Semi-OT: Satisfied with your health care?

[snip] Just in case anyone out there does not know who Gordon Gekko is, he is a FICTIONAL character. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Gordon Gekko is a fictional character from the 1987 film Wall Street by director Oliver Stone. Gekko was portrayed by actor-producer Michael Douglas, in a performance that won him an Oscar for Best Actor. Gekko will return in Wall Street 2 which is currently in pre-production.

Co-written by Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser, Gekko is claimed to be based loosely on arbitrageur Ivan Boesky, who gave a speech on greed at the University of California, Berkeley in 1986, and real-life activist investor / corporate raider Carl Icahn. According to Edward R. Pressman, producer of the film, "Originally, there was no one individual who Gekko was modelled on," he adds. "But Gekko was partly Milken", who was the "Junk Bond King" of the 1980s, and indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud in 1989.[1]

In 2002 Gordon Gekko was named one of the Fifteen Richest Fictional Characters according to Forbes who attributed him with 650 million dollars. In 2003, the AFI named him number 24 of the top 50 movie villains of all time.

mahalo, jo4hn

Reply to
jo4hn
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Actually, it's worse than that. Insurance companies, and this includes government programs like MediCare and MediCal, will only pay 10% of the cost of a procedure. If someone needs an MRI and it costs $200 to perform, the hospital absorbs 80% of the cost and insurance picks up

20%. Hospitals learned that if they wanted to get reimbursed, they had to raise the price of the procedure to $2000, that way they got the $200 that it actually cost. This hurts the uninsured because legally, the hospital cannot charge different rates, therefore the uninsured are paying $2000 for a $200 procedure that shouldn't cost that much, if not for the screwed up way the insurance industry works.
Reply to
Brian Henderson

Right on brother!

I've also found that hospital emergency rooms give a 50% discount for cash payment at the time of treatment. What does that tell you?

Reply to
Lowell Holmes

Okay, I went through the all 400.

According to Forbes, 17 reached the Top-400 list via inheritance. That's about 5%.

It may be more, because in researching this subject I ran across the amazing statement that "the inheritance tax is a voluntary tax."

Previously I have been adamantly opposed to the inheritance tax since it was a tax on assets that had already been taxed. I don't care if it affected only Bill Gates, I still considered it immoral.

Then I hit the above statement and its explanation. Suitable pre-death planning can completely eliminate the inheritance and its accompanying tax. Therefore...

Members of the Forbes 400 list may be the beneficiaries of inheritance by another name (trusts, stocks, gifts, blah-blah-blah).

Reply to
HeyBub

It tells you they're making money. We hear a lot of complaining about the uninsured using up the valuable resources of emergency rooms. If this is a problem, why don't the hospitals open clinics next door to the emergency rooms for snot-dripping infants, broken toes, and non-critical care?

I once worked in a hospital's computer room, located under the Life Flight helicopter's nest. The air ambulance was forever coming and going. One of the administrators told me: "We lose $5,000 every time the helicopter takes off -- but we make it up in the emergency room." (This was back when $5,000 was a lot of money.)

Reply to
HeyBub

From:

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"HNWI" means High Net Worth Individuals, a fancy word for rich.

"The Report found that while business ownership or the sale of a business is the primary source of wealth (37 percent) for the majority of the world's HNWIs, income ranks second at 24 percent as the source of wealth, and inheritance rates third at 18 percent"

"HNWI" means High Net Worth Individuals, a fancy word for rich.

Interestingly, both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet favor the inheritance tax.

-- Doug

Reply to
Douglas Johnson

While I personally oppose the tax, I'm leaving nothing much to family. They are all doing OK but it is a good opportunity to help a couple of charities.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Yeah, it's worked out SO well for Great Britain and many other of those countries the OP touted are either on the same verge of bankruptcy in their systems, taxing the snot out their citizens, or (more frighteningly) rationing care and planning on more rationing.

The One has already alluded to age-based means tests when he was asked about how one woman's mother with a tremendous love of life and great spirit at 100 was given a pacemaker to help keep her quality of life. The One made the absolutely cold (not cool, but *cold*) statement, "Uh, well, umm, I think "spirit" is a pretty subjective thing and we won't be able to do that under my plan"

Cold, calculating, and scary. Many of you rec.ww denizens are reaching ages that are going to fall into the "not of value to society" category.

Reply to
Mark & Juanita

Mark & Juanita wrote in news:_-udncVK2PW7FczXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:

This is indeed scary. It is also scary that (on average) an exceedingly high percentage of one's lifetime healthcare costs are expended in the last year of life. And that a lot of those costs do hardly anything to prolong life, let alone quality life.

I do know how difficult choices that need to be made are, believe me. But what of chemotherapy to prolong life with a few months, considering the agony that at least some go through with the treatment?

As I said, difficult choices. Be sure you have them written out in the appropriate form, so your doctors and loved ones know what your real wishes are.

Reply to
Han

Medical care has to be rationed like any non-free good, there is not enough for everyone to get everything they want. The choice is rationing based on ability to pay (US system), or medical necessity (Canadian system).

Our nasty socialist uncaring health care system offered knee replacement surgery to my 88-year old mother-in-law. She turned it down as she felt she was too old for that.

Luigi Just doing his bit to counter some of the lies about Canada's health care system.

Reply to
Luigi Zanasi

My mother just had a repair of a knee replacement done over 15 years ago, she is 84. For what it is worth, she has replacement hips and knees on both legs, all free.

Reply to
FrozenNorth

The question is not whether the US system needs rationing. It already has it. We ration it by who you happen to work for (corporate insurance), by age (Medicare), by poverty (Medicaid), and by wealth (private pay or individual insurance). Those that aren't in one of the privileged groups are out of luck.

Of course we need to ration health care. We need to ration any commodity where the demand exceeds the supply. In a pure capitalist system this is done by price. What we have now in health care is nothing close to a pure capitalist system nor do I necessarily think it should be.

Which finally brings me around to the real point. The question is not whether to ration health care, but how. Who gets what care and who decides? This is ugly. There will be winners and losers. Both sides are going to fight like hell. But rationing is the core issue. Anything else is smoke.

OK, I know there are inefficiencies that can be squeezed out. But that isn't going to get everyone all the health care they want. It won't even get everyone all the health care they need.

-- Doug

Reply to
Douglas Johnson

As scary as all of this is, having Nancy Pelosi make these decisions is *really* scary.

What good does that do when the government bureaucrat tells you that your life isn't worth anything.

Reply to
krw

I don't know what you're smoking, but it is g-O-O-d stuff.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

I know. It's called "liberty". You should try it.

Reply to
krw

Interesting. You smoke "liberty"?

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

I knew you wouldn't understand the whole concept.

Reply to
krw

If The One gets his way, I (or anyone else for that matter) won't have to do that, the government will be making those choices for us. And no, that's not hyperbole -- take a critical look at the things that Daschle was promoting as far as evaluating "cost-effectiveness" of treatment, the comments The One made as related above, the fact that the only real way to bring medical costs down is to ration availability of care.

Reply to
Mark & Juanita

Just to dispel this notion -- this is not true. My wife had two elderly unmarried aunts who were never well off, to be blunt, they were poor their entire lives. When one was diagnosed with cancer, the state of Kansas paid not only for her treatment, but also for trips to and from the doctors. When her sister needed long-term care, she spent several years in a nursing home. The state got their home and anything left in savings after they passed away, but this was reasonable considering the care they received. Care is available to those who need it.

IMO, the system we have now is by far superior to as system run by the government. I don't want the same kind of people who run TSA, the Post Office, the Motor Vehicle Department, or the IRS deciding the kind, amount, or any other element of the kind of medical care I should receive.

Reply to
Mark & Juanita

You are correct, the idea that a government bureaucrat makes medical decisions is a concept is a concept I neither accept nor understand.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

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