He chose a white guy

[GernBlansten]

Pack, does the darwinian approach include faith healing?

[packsaddle]

He** Yeah!

[DanKroh]

I haven't been following this discussion real closely, as I have had other things taking precedence lately.

 

But I just want to say that nothing, absolutely nothing, will squash a darwinian approach to health care than having a child who would not have seen his 8th birthday without extensive, and expensive, medical intervention.

 

And nothing will make you appreciate how little is the cost of health care for those who have insurance when you realize that there is absolutely no way you could have paid for that intervention without it.

 

Son's roommate in the hospital was a boy a couple of years younger than him, from Venezula, who just learned he needed a heart transplant. The mother told me how lucky we were that we had insurance to help pay. She was self-paying for everything. I can't even begin to imagine how much it will cost or how she will pay for it.

 

The idea that any child would be denied such a thing because of lack of private insurance makes it hard for me not to support government-sponsored health care. If that makes me a bleeding-heart liberal, well, at least I will take comfort in the fact that the organ is actually there and functioning properly.

[Gold Winger]

Don't worry, our government will probably wind up paying for the little foreign boy.

 

If you look into it, very few people are really uncovered for serious things. Some government agency is usually ready to step in or a private organization like the Shriners.

 

Where it really becomes an issue is when you need things like orthotics or dental care and even then there is so much help available that it isn't funny. You just have to know that it is available.

 

About 25 years ago a friend needed surgery to save his life. He unemployed at the time so had no insurance. The hospital just wrote off their $100,000+ bill. Unfortunately, the doctors wouldn't budge on their $50,000 bill so, not wanting to take government help, he just paid it off over the next ten years.

 

Yes, there needs to be a better system but I don't know what it is. Maybe we could get manufacturing back in this country so that people could have decent jobs.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

If you look into it, very few people are really uncovered for serious things.

 

That's part of the problem; a lot of people aren't covered for preventive medicine or minor ailments, so they often go without treatment until the problem is much worse and much more expensive to treat when they finally get wheeled into the emergency room. That's a big reason why the US spends a lot more per person for medical care while having less medical coverage compared to other western countries.

[TheScout]

But we have more freedom.

 

The government takes less of our money and we can make more choices on our own.

[OldGreyEagle]

Note it was the mean ol' nasty institution known as a hospital that wrote the bills off and the God's gift to humanity, the physician healer who did not. And yes, I am most prejudcied against physicians who feign to care about patients while stabbing hospitals and thier personnel in the back more than a few times. I can show you the scars.

 

Perhaps we need to define terms a bit, you all know that hospitals cannot turn away anyone who presents for emergency care regardless of their economic and citizenship status? So, when we already have hospitals providing care for patients whome every knows will never pay them. Then we come to elective or planned surgery. So far that is not paid, but with Government Health Care perhaps it will be. Those of you who know Physicians ask them what they think of the Governments influence in healthcare and what they would do if they suddenly were handed a GS level