tolls.

Even with the natural disasters, we are still expanding greater than we are dying. This is what needs to be addressed, or nobody will be able to survive here because the planet will be a giant wasteland and we'll all be eating Soilent Green.

:P

[Sasha]

It has nothing to do with the rate people are being born, but more the prenatal care and the health care people are not recieving at those times. So because we need to keep track of our current population we should just withhold health care as a means of doing that? assanign :rolleyes In fact your post doesn't even make sense because there are so many babies that are going to be born every single year reguardless , so then lets thrawt their future and give them an ill start because as long as each has its own, and your ass is covered why should people care. Or better yet, lets hold necessary health care in hopes that if we have another natural disaster there wouldn't be such a horrific death toll. Good god.

[1$ikbITCH]

Of course we should try to have a plan to get affordable health care to the masses, and that the costs are out of control. I pay $300 a month for health insurance out of my pocket, and I only clear $340 a week right now!

However...

It is a fact that more and more babies are saved from death, and more and more people are saved from accidents and illness, and more and more people live longer and longer. Then, all the people who would have died are now making more babies that are being saved and living to be 100 years old instead of just 60 or 70. They are in turn having more and more children that will have more and more children who will live to be 100 and so on.

We are playing God, or Mother Nature, or whatever. We are corrupting the chain of life. As we keep finding more ways to keep everyone alive longer, we will soon run out of food and room for all the new people who, instead of replacing the dead people, are now just adding to the billions of people who should have died but didn't.

We have "managed hunts" for wildlife. This is because we have killed off the natural predators that hunted the wildlife, and destroyed most of their habitat, and now we have to manage the population or it will grow so large it can't feed itself or have room to live (or eat our flower gardens and damage the frontends of our SUV's :rolleyes:) .

Yet we do not manage the human population. Obviously, that won't happen until it's already too late, because the survival instinct is too great. I'm merely pointing out the inevitable. At some point there will be more people on the planet than food or space for them, and the Earth will be a giant wasteland full of starving people who have to eat each other to stay alive. It's ironic that the very thing that has ensured our survival will be the very thing that ensures our downfall.

[Sasha]

I hardly call providing decent health care and prenatal care playing "God" nor do I by any means consider that an acceptable method of controlling the population. There are all kinds of ways of doing that without denying people proper health care.

[StAnkY]

well our country being the model of prosperity for the rest of the world its shameful that people in pain or that are sick cant get medical care. i dont see an easy answer it it because everybody cringes at the sound of high taxes but maybe if the government put a cap on some of the outrageous medical expenses. it use to be if you were sick you went to your doctor got meds and went on. now its go to your doctor, get reffered to a specialist, another specialist, a battery of tests and samples. its the scam of all scams. because they are healthcare porfessionals we rarely question their judgement but it seems some put a consorted effort into gouging insuance companies. end reslut..out of control insurance costs, elevated healthcare costs

[1$ikbITCH]

I hardly call providing decent health care and prenatal care playing "God" nor do I by any means consider that an acceptable method of controlling the population. There are all kinds of ways of doing that without denying people proper health care.

Yes your survival instincts are in full control. Save lives no matter the cost. That's a normal and expected reaction. A trapped animal will chew it's own leg off to escape.

Do you deny that the human race is growing exponentially? Do you think we can just rely on natural disasters to save us from the inevitable? At some point we will have to take matters into our own hands, once again, "playing God".

Nature has ways of population control. The Plague, Smallpox, Aids, and weather events such as the latest tsunami are all designs of nature that keep things in check. Yet Man cannot live with that, and must find a way to defeat these things. Not playing God?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on thinning the human herd.

Btw, if we were to let the sick people just die, as they are supposed to, the human race would be much stronger as a species and in much less need of all this health care. Survival of the fittest.

[1$ikbITCH]

Btw, I have somewhat of a vested interest in this at the moment. Right now my wife's cousin is lying in a hospital bed, having had multiple strokes caused by infectious endocarditis. His brain has swollen so much his eyes bleed, and also has a big hole in it that the infection has consumed already. His heart valves are ready to give in, causing massive heart attack, and he's barely concious sometimes and comatose the rest. The doctors admit that even if he lived, he would in all likelyhood be a vegetable. And yet they are still fighting to keep him alive.

Stop playing God and let him go :(

[Sasha]

Well what you and I are talking about are two very different things. I am very sorry to hear about your wifes cousin. In the case where a person is sick and the quality of life diminshes such as that, I don't see the benefit of keeping an individual alive unless they had expressed wishes to be kept that way. Letting a person die with dignity and affording simple healthcare to other people are two way different things. I don't know his medical back ground at all so I wouldn't even dare to venture a guess that perhaps had he aquired the best possible healthcare earlier in his life things might be different.

My grandfather lays in a nursing home daily because hes in the very last stages of Alzehimers (sp). About a month ago we got a phone call from my grandmother telling us that he had lost all vital signs and they were taking him to the hospital to let him die peacfully because he has a strict No Recessitation Order. My grandmother, and my mother as well as her sister have all been nurses for years and years and undertand what no vitals means. My family waited at the hospital to meet him when he got there and they never showed. Despite the proper paper work and orders, they recessitated him. They should have never done that. In cases like those I don't even understand why you would fight to keep someone alive, let them go and let them have peace.

Now that is very different that giving a pregnant mother proper prenatal care. Or allowing children to recieve the best medical care they have to offer. How would you feel if one of your loved ones took on a medical condition that was completely treatable, preventable with good medical care, but died because he or she lacked insurance and could not obtain the proper pre care that it would have taken to correct that situation?

Aids is not a natural disease. People in the US might be getting less, but there are still millions all over the world dying from it. In Africa 1 in 3 persons have Aids. We can eliminate teen pregnancy in the U.S. but that would require a little more radical progressive thought that our politicans are capable of. The average family has like 2.5 kids these days and couple are electing to wait later in life to start familes and people are having less children. I agree that Nature has a way of controlling the population, however I don't think that includes withholding medical care from pepole because they simply can't afford it.

[1$ikbITCH]

Good post.

"How would you feel if one of your loved ones took on a medical condition that was completely treatable, preventable with good medical care, but died because he or she lacked insurance and could not obtain the proper pre care that it would have taken to correct that situation?"

As a human being and a relative of course I would be upset. Again the whole survival, procreation of the species instinct that's ingrained in all species.

However, as a pragmatist, one has to realize that people need to die. Somehow, someway, people need to die to make room for the new people.

[{NvTS}Cannon_Fodder]

hmmm this issue has so many other problems to it. I believe a national healthcare system would be necessary but that does not necessarily mean that the doctors will immediately be paid much less than they are now... I would say go after the insurance companies and the lawyers. The insurance companies are gouging their customers and the lawyers are causing enormous problems with the millions of medical malpractice lawsuits. For every one legitimate claim there are thousands of people looking to get easy money which causes the rates on insurance to go up its a vicious cycle

[Sasha]

I agree that Insurance copies and frivolus law suits are things that need to come under some kind of control. Insurance companies dictate to often the proceedures that people are able to recieve and that should be left to the control of the medical profession. As stanky suggested, referals to specialist happen all to often because of the requirements of insurance companies. Some kind of system of checks and balances need to implemented to prevent people from being ripped off.

I don't support the survival of the fittest argument by any means because of the polution and waste dumped into the enviroment that causes so many illnesses that we aren't even aware of. I don't call that nature. I call that abuse of the enviroment and a living in a capitalist country where the all mighty dollar dictates more than it should.

[1$ikbITCH]

That's what I am saying. Man is polluting and destroying the earth and making more and more of us will only make it worse. DOWN WITH HUMANS! :D

Back to the boring ass Superbowl now :(

[1$ikbITCH]

Btw, I was only keeping the thread alive until someone else came along to discuss healthcare with you :)

Ever since this forum was hacked, it's been pretty much dead.

[Sasha]

Btw, I was only keeping the thread alive until someone else came along to discuss healthcare with you :)

Ever since this forum was hacked, it's been pretty much dead.

hahah well thanks. I feel humored, but your right this is the only forum with the signs of life.

[Vyper]

Actually I'm going to chime in here. I've read most of the posts and I do have some things to say about all the "Insurance company" slamming thats going on here. Its not entirely the insurance companies fault that rates are going up.

Most of the increased costs that you're seeing are from lawsuits, including people sueing the insurance companies to provide services that have not been tested thoroughly enough to prove that they work and have no nasty side effects, and from those from either really botched proceedures or just those that a lawyer convinced a court that was botched even though it wasn't the medical professionals fault, i.e., less than perfect babies being born to parents who DID not follow physicians advice during pregnancy or whose newborn has some genetic based flaw that is "somehow" the physicians fault.

Let me give some examples. There was an idea awhile back that removing the bone marrow from women with cancer (can't remember the kind, breast I think), doing intense chemotherapy on them and replacing the stored bone marrow later would be better than doing the chemo which frequently destroys the bone marrow. Nice theory BUT no clinical trials were done before word got out about the new, but untested, proceedure. Families of women with potentially fatal cancer grasped at this straw and FORCED, via the courts, the insurance companies to PAY for a proceedure they 9the insurance companies) weren't sure would work or be safe. As it turned out, the failure rate was quite high, and some women who might well have lived having gone thru chemo died because the bone marrow proceedure itself was highly dangerous. Those woman died as ginuea pigs who hadn't actually volunteered as such. Admittedly some of those women might well have died anyway but not as many as did. Statistically no lives were saved by the proceedure but we, as insurance policyholders, had to fork over part of that bill. Only "benefit": the proceedure for bone marrow transplants has been considerably refined and its no longer as dangerous as it once was. :P

I wont argue with sueing a medical professional for doing a bad job especially ones that end in permenant crippling or death. But if you're wondeirng why you can't find an Obstetrician anymore the "less than perfect" baby lawsuits are to blame. As of 10 -15 years ago the malpractice insurance for an OB/Gyn was more than 100,000 /yr, now its worse. Sorry kiddies but every time you try to have a baby you play genetic roulette and sometimes you come up craps and there wasn't jack shit your physician could do to change things. BUT you'll get folks who'll blame and sue the Dr because "Jane/Jonny" didn't come out just perfect. :P And the Drs, and we pay, for those lawsuit payouts.

And if you want to know who the biggest Fucking gougers of our pockets is look to the drug companies. Drugs costs have gone up exponentially since they lobbied the gov't to allow them to advertise their wares. So have their profits. Can't remember if it was Wyeth, Merck or one of the other drug companies who made a 3,000% profit increase last year. :youdick:

My hubbies got an email showing the markup on some of the current meds on the market. I had it but lost the email in a drive crash. I'll post it when I get a copy tomorrow. If you haven't seen it before its stunning for what it reveals.

Which is not to say that the insurance companies aren't making a profit and padding their own pockets too but they aren't the only ones. Next time you think about sueing someone for something minor, thinking the insurance company will pay it, just think about this...it might be YOUR insurance rates that go up because of it.

[StAnkY]

actually insurance cost not the compainies themselves are why alot of companies wont carry group policies that arent co-paymeny based now. there are more people than i can count around this area that use their insurance to get painkillers and valiums for recreational use and the doctors know it. they dont give a shit to the point there are 1 or 2 that ask you what you want rather than whats wrong with you. these assholes occur to me every time i look at my paystub and see my insurance cost for my family and myself

[Vyper]

Yup there are some of those too. :P

[Sasha]

I do 100% agree about your statement with the drug companies weilding to much power and gouging many many pockets. I won't agree however with the whole image of playing roulette with the doctors especialy in the case of babies. You pay money and expect the best medical care and physicans do screw up, even the best in the business and they should be held accountable for that. Yes, there are loads of false malpractice suits that shouldn't be considered valid, but there are many legitimate cases where people were screwed over.

When I was 30 weeks along with my second daughter, I was seeing the doctor that delievered my first one, and he was considered the best in the bussiness in this area. I was young, and completely trusted his judgment. At 30 weeks, I woke up one morning hemorrging, very badly, rushed to the E.R and then the OB unit where the nurses on staff prepped me for an emergency c-section. My doctor walked in and despite the severe amount of blood loss among all the other horrific things going on , he decided to make me deliever naturaly. The nurses just stood there looking at him, as did my mother and husband at the time. I had 15 staff ppl in that room, when she was born at 30 weeks, she was lifeless. They did cpr etc and brought her back but because of the undue trauma she suffered and her early arrival, spent along time in neonatal. Right now she is being tested for learning disablities,( shes 8 now ) she was always developmentally delayed by at least a year behind other children her age. They always told me that she would catch up at the age of 2. Later the Neonatal specialist told me in confidence that had the doctor delievered via c-section immediatly she probably wouldnt have suffered so much and the lack of oxygen at birth probably wouldnt have happened. He gambled with my daughters life and made a very bad judgment call. I didn't sue, although I should have and did have a very good case. Doctors are human and they make bad decisions too, and because we trust them with our lives and health, they need to be held accountable for poor decision making. Now my daughter will reap the consequences of his poor judgment. This doctor also told me that I shouldn't have any more children because the likely hood of this occuring again was extremely great. I delievered another healthy full term baby girl just 13 months later. ( and I never let that doctor touch me again )Unfortantly this doctor has the largest medical practice in this area still. I don't call that rouletter. I call that fucking up big time. Also unfortantly, I'm sure my story is all to common, and it shouldn't be.

[Vyper]

When I was talking about roulette Sasha I was talking genetics not poor medical judgement which if you look further up my post I said was a prefectly reasonable reason to sue. Sorry to have hit a sore spot with you.

See a pm I sent to you.

[Vyper]

Speaking of bad medical judgement: Having a head cold I went to a Dr., having just moved into a new city, that was nearby. He took my history including my drug allergies, of which I'm badly allergic to the penicliin family of meds, and said he was going off to prescribe some meds and he'd be back. While he was gone the nurse came in with a shot of something. I asked her what it was and she told me Lincacine (a penicillin based med). I told her the Dr. hadn't mentioned giving me any shots and she argued with me still trying to give me a shot I adamantly refused. I wound up wrestling this idiot nurse for the hypodermic until she finally agreed to go ask the Dr about the shot.

For which he had to apologize for the nurse misreading his notes since he hadn't ordered anything of the sort! Obviously I never went back there again. :P

[Artis]

another interesting thread, LONG LIVE BTP!!!.

sasha, very sry to hear about your daughter. is this the one that has the shockingly bad gas that makes hex gag? lol also sry to hear about your g'father. alzheimers is horrible to witness.

sikbitch, sry to hear about your wife's cousin.

now to my post: we have other national health care models to look at so hopefully we would improve on some of the problems other countries like canada and britain have. something needs to be done. im with sasha on this one. of those 45 million that sasha mentioned without healthcare the largest group is children. saying that population control is necessary or a good thing might have been true in 1650 where your community might not grow enough food to feed its 50 inhabitants is one thing but we have so many different ways of getting food including artificial means that the supply shouldnt be a problem. as far as having enough 'space' for people well we have adapted and expanded thus far and will continue to do so by pursuing all manner of places to live. i dont see any of this as something that should be seen as a 'restriction.'

people need to stop thinking about things in traditional ways and start utilizing some of that human ingenuity that has gotten us this far this fast.

and as to why we have high insurance rates its due to bad/corrupt doctors, money grubbing insurance companies (who are out for a profit first and foremost and we should never forget this), lawyers in it for big money and people pissed off about losing a loved one and/or people who see a way to make some big time money, and big companies that dont care about anything except their bottom line. this is all part of our capitalist society where money rules all. greed greed and more greed. pure capitalism is as cold and harsh as the worst kind of communism.

[StAnkY]

you also forgot the people who fuck it up for everyone else artis. not just the ones who abuse their medical insurance for recreational drugs but the ones who are sitting in the doctors office every time they get a sniffle or milking out some bogus workmans comp "accident". there is a very real individual element in all of this. plenty of blame to spread around. you know i have a geniune disliking for govt regulation but when things are spinning out of control we need to be able to turn to the people we elected to correct the problem

[Artis]

indeed.

[Sasha]

I saw an intresting segment on Good Morning America today. They talked about how the FDA is now seizing orders of prescription drugs Americans are buying from Canada. The FDA says they are concerned with the strength etc saying they MIGHT not be up to American standards, Lipitor being one of the drugs in question. Lipitor is only made by one company in Ireland and is shipped to both Canada in the US from the same company at the same strengths and available dose. Certain states are forming legislation to allow Americans to purchase from Canada becuase we pay 50 to 70% higher costs than anyone else in the world. Illinoise is one of those states and their residents are being hit hard by seizure of legal medication.

Now this sounds like to me some drug companies have gotten pissed and had their lobby groups put down some hard pressure on the Goverment. All of the above is complete and utter bullshit.

[StAnkY]

thats exactly what it is. that lacks any logic to think drugs sold in canada are manufactured any different than the ones here

[Artis]

claritin d can now be purchased exclusively over the counter and a couple months ago when i was sick i bought 5 24 hr pills and they cost me about $13 bucks when i could have payed $10 dollars for 3 times that many pills through a regular prescription from the doctor. oh and they didnt do shit for me. freakin' incredible.

[1$ikbITCH]

Actually, there is a thread of truth in it.

Some countries do not have the stringent laws we have governing some drugs. My mother-in-law used to get penicillin smuggled up from Mexico because it was a LOT cheaper than buying it here. Come to find out, it was a lot cheaper because it was about 1/3 penicillin and 2/3 garbage. It was packaged identically and appeared to be identical to prescription penicillin from here, but in Mexico it's easy for the drug companies to skirt the laws and misrepresent their products. Therefore her boyfriend nearly lost his leg to infection.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the US trying to stop people from buying outside the country, it's just a convenient excuse.

[StAnkY]

being canada has a very socialist model for healthcare i doubt a drug company would risk being shut out of that market. mexico does have lax laws and standards thats for sure

[Sasha]

I agree that Mexico is wishwashy. ALot of people cross the border to purchase painkillers like vicoden. However the main focus was seizing drugs being bought through the mail from Canada. The FDA takes the mail order and sends you a letter stating your drugs have been confiscated! Why should we be forced to purchase drugs here. MONEY thats why. The drug companies have way to much power. Funny, in my Drugs and Society class I'm currently taking, my prof is considered an expert in his field and even authored the text we are using and its widely used all over the U.S. After numerous interviews with doctors, the medical profession is suprised that people actually come in and ask to be prescribed a drug by name. Why they are suprised I'll never know considering the amount of advertising that drug companies do to get their name out there.

and Artis I know how you feel. I am suppose to take Claritin for my allergies and purchasing it OTC is outrageous. 11 bux for 12 pills that don't do shit. The only things that saves my ass in terms of prescrip drugs is that my mom works for a doctor and gives us all the samples the drug reps bring in. It saves me LOADS of cash that I don't have to be forking out. She just brought me home 3 months worth of Wellbutrin so I can quit smoking. /me huggles my mommy LOL.

[1$ikbITCH]

I don't think you should be able to buy drugs through the mail from anywhere, period.

I know they are using "safety" issues as the reason, but there is a much much better reason why mail-order drugs should be banned. It takes up too many National Security resources to monitor.

1. They cannot even open the can of worms. It starts with little old ladies ordering a bottle of valium, and ends up with tractor trailers full of Schedule II narcotics being shipped in. The doctor writes a script for 75 tons of demoral, and we're in, baby! :D

2.How do they know YOU are actually going to receive the drugs? Right now it's hard for someone to walk into a pharmacy with a stolen prescription and get it filled. But someone could easily steal your ID and prescriptions and start emailing Canada. So now the Feds who inspect the packages have to spend time on each package, checking to see if the drugs are legal, the prescription is legal, and the legit person is the actual one who ordered the prescription. Doublechecking and triplechecking to make sure contraband isn't being smuggled into the country and that all parties are legit. That takes more and more agents who could be searching shipping containers for nukes and chemicals instead of having to inspect and verify every single package that contains some pills. Seems to be much more efficient and secure to say "Nothing gets in, end of story".

If the issue revolved simply around money, than I'd agree. Subsidizing farms is BS, those farmers should get a real job like the rest of us. Nobody pays me NOT to work. Putting trade tariffs on steel imports because American steel can't compete seems to be BS as well. But if it's a matter of security or drug enforcement, that trumps all.

[Sasha]

oh stop it. It has nothing to do with that and you know it. There is nothing wrong with purchasing XR drugs via the internet or by mail from reputable pharmacies. These pharms are legit and do check to make sure your XR is valid. That has nothing to do with why the FDA is siezing drugs and everyone knows it. To even suggest thats what its about would be ignorant. Hrm it's perfectly acceptable to order prescription drugs via the interent from US companies and they too validate the script. In fact many people do it because some internet pharms are offering lower prices, and farmers are a completely different subject altogether.

[1$ikbITCH]

I know it has nothing to do with it. I say it's a pleasant side effect.

It's quite easy to pay the unscrupulous doctor $20 a pop for narcotic prescriptions. It's done every day. When I was coming up, there were several doctors in my area that sold prescriptions like they were the drugs themselves. But now the pharmacies are watching for this stuff, and now that they are linked to computer databases, they can easily see when you've filled 5 scripts in 3 days. You're going to jail, and so is the doctor.

But if you can just order drugs from countries all over the world, there is no database to monitor that, and who's to say they will care?

To think that all these people ordering prescriptions all over America only use the few companies in Canada that are reputable is naive. And regardless, when there is a bag of pills under the scanner, and that Fed agent has thousands of packages behind it and only 10 seconds to make a decision, the decision is simple. Thumbs down.

I don't care what their reasons are, it just seems like a good idea on a few fronts.

I still agree that the drug companies excercise a lot of undue influence over US policy, but that is a problem with Corporate America in general, not just the pharmaceutical companies. The oil companies and automotive industry are other prime examples.

And it's not limited just to corporations either. America is governed by special interest groups.

[Artis]

im all for buying drugs from canada.

a) because its cheaper
and
b) because its easier to get what you want....

screw the government.

per my sig:
Government Warning: We are corrupt and have sold out to corporate interest. Do not listen to our advice.

[1$ikbITCH]

Hah, who's corrupt now! :D

[Artis]

ah screw it.