Friends –
Thanks for being a part of the team for Free Our Health Care Now! In six weeks, over 465,000 people have signed saying no to government health care!
The House health reform bill will outlaw private insurance coverage that is bought and sold in the open market. Instead, Congress wants to force all private insurance outside the place of work to be purchased in an “exchange” created and controlled by the government. Also, within the “exchange” insurance not approved by the government will be outlawed! So much for private plans! So much for our ability to choose!
What kind of care will you get from the health plan the government does approve? A new federal health board will decide whether your health care is “effective” or “appropriate.” According to Tom Daschle, the idea is based on Britain’s model which has determined that one year of life is worth only $44,000. The health board will consist of 17 bureaucrats appointed by the Secretary of HHS, whose job is to “enable clinicians, patients, consumers, and payers to make more informed health care decisions that improve quality and value.” I don’t need the government to “enable” me to make decisions that improve quality and value for me. Do you?
What can you do about all of this?
- Sign the petition at www.freeourhealthcarenow.com and then forward it to your family, friends and networks! (Track our progress at www.ncpa.org – just click on the ticker link under the eagle.)
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Us Girls..Our Views 
England in my mind has the best health care…no nasty bills when you take you or your children for treatment…….in the uk we pay a percentage for healthcare in our wages.. …and that works fine…..god help me if i need major surgery in the states..
Sean, do you have the same health care system that Canada has? To me, that is horrible. I will make a longer comment in the morning but maybe yours is different than theirs.
I don’t know what Canada has for health care.
What if you are elderly and need a specialist? How about your parents? Or what about a premature infant who needs criticle care?
Seans not saying our health care is bad in the US, i believe he is referring to how expensive it is if one has no health insurance, for instance his one trip to the docs office for 3 Vaccinations or Innoculations inwhich are required in the US and not in the UK, this visit costed him over 400.00 for 3 stinkin shots!! He’s shocked at what we pay to see a doctor.
The thing is, $400 is nothing compared to what taxpayers pay for “universal” healthcare, or what employers / individuals pay for “comprehensive” health insurance in this country.
I don’t know Sean’s history; I probably misunderstood his post, as I assumed he’s in the UK and not in the US. But if he’s in the US with no insurance, he should do some research on high-deductible plans for individuals. They are affordable. He’d still have to pay for “routine” stuff like vaccinations, but that would most likely be less out of pocket than a comprehensive health insurance plan that is loaded with basically welfare subsidies that he doesn’t want or need. Another thing to note is that he can probably negotiate more reasonable costs, just like insurance companies do, if he goes to the doctor more than once in a blue moon. Sean should also look into a Health Savings Account which would reduce his costs via tax deduction. And ultimately, if anything horrible did happen here in the US, he would receive prompt and high-quality care, and afterwards he’d only have to pay to the extent he could.
I have a friend who was in a car accident when she was young and living from paycheck to paycheck. She nearly died, but she was life-flighted to the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic where her life was saved. She was indigent (her husband died instantly in the crash) so she never had to pay a single penny. Now, I hear Obama’s plan includes cutting Life Flight because it’s expensive. Recently some rich, famous lady died in Canada because they didn’t have a helicopter in the province and the drive to the nearest decent hospital was like six hours. Would that be an improvement in US health care? Not if you ask my friend, her second husband, her three children, and everyone else who knows her.
Health care is an individual responsibility, and as such, each person needs to research how he/she should manage it. But in cases where people fail to do so, for whatever reason, we don’t leave them dying on the curb. It really bugs me to hear that stereotype spread around the world, especially when it’s spread by Americans who know it’s not a fair portrayal.
Another example of individual cases hanging in the balance. My medical needs dicided by a suit and coat in a cozy office. I know several people that would still be waiting for treatment with health care run by the goverment. Every thing to them is a question of whether or not it’s cost affective.
I’ll try and make this as brief as possible. Those of you that know me in real life already know this and those of you that don’t, won’t know these people anyway.
You could say that outside of my immediate family, all the others live in Canada. Here are just a “few” cases that stand out.
Audra-8 years to get hysterectomy.
Jeff-18 months to repair herniated disk. Extreme pain caused problems with pain medication.
Les-3 years to get gall bladder taken out. Could not eat full meals in all that time without a bathroom on the spot.
Tyler- born with tear duct not being able to close. Had surgery to fix it when he was 4. Had tears running down face for 4 long years.
Emily-born with bladder and kidney malfunctions that caused extreme infections. Fixed this past March, she is 4.
Lisa-growth behind ovary’s causing her pain for as long as I’ve known her. Her whole life. Not found until went for something else. Now fixed, she’s 33.
I won’t even get into my older relatives.
It’s just my worst fear to have the government involved in our medical care. I know it needs tweaking but not like this. It needs time and work and what’s Obama’s hurry? Once we lose our say in what we want, it will be too late to go back. We won’t have choices and we will have to wait for years if something happens to us that we need fixed. If we need specialists, we have to “get in a line” and if someone comes along who’s “worse off” than us, they butt in front of us.
Also, it’s NOT free. They have taxes on EVERYTHING. Food, clothes, everything you buy in Canada has 2 taxes on it. Most of them have outside coverage just like we do that they can get as part of their pay or they take out policies just like we do. It’s just not talked about. Also, a lot of Canadians come down here to avoid the long waits for surgeries and problems.
I guess the thing is the squeaky wheel gets the grease and you need X amount of “documented” emergency room visits or doctors visits and IF they decide you’re bad enough to be fixed, then you get in another line to wait. The problem with that is in the middle of the night when you’re in pain; you think “oh, I’ll be okay.” Once you aren’t documented X amount of times in X amount of calendar days, you lose and have to start all over. So lets say you go in twice a month for two years, you may have a chance to get fixed but so many people give up and don’t fight for it.
Please think about what putting our medical choices in the governments hands will do to us. Do research. These medical care systems (socialized) work fine if you never get “really” sick or you just get strep through or need stitches. For people who really need something, it’s a nightmare because it’s up to WHO you see each time to decide if it’s bad enough to warrant it.
Your right Joy but WOW….I guess I was fortunate with my wait times.Gall bladder was only a few months wait and my hip replacement 10 months..which I thought was a very short time.Poor Les(and everyone else.)Audra 8 years..Ive never heard of this..my friend had hers out in a matter of a few months,just last oct.Is it luck of the draw or what?
What happened with Audra is she’d go to the doc, feel better and not go back so her waiting time kept starting over. She should have kept going back every few weeks but she’s like grandma Froom and has the “everything will be fine” kind of mentality. I guess it’s “how bad” you are and “they” decide this. I can’t tell you how many times she went to the ER in the middle of the night but the times weren’t close enough together. It’s hard to explain.
Tyler was on that waiting list for 4 years and Lisa, I can’t even get into how it was for her daughter Emily. They did come down here (the States) and found out they could do her surgery in ONE WEEK and she went back and told the doctors she needed her records and miraculously, they got her in, after waiting 3 years, and did her surgery. I supposed they didn’t want to look stupid. Les and Jeff both waited all that time and kept getting pushed back and back. It took years.
Maybe things have changed for the better since then. I was wondering how long you had to wait and I’m glad you came on today. Thanks Karen.
Oh ,I dont think things have changed here.I guess I was a lucky one with shorter wait times.I hear of the long wait times still.Gosh they sure went through the ringer uh?Meaning Les,Jeff etc.
My Uncle Ron couldnt stand the pain anymore and went and had his hip replaced in Fargo I believe.He paid big money for that.My concern with your systeme is just that.With all Ive been through and had done medically would it not have cost me huge money?Do you not pay big in insurance so your covered?
I know Adell was always frustrated with our system(when Mom was ill,and any family medical issue).She would say”Now if you were in the US youd have had that done already”People die waiting in Canada.
If you are a United States citizen, you are covered. No hospital can turn you away. Most people are covered through their work. If not, yes, it’s very expensive for coverage on your own.
Here is a good example of waiting. Lisa had to go in for a CAT scan (in Canada), she had an 8 month wait. Paul had to go for one and was in, in under a week. I know people die. We had a girl who used to come here to this blog that lives close to the border somewhere near Manitoba and she had two friends who died while waiting in Canada. By the time it’s found out that something is wrong, it’s often to late. I also know in my heart that had grandma lived here, she wouldn’t have died when she did. All we kept hearing from the doctors up there was “at her age” and I don’t think they did anything to find out what it was that was wrong with her. They figured she was to old to fix.
I can imagine how frustrating it was for Adell to go up there and watch your mom so sick KNOWING how it is down here. Lisa brought Emily down here after a 3 year wait and could have had her surgery in under a week for a cost of 50 thousand. They were going to pay it but the Canadian doctors “suddenly” got her in when they found out they were bringing her down here.
Yup,I agree about Grandma.They just dont care sometimes.I think they pick and choose who gets treatment.I am sure if we knew how many people REALLY die from waiting we would be shocked.ANYHOW..I think Ill shut up now!LOL!Hope all goes well down there.
Don’t even get me started on this. If I were president, I would strip out most of the laws that already regulate health insurance. I don’t need insurance to pay for birth control pills, drug abuse therapy, rehab, nutritional counseling, etc., etc. I also don’t need health insurance to pay for basic maintenance health care. I don’t need the costs of both my health insurance AND my health care to be propped up to multiple times their actual value, just because the government requires insurance companies to cover all this nonsense, and the courts award ridiculous malpractice awards. I want to buy high-deductible insurance at a reasonable market rate, and pay my doctor for my family’s basic care at a reasonable market price that reflects what individuals actually want and need. I believe this would be the best answer for almost everyone.
Sean, I wish you actually lived in the US, as I have for 42 years. I obviously have many relatives and friends who have had various medical issues, and none of them has ever had any trouble getting them fixed and having it paid for (though government-run Medicare sometimes gives people the run-around with cheap tests in hopes of avoiding the expensive ones, to “save costs”). You do hear of horror stories, mostly of people who didn’t bother to get even high-deductible health insurance that was available to them (though Obama and his liberals don’t want people to know it’s easily available, so that could be a factor). But what you don’t hear about is all the working-class, indigent, and retired people who have received prompt, state-of-the art care that not only saved their lives but improved their life quality, with little or no out-of-pocket cost. And this is without Obama tinkering with the system. I’ll take this over Obamacare any day. Did you know that Obama, as well as the architect of his health care policy, have been documented as saying that old people ought to just suck it up and die rather than being a drag on society? Who are they to say who’s a drag on society? It seems they want to include abortions in this bill too – next thing you know they will be forcing abortions and sterilizations, as Obama’s “science czar” has advocated.
This is supposed to be a free country. We need to get rid of Obama’s “health” plan and then we need to neuter Obama ASAP and vote him out the first chance we get, before he gets a chance to do more damage. I want my country back!
I would like to stand up for Sean and say that he was putting in his opinion and everyone has a right to that. He is living in the U.S. and his point was how expensive it is. It has got to be a shock when you come from a country where things are covered and you don’t have to worry.
Surgery here is very expensive, along with all health care, but we don’t need the government to tell me what is best for me. That should be between me and my doctor. The MD’s are the ones who went to school and you know darn well that those government bullshiters won’t have one ounce of a health degree. It’s not right.
It seems Mr Obama wants to the government to run everything and if I’m not mistaken, I thought I was in America where it’s the land of the FREE. FREE to make your own decisions about yourself. As a health care worker, I can tell you that is scares us A LOT. Lord help us b/c we need it!
Yes, please don’t attack Sean. He is very new to this country and isn’t used to this kind of health care and he’s very loyal to this blog. When you’re not used to it, it’s got to be a shock. I know nothing about the UK’s health care, I’m only familiar with Canada’s but I agree that I don’t want anyone telling me who I can see and who I can’t and when I can get something done or be on a “years” waiting list. Paul has a lot of health problems and I can only imagine if we lived in a country like Canada. I don’t think he’d even be alive.
I don’t know what else to say that everyone else hasn’t said. I can’t lie and say I am the smartest at politics and everything that comes with it. I do know that I want to decide if my pain is bad enough or that I need a certain procedure done. I wonder how long it would have taken me to get my hysterectomy??? They aren’t in my body, how do they know! I think the plan sounds great, for people who never get sick or hurt. But you never know when something is going to happen! I understand that people are drowning in paying for private health care and I feel for them but do they realize what it will be like if this passes? If they can’t handle health care now how are they going to handle it when everyone has it!?