Framing health care

This has been something we have had a hard time doing. We have been fighting "socialized medicine" and all of the trash that comes with it when trying to get this out to people.
I have concluded that one way to do it is to clue people in on where they have been really missing the boat. They should be envious of grandma's health care package.

The people who get good coverage in this country are wealthy, poor, disabled, or elderly. Middle class get these crappy exclusionary plans.

For example,

For people who don't have private disability insurance, they are actually covered by SSI or SSDI, Medicare and Medicaid if something happens. The compensation isn't great, but it is actually pretty close to cadillac health insurance coverage.
Tons of providers, in many states they cover dental and vision. Occupational therapy, psychiatirc services.
Medical equipment.
If a person needs attendent care this is some of the only insurance that is going to cover it.

Why wouldn't people be willing to get behind single payer to make sure they have this program for themselves BEFORE disaster strikes?

As Matt Santos said: "Eliminate "over age 65" from Medicare."
And we've got real health care coverage for everyone.

are screwed, screwed screwed by the current system. Can't get affordable health insurance, and require regular proof of disablity/treatment from a system that makes them bear the savings that insurance companies get from screwing us.

The burdens of inequitable taxation and medical coverage on those 'lucky' enough to have private disability insurance are crushing.
And let's not talk about the cost of prescription drugs, otherwise I will probably have to go to the ER again.

for my husband. i cannot get coverage because of chronic fatigue syndrome and certain drugs that i take to treat it. it's very scary. i'm okay if he gets sick, but if i get sick there goes our savings until there depleted and then medicaid kicks in. but has anyone seen what a medicaid nursing home looks like? i've seen pictures and it's not pleasant.

paying a tax that is equal to or less than the amount of your premiums and co-poays to cover a premium to join a federally administered single payer health care program that covers everything is a better deal.
Noone has to even be disabled. Everyone is covered.
Get profits out of the mix so that any cost benefit analysis is purely humanistic.

cheap. this year the premiums are $78.20. in january it goes up to $88.50 and medicare does not cover everything. most people take out a supplemental insurance plan. as far as prescription drugs i saw something the other day and i believe the cost was another $32.00 a month. and you're still not covered for vision or dental.

some people can afford these premiums but others cannot. for the very poor there is medicaid. but there are those that fall between the cracks, i.e., they make too much to qualify for medicaid, but not enough to pay premiums for medicare.

i think the best approach is higher taxes -- now don't jump on me -- there would be higher taxes but no premiums for health coverage. so in the end there would probably be more money in our pockets and no one would be without health care and no one would lose their life savings due to a long term disability.

Tax replaces health care premiums. Simple economics.
That would bolster Medicare, significantly.
People could pay for extra plans (plastic surgery coverage- whatever)
Poor and elderly would have stronger coverage.
Medicaid is a State\Federal program.
Many of the state programs do provide vision and dental, thus poor people have access to both.
It makes sense, because You can't get a job if you don't have the tools to see well.
Also dental care is important for people with disabilities. Particularly transplant patients.
Preventative medicine helps people stay employed. Keeps the economy stronger. If people with disabilities didn't risk losing benefits, they would try to start businesses, etc.
Healthier population = more taxpayers = stonger economy.

have to pay an average of $300 a month for health insurance.

what others have to pay. My experience was that before I went on Medicare I had to pay $400 a month for a $3,000 deductive health plan that paid 80% of my medical bills after the deductible was met.

So I gave $400 a month to the insurance company and then I had to pay for my medical care out of pocket 100% as well. I actually went without health insurance the last two years before I went on Medicare and kept my fingers crossed that I would remain healthy. I couldn't see paying for the same medical care twice, which is what those huge deductibles amount to. At least with Medicare they do pay for 80% of your medical expense less the $88.50 a month and a hundred dollar deductible each year.

It's the Bush administration that raised the Medicare premium, however I haven't noticed that they intend to increase the payments to doctors, so where is that money going? Is it because BushCo has depleted the Medicare fund for his war at the expense of old people?

insurance which we do pay for, but according to my mom who's 82, the medicare premiums go up every year. in fact, it almost eats up the COLA.

also while there's a CAP on FICA - which also goes up every year -- 2006 will be $94,200 there is no CAP on the medicare part. you just keep paying. this started a few years ago. it used to be when you hit the maximum FICA the medicare would stop. i just looked at a recent pay stub and the medicare amount is 80.54 a month.

They don't appear to be paying the doctors and hospitals a fairer fee with it. I recently had cataract surgery and Medicare approved only half the amount. I'm grateful that my doctor took the assignment, but really should the doctors be paying for our health care too when Medicare is raking in all this extra money?

probably using it to fund the war in iraq.

ON EDIT: it's the same thing with social security -- for years there has been an excess in the fund, but the government takes it out and uses it for other things and then they try to tell us social security is going broke. if they would keep their f***ing greedy hand off it, it would be fine.

Basic - BASIC - health coverage for my husband and I, WITH a $5,000 deductible, is $1,000 a month . . . if we could afford it. What you quoted for Medicare sounds like a bargain to me. In the end, I agree with you though. We need to payer higher taxes and no health insurance premiums. That's what other countries do and their populations are healthier than ours.

my rolfer is paying $1100.00 a month. he's about 62. he said every year it goes up -- the closer he gets to 65.

my sister, on the other hand, who's 51 paid $300 a month with a $5,000 deductible while she was between jobs.

We're both healthy, though, and haven't had a medical problem in 30+ years we couldn't pay for out of pocket. Now, as we get older, I feel as if we're sitting on a time bomb because eventually our luck will run out and something will happen. We were able to afford health insurance until the past year and I feel penalized for a aging. It's frustrating. We're both self-employed and have done everything right and "followed all the rules" our entire lives and now, when we should be breathing a sigh of relief and enjoying this time in our lives, we're left worrying. I guess I should be thankful. Many people have already lost their homes for lack of insurance for health care and it's getting worse by the day.

job -- has been with the company 36 years, but he's worried about his job being outsourced. if he left now, he would get a pension, but we would have to take care of health care premiums on our own. we checked with our insurance company as to what the premiums would be -- not as high as yours, but much higher than we're paying now. i could have medicare if i wanted it because i'm on social security disability, but i've always been covered by his plan (which is better).

also the full retirement age has gone up -- mine is 65 years - 8 months, his is 66 years. so even though i could take the medicare he would have to wait until the full retirement age of 66.

you are being penalized for aging -- the same way i'm being penalized for having chronic fatigue syndrome -- i can't get long term care insurance.

something has to be done. i believe we are the only civilized country that does not have national health care.

on edit: my sister and her husband live in canada. they had always thought they would move back to the states when they retired. but they have decided not to mostly because of the health care.

real estate in the Maritimes. We're going to try to remain down here for another 3 or 4 years, but if the worse happens and the Democrats don't regain control in 2006 and 2008, we're out of here. Democrats are the only hope of health care for everyone and even that's "iffy." I love Canada and the Canadians and it won't be a hardship to move there by any means, but it's a real slap in the face when your own country seems intent on ignoring the real needs of its citizens.

read great things. we would still have to pay our own health care, but it would be much less than here. also for $2,000 a month american money you can live royally. the average costa rican makes between $250 and $300 a month. so if he did have to retire early we might make the move. i'm hoping to go down there in a few months and check it out. i bought a book "retiring in costa rica". supposedly their health care is great and their life expectancy is higher than ours and very important -- they are a peaceful country
-- don't even have an army.

but of course, right now it's just speculation, but it's nice to know that there are options. and of course, it's warm there. we lived in new york city until 16 years ago when we moved to phoenix. my sister always says "come on up to canada" but i can't take the cold.

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Cristina has been described thusly by The New Republic in their special :

Rear Admiral Cristina Beato
Acting Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services

In June 2004, Cristina Beato admitted to her hometown newspaper that she hadn't paid much attention to the details of her resumé. That's too bad, because those silly little details seem to have stalled her confirmation for assistant secretary for health for over two years now. Beato said she earned a master's of public health in occupational medicine from the University of Wisconsin (but the university doesn't even offer that degree). She claimed to be "one of the principal leaders who revolutionized medical education in American universities by implementing the Problem Based learning curriculum" (but the curriculum was developed while Beato was still a medical student). She listed "medical attaché" to the American Embassy in Turkey as a job she held in 1986 (but that position didn't exist until 1995). She also boasted that she had "established" the University of New Mexico's occupational health clinic (but the clinic existed before she was hired, and there was even another medical director before her). For her part, Beato has offered a simple explanation: English is her third language, after French and her native Spanish, and sometimes the language barrier is just too much to handle. How does one say "pants on fire" in Spanish?

This is exactly what Bush did with Michael Brown and FEMA -- put mediocre people in charge to mock and minimize the agency and its programs.

BTW - I am all for single payer universal health care - divorced from the employment relationship. I just don't know about Cristina - maybe Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona or CDC Director Dr. Julie L. Gerberding or Dr. Anthony Fauci -- but not Cristina.

doing studies for years on national health care. he would be a good one to run it -- or oversee it.

school. She has been at this for years and contributes to this website http://www.pnhp.org/ regularly. I think they have the most workable and least expensive plan for universal single-payer health care that I have seen.

love them.

(Wolfe is a shade smoother on tv and before Congress and on the Sunday talking head shows)

the main thing is to get it going and working.

Medicare only pays 80% and you still have to buy insurance to patch the gap, known as medi-gap insurance. It doesn't cover dental or optical, important IMHO. The new prescription drug coverage is a joke. It also, needs to make its payment limits acceptable to the medical care providers in today's dollars. As it is now Medicare, many times only pays for half of what they are billed for. For this reason many doctors wont accept Medicare and Medicaid patients.

If we had representatives, who truly worked for the people's interests, they would close the funding gap by shifting the money employers and individuals pay for insurance into the Medicare fund. Then could you truly have full coverage for everyone.

It means that your FICA deduction would probably go up to 10% with your employer matching that. The good news is that he wouldn't have to buy a health insurance plan nor Worker's Compensation, the medical part anyway, and no doubt he would save a lot of money in the long run. You also wouldn't have to worry about a big medical bill looming in case of a catastrophic illness or being dropped by your insurance. Your car insurance would go down because it wouldn't need an accident hospitalization part.

The for profit health industry will fight this tooth and nail. They are very powerful and could teach the Swiftboater Mayberry Machiavellis a thing or two about lobbying and advertising tactics to discredit anything like this.

The best way to get this in motion is on a state level. While they can attack one movement towards a plan, they can't run around putting out fires in fifty states. Once this is accomplished, then and only then will we be able to nationalize health care under one umbrella.

covers all
Tax enough to combine the programs and offer a coverage plan that is worth paying for.
If you make sure the doctors get paid decently, and hospitals have to stop eating it when patients who can't pay are served.
The AMA and hospitals will get on board with someone who has a realistic plan to seriously decrease the number of unisured.

Tell your friends. Pass it on.

H.R.676
Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act
United States National Health Insurance Act
To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United
States residents, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. (introduced 2/8/2005)
Cosponsors (50)

ON EDIT: i just googled it. referred to subcommitteee on health 4/4/05 so i guess it's just sitting right now.

I've supported it everytime.
We have to work to get more of the Dems to support it.
We don't have enough dems coming out loud and strong for this.
It's up to us to make the push.

When they're running for office, tell them in no uncertain terms that you want it to be a priority. Some people draw up pledges.
Write your dem rep or any dem rep in your state and tell them to support Conyers' bill.

Although I would prefer to have companies with large numbers of workers to be required to provide healthcare to their workers. It would reduce the burden on the federal budget if there is a national healtcare service created. Universal healthcare must come into effect here, there's no debate about that.

of insurance companies. That'd lead to the implementation of a single-payer system almost immediately. :silly:

Seriously though, we need to really push the message that a single-payer system actually streamlines the bureaucracy, since much of the need for underwriting, billing, and collections is automatically removed. I'm too lazy to google up the exact number right now, but the percentage of health care dollars that go towards administrative costs is ridiculously high in the U.S. when compared with countries with single-payer systems.