A few thoughts on healthcare
Aug. 26th, 2009 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaI'm sick of all the ignorant squealing about 'socialism'. Let's look that the budget kids. Not the discretionary budget, the WHOLE budget. Now let's look at how much we're spending on military, police, FBI, CIA, and 'homeland defense'. Shall we now talk about the cost of national healthcare versus the cost of a police state or shall I throw in state budgets and the cost of prisons too (incidentally, prisoners have healthcare, don't pay rent, etc)
POP QUIZ: Which would you rather have? Security knowing that if your mum or pop has a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital, you're not going to be facing a $20,000 bill in addition to losing them OR a bunch of ignorant jack-booted thugs who get their jollies writing tickets and threatening people?
For that matter, if we want to talk about which is more american: Let's ask how much money are insurance companies taking in each year and how much are they paying in taxes? Or even better: How many of them are actually headquartered in the US and not some off-shore tax loophole? I would bet you that percentage-wise, the average insurance company pays a fraction of the taxes I do.
But hey, let's talk about something a little more personal and tangible, shall we?
Unlike pretty-much everyone else I know, I've had private healthcare insurance for most of my adult life and you know what? Those fuckers don't exist to do you any favors.
Let's start when I was 19. I got hit by a drunk driver, got several teeth knocked out, woke up in a CAT scanner in the hospital. Lucky me, I was in Pittsburgh, PA which has 'NO FAULT' auto insurance. That means that even though the guy was drunk, ran a stop sign, and hit a pedestrian, it wasn't his fault and his insurance didn't pay dick because a person doesn't do a lot of damage to a car. No. Instead, my car insurance paid the absolute bare minimum for my hospital stay and then jacked up my insurance rates. There was no compensation for the facial scarring, emotional trauma, loss of ability to play the flute, and spending the rest of my life without front teeth. That was just my bad luck.
But wait, it gets better! I've continued to have problems with said teeth and while I've had dental insurance, guess what, they're now a "PRE-EXISTING CONDITION" That's right. If I were just born with bad teeth or never brushed and had a mouthful of cavities or needed braces, it'd be covered, but not if I got hit by a drunk driver. No no no. That's rare enough they can fuck people like me on it. So that means that in the years since, I've paid around $15,000 (That's FIFTEEN THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS) out of my own pocket to maintain my teeth and you know, that's not something you can skip. Physical issues aside, people are shallow and not having front teeth would strongly affect my ability to hold and keep jobs.
Now let's talk about mental health. Or wait, let's not. That's not covered. God forbid anyone should not feel like slitting their wrists every second of every day. There goes another ~$15,000 straight out of my pocket. Whoops!
How about gender dysphoria and all the things that go with it? ... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Yeah, right. BOOM! $30,000 out of my pocket counting all the joyous things like surgery, electro, hormones, etc.
Or how about when I hurt my knee last year? Surely that's normal. SURELY INSURANCE WOULD COVER THAT? Well, except nothing showed up on x-ray so I got a CAT-scan because, you know... Walking is kind of important to me and surely a private insurance company would CARE about the people it covers and want them to lead healthy lives. Right? RIGHT!?!?!?!?!!?!? Now.... Take a wild guess. C'mon. GUESS! How much does a CAT scan cost? I can tell you this: They aren't cheap.
So yeah. Private insurance is GREAT. FUCKIONG GODDAMNED ASS-RAPING FANTASTIC.
The amount it's 'saved' me over the years is FAR LESS than the amount I've paid into the fucking worthless crap and both numbers pale in comparison to the amount which hasn't been covered and I've had to pay out of my own fucking pocket.
POP QUIZ: Which would you rather have? Security knowing that if your mum or pop has a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital, you're not going to be facing a $20,000 bill in addition to losing them OR a bunch of ignorant jack-booted thugs who get their jollies writing tickets and threatening people?
For that matter, if we want to talk about which is more american: Let's ask how much money are insurance companies taking in each year and how much are they paying in taxes? Or even better: How many of them are actually headquartered in the US and not some off-shore tax loophole? I would bet you that percentage-wise, the average insurance company pays a fraction of the taxes I do.
But hey, let's talk about something a little more personal and tangible, shall we?
Unlike pretty-much everyone else I know, I've had private healthcare insurance for most of my adult life and you know what? Those fuckers don't exist to do you any favors.
Let's start when I was 19. I got hit by a drunk driver, got several teeth knocked out, woke up in a CAT scanner in the hospital. Lucky me, I was in Pittsburgh, PA which has 'NO FAULT' auto insurance. That means that even though the guy was drunk, ran a stop sign, and hit a pedestrian, it wasn't his fault and his insurance didn't pay dick because a person doesn't do a lot of damage to a car. No. Instead, my car insurance paid the absolute bare minimum for my hospital stay and then jacked up my insurance rates. There was no compensation for the facial scarring, emotional trauma, loss of ability to play the flute, and spending the rest of my life without front teeth. That was just my bad luck.
But wait, it gets better! I've continued to have problems with said teeth and while I've had dental insurance, guess what, they're now a "PRE-EXISTING CONDITION" That's right. If I were just born with bad teeth or never brushed and had a mouthful of cavities or needed braces, it'd be covered, but not if I got hit by a drunk driver. No no no. That's rare enough they can fuck people like me on it. So that means that in the years since, I've paid around $15,000 (That's FIFTEEN THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS) out of my own pocket to maintain my teeth and you know, that's not something you can skip. Physical issues aside, people are shallow and not having front teeth would strongly affect my ability to hold and keep jobs.
Now let's talk about mental health. Or wait, let's not. That's not covered. God forbid anyone should not feel like slitting their wrists every second of every day. There goes another ~$15,000 straight out of my pocket. Whoops!
How about gender dysphoria and all the things that go with it? ... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Yeah, right. BOOM! $30,000 out of my pocket counting all the joyous things like surgery, electro, hormones, etc.
Or how about when I hurt my knee last year? Surely that's normal. SURELY INSURANCE WOULD COVER THAT? Well, except nothing showed up on x-ray so I got a CAT-scan because, you know... Walking is kind of important to me and surely a private insurance company would CARE about the people it covers and want them to lead healthy lives. Right? RIGHT!?!?!?!?!!?!? Now.... Take a wild guess. C'mon. GUESS! How much does a CAT scan cost? I can tell you this: They aren't cheap.
So yeah. Private insurance is GREAT. FUCKIONG GODDAMNED ASS-RAPING FANTASTIC.
The amount it's 'saved' me over the years is FAR LESS than the amount I've paid into the fucking worthless crap and both numbers pale in comparison to the amount which hasn't been covered and I've had to pay out of my own fucking pocket.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-26 06:39 pm (UTC)It's wild to watch this debate unfold, because the right wingers that don't want it feel that way for the most irrational of reasons. It's fantastic.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-26 06:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-26 06:58 pm (UTC)With liberty and justice for premium gold star package citizens.
Date: 2009-08-26 10:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-27 04:04 am (UTC)She has never had to deal with health coverage. She's been either covered by school coverage, or been married to my dad. Who has military coverage, which is, as far as I know, 100%, gets you free checkups, and all sorts of other things.
What is really frustrating is that she says all sorts of things, and never EVER seems to back any of it up with sources. It appears to be all hearsay, opinion, and whatever fox news or slush limbaugh pours into her selectively closed mind.
She goes 'omg look at canada, they're trying to switch from having socialized health care, everywhere is! cause omg it's so horrible cause you might have a minor sniffle and not be able to go to the doctor for a month!'
She's also got this utterly weird warped state of mind that apparently anyone applying for any sort of governmental aid program is a con artist and somehow cheating millions and millions of dollars from the government.
...ignoring that the military plops down 138 million per f-22 aircraft to just get the darn things let alone operating costs long term, for example.
Then again, she basically hates everyone who isn't either white or a mormon. And for someone who hasn't held a job for 30 years, she's rather paranoid that some 'zomg illegal immigrant' will come steal her job and steal her money by getting sick and needing doctor care.
*sigh* I had health insurance once. I went in, the doctor didn't listen to me very well, gave generic information, refused to actually stay more than 10 minutes, and my cost was $20. For a few bits of paper which said 'here, if you have heartburn don't eat foods'. (turned out later it was acid reflux, which I figured out myself and fixed). Yes. Such AMAZING private health coverage. The QUALITY just astounds me.
The real amusing thing is that what she's had all her life was us military coverage...which is given as an example of social health coverage on wikipedia.
IRONIC MUCH?