Re: MSNBC (Oberg) - Deadly space lessons go unheeded

From: Fred J. McCall (fmccall_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 01/29/05 

Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 03:06:05 GMT

JazzMan <No_Spam@airmail.net> wrote:

:Kelly McDonald
:>
:> >World Health Organization. Unlike the
:> >single-payer system in Canada where everybody
:> >has health insurance and no one sees a bill
:>
:> Uhmm, I see a bill every March when I pay my taxes, then there is the
:> Ontario Health Care Premium, OHIP, prescriptions, ambulance, eye
:> exams, dentist, oh ya, and you can't have a checkup more than once a
:> year unless you pay for it.
:>
:> I count my lucky stars that my wife and eye have excellent coverage
:> through our employers
:>
:> I cut my finger a few months back, I could wait for the doctor to
:> freeze my finger and put in stiches, or PAY $10 to have him glue it in
:> 30 seconds.
:
:Hehehe, here in Texas if you didn't have insurance, and one
:in four working Texans doesn't have and can't afford insurance,
:if you went to the emergency room for a laceration requiring
:stitches you'd be looking at a couple of thousand dollars,
:maybe more, that you would instantly owe,

Preposterous! I'd suggest you need to inject just a bit of reality
into your outrageous claims about medical costs.

Just as a hint, stitches will run you about $300, not "a couple of
thousand dollars, maybe more".

:I have what's considered fairly decent insurance through my
:employer, coverage that I could in no way afford on my own
:since it runs upwards of $6,000/year, and even with that my
:annual out of pocket costs are over $3,000. That's a $1,200
:deductible, and the rest is 20% copay up to a maximum copay
:of $1,800 in any given year.

What the hell is wrong with you? That says that your annual medical
costs are over $10k/year!

:But for every three of people like me there is a person
:who has no coverage at all. These people frequently either
:delay seeking care for urgent medical conditions such as
:chest pain and strange lumps, or just don't go to a doctor
:at all.

And most of them never need medical care, so that seems appropriate.

:The question really boils down to one simple premise: Is
:universal access to quality health care a definition for
:civilization?

No.

:I think so, but there are many, many people
:out there who don't.

Great. Then how about you pony up that $6k per year to buy that
insurance for all those folks out of YOUR pocket?

:Invariably the people who don't have
:a vested financial interest in preventing uninsured people
:from having access to health care.

You mean a vested interest like not thinking I should have to pay for
someone else's irresponsibility?

:Barbaric, isn't it?

Yes, thank the gods. But not the way you mean it. 

-- 
"Have you noticed that the most subtle shedders of blood have always 
been the most civilized gentlemen?  If civilization has not made man
more bloodthirsty, it has at least made him more hideously and 
abominably bloodthirsty.  Formerly he saw bloodshed as an act of 
justice, and with a clear conscience exterminated whomever he 
thought he should.  And now we consider bloodshed an abomination, 
yet engage in this abomination more than ever."  
                      -- Dostoyevsky "Notes From The Underground"

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