Re: Affordable Health Care Plan
I would think that the cartoon elicits nervous chuckles from those who don't have health insurance; I doubt anyone who's caught in the crossfire of needing the care and not having coverage or being able to afford it will laugh for too long.... We've become fixated on having it because medical care has become a business controlled not by government but by insurance companies. Clerks dictate what care is available and what isn't. Patients have died in emergency rooms or while being transferred to other emergency rooms because of a lack of coverage.
We've been given "Plan D" for prescription drugs that kowtows COMPLETELY to not only the insurance industry but the pharmaceutical one as well. We get to select a plan once a year during open enrollment (November 15-December 31) and can make no further changes until a year later, but the insurance companies sponsoring these plans have been given the right to change absolutely anything and everything in terms of plan benefits and what's covered as often as they like and as much as they like except for the monthly premium. In deferring to these two industries, the government made it illegal to purchase perfectly competent prescription drugs from places like Canada where they're considerably cheaper because the Canadian government REQUIRES the pharmaceutical companies to negotiate for lower costs.
I know of one blood test where the full cost of it is about $26. Insurance companies have been given the freedom to negotiate what they are willing to pay for this test: less than $3! How can the lab survive drawing the blood, transporting it for testing, doing the paperwork, and so forth on this paltry amount? And do you know who actually pays the full freight of $26? Only the uninsured!...
I am not whining and accept as part of life the reality that I have to utilize the medical "industry" far more than most. If anything, without going into details, I am grateful for what they CAN do for me. But at the same time, I know that if I did not have medical coverage, I'd probably be dead by now. IMHO, we're in deep excrement....
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