Tell me why the American Health Care consumer shouldn't just drop

[Skidmore]

all insurance coverage now, unless you have a chronic condition? Why wouldn't a strike of third party payors contribute to modulating the cost of care and medication? It seems to me that we keep pouring money in that end of the system and it is the one area where the individual can exercise control.

Indulge me on this question. I fully anticipate some well meaning people trying to point out my ignornace, but I'm trying to think outside the box here. Something I think we all need to do now because we are truly being trapped inside the box.

[MercutioATC]

1. A couple of reasons immediately come to mind...

1) If you drop coverage and get sick, you have.....well.....no coverage.

2) Most plans have an exclusion for pre-existing conditions. Either they simply won't cover them or will only do so after a year on the plan. Interrupting coverage would, at very least, reset the clock and would possibly result in not being able to obtain insurance later.

I understand where you're coming from, but I think the answer is universal health care coverage, not a general strike.

[Union Thug]

5. on the other hand, if enough people went without coverage..

and started showing up in emergency rooms, wouldn't it quickly break the back of the already crippled system? Once the system is completely broken down the country is forced to address it, right? Just surmising..

[MercutioATC]

7. That's already happening...

...and ERs are closing or cutting staff all over the country.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that the poor will be the only ones who suffer. The wealthy (hell, even the moderately wealthy) will still have access to quality healthcare.

[Skidmore]

10. The poor are already suffering and the middle class is too.

It is getting worse by leaps and bounds. Perhaps we need to take some risk to kick the system in the only place it hurts for them. A lot of times I don't think we really get quality health care in the deal either. We pay for procedures and tests and then drugs. We've all had experiences with diagnoses that weren't correct at some time or medications that were prescribed that were harmful in someway but there's money to be made in this. We need alternative health care systems, not based solely on greed and corporate models.

[Skidmore]

6. There is no motivation for the system to change right now because

the government has vested power in the corporate medical, pharmaceutical, and payor corporations. They have no reason to do things differently, unless different means to squeeze the individual more. How do you get them to the universal health care mindset when anything that may threaten the bottom line for these businesses will be fought tooth and nail.

[MercutioATC]

8. I don't know the answer to that question.

I do, however, know quite a few self-employed lower-middle-class people who are without health care. They'd probably be receptive to a candidate who makes that a priority.

[SharonAnn]

15. Well, the ones like that around here are rabid Republicans. They

just don't understand the connection between Republicans and the problems they cause.

[BonnieJW]

2. insurance

I think you've got something. Then all these uninsured people would keep showing up and emergency rooms and the hospitals would start to go down in a sea of noncollectable bills. Eventually, our dear lawmakers would see the need for accessible health care insurance for everyone.

[Lars39]

3. Wasn't there language in a bill just passed that would allow

hospitals to deny care to the uninsured?

[MercutioATC]

9. Hospitals have always been able to deny care. ERs can't.

I haven't seen any proposed legislation that would change that.

[sandnsea]

16. They can't be sued anymore

So there's nothing to stop them from things like dumping homeless people in the street, even if they had just patched them up in ER. They'll probably stop patching them up in the ER too, for all I know.

[asjr]

4. I agree we are all trapped, and you are not ignorant. You

are concerned. The problem I have with dropping coverage is that I do not know what is coming down the line later. If I get a really debilitating disease or have an accident that keeps me in the hospital for weeks or months, without Medicare and medigap insurance I would just suffer. It is the "not knowing" that keeps most people on insurance.

[NanceGreggs]

11. This whole medical insurance thing is shameful scam ...

I'm an American living in Canada, where we have universal coverage. I can walk into a doctor's office at any time, and not pay a cent. The bill for my treatment goes directly to the government for payment.

A friend of mine's daughter was diagnosed with a serious childhood disease a few years ago (she's fine now). The child required many hospital and doctor visits, plus expensive medication. Within days of her diagnosis, my friend received government forms in the mail (unsolicited), offering government assistance with paying for the medication.

This is how it SHOULD be. The powers-that-be here realize that a healthy populace is a productive populace, and that easy access to medical treatment is the BEST PREVENTATIVE for more serious medical conditions evolving due to lack of early detection/treatment.

The system works extremely well, and costs are kept down because there are no INSURANCE COMPANIES involved! That means no administrative costs, no overhead costs, no salaries being paid to thousands of insurance company clerks who process claims -- you get the picture.

I never thought I'd live to say this, but it's time my own country gets its head out of its ass on this issue, and drags itself out of the 17th Century!

[specimenfred1984]

12. Because the Fascists Still Won't Lower the Price

It's a corrupt system of price-fixing and payoffs, if they lost a few million customers they'd just price-gouge the remaining customers even harder.

It would not work for the fascist healthcare providers however, as is evidenced by the recent bankruptcy laws not helping the credit card companies at all. Still, they will not lower their prices as that'd mean lower profits which is not acceptable in a fascist system.

The healthcare industry will need to collapse before it changes. God help us all when that happens because it'll most likely happen during a pandemic or widespread attack. The other scenario is a disease that starts in poorer neighborhoods where healthcare is not available. The disease will incubate there and spread and it'll be too late as the disease will already be too widespread.

The unfortunate reality of living in America is that people die before things change.

[Pavulon]

13. Here is the top line

1) When you figure out how dumb it was none of your pre existing conditions will be covered.
2) If you need major surgery and cant pay the hospital will take everything you own.
3) You will not get the same quality of care. County general or Duke (tough choice)
4) If you get sick you will have to dump all you assets to qualify for medicaid to pay for drugs or therapy. Some very common drugs are astronomically expensive without copay.
5) Most insurance people pay for is through their employer, most employers subsidize the cost.

Insurance sucks and is a racket, but a necessary evil.
You can buy catastrophic care insurance for next to nothing and "self insure" visits and medication.

[sandnsea]

17. Next to nothing??

Even catastrophic insurance is several hundred dollars a month. So you're paying that money out and you can't afford to go to the doctor for preventive care so you don't use your insurance until you have a life threatening illness which costs more in the long run. But if you don't have insurance, then you don't go to the doctor because it's kind of pointless if you can't afford treatment anyway and end up with a life threatening illness that costs more in the long run. And, newsflash, insurance doesn't guarantee Duke, not by a long shot. You're still limited by the care in your own area, I don't have really excellent care within 300 miles. And, if you need Duke, you're probably going to end up dumping your assets anyway. Co-pays and percentages and drugs add up. And if all of that doesn't get you, the nursing home will in the end anyway.

[Warpy]

14. Young, healthy, unmarried workers are already doing that

whenever they can in exchange for a slightly higher paycheck. Since the chances of losing everything because of a dread disease are small, they're going with the statistics and opting out for a few years.

Removing the young and healthy from the rolls is one thing driving costs. When the pool is limited to people at higher risk for needing coverage, the cost goes up and the premiums go up.

Universal coverage is the only way, keeping all those young, healhty folks in the pool with all us old crocks. The payoff for them comes when they turn into old crocks, and that's the way universal insurance is supposed to work.

However, for profit insurance has always been a gambling game. The insurance company bets nothing will happen so they get to keep the premium money. You are bettig something will happen, and the payout will be huge. That works fine for fire insurance, but health insurance is a little different. Everybody is going to need a payout at some point, so the insurance companies have to eliminate as much risk as possible by denying coverage, something that would work only if illness were a consumer decision.

The system as it is can't last much longer. It is irretrievably broken. My guess is that it will start to happen on a state by state basis, as the insurance industry refuses to cover more and more people who actually need care. It will happen, though. It simply can't continue like this.

[SmokingJacket]

18. It's a good idea in theory.

But too many people are like me: I'm healthy, knock on wood, and so is my family, but I dread the day someone comes down with something major... without coverage, we could die AND lose our house. The chances are small, but real.

My family has a catastrophic policy: if we get sick we pay up to -- gulp -- $10K, which we have stashed away as untouchable savings. As it is, I lie awake at night worrying. Without that policy, I'd never sleep soundly again.

So far, we might as well NOT have had insurance, because we pay for everything out of pocket.

But we need to keep what we have for peace of mind, in case the unthinkable happens.

(I would consider a strike for a short time... except that once we drop this policy we will never get it back again. They're trying to do away with individual policies like ours.)