Political news, yo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WTFchris

Not sure how a free car improves a child's quality of life, but whatever.

If you can negotiate it is certainly not common knowledge. And even if you can, getting a $100,000 organ transplant cut in half isn't going to do shit for most people in terms of affording it.

You can drive a child to a hospital quickly. Much, much more likely to help a child than the "not going due to affordability".

And heaven help you if you are so lucky as to get an organ transplant and now have to work an extra job to pay it off. What an awful country.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tahoe

I am a veteran, but not in long enough to get lifetime health care. But the peeps I talk to say it sucks

I'd love to fold vets into the same medical coverage as Medicare or other public health programs, simply to fix the screwy screI wed-up VA medical system. Lots chant "Medicare for all", no one chants "VA care for all". I'd line up vets in commercials to tell their horror stories and say "no guv'mint healthcare" if I were an entity intent on beating down guv'mint healthcare.

I had a relative who was a burn victim who was forced to spend time in the hospital to take a drug where he could've otherwise been discharged. This was a drug that, with every other coverage plan, could be administered by a doctor, but NOOOooo... not with the VA. He ended up getting MRSA from the hospital visit, which didn't react well to his burns, and was there for 2 months longer than he should've been. I have lots of veterans in my family, and even dated someone who worked at a VA hospital, and have observed a lot of horror stories. I suspect that with larger economies of scale, things wouldn't have played out so stupidly.

And by the way, I agree that the government-provided healthcare option will suck, if it ever gets created. Because the Republicans will constantly be whining about how much it costs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hermy

You can drive a child to a hospital quickly. Much, much more likely to help a child than the "not going due to affordability".

And heaven help you if you are so lucky as to get an organ transplant and now have to work an extra job to pay it off. What an awful country.

First of all, I'm pretty sure they would be better off with some $500 beater car and health care than a nice ride to the hospital and the thousands of dollars in medical bills. Just because they had a nice car doesn't mean they'd go to the hospital anyway.

And it's not like they give you a loan for a transplant at the hospital. They don't say "ok, it's 100 k for a transplant that you don't have...well, you can just pay us back" You are dreaming. That transplant will never happen in a million years.

That post was way below your standards Hermy.

No, I'm giving them the beater. Do you know how many Americans don't have a car Chris? Now they can get there thanks to my federal "Cars for Cancer" program. Who can be against that? Nazis.

Tons of childrens hospitals have interest free financial assistance. Heaven help them, they're broke for life, but what price can you put on your child?

The Swiftboating of Health Reform
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_t...th-reform.aspx

Quote:

Originally Posted by Times

"There are about 84 million Americans who are covered by either Medicaid or Medicare," says Kristina Newman of the Kaiser Family Foundation. "But there are about 40 million uninsured people who are not quite old enough or poor enough to qualify. If they have a serious accident, they're really up a creek." Perhaps an additional 10 million to 15 million people have some coverage but not enough--belonging to plans that offer not much more than the basics. For them, a little insurance can be almost as bad as none at all. "Sometimes we tell people simply to stop working and spend all their money," says Mehmet Oz, the director of the Cardiovascular Assist Device Program at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and a technical adviser for John Q. "Then at least they qualify for Medicaid."

Even barebones policies ought to cover "medically necessary" procedures (a term that can be slippery), and in many cases, coverage doesn't dwindle as hours do, though such workers may be required to pay more to maintain the policies they have. Yet no one disputes that the health-insurance safety net remains badly frayed. "There are many people who still fall through the cracks," says Ray Werntz, of the Employee Benefits Research Institute

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glan

The Swiftboating of Health Reform
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_t...th-reform.aspx

I'm not so sure that "Swiftboating" is the right term here. "Swiftboating" is what happens when a rich person buys up a ton of media time for their stupid ideas. What's happening here is more accurately described as "Astroturfing," which is when a rich person funds a fake grass-roots movement to make a bunch of noise about their stupid ideas. See: Tea Parties.

Tea baggers.

Well I was trying to be charitable, but if you want to fling the nutsack reference out there I am not going to stop you.