http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/27/health...aps/index.html
In short, the story is about a little girl with a horrific issue, where she has frequent multiple seizures. Obamacare eliminated lifetime insurance caps (the father, who is a video game designer, has an insurance company whose lifetime cap is 5 million, which they expect to hit before this girl's 5th birthday.)
But should insurance companies be allowed a lifetime cap? I mean, 5 million dollars for one little girl... how many people have to pay into an insurance company just to pay for this one girl?
It's grim to think that allowing such policies would ultimately spell a death sentence for this little girl, but can we afford to keep everyone alive? I'd hate to see good insurance companies go down the tubes because they happen to end up covering these rare cases where a person has a symptom that costs roughly a million a year to cover.
Even the parents are aware of this. They said that they know no other insurance company would take her, and that if they ran an insurance company they wouldn't even take their own daughter. (I don't fault them for doing everything within the law to try to support their daughter; any good parents would.)
Quite the thorny issue.
The DC politicians aren't mature, serious, human-oriented enough to answer such questions with laws and regulations.
If DC politicians can be paid enough to address such non-viable life and EOL issues, then MAYBE they might address it. I'm of course doubtful.
Does she wear a hoodie?
The first step towards a universal, single payor system would be for the Fed to provide catastrophic coverage (outside Medicare/Medicaid) for those who either cannot afford or qualify for coverage.
Valid question from the OP. Medicine is just getting too good and too expensive for us to afford it. 20 years ago she would probably have just died as an infant and it wouldn't have been anyone's fault...just a random "act of god".
Well, do we value life or not?
Or only to a certain dollar amount?
Federal govt. as stop loss of last resort (at 500K lifetime - very few have those kinds of dollars spent on them and live - other than premature births). Relatively few claims; maximum possible spread for risk. There's many reasons that is a good idea.
It'll never happen.
we're too busy spending those dollars killing little girls overseas
Honestly?
Probably only to a certain dollar amount.
I can't tell you what that is but there has got to be a limit eventually.
Well, it looks like you aren't either.
Oh, yeah. And gfy
Does there?
Palin was right about the death panels
death panels! rationing!
Free pills and dildos for Georgetown law coeds. Problem solved.
Last edited by DarrinS; 03-27-2012 at 04:31 PM.
Also, this OP is predicated upon the belief that absent insurance, all care will evaporate. While that is an outcome, it is only one of many possible outcomes. Having spent a bit of time exploring alternative methods of acquiring health care, due in part to my continuing battle with disease, I can state with some confidence that there are programs available that most of us are, at best, only dimly aware of.
But, finding that assistance takes effort and it's not a cost neutral solution for many. But, it's also not always a brickwall either.
I wonder how many of these "rare" cases there really are. I wouldn't think it's around 10%, but it could be higher.
There was a lady here that was affected by the limit. I believe ours is 2 million though. It was her little boy. He had a rare disease that no one had an answer to. They went allllll over the country to find a doctor that had some sort of cure for it. Ultimately, he ended up getting a bone marrow transplant. It wasnt a definite cure, but he's been great for a few years. Having said that, I don't know what the limit should be.
Dildos? That's where your mind went when discussing this little girl? Nice.
It certainly could be argued that "fee" pills could reduce the number of kids needing the kind of health care talked about in the OP.
Sure...medical technology has advanced so far that people rarely die anymore until they are really old and all ed up but it costs a fortune to keep them alive. , a friend of mines dad just died a couple weeks ago and he hasn't even recognized his son for the last 2 years. Just in my lifetime I can remember when you heard someone had a heart attack your next question was "when is the funeral?" Now, almost all heart issues can be repaired or replaced but it costs mega-bucks and those people stay alive continuing to use all the latest expensive treatments...knee and hip replacements, etc.
"Medicine is just getting too good" probably not, don't believe the press releases, eg, cancer.
"and too expensive for us to afford it."
... has been and will be too expensive compared to other countries that get better outcomes.
US health care industry is a extractive industry, extracting excessive wealth from Human-Americans, much like the financial sector extract excessive wealth. Extremely poor bang for the bucks.
Progress has a price which, left undisturbed, will be reserved only for those that can afford it. This was, ostensibly, what insurance was created to protect someone from. Now that insurance no longer functions as insurance, we have caps.
While there is no doubt money spent on those whose lives are largely done, I would suspect that there are an order of magnitude more whose lives are not quite done yet, and benefit significantly from treatment. Don't examine the exception without considering the rule, CC.
You hear people argue about others on welfare all the time, mainly "i saw this woman with a gold watch and an iphone at the grocery store and she pulled out her lone star card" I agree by the way. If they can't afford food why are they buying expensive clothes and gadgets. At the same time, why is there a child tax credit. If you cant afford kids dont have them or take responsibilty. That money could be used for situations like this as well as the social security mess.
Oh, no doubt. I don't mean to come across as callous but really, what IS a life worth? When does personal responsibility start and stop? Should the alcoholic bum holding the sign on the corner REALLY get that taxpayer funded liver transplant? Should he get the liver just because he was in line first and a 16 year old child that needs one doesn't get it in time? What standard do we use? We simply can't afford to give 100% of the people cradle to life extended grave gold standard health care.
The premise of placing a monetary value on something that cannot be evalutated monetarily is fatally flawed. We have to understand and accept that somethings are evaluated with different criteria than a $ sign.
Edit: And again, CC, you are focusing on the exception rather than the majority population.
makes it somewhat easier to kick everyone into the same ditch
you asked for an opinion...I'm just throwing some out...I'm not saying that I have all the answers...
So do we decide based on a points system?
Say...
You start at birth with 100 points...you lose a point every year
If you are overweight you lose X points
If you smoke or drink you lose Y points
If you are on a do ented regular exercise program add Z points
etc.
Then say...a bypass operation requires 35 points. If you are 40 years old and exercise, no problem. If you are 70 years old and smoke and drink and are overweight you are just out of luck.
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