In article , HeyBub wrote:
h wrote:
"Pete C." wrote in message
ster.com...
wrote:
"Pete C." wrote:
Our health care system works well, 86% of our ~350M population has
health insurance and of the remaining 14% a good number have it
available, but choose not to take it.
Wrong. Well, yes, it's "available", but unaffordable.
So, then, you'd agree there's no lack of insurance, just the lack of "cheap"
insurance?
Lack of insurance unless it's priced out of the reach of many working
people.
About 7 years ago, I dropped a PPO after its monthly premiums got past
$400. A couple years after that, I got an individual plan with a large
deductible.
Maybe 2-3 years ago, the lowest cost Blue Cross HMO plan I could get
through my day-job workplace would cost me $600 per month. So I stuck
with my individual plan costing me little more than that per quarter then,
with annual savings close to my annual deductible. Most years that was in
my favor.
With my plan inflating at the 10%-annual-rate of healthcare premiums
plus being adjusted for my always-increasing age, and that Blue Cross HMO
as an alternative being about $700 per month (and about to go up maybe at
the usual roughly 10% annual boost if it did not recently do so), one can
see how the affordability goes down.
I may now be in for a bad year or two where I am likely to need a minor
surgery possibly two and end up meeting or getting close to a deductible
of a few kilobucks, slightly more unaffordable than paying $750-plus
monthly no matter how good my health is.
While my taxes pay for gubmint spending about as high a percentage of
GDP as Cadada and the rest of the Western world does, to cover only
Medicare (and they need supplemental plans), Medicaid, veterans, military
personnel, sCHIP enrollees, and employer contributions to health insurance
premiums of government employees in healthcare related government
agencies.
USA gubmint spending on healthcare is about the same percentage of GDP
as that of Canada and other Western countries, with that amount *not*
covering me or other private sector employees or business owners,
government employees outside healthcare agencies such as public school
teachers, most police officers, municipal workers and court employees,
and not the unemployed.
If I crash my bike while uninsured and go to an ER, I get a bill for
4-5 times what an insurance company pays, and the hospital calls the
collection agency hounds who can sue me or force me into bankruptcy if I
do not satisfy it.
I think USA's system is seriously broken and needs serious rebuilding,
and that a lot of toes need to be stepped on and a lot of oxen need to be
gored. I think best to copy whichever other Western country gets the
fewest complaints (maybe Germany?), with absolutely no more than negative
1% giving way to anyone's lobbyists attempting resistance.
- Don Klipstein )