Health insurance

[buckman]

How's this for ironic, Comm. Care is managed by a NJ company. What a stupid state I live in

[striperman36]

Interesting writeup

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/op...stof.html?_r=1

See it anytime you go to the E-Room and wait

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by striperman36

Interesting writeup

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/op...stof.html?_r=1

See it anytime you go to the E-Room and wait

What first hit me as curious about this story was the sketchy account of Nikki having a job with health insurance and while on that job discovering she had lupus, then getting progressively sicker until she could no longer work, thereby losing her insurance. If, as stated, lupus can be controlled under a doctor's care, why wasn't that done while she was still employed with insurance?

Then, even more curious, because she couldn't re-acquire insurance because of the pre-existing condition, it was lack of insurance that caused her to die--NOT LACK OF MEDICAL ATTENTION. How about a little pro bono docs/hospitals. You do it all the time for others. Here's a young woman with a life threatening condition and you can't even offer her a cut-rate price (as is often done for uninsured in "insurance situations") and let her make monthly payments. Those might still be high, but there are, at least ways to make them--live at home, drive a used car, eat in, get financial help from parents, she doesn't have to "qualify" for those. And if you help her, she can be healthy enough to work and make the payments. But, no, it all must be INSURANCE, private, government, universal . . . we must all lower our quality of life so that some few can maintain theirs. That's an insult to people like Jimmy's parents.

[scottw]

I have a dear friend that lives just down the street from me...he has been a sole proprietor of a small modest business in Newprort for about 25 years and is in his early 60's, he did not have health insurance several years back when he discovered that he had non- Hodgkins lymphoma, he has received at least two rounds of treatments since and it may be three, the treatments caused degredation of his lower spine and nerve problems resulting in severe neuropathy requiring fusion, he was bed ridden for most of the early part of the year and since reovered only to the point that he can barely get around on his own, his galbladder quit on him late Sunday night and he's been in the hospital since having it removed on Sunday/Monday am and recovering...my point to all of this is that he had/ has no health insurance....he should have had at least purchased a major medical policy but for some reason chose not to, he is not wealthy and despite all of this he has never been refused treatment, he has not lost his house nor his business and is not in danger of doing so, there are a remarkable number of charitable organizations and foundations available to help with expenses for these situations, he has no family but has had help from friends with recovery and day to day activities...if you believe the rhetoric coming from the proponents of this so called reform my friend should be bankrupt, on the street having lost his home and business but it is simply not the case...it's simply scare tactics designed to create an atmosphere that will allow them to massively expand government and it's control and direction of the lives of individual Americans on a daily basis and has nothing to do with compassion... it's socialism....and it's the wrong way for America

this just in...
September 17, 2009
Gee - only a week later we learn Obama was wrong about insurance sob story
Rick Moran
He stood in the well of the House a week ago, looked right into the camera at the American people and lied.

No, not that lie. Not the laughable notion that illegals will be unable to buy into Obamacare. This is a lie where he indicted the entire US healthcare system by claiming someone died because private insurance companies are too greedy.

Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal has uncovered the real story of what happened to the man Obama claimed was dropped by his insurance company during chemo treatment because of an unreported gallstone:


President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn't known about. "They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it," the president said in the nationally televised address.

In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn't die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission. The efforts of his sister and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan got Mr. Raddatz's policy reinstated within three weeks of his April 2005 rescission and secured a life-extending stem-cell transplant for him. Mr. Raddatz died this year, nearly four years after the insurance showdown.

Obama aides say the president got the essence of the story correct. Mr. Raddatz was dropped from his insurance plan weeks before a scheduled stem-cell transplant.


No, the president did most assuredly NOT get the "essence" of the story correct. In fact, he got the essence wrong - completely.

The "essence" of the story is that the patient died because his treatment was delayed by greedy, heartless, insurance companies. Any boob knows that the point Obama was trying to make was that the patient's death was directly the result of insurance company actions.

But the patient's sister testified before Congress:


The patient's sister, Peggy M. Raddatz, testified before the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee June 16 that her brother ultimately received treatment that "extended his life approximately three years." Nowhere in the hearing did she say her brother died because of the delay. Ms. Raddatz didn't return calls seeking comment.