(no subject)

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Link here to an article in today's Guardian about the US healthcare debate, and what kind of care those 46 million Americans without health insurance can get under the current system.

Comments

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

It's some kind of atrocious. I'm tired of the right-wing crazies. And they are crazies!!

There was a public forum here in Cleveland recently with our local representative, Marcia Fudge. 99% of the people there were pro-reform. 10 crazies showed up and screamed and shouted and booed loudly over the otherwise polite discourse. The claims are always the same: socialized medicine will mean entering a Stalinist Dystopia. Those poor, poor Canadians! Don't we have the best health care in the world? Don't you dare hurt our best health care in the world!

When I was uninsured, I had the health care of nothing - because the hospitals won't even run a test on you if you can't prove you can pay. I might as well have lived in a third world country. Walking into the emergency room cost $300 and all you get is, "Well, you're sick. See if it goes away." After I got a good job (amazingly, since I was mostly bed-ridden!) and got insurance, entering the same emergency room with the same symptoms got me an immediate x-ray and follow-up appointment, and then I was asked, "You have insurance, why did you go to the emergency room?" ha ha ha. I grew up uninsured. The emergency room was all the doctor we knew - and you only go if you think you might die if you don't.

oops... there's my rant. I could go on. I won't. But here's a video that I think sums up the absolute craziness of this debate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVS4Zgjm8HE&feature=player_embedded

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I watched it. I can hardly believe my eyes. I think the guy was very restrained for not hitting the silly cow. She damn well deserved it.

:seethes:

[next_to_normal]

You'd think at some point I'd stop being astonished at the utter idiocy of these people, and yet...

Did you see the video where that lady explains why she's against health care reform? (prior to the "Heil Hitler" incident) It's the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard.

[helenkacan.livejournal.com]

::waves hi from Canada, another bastion of sane and sensible healthcare::

OMG. I could not believe teh stoopid. She opposes healthcare reform, even though her husband doesn't have any and works a number of jobs (too bad she can't count that high, because she's not sure how many).

What I find fascinating (and disgusting) is that she's been so brainwashed by her ideology that there's no way she can condemn her own party for failing the American people; so the only thing she can do is direct the vitriol outwards against the obvious enemy, the political opposition.

When she speaks, she reminds me of Palin-lite which is very bad, as Sarah is more than a few feathers short of filling a pillowcase.

[next_to_normal]

Well, you know, she believes in Biblical values, and the Bible doesn't say anything about health care, therefore we don't deserve it.

I'm just glad that all this is bringing much-deserved attention to Hitler. See, everybody thought he was such a bad guy, but they only want to talk about how he killed people and invaded countries! No one ever mentions his other plan, you know, the one for universal health care coverage...

[cozzybob.livejournal.com]

Heh! For some reason, when I think of Obama compared to Hilter, I can't help but snerk. What an oxymoron.

LOL on the bible values. Some people may actually believe that.

[next_to_normal]

I snerk, but then I realize that these people are serious, and I have to wonder how fucked up things have gotten in this country that people genuinely believe what Obama is doing is equivalent to the Nazis. My mind, it boggles.

I'm thinking that perhaps three things are necessary:
1. Better media campaign that explains what's ACTUALLY IN THE HEALTH CARE BILL.
2. Overhaul of the American education system, particularly with respect to World War II.
3. Banishment of the entire Fox News team to outer Mongolia.

[cozzybob.livejournal.com]

Agreed!! Most times, I'm tied between frothing-at-the-mouth fury and laughing at the utter idiocy of humanity. This country really does have an education crisis too, though. Last I checked, we're still pretty low on the scale. I bet it was that no child left behind bullshit. Wah!

The entire Fox news network doesn't deserve outer Mongolia. I think they should be banned to the harsh winters of Antarctica. Of course, then they'd go around and kill all the penguins no doubt. We'll have to think about this...

I'm surprised to hear VERY LITTLE about what's actually in the bill, which... isn't actually all that surprising. Yet another reason the media is pointless drivel. Wah!

[next_to_normal]

I think part of it is that health care is absurdly complicated, and there's only about twelve people who actually understand all of it. But it's not even so much explaining what's in the bill that's the problem, it's that certain people have no problem just spouting off complete nonsense - like death panels - that isn't in the bill and passing it off like that's the centerpiece of Obama's plan.

I have to hand to the right-wing, they sure are good at whipping people into a lather over utter bullshit.

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Did you see the video where that lady explains why she's against health care reform?

I didn't look at it. I'd had enough of her after watching that first one, but I'm sure I'd agree with you that she's an idiot.

[cozzybob.livejournal.com]

The emergency room was all the doctor we knew - and you only go if you think you might die if you don't.

Exactly. *hugs us*

[makd.livejournal.com]

Interesting read; thank you.

And yes: the vitriol emanating from The Crazies and The Nutzie is scary. IMO, it stems from the fears of racism and ignorance. Also: hardest thing to change is ideology - and these folks are just plain ideologues.

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IMO, it stems from the fears of racism and ignorance. Also: hardest thing to change is ideology - and these folks are just plain ideologues

That's how it looks from this side of the Pond.

[cozzybob.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! I am so sick of ignorant arseholes saying our system is fine the way it is when I can't even afford to go to the doctor for check ups, God forbid I ever really, seriously get sick. My parents will both die without their medication, period, and they struggle to get even a portion of it. I hate this system, I really do, and I want change. Now! The recession hit us and my father was fired from his job, then blacklisted. My mother is the only one able to work, and she's been threatened to get laid off in the past. I can't stand this, it's disgusting. People shouldn't have to die because they don't have money.

/rant

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People shouldn't have to die because they don't have money.

Not in a country that's the richest in the world. No, they shouldn't. I'm so sorry. Your family situation sounds awful. At least if you and your parents were in a similar situation here in the UK, you wouldn't have to worry about doctors' bills.

I wonder if it would be possible for the 46 million to organise themselves to make some sort of counter protest to the idiots like Palin and this woman in the YOutube clip? But then I guess the 46 million are too busy just trying to stay on their feet.

[lyr]

It really is infuriating. For all those years before I got an employer who'd insure me, I just never got any healthcare at all, and had to set my own bones, wait months for illnesses to pass on their own without antibiotics, and decide between groceries and asthma inhalers every month---and forget any dentistry at all. The system is deeply broken, and all because of greed and corruption. Sorry---I get incandescently angry when this subject comes up, especially these days.

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Reading your comment is deeply upsetting. Setting your own bones? I can't imagine it. I genuinely can't, and I cannot believe that anyone could think a system where 46 million people are condemned to do that can be better than that of any country that practices 'socialised' medical care.

In the richest country in the world, it's appalling. Criminal.

[lyr]

It is criminal. And it doesn't make any sense, unless you're wealthy and don't want to give up even a penny of your amazingly large fortune to support the society that allowed you to become rich in the first place---so, no, really it doesn't make any sense at all for anyone.

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Apparently, the husband of the woman in the You Tube clip doesn't have any health insurance, and yet she's opposed to reform. I don't understand it. I really and truly don't.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

I find the health-care system in the US sick. How the hell can you put a price-tag on someones life? :-/

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I don't know, and yet the antis keep insisting, against all evicence to the contrary, that the sorts of health care systems we have in Europe do exactly that.

And people believe them.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

Excuse my language, but thats just fucking scary. *shakes head*

[mutelorelei.livejournal.com]

That article doesn't even come close to the horrors of many people who don't have insurance. It's not even necessarily better for those who have crappy insurance, or Medicaid. My mom's been off and on Medicaid for a few years, as the Social Security puts her on for a few months, then yanks her off (her SS benefits also bounce all over the place and keep almost being cut off entirely). Even when she has it, it only covers 3 prescriptions a month and she's pretty much treated like shit most of the time by the doctors with or without it because they know she is poor. She has a lot of chronic severe health conditions and is barely alive. She is in and out of the hospital and when she has to stay overnight or for a few days, they put her in the special 'poor people' part of the hospital (only they don't call it that of course) where she is usually seperate from other patients by several rooms distance, if not a whole wing, and is mostly ignored. I can understand why she is so reluctant to go, even when she's doing very badly and should go. She needs a heart transplant, but she's never going to get it and probably won't make it another year or two, though she's surprised us all, especially her doctors.

I myself haven't had insurance since I was a young child and my father was still alive and working good jobs. I also have some chronic conditions that have been going untreated for quite some time. There is no way I could afford the pills that I already know I should be taking without insurance. I work part time because it's all I can handle without medicine. Even so, I often feel like I can't handle it and wish I could take more vacation time, between my increasingly unstable blood sugar and my ever-present depression especially.

I'm sure something will get passed, but I'm very worried it will be so watered down as to be useless, or even making things worse somehow. Why are there so many ignorant people out there? Most of the people I know who worship Fox 'News' and freaking out over this reform are not rich people. A lot of them bitch about their medical bills all the time. They should be supporting this.

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I'm so sorry to read your mother's appalling situation, and of your own. I hope for everyone's sake, even the Fox News 'worshippers', of whom the woman in the YouTube clip is probably one, as apparently her husband has no insurance, that some sort of useful reform will be implemented.

It seems astonishing that the health of a nation can be held to ransome in this way by a few disgustingly wealthy insurance companies.

[mutelorelei.livejournal.com]

I think it probably took a lot of years for the insurance companies to build up such absolute power, but it's not infallible forever - just look at telecommunications companies, like AT&T, and Microsoft, things like that, they used to be more powerful than they are now (their power is still dangerous and formidable, certainly, but they don't always get their way and I would say that their influence is slowly continuing to decline). It's partially that people are so irrational about this very important issue, and I think people everywhere value doctors so much that it clouds their judgement sometimes. The entire health industry is very much one of the big funding sources for the Republican party (and to a lesser extent, the Democrats). So of course they don't want to compromise their bribe money source. The Democrats are afraid of pissing off/scaring off too many people with big changes.

Even if somehow, miraculously, we do end up passing the full public option, it's just a start. A very important start. But things need to be reformed on the doctor end too. And it's all going to take time to lower prices.

If you haven't read this, it's another good explanation -
http://digitalroam.typepad.com/digital_roam/2009/08/american-health-care-on-4-napkins-now-all-together.html

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Thanks for that link. It was very informative.