kiwisub12
Posts: 4742
Joined: 1/11/2006 Status: offline
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My late Sir worked his entire life and raised two kids through college. He didn't make enough per month to afford health insurance, he bought his meds from India through the internet (which is illegal - to protect pharmacy companies) at a quarter of the cost of buying them in the States. It would have cost him $500 a month to buy them legally, and was about $100 for three months from India- same meds, different names. Because he didn't have health insurance, when he started peeing blood, he ignored it - until he couldn't walk from the bathroom to the living room. When he finally agreed to go to the ER of the local university hospital, he had advanced bladder cancer, and inspite of chemo, died 18 months after being diagnosed. Part of not seeing a doctor earlier was fear of what they might find - but a significant part of not seeing someone was lack of cash and insurance. He died of an easily treatable and survivable cancer - because he a. couldn't afford to see a doctor and b. was afraid of what he would be told. If he hadn't had the excuse of not being able to afford care, i could maybe have gotten him to a doctor sooner - and he might still be here. Don't try to tell me that the uninsured and underinsured can get care - they can't - unless they are damn near dead. Thats why university hospitals are seeing sicker patients - people are waiting til they feel like death warmed over to see a doctor, and their prognosis's are terrible. If he lived somewhere like New Zealand , with socialised medicine, he could have seen his local GP, and for a reasonable fee, been treated. And as a tax payer, he would have helped pay for it - it wouldn't have been charity. Raise income taxes on everyone, and enroll everyone into government health care. None of this enrolling crap and allowing people to not buy into it - just do it up front and stop the angst. Then if people want to spend their money on private insurance, let them have at it, and decrease the number of people using the government service. Its not rocket science - everyone pays and everyone uses.
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