They just don't want to pay a dime for healthcare, not now, not ever

[BannedFromDU]

Union Yes  Donating Member  (313 posts)    Sat May-09-09 01:07 PM
Original message

1995-My disabled father died at the Mayo Clinic, Billed $440,000.
   
I remember it vividly, like it happened yesterday.
Really, you remember the death of a loved one? So many of us just can't. How terrible that must be.

I was 25 at the time and still somewhat naive about the ways of the world.
You STILL are, DUmbass.

Just out of the Army after a 4 year enlistment.
Translation: I'm better than you. Give me shit about anything, and I'll hit you with the Veteran Card.

 High on life and ready to take on the world. Then I arrived home and saw my father in his frail state. He was suffering from wasting syndrome caused by heart complications caused by childhood Rheumatic Fever. I hadn't seen him for about 2 1/2 years and couldn't believe how much his health had deteriorated in that time.

He had no insurance and could only afford an occasional doctor visit.

Seeing him in this fragile state, I knew I had to get him to a good hospital. I offered to drive him to the Mayo Clinic in southern Minnesota, an 8 hour drive.
Because no hospital within that 8-hou radius has ever heard of the human heart and/or any complications that it suffers due to disease. Right.

 He agreed but was reluctant to go. He was worried about surviving the trip and his lack of insurance. I told him that we'd admit him through the emergency room and go from there.
Translation: "It's free, Dad. I know how."

The Mayo ER accepted him and immediately placed him in the intensive care unit. He spent the next month in ICU being nursed back to health so that he could undergo major heart surgery to replace the defective heart valve destroyed by his childhood fever. The surgery was a success and he pulled through it. He was sent back to post-op ICU to once again nurse him back to health. He battled like a warrior for the next 2 months in ICU and it actually appeared for awhile that he would pull through and return to health. Sadly, his overall frail state was too much and his heart gave out. He died in peace at the Mayo clinic with his family at his side. He was 57.

He spent the last 2 years of his life on Social Security disability. 3 days after his death while planning his funeral, a thick letter arrived in the mail from the Mayo Clinic.

His bill for an almost 3 month stay in ICU and a major heart surgery- $440,000. 1995 dollars, imagine that bill today.
You mean the Mayo Clinic doesn't run on love? You mean a man can't even get 24 hour care, major surgery, and more 24 hour care for MONTHS for less than $440,000? You mean you didn't see that coming, so you admitted him through the ER?

The sickest part of all of this, a surgical procedure to repair the heart valve was available 2 decades before his death. At an estimated cost of $50,000. The problem was that he could never find a hospital that would do the procedure because he was uninsured. He could never get insurance with a preexisting heart condition. A vicious cycle that too many Americans are caught in to this day.
But magically, the Mayo Clinic took him? I call bullshit. I smell a curmudgeon who didn't want a zipper until it was too late.

I remember battling with Medicare over the phone for 2 months after his death. They finally agreed to pay the bill.

In a 2 year span my fathers ill health cost almost a half a million dollars. Paid by Medicare and SSDI.
THEN WHAT IN THE NAME OF SWEET SALLY'S BUTTHOLE ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT?

1 persons ill health cost almost $500,000. Think about that number. Multiply it by the number of sick and uninsured Americans. Then we can see why Americans spent 2.2 TRILLION DOLLARS on health care in 2007.
Maybe had your father sought out surgery before the situation was dire, taxpayers like me would have forked over something less than a half mil. Just saying.

After watching my father fall victim to the disgrace known as for profit health care, I've been a life long fan of single payer universal health care.
Um, you said that the bill was paid. What the **** are you complaining about?


I've seen cost estimates for single payer. 200-400 billion dollars annually.

Our current system of for profit health care costs us $2.2 TRILLION and that number will explode due to job losses and loss of insurance due to the economy.

$2.2 TRILLION+ VS $400 BILLION.

$2.2 TRILLION for a system that still denies health care to any who can't afford it.

$400 BILLION for a system that covers ALL.
That's $400B INCREMENTAL, ****STICK.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE TO DENY SINGLE PAYER.

THERE IS NO ARGUMENT TO SUPPORT THE VILE DISGRACE, THE GREED DRIVEN EVIL KNOWN AS AMERICAN FOR PROFIT HEALTH CARE.
Yes, because it had nothing to do with the quality of care available to your father at the Mayo Clinic, since it runs on love.

60% of Americans now want Single Payer.

It is time to mobilize.

If we don't march on Washington and demand Single Payer, we may never see it.


Along with many DU'ers I watched those Patriots protest Sen Max Baucus and his panel of insurance thugs. Doctors protesting-what a beautiful thing to witness. The tears flowed as I thought of my father and the power of that protest. A very moving message.

I know many DU'ers have experienced a similar story. Either their own health or watching a loved one suffer under the current health care system. This issue hits home for almost every American.

The need for Single Payer couldn't get any clearer.

The time for Single Payer is now!

Peace.

Another mawkish, overwrought story about a parent who, horror of horrors, DIED.



     You DUmmies are *******ed ****ing morons. When you say you want universal single payer, what you really mean is that you never, ever want to pay a nickel for your own care. But since you're all struggling artists, drug addicts, Aspies, or some other malady that prevents you from contributing to the economy, what you're really saying is that you want someone else to be utterly and completely responsible for you.

     Well, **** you.

[Carl]

/\ /\ H5

Exactly,they think that somehow everything will continue on the same with them reaping the benefits (think disibility is only a doctor and day away) of the current health care offerings.

More then likely under the program they wish for his father would never have been admitted or if he had would have been determined to be too much of a risk to treat so they would have been left to die right from the start.

[USA4ME]

They don't want to pay for anything they deem to be a "right."

I recall one specific lib board of current and ex-primitives where they were saying that all people are entitled to food, shelter, and clothing, and that the gov't should distribute it according to everyone's need for free.  According to this "logic," that would free up everyone to work without fear of having the essentials in life stripped from them.

When I pointed out I thought it would be a great idea, that I worked in a certain industry but had always wanted to be a novelist, and this law of free food, shelter, and clothing would enable me to quit my job and spend the next 10 years writing my novel, they went ballistic.  "Are you a writer now?  Then you can't just live off everyone else and not produce."  I pointed out that if these things are truly "rights" as they claimed them to be, then they can't refuse them to me, and I'll do as I please.  They called me names and held to their little utopian stupidity, but someone needed to remind them that they're dumber than a bag of hammers.

.

[ScubaGuy]

Another mawkish, overwrought story about a parent who, horror of horrors, DIED.



     You DUmmies are *******ed ******* morons. When you say you want universal single payer, what you really mean is that you never, ever want to pay a nickel for your own care. But since you're all struggling artists, drug addicts, Aspies, or some other malady that prevents you from contributing to the economy, what you're really saying is that you want someone else to be utterly and completely responsible for you.

     Well, **** you.

^H5  What they want is 'free' health care, as in somebody else pays for it.

[MrsSmith]

After watching my father fall victim to the disgrace known as for profit health care

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world.

This much stupid really should hurt.  It really  should.   

[RobJohnson]

Gov't funded insurance is often so slow in paying, many are turned away by doctors that wont accept patients on those plans!

They actually think that a single pay plan put in place by the gov't will be an open check book for what ever they need? It won't work that way.

Alot of doctors and hospitals charge LESS, not MORE if the pateint does not have third party coverage.


So many holes in the OP like always....

[formerlurker]

He had no insurance and could only afford an occasional doctor visit.

Except he did have insurance, Medicare, which pretty much every doctor takes........   

[Tantal]

This DUmmie needs to take a basic math class. How do you bring health care costs for an entire nation from 2.2 trillion to 400 billion? We're talking about cutting costs by over 80%. The only way it would work is if doctors currently making $500K a year would suddenly agree to work for $100K. Personally, I wouldn't WANT a $100K/year heart surgeon. Then, the average $50K/year Registered Nurse would have to be willig to work for $10K. How many nurses are going to work for $10K? Better yet, how many people are going to go to nursing school knowing that they'll only make $10K when they graduate? How many companies are going to make medical devices (MRI machines, Heart Bypass machines, etc.) when they can only sell them for 20% of what they're selling them for now? Once again, the primitives have proven why the DLC set up Skin's Island as a quarantine.

[Carl]

This DUmmie needs to take a basic math class. How do you bring health care costs for an entire nation from 2.2 trillion to 400 billion? We're talking about cutting costs by over 80%. The only way it would work is if doctors currently making $500K a year would suddenly agree to work for $100K. Personally, I wouldn't WANT a $100K/year heart surgeon. Then, the average $50K/year Registered Nurse would have to be willig to work for $10K. How many nurses are going to work for $10K? Better yet, how many people are going to go to nursing school knowing that they'll only make $10K when they graduate? How many companies are going to make medical devices (MRI machines, Heart Bypass machines, etc.) when they can only sell them for 20% of what they're selling them for now? Once again, the primitives have proven why the DLC set up Skin's Island as a quarantine.

If they didn`t have to pay the malpractice insurance premiums they could charge a lot less.
DUmmies like that though because it is like winning the lottery to them and libs have used the courts for years in the pursuit of what they deem to be social justice.

Stew in the soup you made fools.

[RobJohnson]

This DUmmie needs to take a basic math class.

LOL  One memeber of DU points this out:

Juche  (1000+ posts)        Sat May-09-09 09:19 AM
Response to Original message
6. $400 billion is the savings, not the cost of single payer
 Edited on Sat May-09-09 09:21 AM by Juche
Single payer would cost rougly 2 trillion or so. Aside from that I agree with you. Add in the ability to let medical care be determined by public interest, which is to get the most cost effective healthcare possible (and not corporate interest, whose only goal is selling the most expensive treatments they can, irrelevant of whether they are necessary) and we could eventually save a trillion or more a year.
 

Medical providers already have charges limited by insurance companies, medicare and medicaid...I don't see much savings, but I do see increased hassles for the patients.

[rich_t]

LOL  One memeber of DU points this out:
 

Medical providers already have charges limited by insurance companies, medicare and medicaid...I don't see much savings, but I do see increased hassles for the patients.

Just ask anyone currently living in Canada about the hassles.  I've talked to several and I'm not interested in having anything that resembles the FUBAR they have up there.

[Chris_]

I guess telling them his dad was a mute named Juan Gonzales was out?

[Chris_]

Union Yes  Donating Member  (313 posts)    Sat May-09-09 01:07 PM
Original message
...His bill for an almost 3 month stay in ICU and a major heart surgery- $440,000. 1995 dollars, imagine that bill today...

**** off penis breath.

Back in December, my wife caught a 1-ton "dually" pick-up square in the driver's door/teeth.  She had to be extricated with the Jaws of Life, airlifted to the newest, most state-of-the-art hospital in the region and then spent 3 weeks in ICU.  Head trauma with bleeding in the brain, collapsed lung, punctured spleen, broken pelvis and a jaw that looked like Ken Griffey Jr. was swinging for the cheap seats when he hit it.  We had insurance covering her care, but because the hospital wasn't in my insurance company's "network" the doctors, radiologists, and last but by no means least the hospital, had no contact information for the insurance company to route the bills.  So I got to play mailman in addition to my other roles during that time, receiving the bills and passing them on to Kaiser.

Add to that the fact that my son - when he was 2 years old - spent a month in Children's hospital ICU with whooping cough he'd contracted from his immunization - a week of that was on a heart/lung machine tha pumped blood for him (just as it would have for yon DUmbass's supposed heart patient father) because his lungs were too trashed at the time to oxygenate his blood for him.

The final total for 3 weeks of putting my wife back together, damned near from the ground up?  Just a few bucks shy of $600,000.  The bill for my son's trip through the Pediatric ICU was in the neighborhood of $2½ million, with $1,376,000 covering just the pediatric cardiac surgeon who installed the heart/lung machine, and his support crew who kept it running (and my son alive) for that week he was on it.  I saw all the figures myself. 

And so, armed with this knowledge, I'm calling bullshit on yon DUmbass's brand new bouncy, and awarding it the negative 440,000 bongs that it deserves.  My guess is that yon DUmbass is trying to establish DUmp cred with his fellow primitives, and figured a good bouncy advocating single payer - aka DUmbass doesn't pay a friggin' dime - health care system ought to do the trick.  However, limited to the experience garnered from living the past 15 years in his mama's basement, he had no idea what the scale for the cost of health care is, so he pulled what seemed like a big enough number out of his ass.  Thanks for playing DUmbass.  You are the weakest link.  Good-bye.

[RobJohnson]

Just ask anyone currently living in Canada about the hassles.  I've talked to several and I'm not interested in having anything that resembles the FUBAR they have up there.

One of our town's snowbirds is from BC, Canada.

He had to travel to Eurpoe for open heart surgery several years ago while living in Canada

[AllosaursRus]

Except he did have insurance, Medicare, which pretty much every doctor takes........  

They limit the number of Medicare patients they will accept.

[AllosaursRus]

**** off penis breath.

Heh, heh! H5!

[AprilRazz]

They limit the number of Medicare patients they will accept.

When shopping for a doctor for my son while still on Tricare standard I had a few tell me that they were not taking them either.